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Winnipeg_Free_Press

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnipeg_Free_Press

The Winnipeg Free Press (or WFP; founded as the Manitoba Free Press) is a daily (excluding Sunday) broadsheet newspaper in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. It provides coverage of local, provincial, national, and international news, as well as current events in sports, business, and entertainment and various consumer-oriented features, such as homes and automobiles appear on a weekly basis. The WFP was founded in 1872, only two years after Manitoba became part of Canada, in 1870. The WFP's founding predated Winnipeg's own incorporation, in 1873. The Winnipeg Free Press has since become the oldest newspaper in Western Canada that is still active. Timeline November 30, 1872: The Manitoba Free Press was launched by William Fisher Luxton and John A. Kenny. Luxton bought a press in New York City and, along with Kenny, rented a shack at 555 Main Street, near the present corner of Main Street and James Avenue. 1874: The paper moved to a new building on Main Street, across from St. Mary Avenue. 1882: Control of the Free Press was passed on to Clifford Sifton. The organization subsequently moved to a building on McDermot Avenue, where it would remain until 1900. 1900: The paper moved to a new address on McDermot Avenue at Albert Street. 1901: John Wesley Dafoe served as president, editor-in-chief, and editorial writer for the WFP until 1944. 1905: The newspaper moved to a four-storey building at Portage and Garry. 1913: The newspaper moved to 300 Carlton Street and would remain there for 78 years. 1920: The Free Press took its newsprint supplier before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for violating the War Measures Act during World War I. The newspaper won the case, known as Fort Frances Pulp and Paper v Manitoba Free Press, as the court determined that whether the state of national emergency continued after the war was a political matter for Parliament. December 2, 1931: The paper was renamed the Winnipeg Free Press. 1991: The Free Press moved to its current location in the Inkster Industrial Park, a CA$150 million plant at 1355 Mountain Avenue.December 2001: The Free Press and its sister paper, Brandon Sun, were bought from Thomson Newspapers by FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Strike In 2008, at noon on Thanksgiving Day (Monday, October 13), about 1,000 members of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, representing editorial, advertising, circulation, and press staff, as well as newspaper carriers, launched a strike action. The strike ended 16 days later, when the union ratified the final offer on Tuesday, October 28. The contract was ratified by 67% of newspaper carriers, 75% of the pressmen, and 91% of the inside workers, including journalists. The recent five-year contract was negotiated, ratified, and signed in 2013, with no threat of a strike. Workers and managers negotiated directly with great success, without the need of a lawyer that previous contracts had required. Circulation As of November 1, 2009, the WFP ceased publishing a regular Sunday edition. In its place, a Sunday-only tabloid called On 7 was launched, but it has since been discontinued. On March 27, 2011, the impending arrival of Metro in the Winnipeg market caused the Sunday newspaper to be retooled as a broadsheet format, Winnipeg Free Press SundayXtra. The Sunday edition is now available exclusively online. According to figures via Canadian Newspaper Association, the Free Press' average weekday circulation for 2013 was 108,583, while on Saturdays it was 144,278. Because of the relatively small population of Manitoba, that meant that over 10% of the population could be receiving the paper and its advertisements. Like most Canadian daily newspapers, the Free Press has seen a decline in circulation, dropping its total by 17% to 106,473 copies daily from 2009 to 2015. Daily average As of 2023, the Winnipeg Free Press media kit claims that 1.15 million users visit the newspaper's network of sites each month, and that in Winnipeg, 439,000 adults read the publication in print or digital format each week. Notable staff Charles Edwards (1928 – early-1930s): journalist and news agency executive Bartley Kives (2000–2016): arts and news writer; left to join CBWT-DT as a television journalist. Vince Leah (1980–1993): journalist, writer, sports administrator and member of the Order of Canada Bob Moir (1948–1958): television producer, sports commentator, and journalist Hal Sigurdson (1951–1963; 1976–1996): columnist and sports editor from 1976 to 1989 Maurice Smith (1927–1937; 1940–1976): columnist and sports editor from 1944 to 1976 Scott Young (1936–1940): sports writer from 1936 to 1940 See also List of newspapers in Canada References Further reading Cook, Ramsay (1963). The politics of John W. Dafoe and the Free Press. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-5119-6. Merrill, John Calhoun (1980). The world's great dailies : profiles of fifty newspapers. New York: Hastings House. pp. 351–365. ISBN 978-0-8038-8095-5. Paterson, Edith (1970). Tales of early Manitoba from the Winnipeg Free Press. Winnipeg: Winnipeg Free Press. External links Official website

Purge_(novel)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purge_(novel)

Purge (Finnish: Puhdistus) is a novel by Finnish-Estonian writer Sofi Oksanen, which has been translated into thirty-eight languages. Oksanen's third Finnish-language novel, Purge was published in 2008 and is based upon her original play of the same name, staged at the Finnish National Theatre in 2007. Purge is a story of two women forced to confront their own dark pasts, of collusion and resistance, of rape and sexual slavery set against the backdrop of the Soviet occupation of Estonia. Conception The novel was originally conceived as a play. The play was written in 2007 and produced at the National Theatre of Finland. In writing the novel, Oksanen chose for the plot to diverge from its original ending and focus on different themes. Background After existing as an independent country for twenty-one years, Estonia was occupied and annexed by the Soviet Union in June 1940 during World War II. In 1941–1944, Estonia was occupied by Nazi Germany. From February to November 1944, the German forces were expelled by the Red Army. The Soviet rule was re-established by force, and sovietisation followed, mostly carried out in 1944–1950. The forced collectivisation of agriculture began in 1947, and was completed after the mass deportation in March 1949. The Soviet authorities confiscated private farms and forced peasants to join collective farms. An armed resistance movement of forest brothers was active until the mass deportations. A total of 30,000 participated in or supported the movement; 2,000 were killed. The Soviet authorities fighting the forest brothers also suffered hundreds of casualties. Some innocent civilians were killed on both sides. In addition, a number of underground nationalist schoolchildren's groups were active. Most of their members were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. The punitive actions decreased rapidly after Joseph Stalin's death in 1953; from 1956–58, a large part of the deportees and political prisoners were allowed to return. Political arrests and numerous other kinds of crimes against humanity were committed during the occupation period until the late 1980s. In the end, the attempt to integrate the Estonian society into the Soviet system failed. Although the armed resistance was defeated, the population remained anti-Soviet. This helped Estonians to organise a new resistance movement in the late 1980s, regain their independence in 1991, and then rapidly develop a modern society. Plot The plot begins in 1992 with an elderly woman, Aliide Truu, who lives in a remote portion of Estonia. The woman had isolated herself from the surrounding society and watches the youth of her nation, including her daughter, leaving the countryside for the more urban regions and Finland. One day while looking out the kitchen window, she discovers Zara, the granddaughter of her sister Ingel. Zara had been forced into sex trade by the Russian mafia, but has escaped from them. The only guide she had to finding help is a photograph from her grandmother with Aliide's name on it. The story then continues with a series of flashbacks, which develops the relationship between Aliide and her sister, which hinged upon their competition for the love of Hans Pekk during World War II. The story ends as Aliide begins to reconcile herself with her jealousy of her sister, and Zara's redemption from her disenchantment with the world caused by her sexual subjugation. Characters The plot of Purge focuses on two main female characters, on both of whom reviewers have commented as being complex and integral to the understanding of the themes of the book. The novel begins with Aliide Truu, an elderly woman who has survived many horrors of the Soviet occupation of Estonia. The Aliide whom the reader first meets has alienated herself from the local people, and is strongly self-reliant. Though cloaked in a rough exterior, she represents a woman who has weathered considerable hardship. She has hardly anything in the way of motherly instinct, especially in regard to the other main character, Zara. Zara is the grandniece of Aliide, and at the beginning of the book she is subjected to sex trafficking by the Russian mafia. Her interaction with her great-aunt eventually forces Aliide to reconstruct and confront the history of her past. Ultimately, Aliide is responsible for delivering Zara from the torments caused by the sexual violence perpetrated against her. Themes Sexual violence and its manifestation in the sex trade becomes one of the central themes in the book. Both of the main characters lose control of their bodies as they are abused. Though each women perseveres through the disgrace and purges herself of this disgrace by burning their clothes. However, sexual violence and terror recurs when Tallinn gets a sex shop that is staffed by ex-KGB, who had perpetuated the violence earlier in the novel. Ultimately, Oksanen successfully captures the horrors inflicted upon women by European military conflicts as well as exploring contemporary sex trafficking. Resistance also permeates the book, especially against the Russification of Estonia. In the entries in Hans' diary and other parts of the narrative the anti-Russification poet Paul-Eerik Rummo appear. Also, Zara's grandmother continues to hold on to native Estonian tongue, resisting a change in language. The complexity of family history and the uncovering of tragedy in that history is fundamental to the book. However, the focus is increasingly upon the story of the protagonist, sometimes missing some of the more horrifying or interesting parts of Estonian History. Jacob Silverman in The New Republic points out that this perspective on history, which only carries the narrative up to 1992, offers a contemporary perspective on the issues that face modern Estonia and a "window... of understanding" into it and its past. Style Purge on the surface level is very bleak, while it explores the dark events of the Soviet occupation of Estonia. A review in the Winnipeg Free Press pointed out that Oksanen did "not shrink from depicting rape, torture or murder." The novel is also very realistic, focusing on small details of the characters, as well as presenting very close visual detail. The realism even goes so far as to depict tender moments, so that these horrific historical events can have a "human face". By doing so, Oksanen creates what Jacob Silverman called an "empathic treatment of all the miserable choices Estonians faced during their periods of oppression" under the brutal rule of the Soviet Union. The story has very short chapters, with quickly shifting times and locations, which a Canadian reviewer mused was probably because of its original conception as a play. Finlit reviewer Lauri Sihvonen places emphasis on this precision of detail and style, saying "everything is packed into the language, every verb lives and breathes" The narrative is interspersed with notebook entries of Hans Pekk and continues to move back and forth through time via flashbacks. This organization does not follow traditional chronology, but as Paul Binding in The Independent said, it "corresponds to an inner logic of association and feeling, and so builds up the more strongly to the emotionally shattering climax." However this logic is hyperfocused on the telling of the story of the protagonists, sometimes ignoring some of the more brutal or poignant parts of history. Suspense is also an important element to the novel, as secrets from the family's past are revealed. Reception The novel ranked number one on the bestseller list for fiction in Finland and Estonia. The novel subsequently won the Finlandia Prize (2008), the Runeberg Prize (2009) the Nordic Council Literature Prize (2010) and Prix Femina (2010). The novel won the Fnac prize in 2010, selected from some 300 works published in France amid positive reviews by French critics, it was the first time the prize had been awarded to a foreigner. The success of the novel has seen a resurgence of the play on stage with premieres of the play happening across Europe, notably at London's Arcola Theatre on the 24 February 2012 (on Estonian independence day) www.arcolatheatre.com. A film of the same name was released in the fall of 2012, produced by Markus Selin, and directed by Antti Jokinen. An opera of the same name, composed by Jüri Reinvere, was shown in the Finnish National Opera in 2012. In Estonia, the book has been met with mixed views. Some like Piret Tali and Jaan Kaplinski have expressed more critical views, seeing the book as too trivial and sensationalist, whereas others like Mihhail Lotman have defended the author. Professor Rein Raud agrees that the narrative is skilfully composed. He questions, however, the book's historical license, and hints that the book's success in Estonia may derive from its alignment with the currently "correct ideology" in Estonian historiography, whereby Raud sees parallels with Hans Leberecht's communist propaganda writings. In Library Journal, reviewer Evelyn Beck writes that "Oksanen adeptly handles dual story lines and multiple points of view as she keeps us turning pages to reach the dramatic conclusion" and recommended the book "for fans of classic Russian writers like Tolstoy and Pasternak, as well as those who enjoy a contemporary tale of lust and betrayal". Film The novel has been adapted into a film directed by Antti Jokinen and was selected as the Finnish entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards. References Sources Villalon, Oscar (April 14, 2010). "Surviving Human Trafficking: A Noir Fairy Tale". NPR. Retrieved November 11, 2010. External links Sofi Oksanen Purge at Grove/Atlantic

List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures

The world's tallest human-made structure is the 828-metre-tall (2,717 ft) Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The building gained the official title of "tallest building in the world" and the tallest self-supported structure at its opening on January 9, 2010. The second-tallest structure in the world is the 679-metre-tall (2,227 ft) Merdeka 118 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, while the third-tallest self-supporting structure and the tallest tower in the world is the Tokyo Skytree (634 m or 2,080 ft). The tallest guyed structure is the KRDK-TV mast in North Dakota, U.S. at 630 metres (2,060 ft). The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, an organization that certifies buildings as the "World's Tallest", recognizes a building only if at least 50% of its height is made up of floor plates containing habitable floor area. Structures that do not meet this criterion, such as the CN Tower, are defined as "towers". There are dozens of radio and television broadcasting towers which measure over 600 metres (about 2,000 ft) in height, and only the tallest are recorded in publicly available information sources. Debate over definition The assessment of the height of artificial structures has been controversial. Because varying standards have been used by different organizations, the accepted height of these structures or buildings depends on which standards are accepted. The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat has changed its definitions over time. Some of the controversy regarding the definitions and assessment of tall structures and buildings has included the following: the definition of a structure, a building and a tower whether a structure, building or tower under construction should be included in any assessment whether a structure, building or tower has to be officially opened before it is assessed whether structures built in and rising above water should have their below-water height included in any assessment. whether a structure, building or tower that is guyed is assessed in the same category as self-supporting structures. Within an accepted definition of a building further controversy has included the following factors: whether only habitable height of the building is considered whether communication towers with observation galleries should be considered "habitable" in this sense whether rooftop antennas, viewing platforms or any other architecture that does not form a habitable floor should be included in the assessment whether a floor built at a high level of a telecommunications or viewing tower should change the tower's definition to that of a "building" Tallest structures This category does not require the structure to be "officially" open, but does require it to be "topped out". The tallest artificial structure is Burj Khalifa, a skyscraper in Dubai that reached 829.8 m (2,722 ft) in height on January 17, 2009. By April 8, 2008 it had been built higher than the KVLY-TV mast in North Dakota, US. That September it officially surpassed Poland's 646.38 m (2,120.7 ft) Warsaw radio mast, which stood from 1974 to 1991, to become the tallest structure ever built. Guyed lattice towers such as these masts had held the world height record since 1954. The Petronius Platform stands 610 m (2,000 ft) off the sea floor, leading some, including Guinness World Records 2007, to claim it as the tallest freestanding structure in the world, until surpassed by the Burj Khalifa in 2010. However, it is debated whether underwater height should be counted, in the same manner as height below ground is ignored on buildings. The Troll A platform is 472 m (1,549 ft), without any part of that height being supported by wires. The tension-leg type of oil platform has even greater below-water heights with several examples more than 1,000 m (3,300 ft) deep. However, these platforms are not considered constant structures as the vast majority of their height is made up of the length of the tendons attaching the floating platforms to the sea floor. Despite this, Guinness World Records 2009 listed the Ursa tension leg platform as the tallest structure in the world with a total height of 1,306 m (4,285 ft). Shell's floating production, storage, and offloading oil platform Turritella in the Gulf of Mexico is a moored platform approximately 2,900 m (9,500 ft) tall. Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan, set records in three of the four skyscraper categories at the time it opened in 2004; at the time the Burj Khalifa opened in 2010 it remained the world's tallest inhabited building 509.2 m (1,671 ft) as measured to its architectural height (spire). The height of its roof 449.2 m (1,474 ft) and highest occupied floor 439.2 m (1,441 ft) had been surpassed by the Shanghai World Financial Center with corresponding heights of 487 and 474 m (1,598 and 1,555 ft). Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower) was the highest in the final category: the greatest height to top of antenna of any building in the world at 527 m (1,729 ft). Burj Khalifa broke the height record in all four categories for completed buildings. Tallest structure by category Due to the disagreements over how to measure height and classify structures, engineers have created various definitions for categories of buildings and other structures. One measure includes the absolute height of a building, another includes only spires and other permanent architectural features, but not antennas. The tradition of including the spire on top of a building and not including the antenna dates to the rivalry between the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street. A modern-day example is that the antenna on top of Willis Tower is not considered part of its architectural height, while the spires on top of the Petronas Twin Towers are counted. Note: The following table is a list of the tallest completed structure in each of the structural categories below. For a list of structures by function see the list later in the article. There can only be one structure in each category, unless the tallest is the same for more than one structure in the same category. Tallest destroyed structures by category, not surpassed by existing structures There are some destroyed architectural structures which were taller than the tallest existing structure of their type. There are also destroyed structures omitted from this list that had been surpassed in height prior to being destroyed. Tallest structure by function * "Mixed-use" is defined as having three or more real estate uses (such as retail, office, hotel, etc.) that are physically and functionally integrated in a single property and are mutually supporting. Tallest buildings Up until the late 1990s, the definition of "tallest building" was not altogether clear. It was generally understood to be the height of the building to the top of its architectural elements including spires, but not including "temporary" structures (such as antennas or flagpoles), which could be added or changed relatively easily without requiring major changes to the building's design. Other criteria for height measurement generally were not considered, which occasionally caused some controversy. One historic case involved the building now famous for the Times Square Ball. Known as One Times Square (at 1475 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan), it was the headquarters for The New York Times, which gave Times Square its name. Completed in 1905, it reached a height of 364 feet (111 meters) to its roof, or 420 feet (130 meters) including its rooftop flagpole, which the Times hoped would give it a record high status but because a flagpole is not an integral architectural part of a building, One Times Square was not generally considered to be taller than the 390-foot-high (120 m) Park Row Building in Lower Manhattan, which was therefore still New York's tallest. A bigger controversy was the rivalry between two New York City skyscrapers built in the Roaring Twenties—the Chrysler Building and 40 Wall Street. The latter was 927 feet (283 meters) tall, had a shorter pinnacle, and had a much higher top occupied floor (the second category in the 1996 criteria for tallest building). In contrast, the Chrysler Building employed a very long 125-foot (38 m) spire secretly assembled inside the building to claim the title of world's tallest building with a total height of 1,048 feet (319 m), despite having a lower top occupied floor and a shorter height when both buildings' spires are not counted in their heights. Although the architects of record for 40 Wall were H. Craig Severance and Yasuo Matsui, the firm of Shreve & Lamb (who also designed the Empire State Building) served as consulting architects. They wrote a newspaper article claiming that 40 Wall was actually the tallest, since it contained the world's highest usable floor. They pointed out that the observation deck of 40 Wall was nearly 100 feet (30 m) higher than the top floor of the Chrysler, whose surpassing spire was strictly ornamental and essentially inaccessible. Despite the protest, the Chrysler Building was generally accepted as the tallest building in the world for almost a year, until it was surpassed by the Empire State Building's 1,250 feet (380 meters) in 1931. That was in turn surpassed by the 1,368-foot-high (417 m) Twin Towers of New York's original World Trade Center in 1972, which were in turn surpassed by the Sears Tower in Chicago in 1974. Now called the Willis Tower since 2009, it was 1,451 feet (442 meters) to its flat rooftop, or 1,518 feet (463 meters) including its original antennas. But in 1978 One World Trade Center (commonly known as the North Tower) attained a taller absolute height when it added its 360-foot (110 m) new broadcasting antenna, for a total height of 1,728 feet (527 meters). The WTC North Tower maintained this height record (including its antenna) from 1978 until 2000, when the owners of the Willis Tower extended its broadcasting antennae for a total height of 1,729 feet (527 meters). Thus the status of the Willis Tower as the "totally" tallest was restored in the face of a new threat looming in the Far East—the "Siamese Twins." A major controversy erupted upon completion of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998. These Twin Towers, at 1,483 feet (452 meters), had a higher architectural height (spires, not antennas), but a lower absolute pinnacle height and a lower top occupied floor than the Willis Tower in Chicago. Counting buildings as structures with floors throughout, and with antenna masts excluded, the Willis was still considered the tallest at that time. Excluding their spires, which are 9 meters (30 feet) higher than the flat roof of Willis, the Petronas Towers are not taller than Willis. At their convention in Chicago, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat (CTBUH) found the Willis Tower (without its antennas) to be the third-tallest building, and the Petronas Towers (with their spires) to be the world's two tallest buildings. Responding to the ensuing controversy, the CTBUH then revised their criteria and defined four categories in which the world's tallest building can be measured, retaining the old criterion of height to architectural top, and adding three new categories: Height to Architectural Top (including spires and pinnacles, but not antennas, masts or flagpoles). This measurement is the most widely used and is used to define the rankings of the 100 Tallest Buildings in the World. Highest Occupied Floor Height to Top of Roof (omitted from criteria from November 2009 onwards) Height to Tip The height-to-roof criterion was discontinued because relatively few modern tall buildings possess flat rooftops, making this criterion difficult to determine and measure. The CTBUH has further clarified their definitions of building height, including specific criteria concerning subbasements and ground level entrances (height measured from lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance rather than from a previously undefined "main entrance"), building completion (must be topped out both structurally and architecturally, fully clad, and able to be occupied), condition of the highest occupied floor (must be continuously used by people living or working and be conditioned, thus including observation decks, but not mechanical floors) and other aspects of tall buildings. The height is measured from the level of the lowest, significant, open-air, pedestrian entrance. At the time, the Willis Tower held first place in the second and third categories, the Petronas Towers held the first category, and the original WTC North Tower held the fourth (height to tip) category with its antenna. In 2000, however, a new antenna mast was placed on the Willis Tower, giving it the record in the fourth category. On April 20, 2004, the 101-story Taipei 101 in Taipei, Taiwan, was completed, taking the world record for the first three categories. On July 21, 2007, it was announced that Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE, had surpassed Taipei 101. Since its completion in early 2010, Burj Khalifa leads in all categories (the first building to do so) with its spire height of 2,722 feet (830 meters). Before Burj Khalifa was completed, Willis Tower led in the height-to-tip category with 1,729 feet (527 meters) after its antenna was extended in 2000, making Willis Tower slightly taller height-to-tip than the World Trade Center (WTC) North Tower's antenna that measured 1,728 feet (527 meters). After the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, the WTC became the world's tallest two buildings to be destroyed or demolished. They took that distinction from the Singer Building, which stood 612 feet (187 meters) tall until the late 1960s where One Liberty Plaza now stands right across Church Street from the WTC site. A different superlative for skyscrapers is their number of floors. The original World Trade Center set that record at 110 in the early 1970s, and this was not surpassed until the Burj Khalifa opened in 2010. Tall freestanding structures such as the CN Tower, the Ostankino Tower and the Oriental Pearl Tower are excluded from these categories because they are not "habitable buildings", which are defined as frame structures made with floors and walls throughout. History of record holders in each CTBUH category Tallest freestanding structures on land Freestanding structures must not be supported by guy wires, the sea or other types of support. It therefore does not include guyed masts, partially guyed towers and drilling platforms but does include towers, skyscrapers (pinnacle height) and chimneys. (See also history of tallest skyscrapers.) The world's tallest freestanding structure on land is defined as the tallest self-supporting artificial structure that stands above ground. This definition is different from that of world's tallest building or world's tallest structure based on the percentage of the structure that is occupied and whether or not it is self-supporting or supported by exterior cables. Likewise, this definition does not count structures that are built underground or on the seabed, such as the Petronius Platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Visit world's tallest structure by category for a list of various other definitions. The tallest freestanding structure on land is the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The building surpassed the height of the previous record holder, the 553.3 m (1,815 ft) CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario, on September 12, 2007. It was completed in 2010, with final height of 829.8 m (2,722 ft). History The following is a list of structures that have held the title as the tallest freestanding structure on land. Notable mentions include the Pharos (lighthouse) of Alexandria, built in the third century BC and estimated between 115–135 m (377–443 ft). It was the world's tallest non-pyramidal structure for many centuries. Another notable mention includes the Jetavanaramaya stupa in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, which was built in the third century, and was similarly tall at 122 m (400 ft). These were both the world's tallest or second-tallest non-pyramidal structure for over a thousand years. The tallest secular building between the collapse of the Pharos and the erection of the Washington Monument may have been the Torre del Mangia in Siena, Italy, which is 102 m (335 ft) tall, and was constructed in the first half of the fourteenth century, and the 97-metre-tall (318 ft) Torre degli Asinelli in Bologna, Italy, built between 1109 and 1119. World's highest observation deck Timeline of development of world's highest observation deck since inauguration of Eiffel Tower. Higher observation decks have existed on mountain tops or cliffs, rather than on tall structures. The Grand Canyon Skywalk, constructed in 2007, protrudes 21 m (70 ft) over the west rim of the Grand Canyon and is approximately 1,100 m (3,600 ft) above the Colorado River, making it the highest of these types of structures. Timeline of guyed structures on land As most of the tallest structures are guyed masts, here is a timeline of world's tallest guyed masts, since the beginning of radio technology. As many large guyed masts were destroyed at the end of World War II, the dates for the years between 1945 and 1950 may be incorrect. If Wusung Radio Tower survived World War II, it was the tallest guyed structure shortly after World War II. Tallest towers Towers include observation towers, monuments and other structures not generally considered to be "habitable buildings", they are meant for "regular access by humans, but not for living in or office work, and are self-supporting or freestanding, which means no guy-wires for support", meaning it excludes from this list of continuously habitable buildings and skyscrapers as well as radio and TV masts. Bridge towers or pylons, chimneys, transmission towers, and most large statues allow human access for maintenance, but not as part of their normal operation, and are therefore not considered to be towers. The Tokyo Skytree, completed in February 2012, is 634 m (2,080 ft), making it the tallest tower, and third-tallest freestanding structure in the world. History of tallest towers The following is a list of structures that have historically held the title as the tallest towers in the world. Tallest structures, freestanding structures, and buildings The list categories are: The structures (supported) list uses pinnacle height and includes architectural structures of any type that might use some external support constructions like cables and are fully built in air. Only the three tallest are listed, as more than fifty US TV masts have stated heights of 600–610 metres (1,970–2,000 ft). The structures (media supported) list uses pinnacle height and includes architectural structures of any type that are not totally built in the air but are using support from other, denser media like salt water. All structures greater than 500 metres (1,640 ft) are listed. The freestanding structures list uses pinnacle height and includes structures over 500 metres (1,640 ft) that do not use guy-wires or other external supports. This means truly free standing on its own or, in similar sense, non-supported structures. The building list uses architectural height (excluding antennas) and includes only buildings, defined as consisting of habitable floors. Both of these follow CTBUH guidelines. All supertall buildings (450 m and higher) are listed. Notes: Eight buildings appear on the freestanding structures category list with heights different from another category. This is due to the different measurement specifications of those lists. Only current heights and, where reasonable, target heights are listed. Historical heights of structures that no longer exist, for example, for having collapsed, are excluded. Source: Emporis[usurped] Tallest structures through time See also References External links Tallest Buildings in the Islamic World (2017) Collection of many record holders on Skyscraperpage tallestbuildingintheworld.net Archived May 16, 2017, at the Wayback Machine A map visualization of each country's tallest building The highest abandoned skyscraper in the world

Burj_Khalifa

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa

The Burj Khalifa (known as the Burj Dubai prior to its inauguration) is a skyscraper in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. It is the world's tallest structure. With a total height of 829.8 m (2,722 ft, or just over half a mile) and a roof height (excluding antenna, but including a 242.6 m spire) of 828 m (2,717 ft), the Burj Khalifa has been the tallest structure and building in the world since its topping out in 2009, surpassing Taipei 101, the previous holder of that status. Construction of the Burj Khalifa began in 2004, with the exterior completed five years later in 2009. The primary structure is reinforced concrete and some of the structural steel for the building originated from the Palace of the Republic in East Berlin, the former East German parliament. The building was opened in 2010 as part of a new development called Downtown Dubai. It was designed to be the centerpiece of large-scale, mixed-use development. The building is named after the former president of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The United Arab Emirates government provided Dubai with financial support as the developer, Emaar Properties, experienced financial problems during the Great Recession. Then president of the United Arab Emirates, Khalifa bin Zayed, organized federal financial support. For his support, Mohammad bin Rashid, Ruler of Dubai, changed the name from "Burj Dubai" to "Burj Khalifa" during inauguration. The design is derived from the Islamic architecture of the region, such as in the Great Mosque of Samarra. The Y-shaped tripartite floor geometry is designed to optimise residential and hotel space. A buttressed central core and wings are used to support the height of the building. Although this design was derived from Tower Palace III, the Burj Khalifa's central core houses all vertical transportation except egress stairs within each of the wings. The structure also features a cladding system which is designed to withstand Dubai's hot summer temperatures. It contains a total of 57 elevators and 8 escalators. Development Construction began on 12 January 2004, with the exterior of the structure completed on 1 October 2009. The building officially opened on 4 January 2010 and is part of the 2 km2 (490-acre) Downtown Dubai development at the 'First Interchange' along Sheikh Zayed Road, near Dubai's main business district. The tower's architecture and engineering were performed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill of Chicago, with Adrian Smith as chief architect, and Bill Baker as a chief structural engineer. The firm had designed the Sears Tower in Chicago, a previous record holder for the world's tallest building. Hyder Consulting was supervising engineer and NORR Group Consultants supervised the architecture. The primary contractor was Samsung C&T of South Korea, together with the Belgian group BESIX and the local company Arabtec. Numerous complaints concerned migrant workers from South Asia, the primary building labour force, who were paid low wages and sometimes had their passports confiscated. Conception Burj Khalifa was designed to be the centerpiece of a large-scale, mixed-use development to include 30,000 homes, nine hotels (including The Address Downtown Dubai), 3 hectares (7.4 acres) of parkland, at least 19 residential skyscrapers, the Dubai Mall, and the 12-hectare (30-acre) artificial Burj Khalifa Lake. The decision to build Burj Khalifa was reportedly based on the government's decision to diversify from an oil-based economy to one that is service and tourism based. According to officials, projects like Burj Khalifa needed to be built to garner more international recognition and hence investment. "He (Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum) wanted to put Dubai on the map with something really sensational," said Jacqui Josephson, a tourism and VIP delegations executive at Nakheel Properties. The tower was known as Burj Dubai ("Dubai Tower") until its official opening in January 2010. It was renamed in honour of the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan; Abu Dhabi and the federal government of UAE lent Dubai tens of billions of US dollars so that Dubai could pay its debts – Dubai borrowed at least $80 billion for construction projects. In the 2000s, Dubai started diversifying its economy but it suffered from the 2007–2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession, leaving large-scale projects already in construction abandoned. Records The Burj Khalifa set several world records, including: Tallest existing structure: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously KVLY-TV mast – 628.8 m or 2,063 ft) Tallest structure ever built: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously Warsaw radio mast – 646.38 m or 2,121 ft) Tallest freestanding structure: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously CN Tower – 553.3 m or 1,815 ft) Tallest skyscraper (to top of spire): 828 m (2,717 ft) (previously Taipei 101 – 509.2 m or 1,671 ft) Tallest skyscraper to top of antenna: 829.8 m (2,722 ft) (previously the Willis (formerly Sears) Tower – 527 m or 1,729 ft) Building with most floors: 163 (previously World Trade Center – 110) World's highest elevator installation (situated inside a rod at the very top of the building) World's longest travel distance elevators: 504 m (1,654 ft) Highest vertical concrete pumping (for a building): 606 m (1,988 ft) World's tallest structure that includes residential space World's highest installation of an aluminium and glass façade: 512 m (1,680 ft) World's highest restaurant (At.mosphere): 122nd floor at 442 m (1,450 ft) (previously 360, at a height of 350 m (1,148 ft) in CN Tower) World's highest New Year display of fireworks. World's largest light and sound show staged on a single building. Architecture and design The tower was designed by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM), which also designed the Willis Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) in Chicago and the One World Trade Center in New York City. Burj Khalifa uses the bundled tube design of the Willis Tower, invented by Fazlur Rahman Khan. Due to its tubular system, proportionally only half the amount of steel was used in the construction, compared to the Empire State Building. Khan's contributions to the design of tall buildings have had a profound impact on architecture and engineering. It would be difficult to find any worldwide practices in the design of tall buildings that have not been directly or indirectly influenced by his work. The design is reminiscent of Frank Lloyd Wright's vision for The Illinois, a mile-high skyscraper designed for Chicago, as well as Chicago's Lake Point Tower. When Adrian Smith was conceiving the project at SOM, he looked out his office window toward Lake Point Tower's curved three-wing layout and thought, "There's the prototype". According to Strabala, Burj Khalifa was designed based on the 73rd floor Tower Palace Three, an all-residential building in Seoul. In its early planning, Burj Khalifa was intended to be entirely residential. After the original design by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, Emaar Properties chose Hyder Consulting to be the supervising engineer and NORR Group Consultants International Ltd to supervise the architecture of the project. Hyder was selected for their expertise in structural and MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) engineering. Hyder Consulting's role was to supervise construction, certify the architect's design, and be the engineer and architect of record to the UAE authorities. NORR's role was the supervision of all architectural components including on-site supervision during the construction and design of a 6-storey addition to the office annex building for architectural documentation. NORR was also responsible for the architectural integration drawings for the Armani Hotel included in the Tower. Emaar Properties also engaged GHD, an international multidisciplinary consulting firm, to act as an independent verification and testing authority for concrete and steelwork. The design is derived from Islamic architecture. As the tower rises from the flat desert base, there are 27 setbacks in a spiral pattern, decreasing the cross-section of the tower as it rises and creating convenient outdoor terraces. These setbacks are arranged and aligned in a way that minimizes vibration wind loading from eddy currents and vortices. At the top, the central core emerges and is sculpted to form a finishing spire. At its tallest point, the tower sways a total of 1.5 m (4.9 ft). The spire of Burj Khalifa is composed of more than 4,000 tonnes (4,400 short tons; 3,900 long tons) of structural steel. The central pinnacle pipe weighs 350 tonnes (390 short tons; 340 long tons) and has a height of 200 m (660 ft). The spire also houses communications equipment. This 244-metre (801 ft) spire is widely considered vanity height, since very little of its space is usable. Without the spire, Burj Khalifa would be 585 metres (1,919 ft) tall. This was reported in a Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat study, which notes that the empty spire "could be a skyscraper on its own". Such a skyscraper, if located in Europe, would be the 11th tallest building on that continent. In 2009 architects announced that more than 1,000 pieces of art would adorn the interiors of Burj Khalifa, while the residential lobby of Burj Khalifa would display the work of Jaume Plensa. The cladding system consists of 142,000 m2 (1,528,000 sq ft) of more than 26,000 reflective glass panels and aluminium and textured stainless steel spandrel panels with vertical tubular fins. The architectural glass provides solar and thermal performance as well as an anti-glare shield for the intense desert sun, extreme desert temperatures and strong winds. The glass covers more than 174,000 m2 (1,870,000 sq ft) in area. The Burj's typical curtain wall panels measure 4 ft 6 in (1.4 m) wide by 10 ft 8 in (3.3 m) high and weigh about 800 pounds (360 kg) each, with wider panels near the building's edges and taller ones near the top. The exterior temperature at the top of the building is thought to be 6 °C (11 °F) cooler than at its base. A 304-room Armani Hotel, the first of 4 by Armani, occupies 15 of the lower 39 floors. The hotel was supposed to open on 18 March 2010, but after several delays, it finally opened to the public on 27 April 2010. The corporate suites and offices were also supposed to open from March onwards, yet the hotel and observation deck remained the only parts of the building which were open in April 2010. The sky lobbies on the 43rd and 76th floors house swimming pools. Floors 20 through 108 have 900 private residential apartments (which, according to the developer, sold out within eight hours of being on the market). An outdoor zero-entry swimming pool is located on the 76th floor of the tower. Corporate offices and suites fill most of the remaining floors, except for the 122nd, 123rd, and 124th, where the Atmosphere restaurant, sky lobby, and an indoor and outdoor observation deck are located respectively. In January 2010, it was planned that Burj Khalifa would receive its first residents in February 2010. The building has 57 elevators and 8 escalators. The elevators have a capacity of 12 to 14 people per cabin, and include the world's fastest double-deck elevators, rising and descending at up to 10 m/s (33 ft/s). Engineers initially considered installing the world's first triple-deck elevators. The double-deckers are equipped with LCD displays to amuse visitors during their travel to the observation deck. The building has 2,909 stairs from the ground floor to the 160th floor. Plumbing systems The Burj Khalifa's water system supplies an average of 946,000 L (250,000 U.S. gal) of water per day through 100 km (62 mi) of pipes. An additional 213 km (132 mi) of piping serves the fire emergency system, and 34 km (21 mi) supplies chilled water for the air conditioning system. Air conditioning The air conditioning system draws air from the upper floors where the air is cooler and cleaner than on the ground. At peak cooling times, the tower's cooling is 46 MW (62,000 hp), equivalent to that provided by 13,000 short tons (26,000,000 lb; 12,000,000 kg) of melting ice in one day. Water is collected via a condensate collection system and is used to irrigate the nearby park. Window cleaning To wash the 24,348 windows, totaling 120,000 m2 (1,290,000 sq ft) of glass, the building has three horizontal tracks, each holding a 1,500 kg (3,300 lb) bucket machine. Above level 109, and up to tier 27, traditional cradles from davits are used. The top of the building is cleaned by a crew that uses ropes to descend from the top to gain access. Under normal conditions, when all building maintenance units are operational, it takes 36 workers three to four months to clean the entire exterior. Unmanned machines clean the top 27 additional tiers and the glass spire. The cleaning system was developed in Melbourne, Australia, by CoxGomyl, a manufacturer of building maintenance units, at a cost of A$8 million. Features Fountain Outside the Burj Khalifa, WET Enterprises designed a fountain system at a cost of Dh 800 million (US$217 million). Illuminated by 6,600 lights and 50 coloured projectors, it is 270 m (900 ft) long and shoots water 150 m (500 ft) into the air while accompanied by a range of classical to contemporary Arabic and other music. It is the world's largest choreographed fountain. On 26 October 2008, Emaar announced that based on results of a naming contest the fountain would be called the Dubai Fountain. Observation deck An outdoor observation deck, named At the Top, opened on 5 January 2010 on the 124th floor. At 452 m (1,483 ft), it was the highest outdoor observation deck in the world when it opened. After this was initially surpassed in December 2011 by Cloud Top 488 on the Canton Tower, Guangzhou at 488 m (1,601 ft), Burj Khalifa opened the 148th floor SKY level at 555 m (1,821 ft), once again giving it the highest observation deck in the world on 15 October 2014. Subsequently, on February 18, 2019, the Burj Khalifa also opened The Lounge observatory at 584 m (1,916 ft) – the highest lounge in the world, However, in June 2016 the Shanghai Tower opened with an observation deck at a height of 561 metres, thus taking the title of the world's highest observation deck. The Burj Khalifa's 124th floor observation deck also features a so-called electronic telescope, an augmented reality device developed by Gsmprjct° of Montréal, which allows visitors to view the surrounding landscape in real-time, and to view previously saved images such as those taken at different times of day or under different weather conditions. To reduce the daily rush of sightseers, management allows visitors to purchase tickets in advance for a specific date and time, at a 75% discount on tickets purchased on the spot. On 8 February 2010, the observation deck was closed to the public for two months after power-supply problems caused an elevator to become stuck between floors, trapping a group of tourists for 45 minutes. When the tide is low and visibility is high, people can see the shores of Iran (which is around 153 km or 95 mi away) from the top of the skyscraper. Park Burj Khalifa is surrounded by an eleven-hectare (27-acre) park designed by landscape architects SWA Group. Like the tower, the park's design was based on the flower of the Hymenocallis, a desert plant. At the centre of the park is the water room, which is a series of pools and water jet fountains. Benches and signs incorporate images of Burj Khalifa and the Hymenocallis flower. The plants are watered by water collected from the building's cooling system. The system provides 68,000,000 L (18,000,000 US gal) annually. WET Enterprises, who also developed the Dubai Fountain, developed the park's six water features. Floor plan Ramadan observance On the higher floors, the sun is seen for several minutes after it has set at ground level. Those living above the 80th floor should wait two extra minutes to break their Ramadan fast, and those living above the 150th floor should wait three minutes. Construction The tower was constructed by Samsung C&T from South Korea, which also did work on the Petronas Twin Towers and Taipei 101. Samsung C&T built the tower in a joint venture with BESIX from Belgium and Arabtec from the UAE. Turner was the project manager on the main construction contract. Hong Kong-based Far East Aluminium combined to provide the exterior cladding for Burj Khalifa. The contractor and the engineer of record was Hyder Consulting. Under UAE law, the contractor and the engineer of record is jointly and severally liable for the performance of Burj Khalifa. The primary structure is reinforced concrete. Putzmeister created a new, super high-pressure trailer concrete pump, the BSA 14000 SHP-D, for this project. Burj Khalifa's construction used 330,000 m3 (431,600 cu yd) of concrete and 55,000 tonnes (61,000 short tons; 54,000 long tons) of steel rebar, and construction took 22 million man-hours. In May 2008 Putzmeister pumped concrete with more than 21 MPA ultimate compressive strength of gravel to surpass the 600 metres weight of the effective area of each column from the foundation to the next 4th level, and the rest was by metal columns jacketed or covered with concrete to a then world record delivery height of 606 m (1,988 ft), the 156th floor. Three tower cranes were used during the construction of the uppermost levels, each capable of lifting a 25-tonne load. The remaining structure above was constructed of lighter steel. In 2003, 33 test holes were drilled to study the strength of the bedrock underlying the structure. "Weak to very weak sandstone and siltstone" was found, just metres below the surface. Samples were taken from test holes drilled to a depth of 140 metres, finding weak to very weak rock all the way. The study described the site as part of a "seismically active area". Another challenging element was the shamal which often creates sandstorms. Over 45,000 m3 (58,900 cu yd) of concrete, weighing more than 110,000 tonnes (120,000 short tons; 110,000 long tons) were used to construct the concrete and steel foundation, which features 192 piles; each pile is 1.5 metre in diameter by 43 m in length, buried more than 50 m (164 ft) deep. The foundation was designed to support the total building weight of approximately 450,000 tonnes (500,000 short tons; 440,000 long tons). This weight was then divided by the compressive strength of concrete which is 30 MPa which yielded 450 sq. metres of vertical normal effective area, which then yielded 12 metres by 12 metres dimensions. A cathodic protection system is under the concrete to neutralise the sulphate and chloride-rich groundwater and prevent corrosion. During the construction of the Burj Khalifa, over 35,000 tonnes of structural steel which held the Palace of the Republic, the former parliament building of the German Democratic Republic, the Volkskammer, in East Berlin together were shipped to Dubai in 2008. The Burj Khalifa is highly compartmentalised. Pressurised, air-conditioned refuge floors are located every 13 floors (on floors G, 13, 26, 39, 52, etc.) where people can shelter on their long walk down to safety in case of an emergency or fire. Special mixes of concrete were made to withstand the extreme pressures of the massive building weight; as is typical with reinforced concrete construction, each batch of concrete was tested to ensure it could withstand certain pressures. CTLGroup, working for Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, conducted the creep and shrinkage testing critical for the structural analysis of the building. The consistency of the concrete used in the project was essential. It was difficult to create a concrete that could withstand both the thousands of tonnes bearing down on it and Persian Gulf temperatures that can reach 50 °C (122 °F). To combat this problem, the concrete was not poured during the day. Instead, during the summer months, ice was added to the mixture and it was poured at night when the air was cooler and the humidity was higher. Cooler concrete cures more evenly and is, therefore, less likely to set too quickly and crack. Any significant cracks could have put the entire project in jeopardy. Milestones January 2004: Excavation commences. February 2004: Piling starts. 21 September 2004: Emaar contractors begin construction. March 2005: Structure of Burj Khalifa starts rising. June 2006: Level 50 is reached. February 2007: Surpasses the Sears Tower as the building with the most floors. 13 May 2007: Sets record for vertical concrete pumping on any building at 452 m (1,483 ft), surpassing the 449.2 m (1,474 ft) to which concrete was pumped during the construction of Taipei 101, while Burj Khalifa reached the 130th floor. 21 July 2007: Surpasses Taipei 101, whose height of 509.2 m (1,671 ft) made it the world's tallest building, and level 141 reached. 12 August 2007: Surpasses the Sears Tower antenna, which stands 527 m (1,729 ft). 12 September 2007: At 555.3 m (1,822 ft), becomes the world's tallest freestanding structure, surpassing the CN Tower in Toronto, and level 150 reached. 7 April 2008: At 629 m (2,064 ft), surpasses the KVLY-TV Mast to become the tallest human-made structure, level 160 reached. 17 June 2008: Emaar announces that Burj Khalifa's height is over 636 m (2,087 ft) and that its final height will not be given until it is completed in September 2009. 1 September 2008: Height tops 688 m (2,257 ft), making it the tallest human-made structure ever built, surpassing the previous record-holder, the Warsaw Radio Mast in Konstantynów, Poland. 17 January 2009: Topped out at 829.8 m (2,722 ft). 1 October 2009: Emaar announces that the exterior of the building is completed. 4 January 2010: Burj Khalifa's official launch ceremony is held and Burj Khalifa is opened. Burj Dubai was renamed Burj Khalifa in honour of the President of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan. 10 March 2010: Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat certifies Burj Khalifa as world's tallest building. Real estate values In March 2009, Mohamed Ali Alabbar, chairman of the project's developer, Emaar Properties, said office space pricing at Burj Khalifa reached US$4,000 per sq ft (over US$43,000 per m2) and the Armani Residences, also in Burj Khalifa, sold for US$3,500 per sq ft (over US$37,500 per m2). He estimated the total cost for the project to be about US$1.5 billion. The project's completion coincided with the Great Recession, and with vast overbuilding in the country, leading to high vacancies and foreclosures. With Dubai mired in debt from its huge ambitions, the government was forced to seek multibillion-dollar bailouts from its oil-rich neighbor Abu Dhabi. Subsequently, in a surprise move at its opening ceremony, the tower was renamed Burj Khalifa, said to honour the UAE President Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan for his crucial support. Because of the slumping demand in Dubai's property market, the rents in the Burj Khalifa plummeted 40% some ten months after its opening. Out of 900 apartments in the tower, 825 were still empty at that time. Over the next 30 months, overseas investors steadily bought up available apartments and office space. By October 2012, Emaar reported that around 80% of the apartments were occupied. Official launch ceremony The ceremony was broadcast live on a giant screen on Burj Park Island and on smaller screens elsewhere. Hundreds of media outlets from around the world reported live from the scene. In addition to the media presence, 6,000 guests were expected. The opening was held on 4 January 2010. The ceremony featured a display of 10,000 fireworks, light beams projected on and around the tower, and further sound, light and water effects. The celebratory lighting was designed by UK lighting designers Speirs and Major Associates. Using the 868 powerful stroboscope lights that are integrated into the façade and spire of the tower, different lighting sequences were choreographed, together with more than 50 different combinations of other effects. Controversies Deadly incidents On 10 May 2011, an Asian migrant worker in his mid-30s jumped to his death from the 147th floor onto the 108th floor's deck. Dubai police said he killed himself because his company refused to let him leave the country. On 18 May 2015, Dubai police disputed a report that a Portuguese tourist named Laura Vanessa Nunes fell to her death from the Burj Khalifa the prior 16 November, claiming that she fell from the Jumeirah Lake Towers. Nine News obtained emails from Portugal's embassy in the UAE under freedom of information laws, which indicated that the female tourist jumped from the 148th floor of the Burj Khalifa. Labour The Burj Khalifa was built primarily by workers from South Asia and East Asia. This is generally because the current generation of UAE locals prefer governmental jobs and do not have an attitude favouring private sector employment. On 17 June 2008, there were about 7,500 skilled workers employed at the construction site. Press reports indicated in 2006 that skilled carpenters at the site earned £4.34 a day, and labourers earned £2.84. According to a BBC investigation and a Human Rights Watch report, the workers were housed in abysmal conditions, and worked long hours for low pay. During construction, one construction-related death was reported. Workplace injuries and deaths in the UAE are poorly documented, according to Human Rights Watch. In March 2006 about 2,500 workers, upset over buses that were delayed for the end of their shifts, protested and triggered a riot, damaging cars, offices, computers, and construction equipment. A Dubai Interior Ministry official said the rioters caused almost £500,000 in damage. Most of the workers involved in the riot returned the following day but refused to work. New Year's Eve Emaar New Year's Eve is an annual event held every 31 December at Burj Khalifa, organised by Emaar Properties. The event consists of fireworks launched from Burj Khalifa, a light and laser show on the facade of Burj Khalifa, and an accompanying soundtrack and a special fountain show on The Dubai Fountain choreographed to the soundtrack. The Emaar New Year's Eve fireworks celebration originated in 2010 with the inauguration of the world's tallest building, Burj Khalifa. The celebration was broadcast live to more than 2 million people and lasted for 3 minutes. Since 2011, national live broadcasting rights have been held by Dubai Media Incorporated and Dubai TV. Emaar New Year's Eve has won two Guinness World Records, including 'Largest LED-Illuminated Facade' in 2015 and 2019. In 2017 and 2018, Emaar New Year's Eve was broadcast live on Twitter, and YouTube. In 2020, it was broadcast live for the first time on Zoom. In 2021, Emaar celebrated togetherness in honour of frontline workers of the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2022 onwards, lasers are installed on Burj Khalifa each year that project animations onto The Dubai Fountain. The lasers are temporary for the event. BASE jumping The building has been used by several experienced BASE jumpers for authorised and unauthorised BASE jumping: In May 2008, Hervé Le Gallou and David McDonnell, dressed as engineers, entered Burj Khalifa (around 650 metres (2,130 ft) at the time), and jumped off a balcony situated several floors below the 160th floor. On 8 January 2010, with permission of the authorities, Nasr Al Niyadi and Omar Al Hegelan, from the Emirates Aviation Society, broke the world record for the highest BASE jump from a building after they leapt from a crane-suspended platform attached to the 160th floor at 672 m (2,205 ft). The two men descended the vertical drop at a speed of up to 220 km/h (140 mph), with enough time to open their parachutes 10 seconds into the 90-second jump. On 21 April 2014, with permission of the authorities and support from several sponsors, highly experienced French BASE jumpers Vince Reffet and Fred Fugen broke the Guinness world record for the highest BASE jump from a building after they leapt from a specially designed platform, built at the very top of the pinnacle, at 828 metres (2,717 feet). Climbing On 28 March 2011, Alain "Spiderman" Robert scaled the outside of Burj Khalifa. The climb to the top of the spire took 6 hours. To comply with UAE safety laws, Robert, who usually climbs in free solo style, used a rope and harness. Awards In June 2010, Burj Khalifa was the recipient of the 2010 "Best Tall Building Middle East & Africa" award by the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat. On 28 September 2010 Burj Khalifa won the award for the best project of the year at the Middle East Architect Awards 2010. Awards Chair Gordon Gill, of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, said: We are talking about a building here that has changed the landscape of what is possible in architecture – a building that became internationally recognized as an icon long before it was even completed. 'Building of the Century' was thought a more apt title for it. Burj Khalifa was also the recipient of the following awards. See also Notes References External links Official website "The Burj Dubai Tower Wind Engineering" (PDF). (597 KB) (Structure magazine, June 2006) "The Wind Engineering of the Burj Dubai Tower" (PDF). Archived from the original on 14 September 2017.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link) (620 KB) (Irwin et al., November 2006) BBC reports: Burj Khalifa opening, with video and links; Maintaining the world's tallest building Geographic data related to Burj Khalifa at OpenStreetMap

2020–21_Bundesliga

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020–21_Bundesliga

The 2020–21 Bundesliga was the 58th season of the Bundesliga, Germany's premier football competition. It began on 18 September 2020 and concluded on 22 May 2021. The season was originally scheduled to begin on 21 August 2020 and conclude on 15 May 2021, though this was delayed due to postponement of the previous season as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The fixtures were announced on 7 August 2020. Bayern Munich were the defending champions and successfully defended their title, winning their record-extending 9th consecutive title and 31st title overall (30th in the Bundesliga era) on 8 May with three games to spare. By winning their thirtieth Bundesliga title, Bayern Munich are honoured with a fifth gold star on their team badges and shirts. Bayern's Robert Lewandowski set a new record for goals scored in a season with 41, surpassing the previous record of 40 goals set by Gerd Müller in 1971–72. Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic On 3 September 2020, the DFL General Assembly voted to extend the use of five substitutions in matches to the 2020–21 season, which was implemented at the end of the previous season to lessen the impact of fixture congestion caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The use of five substitutes, based on the decision of competition organisers, had been extended by IFAB until 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the season began with matches behind closed doors or at reduced capacity due to restrictions across German states. Leipzig allowed up to 8,500 spectators to begin the season, while regulations in Berlin allowed for up to 5,000 supporters. Summary Bayern Munich began the season less than a month after defeating Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League final, as the match had been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In their first game, they beat Schalke 04 8–0, and were the dominant side early on in the season. After a 3–2 away victory over title contenders Borussia Dortmund in November, many pundits praised Bayern as the best team in Europe. This praise continued all season long, with former Bayern manager Pep Guardiola proclaiming them the best club in Europe in March. Bayern mathematically confirmed their ninth consecutive Bundesliga title on 8 May 2021 with three matches to spare, following closest contender RB Leipzig's 2–3 loss to Dortmund. The title was Bayern's 30th Bundesliga and 31st German championship overall, which would see them add a fifth star to their badge in the following season. Meanwhile, Schalke 04 endured a disaster season, failing to win a game in nine consecutive months dating back to the previous season, before defeating a fourth-tier club in the German Cup. They failed to win thirty Bundesliga matches in a row, falling one short of the all-time record set by Tasmania Berlin in 1965–66, before a 4–0 win against 1899 Hoffenheim in January. Schalke had announced before the season that they had debts of over 200 million, which led them to slash spending. The poor results led to departures for executives and managers. Former Schalke star Klaas-Jan Huntelaar returned to Schalke from Ajax in January in an attempt to stave off relegation, but he was unable to prevent Schalke from being relegated for the first time in over thirty years. A hot start to the season for Robert Lewandowski led to early talk that he could break Gerd Müller's 49-year-old record of 40 goals scored in one Bundesliga season, with teammate Thomas Müller suggesting it could happen back in October. Lewandowski capped off a successful year in December by winning his first FIFA Men's Player of the Year award. As Lewandowski continued his strong performances, interest in him overtaking Müller's record grew from various media outlets. However, a knee injury suffered whilst on international duty on 31 March threatened Lewandowski's record-chase and kept him out of action for a month. Lewandowski returned to action in April, just five goals away from equalling the single-season goal record. On 15 May 2021, Lewandowski scored his 40th goal of the season against SC Freiburg with one match to spare, therefore equalling Gerd Müller's record tally from 1971–72. In the last match of the season the following week, Lewandowski scored his 41st league goal in the final minute of the match against FC Augsburg to break Müller's record. Teams A total of 18 teams participated in the 2020–21 edition of the Bundesliga. Team changes Stadiums and locations Personnel and kits Managerial changes League table Results Relegation play-offs All times are CEST (UTC+2). Overview Matches 1. FC Köln won 5–2 on aggregate, and therefore both clubs remained in their respective leagues. Statistics Top scorers Hat-tricks 4 Player scored four goals. Assist providers Clean sheets Awards Monthly awards Annual awards Notes == References ==

Erling_Haaland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erling_Haaland

Erling Braut Haaland (né Håland; Urban East Norwegian: [ˈhòːlɑn]; born 21 July 2000) is a Norwegian professional footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Manchester City and the Norway national team. Considered one of the best players in the world, he is known for his speed, strength, positioning, and finishing inside the box. In his debut Premier League season, Haaland broke the record for the most goals scored by a player in a single season, with 36. Coming through the youth system, Haaland played for Norwegian sides Bryne and Molde, before relocating to Austria with Red Bull Salzburg in January 2019. His performances there earned him a move to Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund, where he won the DFB-Pokal in 2021. In the summer of 2022, he transferred to Manchester City for a fee of €60 million (£51.2 million), and was instrumental in the club winning a continental treble in his debut campaign; his 52 goals across all competitions was the most ever for a Premier League player. Haaland was named the league's Young Player and Player of the Season, becoming the first player to win both awards in the same year. Haaland has won several individual awards and broken various records during his career, including the 2020 Golden Boy award, while in 2021 he was named Bundesliga Player of the Season, in addition to his inclusion in the FIFA FIFPro World11 for 2021, 2022 and 2023. He has also broken multiple Premier League records, including most goals scored in a season, the quickest individual to score two, three, four and five hat-tricks, and the first in league history to score hat-tricks in three consecutive home games. In 2023, he won the Premier League Golden Boot, the European Golden Shoe and the Gerd Müller Trophy for his goalscoring success. In the same year, his performances led him to be named UEFA Men's Player of the Year, IFFHS World's Best Player and finish runner-up in the Ballon d'Or. Haaland has represented Norway at various youth levels. In the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup, he won the tournament's Golden Boot after scoring a record nine goals in a single match. He made his senior international debut in September 2019, and is currently the nation's second-highest all-time top goalscorer. Early life Erling Braut Haaland was born Erling Braut Håland on 21 July 2000 in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England, as his father Alfie Haaland was playing for Leeds United in the Premier League at the time. In 2004, at the age of three, he moved to Bryne, his parents' hometown in Norway. Along with playing football from an early age, Haaland took part in various other sports as a child, including handball, golf, and track and field. He also reportedly achieved a world record in his age category for the standing long jump when he was five, with a recorded distance of 1.63 metres in 2006. Club career Bryne Haaland started in the academy of his hometown club Bryne at the age of five. During the 2015 and 2016 seasons, Haaland played for Bryne 2 (Bryne's reserve team) in the Norwegian fourth tier and impressed, scoring 18 goals in 14 matches. He debuted for Bryne 2 on 5 October 2015 in the Group 6 of the 2015 fourth division against Start reserves (0–1) and five days later he scored his first goal on senior level against Hei in a 2–1 defeat away to Heistad. The following season he appeared more often in the Bryne 2 squad and he scored his first career hat-trick on 19 September 2016, aged 16 and 2 months, in an away 5–3 win over Vard Haugesund 2 in the Group 6 of the Norwegian fourth tier. In May 2016, Gaute Larsen was sacked as Bryne manager, and youth coach Berntsen was promoted to caretaker manager. Having worked closely with Haaland in other youth teams, the interim manager handed the teenager his first start, three months before his 16th birthday. His first game with Bryne FK was a second-tier 1. divisjon match against Ranheim on 12 May. After having initially being deployed as a winger, Berntsen put Haaland in his favoured central role as a striker after a few matches. Although he failed to score in his breakthrough season at Bryne, Haaland was offered a trial by German club TSG Hoffenheim before eventually moving to Molde to play under Ole Gunnar Solskjær. Haaland made 16 total senior appearances for Bryne. Molde On 1 February 2017, Molde announced the signing of 16-year-old Haaland. He made his debut for the club on 26 April in a Norwegian Cup match against Volda TI, scoring on his debut in a 3–2 win. Haaland's debut in the Eliteserien came on 4 June, being brought on as a 71st-minute substitute against Sarpsborg 08 and receiving a yellow card in just over a minute of play on the pitch. On 6 August 2017, Haaland scored the winner for Molde in the 77th minute against Tromsø IL, his first goal in the league. His second strike of the season came on 17 September, as he bagged the decisive goal against Viking FK in a 3–2 victory. In the aftermath of the game, Haaland received criticism from teammate Björn Bergmann Sigurðarson for celebrating his goal towards Viking supporters. Haaland finished his first season at Molde with four goals in 20 appearances. On 1 July 2018, Haaland scored four goals in the opening 21 minutes against Brann, securing his team a 4–0 victory over the unbeaten league leaders at the time. After the match, Molde manager Ole Gunnar Solskjær compared Haaland's style of play to Belgian forward Romelu Lukaku, and said the club had rejected several bids for the striker from different clubs. In the following match a week later, Haaland continued his scoring run with a brace against Vålerenga in a 5–1 win. He scored his first goal in UEFA competition on 26 July, converting a penalty in Molde's 3–0 Europa League qualifying victory against KF Laçi. Due to a sprained ankle, Haaland did not participate in Molde's last three league matches of the season. For his performances in the 2018 Eliteserien, Haaland received the Eliteserien Breakthrough of the Year award. He finished the 2018 season as Molde's top goalscorer, scoring 16 goals in 30 matches across all competitions. Red Bull Salzburg On 19 August 2018, Austrian Bundesliga champions Red Bull Salzburg announced that Haaland would join the club on 1 January 2019, signing a five-year contract. The Athletic's Phil Hay would later reveal that prior to his move to Salzburg, Haaland was also subject of an offer from his father's former club Leeds United. He made his debut for the club on 17 February, the 2018–19 Austrian Cup quarter-finals against Wiener Neustädter, and scored his first goal on 12 May in the Austrian Bundesliga 2–1 win over LASK. On 19 July, he scored his first hat-trick for the club in a 7–1 Austrian Cup win against SC-ESV Parndorf, and followed this up with his first hat-trick in the league on 10 August, scoring three in a 5–2 victory against Wolfsberger AC. He got a third hat-trick for Salzburg on 14 September in a 7–2 victory over TSV Hartberg; this was the sixth consecutive league game Haaland had scored in, with 11 total goals. Three days later, Haaland made his debut in the UEFA Champions League against Genk, where he scored three goals in the first half of an eventual 6–2 victory, his fourth overall hat-trick for Salzburg, becoming the only player to score a first-half hat-trick on competition debut. In his next two matches of the Champions League season, Haaland recorded a goal against Liverpool at Anfield and a further two against Napoli, becoming only the second teenager after Karim Benzema in the history of the competition to score in each of his first three appearances. His six goals were also the most scored by any player in their first three Champions League matches. After converting a penalty in Salzburg's reverse fixture against Napoli, Haaland became the first teenager to score in his first four matches in the competition, and only the fourth player of any age to achieve this feat, following Zé Carlos, Alessandro Del Piero and Diego Costa. He then scored all three goals in Salzburg's 3–0 victory at Wolfsberger AC on 10 November, recording his fifth hat-trick of the season and his second against Wolfsberg. On 27 November, Haaland came off the bench to score another goal against Genk, joining Del Piero, Serhii Rebrov, Neymar, Cristiano Ronaldo and Robert Lewandowski as the only players to score in the first five matches of a Champions League group stage, and becoming the first teenager to score in five consecutive matches in the competition. However, he would fail to find the net in Salzburg's final group match against Liverpool, as his team lost 2–0 and were eliminated from the competition. This would prove to be Haaland's final game for the club; he departed Salzburg having recorded 29 goals, with 28 of these coming in only 22 appearances made during the 2019–20 season. Borussia Dortmund 2019–20: Debut season Despite being a reported target of Manchester United and Juventus, Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund confirmed the signing of Haaland on 29 December 2019, three days before the winter transfer window opened, for a fee reported to be in the region of €20 million, signing a four-and-a-half-year contract. Haaland made his debut for Dortmund away to FC Augsburg on 18 January 2020, coming on as a second-half substitute and scoring a hat-trick within 23 minutes in a 5–3 win. This made him only the second player in Dortmund history after Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang to score three goals on their Bundesliga debut. Six days later, Haaland once again came off the bench, making his second club appearance in Dortmund's match against FC Köln. He scored after 12 minutes and netted a second goal 10 minutes later, contributing to a 5–1 victory. Haaland became the first Bundesliga player to score five goals in his opening two matches, as well as the fastest player to reach that tally (56 minutes played). Despite being on the pitch in the league for only an hour, he won January's Bundesliga Player of the Month award. Haaland got a brace against Union Berlin on 1 February, becoming the first player in history to score seven goals in their first three Bundesliga games. On 18 February, Haaland scored both Dortmund goals in their 2–1 first leg victory over Paris Saint-Germain in the Champions League round of 16. This brought his total to 10 Champions League goals for the 2019–20 campaign in only his eighth overall appearance in the competition, adding to the eight he had scored for Salzburg in the group stage. Dortmund would lose 2–0 in the return leg on 11 March however, as Haaland saw elimination from the competition for a second time in the same season. Following the Bundesliga's return on 16 May in the midst of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Haaland scored Dortmund's opener of their 4–0 Revierderby win over Schalke 04, his tenth goal of the Bundesliga season. On 20 June, he scored both goals in a 2–0 win against RB Leipzig to secure second place for Dortmund, which would lead to Champions League football in the following season. Haaland concluded his 2019–20 campaign with 44 goals in 40 club appearances across all competitions played for both Salzburg and Dortmund. 2020–21: UCL top scorer and DFB-Pokal title On 19 September 2020, in Dortmund's first match of the new season, Haaland scored a brace in a 3–0 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach. He scored his team's equaliser in their 2–3 Der Klassiker defeat to Bayern Munich in the DFL-Supercup on 30 September, and again found the net against Bayern when the sides met in the league on 7 November, with Dortmund losing 2–3 once more. On 21 November, Haaland scored four goals in 32 minutes of a 5–2 away victory against Hertha BSC. These five goals in November saw him crowned the Bundesliga Player of the Month for a second time. Haaland continued his goalscoring feats in the Champions League, scoring six times in the first four matches of the 2020–21 group stage, with his brace in a 3–0 win over Club Brugge on 24 November making him the fastest player to record 15 Champions League goals; he had reached this benchmark in 12 games. Hours before Dortmund's fifth group match against Lazio on 2 December, however, the club announced that Haaland had suffered a hamstring injury, which kept him out of action until after the new year. Haaland made his return against VfL Wolfsburg on 3 January 2021. He scored a brace away against RB Leipzig in a 3–1 win on 9 January, and another two in a 4–2 defeat to Mönchengladbach on 22 January. On 17 February, he scored two goals in Dortmund's 3–2 away victory against Sevilla in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16. In Dortmund's reverse league fixture against Bayern at the Allianz Arena on 6 March, Haaland scored twice within the opening 10 minutes to give his team a 2–0 lead. However, he was substituted off in the second half after picking up a knock, as Bayern rallied to win the match 4–2. Haaland's second goal was the 100th of his senior career, reaching this milestone in 146 appearances. Haaland scored another brace against Sevilla in the second leg on 9 March in a 2–2 draw, advancing to the quarter-finals 5–4 on aggregate. With only 14 matches played, this made him both the fastest and youngest player to reach 20 goals in the competition, also becoming the first player to score multiple times in four consecutive Champions League appearances. After missing two matches due to deep bruising, Haaland returned to Dortmund's starting line-up on 13 May for the 2021 DFB-Pokal final; he scored a brace in his team's 4–1 win over Leipzig, securing his first title with the club. He ended the season with 41 goals in all competitions, including 27 in the league, which won him the fan-voted Bundesliga Player of the Season award, and finished the season as the top scorer of the Champions League with 10 goals, later being awarded the competition's best forward. 2021–22: Injury struggles and departure Haaland started off the 2021–22 season with a hat-trick versus Wehen Wiesbaden in the first round of the DFB-Pokal on 7 August 2021. A week later, on matchday one of the Bundesliga, he scored a brace and assisted two goals as Dortmund beat Eintracht Frankfurt 5–2. During the first months of the season, Haaland was sidelined with a hamstring injury, returning on 16 October and scoring a brace against Mainz in a 3–1 victory. Shortly after, Haaland suffered a hip flexor injury, which sidelined him for two months. He made his return on 27 November, scoring his 50th Bundesliga goal in a 3–1 victory over Wolfsburg, setting a new record for the fewest appearances and also became the youngest player to score 50 league goals. On 10 May, Dortmund announced that Haaland would be leaving at the end of the season to sign for Premier League club Manchester City. Four days later, he bid farewell to the club at the Westfalenstadion prior to Dortmund's final match against Hertha BSC, and scored Dortmund's first goal in a 2–1 win. Manchester City 2022–23: Record-breaking debut season and continental treble On 10 May 2022, Premier League club Manchester City announced they had reached a deal to sign Haaland after activating his €60 million (£51.2 million) release clause. The deal was formalised on 13 June, with City confirming that Haaland would be joining the club on 1 July on a five-year contract. He made his competitive debut on 30 July, playing 90 minutes of a 3–1 defeat to Liverpool in the 2022 FA Community Shield. Haaland scored twice on his league debut against West Ham United on 7 August 2022, the only goals of a 2–0 away victory. On 27 August, he scored his first Premier League hat-trick in a 4–2 win against Crystal Palace, and recorded his second, a perfect hat-trick, four days later in a 6–0 win against Nottingham Forest. This made Haaland the fastest individual in Premier League history to score two hat-tricks, beating the previous record by 14 matches; he was later voted Premier League Player of the Month for August, his first month playing in the league. On 6 September, Haaland made his Champions League debut for the club, getting a brace against Sevilla and becoming the first player to score 25 goals in their first 20 Champions League appearances. He became the first player to score more than one goal on competition debut for three different clubs. In City's second group stage match a week later against his former club Borussia Dortmund, Haaland scored an acrobatic effort late in the contest to secure his side a 2–1 comeback victory. His winner was subsequently voted Champions League Goal of the Week by fans, and would later go on to be selected as the competition's Goal of the Season by UEFA's Technical Observer panel. On 2 October, Haaland became the first player in Premier League history to score a hat-trick in three successive home games during City's 6–3 derby win against Manchester United, additionally earning two assists. He also became the quickest player in Premier League history to score three hat-tricks, doing so in eight league matches and surpassing the previous record of 48 set by Michael Owen in 1998, as well as halving Alan Shearer's record of scoring three hat-tricks in a ten-match spell set during the 1994–95 season. Haaland's brace in City's 3–1 away win over Leeds United on 28 December took his tally to 20 goals in 14 league matches, becoming the fastest player in history to reach 20 Premier League goals and beating Sunderland's Kevin Phillips' previous record by seven games. On 22 January 2023, he scored a fourth hat-trick of the season against Wolverhampton Wanderers, giving him a total of 25 Premier League goals after just 19 matches; this surpassed the top scorers of the previous season, Mohamed Salah and Son Heung-min, who both scored 23 league goals across the entire campaign. On 14 March, Haaland scored five goals in a 7–0 round of 16 victory against RB Leipzig, tying Lionel Messi and Luiz Adriano for the most goals scored in a single Champions League match. He also set the new record for fastest time to score five goals in a Champions League match. In doing so, he reached 39 goals across all competitions, breaking Tommy Johnson's club record of 38 goals scored in a single season for City set in 1928–29. During Manchester City's FA Cup quarter-final against Burnley four days later, Haaland scored his sixth hat-trick of the season, passing the 40-goal mark across all competitions. On 11 April, Haaland scored the third goal of City's 3–0 Champions League win against Bayern Munich in the quarter-finals, his 45th goal of the season overall. This broke the previous record of 44 goals across all competitions in a season by a Premier League player held by Ruud van Nistelrooy and Mohamed Salah. Haaland registered two assists and a goal in his side's 4–1 home victory against league leaders Arsenal on 26 April, closing the gap between them and City in the table to just two points while the latter still had two games in hand. He would then score his 50th goal of the campaign across all competitions on 30 April against Fulham. His six goals and two assists during April saw him win the league's Player of the Month for a second time. On 3 May, in City's return fixture against West Ham, Haaland scored his 35th league goal of the campaign, surpassing Shearer and Andy Cole's joint record for the most goals scored in a single Premier League season. A week later, he was named FWA Footballer of the Year. He won by a record margin, earning 82% of the vote ahead of Arsenal's Bukayo Saka and Martin Ødegaard and becoming only the fourth player to claim the award in their debut season. He would also go on to be voted PFA Players' Player of the Year by his colleagues in August. Haaland won his first trophy with Manchester City after they clinched the 2022–23 Premier League title on 20 May. By assisting Phil Foden's goal in a draw against Brighton & Hove Albion on 24 May, he reached 44 combined league goals and assists, thereby equaling Thierry Henry's record for most total goal contributions in a 38-game Premier League season. Haaland's debut season in England earned him the Premier League Golden Boot, after finishing as the league's top goalscorer, and the European Golden Shoe, given to the top domestic scorer in Europe. With 36 goals in 35 appearances, he set the new record for highest number of goals scored in a Premier League season. Haaland played the entirety of City's FA Cup final victory over Manchester United on 3 June, securing his second title with the club. He then played another 90 minutes in the following week's Champions League final against Inter Milan. Despite Haaland struggling to have a large impact on the match, City would win 1–0 to earn a maiden Champions League title and achieve only the second-ever continental treble by an English side. With 12 goals, Haaland finished as the top scorer of the Champions League season for a second time, joining Lionel Messi as the only players to accomplish this feat twice before turning 23. Haaland would be subsequently named the UEFA Men's Player of the Year in August, ahead of Messi and Manchester City teammate Kevin De Bruyne. 2023–24: Second consecutive Premier League Golden Boot Manchester City began their 2023–24 Premier League season on 11 August 2023, with Haaland scoring a brace in a 3–0 away win against newly promoted team Burnley. Just days later, Haaland would win his first trophy of the season following City's victory over Europa League winners Sevilla in the UEFA Super Cup; although not scoring during the match, he did convert the first penalty in the shoot-out following the end of regulation. On 29 August, Haaland was named the PFA Players' Player of the Year, having earlier been included in the PFA Team of the Year for the Premier League. With his first three goals of the season, Haaland became the fastest player to reach 100 league goals in Europe's top 5 leagues, accomplishing the feat in just 103 appearances, surpassing the previous record of 100 goals in 133 appearances set by Ronaldo Nazário. After registering a seventh club hat-trick plus an assist against Fulham on 2 September, Haaland became the fastest ever player to achieve 50 Premier League goal involvements (goals plus assists); with just 39 appearances in the competition, he eclipsed Andy Cole's previous record by four matches. On 25 October, Haaland scored his first two Champions League goals of the season in a 3–1 win at Young Boys. On 29 October, he recorded two goals and one assist in a 3–0 derby win over Manchester United at Old Trafford. The following day, he was presented with the Gerd Müller Trophy at the 2023 Ballon d'Or awards ceremony, given to the player with the most goals scored for club and country across a single season. On 25 November, Haaland became the fastest player to score 50 Premier League goals in a 1–1 draw with Liverpool; with just 48 appearances, he comfortably beat the previous record of 65 matches by Andy Cole. After suffering a bone stress injury in his foot in early December, Haaland would miss nearly two months of action, including City's success at the 2023 FIFA Club World Cup, and would not return to the pitch until the end of January 2024. On 20 February 2024, Haaland scored the sole goal of a home win over Brentford, joining Harry Kane as the only players to have scored against every Premier League team they had faced. A week later, he netted five goals in a 6–2 victory against Luton Town in the FA Cup, marking the second time he achieved such a feat for the club and becoming the first player to do so twice. Additionally, he matched his club's record for most goals by an individual in an FA Cup match, a record previously held by Frank Roberts in 1926 and Bobby Marshall in 1930. Furthermore, Haaland's accomplishment marked the first instance of a player scoring five goals in the competition since George Best in 1970. On 4 May, Haaland scored four goals in a 5–1 win over Wolverhampton Wanderers, his first league hat-trick of the year and third of the season in all competitions. Haaland scored both goals in City's 2–0 vital win away to Tottenham Hotspur on 14 May, bringing his side back to the top of the Premier League table with one match remaining. Five days later, City would successfully defend their title following a 3–1 victory against West Ham. Haaland also secured a second consecutive Premier League Golden Boot, with 27 goals in 31 matches. However, he would be unable to retain the FA Cup, failing to score in City's 2–1 final rematch defeat to Manchester United on 25 May. 2024–25: Further goalscoring records After not having scored in City's opening 2024 Community Shield victory over Manchester United, but having successfully converted his penalty in the penalty shoot-out, he scored the club's first goal of the regular season in a 2–0 victory at Chelsea on his 100th appearance for City on 18 August 2024. On 25 August, Haaland netted his first hat-trick of the season with the help of a penalty in a 4–1 victory against newly promoted Ipswich Town, his seventh Premier League hat-trick. In the following match on 31 August against West Ham United, he secured another hat-trick in a 3–1 away victory, tying Harry Kane, the active player with the most Premier League hat-tricks, with eight. Haaland's hat-trick against West Ham also allowed Manchester City to surpass Liverpool as the club with the most hat-tricks in the Premier League. Haaland's seven goals after three games allowed him to break the record of six goals set by former Manchester City player Edin Džeko for the most goals after the first three Premier League games of the season and he was the first player to have two hat-tricks in the first three games of a season since Paul Jewell for Bradford City in the 1994–95 season. On 14 September, Haaland scored another two goals in a 2–1 victory over Brentford, helping him eclipse Wayne Rooney's eight goals for Manchester United in the first four matches of the 2011–12 season after only deciding to play the day before following the death of a close family friend. On 22 September, Haaland matched Cristiano Ronaldo's record of reaching 100 goals across all competitions for one club in 105 appearances in Europe's top five leagues when he scored the opening goal in a 2–2 draw against Arsenal. International career Youth Haaland plays for Norway, and has represented them at various age groups. On 27 March 2018, while with the Norway under-19 side, Haaland scored a hat-trick against Scotland in a 5–4 victory, helping his country secure qualification to the 2018 UEFA European Under-19 Championship. On 22 July 2018, Haaland scored a penalty against Italy in a 1–1 draw during the tournament finals. On 30 May 2019, Haaland scored nine goals in the Norway under-20 team's 12–0 win against Honduras at the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Lublin, Poland. This was Norway's biggest ever win at U-20 level, as well as Honduras' heaviest ever defeat. Haaland also set a new U-20 World Cup record for most goals scored by a single player in a match, with the result additionally being the biggest win by any team in the history of the tournament. Despite the Norwegians being eliminated in the group stage, and Haaland not scoring in any other matches at the tournament, he still won the Golden Boot as the competition's top scorer. Senior Born in Leeds, Haaland was eligible to play for England, but only wished to play for Norway according to coach Gareth Southgate. On 28 August 2019, Haaland was named by manager Lars Lagerbäck to the Norway senior team squad to face Malta and Sweden in UEFA Euro 2020 qualifying matches, debuting on 5 September 2019 against the former opponent. On 4 September 2020, Haaland scored his first senior international goal for Norway in a 1–2 loss against Austria in the 2020–21 UEFA Nations League B. Three days later, he scored a brace in a 5–1 victory against Northern Ireland. On 11 October, Haaland scored his first international hat-trick in Norway's 4–0 victory over Romania in a Nations League B match, bringing his tally for the senior team to six goals in six matches played. During the September 2021 international break, Haaland scored five goals in three World Cup qualification matches, including a second hat-trick for Norway in a 5–1 victory against Gibraltar. With six goals in League B between June and September 2022, he finished as the joint-top scorer of the 2022–23 UEFA Nations League. Haaland's brace in a Euro 2024 qualifier against Cyprus on 12 October 2023 brought his international tally to 27 goals in 27 appearances, surpassing Einar Gundersen as Norway's second-highest all-time top scorer. On 5 June 2024, Haaland scored a third hat-trick for his country in a 3–0 friendly win against Kosovo, bringing him within three goals of Norwegian top scorer Jørgen Juve. Player profile Style of play A prolific goalscorer and widely regarded as one of the best players in the world, Haaland has all the attributes of a complete centre-forward. He uses his sizeable frame to hold play up effectively and involve others. He has the pace and clever movement to run in behind, he can dribble and create, and he can finish with both feet and his head. He usually comes deep to collect the ball to help his team build play, often looking to spread the ball wide for a teammate, before turning and sprinting towards goal. He sometimes comes too deep for the defenders to follow him; as such he has the awareness to turn on the ball and create from a forward-facing position. In the penalty area he makes small, sharp movements to spot an opportunity for a teammate to attempt to find him in space, and can change the line on which he is running and accelerate into that space, making him extremely difficult for defenders to read. Haaland uses his body well when playing with his back to goal, protecting the ball effectively as he tries to bring it under control. He uses his strength to secure possession when under pressure and is also effective in providing his team's defenders with some respite following a clearance. His creativity is most apparent when he drifts into the left inside channel. His primary aim is always to get a shot off, but he also has the vision and skill to pick out a delayed run from midfield in the centre. His ability to carry the ball at pace also helps create for others, especially on the counter-attack. Even though he is less involved in possession than a typical striker, his calmness, patience, timing, and off-the-ball movement have a huge impact in build-up plays. Haaland idolises Zlatan Ibrahimović and Cristiano Ronaldo, but also cites Michu, Jamie Vardy, Sergio Agüero, and Robin van Persie as inspirations, and credits Virgil van Dijk and Sergio Ramos as two of the toughest defenders he has played against. Reception After his record breaking first season in England, Gary Neville proclaimed that Haaland is "truly unique" and that he has the skill and strength of Wayne Rooney and the talent and finishing of Harry Kane and Ronaldo Nazário. His manager at City, Pep Guardiola, opined that Haaland has the potential to get even better. In 2022, Jürgen Klopp labelled Haaland as the "best striker in the world" and stated that "physically he sets new standards, the combination of being really physical and technical and sensational awareness, his orientation on the pitch is exceptional, he knows always where the decisive gaps are, barely offside". In 2024, FIFPRO declared him to be "the deadliest striker in football today". Personal life Haaland is the son of the Norwegian former footballer Alfie Haaland and former women's heptathlon athlete Gry Marita Braut. In a 2017 interview with Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, Haaland said that "The dream is to win the Premier League with Leeds". His cousins Jonatan Braut Brunes and Albert Tjåland are also professional footballers. Haaland is a practitioner of meditation. In 2016, Haaland – along with his Norway under-17 teammates Erik Botheim and Erik Tobias Sandberg, under the group name Flow Kingz – released a single entitled "Kygo jo". The song has amassed over 12 million views on YouTube. Career statistics Club As of match played 5 October 2024 International As of match played 9 September 2024 As of match played 9 September 2024 Norway score listed first, score column indicates score after each Haaland goal Honours Red Bull Salzburg Austrian Bundesliga: 2018–19 Austrian Cup: 2018–19 Borussia Dortmund DFB-Pokal: 2020–21 Manchester City Premier League: 2022–23, 2023–24 FA Cup: 2022–23; runner-up: 2023–24 FA Community Shield: 2024 UEFA Champions League: 2022–23 UEFA Super Cup: 2023 Norway U17 Syrenka Cup: 2016 Individual European Golden Shoe: 2022–23 Eliteserien Breakthrough of the Year: 2018 ESPN Striker of the Year: 2022–23 Austrian Footballer of the Year: 2019 Austrian Bundesliga Player of the Season: 2019–20 FIFA U-20 World Cup Golden Boot: 2019 UEFA Champions League Breakthrough XI: 2019 Bundesliga Player of the Season: 2020–21 Bundesliga Player of the Month: January 2020, November 2020, April 2021, August 2021 Bundesliga Rookie of the Month: January 2020, February 2020 Bundesliga Goal of the Month: September 2021 Bundesliga Team of the Season: 2020–21, 2021–22 VDV Bundesliga Team of the Season: 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 kicker Bundesliga Team of the Season: 2020–21, 2021–22 FWA Footballer of the Year: 2022–23 Premier League Player of the Season: 2022–23 Premier League Young Player of the Season: 2022–23 Premier League Golden Boot: 2022–23, 2023–24 Premier League Player of the Month: August 2022, April 2023, August 2024 PFA Premier League Fans' Player of the Month: August 2022, September 2022, December 2022 ESM Team of the Year: 2019–20 2022–23 IFFHS Men's World Youth (U20) Team: 2020 Golden Boy: 2020 Golden Player Man Award: 2023 Gullballen: 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 Kniksen's honour award: 2020 Norwegian Sportsperson of the Year: 2020 UEFA Champions League Squad/Team of the Season: 2020–21, 2022–23 UEFA Champions League Forward of the Season: 2020–21 UEFA Champions League top scorer: 2020–21, 2022–23 UEFA Men's Player of the Year: 2022–23 UEFA Nations League top scorer: 2020–21, 2022–23 FIFA FIFPRO Men's World 11: 2021, 2022, 2023 IFFHS Men's World Team: 2022, 2023 Manchester City Player of the Season: 2022–23 PFA Team of the Year: 2022–23 Premier League, 2023–24 Premier League PFA Players' Player of the Year: 2022–23 Gerd Müller Trophy: 2023 Globe Soccer Best Player of the Year: 2023 The Guardian Best Footballer in the World: 2023 World Soccer Player of the Year: 2023 FourFourTwo Player of the Year: 2022, 2023 BBC Sports Personality World Sport Star of the Year: 2023 IFFHS World's Best Player: 2023 Onze d'Or: 2022–23 References External links Profile at the Manchester City F.C. website Erling Haaland at the Norwegian Football Federation (in Norwegian) Erling Haaland – UEFA competition record (archive)

André_Silva_(footballer,_born_1995)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/André_Silva_(footballer,_born_1995)

André Miguel Valente da Silva (European Portuguese: [ɐ̃ˈdɾɛ ˈsilvɐ]; born 6 November 1995) is a Portuguese professional footballer who plays as a striker for Bundesliga club RB Leipzig and the Portugal national team. An academy graduate of Porto, he impressed during his time with the reserve side before making his debut with the first team in 2015. He ultimately made 58 appearances for the club, scoring 24 goals before joining AC Milan in 2017. He went on to represent Sevilla and Eintracht Frankfurt on loan, signing a permanent contract with the latter in 2020. Following a club record-breaking campaign, in which he scored 28 times, he moved to RB Leipzig also in the Bundesliga for a reported fee of €23 million. Silva represented Portugal at various youth levels, and was part of the squad which came second at the 2014 European Under-19 Championship. His senior international debut followed two years later, and he featured at the 2017 Confederations Cup where his team came third, also being selected for two World Cups and Euro 2020. Club career Porto Reserves Silva was born in Baguim do Monte, a local parish in Gondomar, and started playing football with Porto-based Salgueiros after switching from swimming. He had a brief spell with neighbouring Boavista, but quickly returned to his previous club. Silva finished his youth career with Porto, having signed with the juniors in 2011 at the age of 15. On 12 August 2013, he made his professional debut, coming on as a 77th-minute substitute for Tozé as the B team won 3–2 away against Beira-Mar in the Segunda Liga. Silva finished his second season with 34 games and seven goals, helping Porto B to the 13th position in the second tier. Highlights included a brace on 4 January 2015, for a 3–0 home victory over Vitória de Guimarães B. First team Silva made his competitive debut for the first team on 29 December 2015, playing the full 90 minutes in a 1–3 home loss against Marítimo in the Taça da Liga. His maiden appearance in the Primeira Liga occurred four days later, as he replaced Vincent Aboubakar for the last 20 minutes of the 2–0 defeat at Sporting CP. Silva started the 2015–16 campaign as fourth-choice striker behind Aboubakar and Dani Osvaldo, and his plight worsened in January 2016 with the acquisition of Suk Hyun-jun and Moussa Marega. However, after José Peseiro replaced Julen Lopetegui as manager, he received more opportunities, and scored his first league goal in a 4–0 home win over Boavista in the last match. He also started in the final of the Taça de Portugal on 22 May, helping his team recover from a 0–2 deficit against Braga with a brace, which included a bicycle kick in the last-minute (eventual 4–2 loss on penalties). Silva began 2016–17 in good form, with goals in his first two league games against Rio Ave and Estoril, while also scoring in Porto's 1–1 draw at home to Roma in the UEFA Champions League play-off round. On 21 August 2016 he signed a new five-year contract, which included a release clause of €60 million. Milan On 12 June 2017, Silva moved to AC Milan on a five-year contract for a fee of €38 million with the additional €2 million depending on objectives. Upon signing, he told the press: "I'm very happy to have joined such a prestigious club with such a great history." He was given the number 9 shirt, previously worn by Gianluca Lapadula. Silva made his debut for the Italian club on 27 July, playing 24 minutes in the 1–0 win against Universitatea Craiova in the third qualifying round of the UEFA Europa League. On 17 August, for the same competition but in the play-off round, he contributed two goals and one assist to a 6–0 home rout of Shkëndija. On 14 September, already in the group stage, he scored a hat-trick to help the visitors defeat Austria Wien 5–1; in the process, he became the first player to achieve the feat for Milan in Europe since Kaká in 2006, and he was included in UEFA's Europa League Team of the Week due to his performance. He scored his maiden goal in the Serie A on 11 March 2018, from a last-minute header in the 1–0 away win over Genoa. On 11 August 2018, Silva joined Spanish club Sevilla on a season-long loan with the option to purchase for €35 million. He made his debut the following day, coming on for Luis Muriel at the hour mark of an eventual 2–1 loss against Barcelona in the Supercopa de España. He scored a hat-trick in his first La Liga match on 19 August in a 4–1 victory at Rayo Vallecano, equalling the feat of Romário who achieved this in 1993, and also scored a brace in a 3–0 home defeat of Real Madrid on 26 September. On 25 November 2018, Silva scored the only goal in a win over Real Valladolid as Sevilla temporarily led the table. His performances declined over the course of the campaign, leading the Andalusians to not sign him on a permanent basis. Eintracht Frankfurt On 2 September 2019, Silva moved to Eintracht Frankfurt on a two-year loan deal, with Ante Rebić heading in the opposite direction. He made his Bundesliga debut 12 days later, playing the entire 2–1 defeat at Augsburg and partnering compatriot and former Porto teammate Gonçalo Paciência up front. He scored his first goal in the competition on 22 September, netting the first in a 2–2 home draw against Borussia Dortmund. With the restart of the German league following the COVID-19 pandemic, Silva scored eight goals in ten games for a total of 12 in the campaign. This surpassed by one goal the record for top-scoring Portuguese in a German top-flight season, by Werder Bremen's Hugo Almeida. On 10 September 2020, Silva signed a permanent three-year contract. He was Player of the Month for the following January, with seven goals from six games including three braces. With 28 goals, he bettered Bernd Hölzenbein's 44-year-old club record for goals in a top-flight campaign by one; only Bayern Munich's Robert Lewandowski scored more over the season. RB Leipzig Silva joined RB Leipzig on 2 July 2021, on a five-year contract for a fee of €23 million. On 20 August, he scored his first goal in a 4–0 win over VfB Stuttgart. His first in the Champions League came on 19 October, in a 3–2 away loss against Paris Saint-Germain in the group stage. He added two in six appearances in their victorious run in the DFB-Pokal. On 2 August 2023, Silva moved to Spanish top-tier club Real Sociedad on a season-long loan with an option to buy. He made his debut on 30 September, as a 60th-minute substitute in the 3–0 home win over Athletic Bilbao. International career Youth Silva represented Portugal at every youth level. He participated with the under-20 team at the 2015 FIFA World Cup, scoring four goals in the group stage as the nation reached the quarter-finals. Previously, at the 2014 UEFA European Under-19 Championship, he became the first player ever to net four times in a single match (6–1 group stage defeat of Hungary), in an eventual runner-up finish for the under-19s. On 8 September 2015, in his first appearance with the under-21 side, Silva scored a hat-trick in 19 minutes (both halves combined), contributing to a 6–1 win against Albania for the 2017 European Under-21 Championship qualifiers. Senior Silva was called up for the first time to the senior team by head coach Fernando Santos on 26 August 2016, playing the second half of a 5–0 friendly victory over Gibraltar in Porto on 1 September. He scored his first goal with Portugal's main squad on 7 October, featuring the entire 6–0 defeat of Andorra for the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers. Three days later, for the same competition, he netted three times in the first half of an eventual 6–0 thrashing of the Faroe Islands. Silva was selected for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup, making his tournament debut when he replaced Ricardo Quaresma for the last eight minutes of the 2–2 group stage draw with Mexico. He scored his first goal in the competition on 24 June, playing the full 90 minutes in the 4–0 win against New Zealand. In the third-place play-off, in which his team eventually defeated Mexico 2–1 after extra time, he had his early penalty saved by Guillermo Ochoa. In May 2018, Silva was named in Portugal's final squad for the FIFA World Cup, also to be held in Russia. Late into that month, he scored the 1000th goal in the national team's history during the first half of a friendly with Tunisia in Braga. He made his debut in the competition on 15 June, replacing Gonçalo Guedes in the 80th minute of the 3–3 group stage draw against Spain. Silva was selected for the delayed UEFA Euro 2020 tournament on 20 May 2021, replacing Diogo Jota in the 70th minute of a 1–0 loss to Belgium in the round of 16. In November 2022, he made the final squad for the World Cup in Qatar. His only appearance in an eventual quarter-final exit consisted of 30 minutes of the 2–1 defeat against South Korea in the group stage. Career statistics Club As of match played 2 October 2024 International As of match played 2 December 2022 As of match played 9 October 2021. Scores and results list Portugal's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Silva goal. Honours Porto B LigaPro: 2015–16 RB Leipzig DFB-Pokal: 2021–22, 2022–23 Portugal UEFA Nations League: 2018–19 FIFA Confederations Cup third place: 2017 Individual SJPF Segunda Liga Player of the Month: August/September 2015, December 2015 Segunda Liga Player of the Year: 2015–16 Segunda Liga Breakthrough Player of the Year: 2015–16 UEFA Champions League Breakthrough XI: 2016 Bundesliga Goal of the Month: June 2020 Bundesliga Player of the Month: January 2021 Bundesliga Team of the Season: 2020–21 Kicker Bundesliga Team of the Season: 2020–21 References External links André Silva at ForaDeJogo (archived) André Silva at fussballdaten.de (in German) André Silva national team profile at the Portuguese Football Federation (in Portuguese) André Silva at National-Football-Teams.com André Silva – FIFA competition record (archived)

Robert_Lewandowski

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lewandowski

Robert Lewandowski (Polish pronunciation: [ˈrɔbɛrt lɛvanˈdɔfskʲi] ; born 21 August 1988) is a Polish professional footballer who plays as a striker for La Liga club Barcelona and captains the Poland national team. He is regarded as one of the best players of his generation and as one of the best strikers of all time. He is one of the most successful players in Bundesliga and Bayern Munich history. He has scored over 600 senior career goals for club and country. After being the top scorer in the third and second tiers of Polish football with Znicz Pruszków, Lewandowski moved to top-flight Lech Poznań, helping the team win the 2009–10 Ekstraklasa. In 2010, he transferred to Borussia Dortmund, where he won honors including two consecutive Bundesliga titles and the league's top goalscorer award. In 2013, he also featured with Dortmund in the 2013 UEFA Champions League final. Prior to the start of the 2014–15 season, Lewandowski agreed to join Dortmund's domestic rivals, Bayern Munich, on a free transfer. In Munich, he won the Bundesliga title in every one of his eight seasons. Lewandowski was integral in Bayern's UEFA Champions League win in 2019–20 as part of a treble. He is one of only two players, alongside Johan Cruyff, to achieve the European treble while being the highest goalscorer in all three competitions, and the first to do it as the sole top scorer. Lewandowski is also one of only two players to be top goalscorer for club and country in Europe for three consecutive years (2019–21), alongside Cristiano Ronaldo. He was widely considered the best player of 2020 and deserving of the Ballon d'Or, until it was canceled. In 2022, he was signed by Barcelona, where he won the Supercopa de España, the La Liga title and the Pichichi Trophy in his debut season. He holds the joint-record for most top scorer awards in Europe's top five leagues with eight, alongside Lionel Messi, and the joint-record for the most consecutive with six, alongside Kylian Mbappé. A full international for Poland since 2008, Lewandowski has earned over 150 caps, and was a member of their team at the UEFA European Championship in 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024, and the FIFA World Cup in 2018 and 2022. With 84 international goals, Lewandowski is the all-time top scorer for Poland and the fourth overall men's international goalscorer in Europe, only behind Cristiano Ronaldo (132), Romelu Lukaku (85) and Ferenc Puskás (84). He won IFFHS World's Best International Goal Scorer Award in 2015 and 2021, IFFHS World's Best Top Goal Scorer Award in 2020 and 2021, and IFFHS World's Best Top Division Goal Scorer Award in 2021. He also won the IFFHS World's Best Player in 2020 and 2021 and the European Golden Shoe for the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons. Lewandowski has been named the Polish Footballer of the Year a record eleven times and the Polish Sports Personality of the Year three times. Moreover, he has won the Gerd Müller Trophy twice, in 2021 and 2022. In 2020, Lewandowski won the Best FIFA Men's Player Award (retained in 2021) and the UEFA Men's Player of the Year Award. He has been named to the UEFA Team of the Year twice. He is the third-highest goalscorer in the history of the Champions League. Lewandowski has been named the VDV Bundesliga Player of the Season a record five times. He has scored over 300 goals in the Bundesliga (second-highest goalscorer of all time in Bundesliga, only behind Gerd Müller's 365 Bundesliga goals), having reached the century mark quicker than any other foreign player, and is the league's all-time leading foreign goalscorer. In 2015, while playing for Bayern, he scored five goals in less than nine minutes against VfL Wolfsburg, the fastest by any player in Bundesliga history as well as any major European football league for which he was awarded four Guinness World Records. Moreover, he has won the Bundesliga Top Scorer Award in a joint-record seven seasons, alongside Gerd Müller, five of which were won consecutively, another record. He most prominently won it in the 2020–21 Bundesliga where he scored 41 goals in a single campaign, breaking Gerd Müller's previous Bundesliga record of 40 goals, set in 1971–72. He also holds the record for most consecutive UEFA Champions League match wins, with 22. On 30 November 2021, he finished second in the Ballon d'Or, 33 points behind the winner Lionel Messi. Club career Early career Lewandowski was born in Warsaw and grew up in Leszno, Warsaw West County. He took his first steps in football as an unregistered player for the local club, Partyzant Leszno. In 1997, he joined MKS Varsovia Warsaw, where as a teen he played for seven years. The following year he moved to fourth tier side Delta Warsaw, where he finally managed to play in the first team, scoring four goals at the end of the season. In 2006–07, Lewandowski was the Polish third division's top goalscorer with 15 goals, helping Znicz Pruszków win the promotion. The next season, he was the top scorer in the Polish second highest division with 21 goals. Lech Poznań In June 2008, Lech Poznań signed Lewandowski from Znicz for 1.5 million PLN. Earlier that month, Lewandowski's agent Cezary Kucharski offered him to his former team Sporting Gijón, which had been promoted to the La Liga, Spain's first division, after ten years in the Segunda División. However, Gijón rejected him. He debuted for Lech on 17 July 2008 as a substitute in the first qualifying first leg match of the UEFA Cup versus Khazar Lankaran from Azerbaijan, in which he scored the only goal of the evening in the 75th minute at the Tofiq Bahramov Republican Stadium. During his Ekstraklasa debut in the first game of the season, in a match against GKS Bełchatów, he scored a heel flick goal just four minutes after coming into the game late second half. In his first season in the Polish top division, he was second in the goal-scoring charts. Lewandowski finished the season with 18 goals in 42 matches. He also scored in a 1–1 away draw against Wisła Kraków in the 2009 Polish Super Cup on 27 July, and converted his attempt in the won penalty shoot-out. The next season, he became the top scorer with 18 goals and helped his team win the 2009–10 championship. English coach, Sam Allardyce, said that Lewandowski was about to join Premier League club Blackburn Rovers in 2010, but the volcanic ash clouds caused by the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull which suspended all flights in and out of the UK, in addition to other financial worries, prevented the potential transfer. Moreover, Lewandowski was also about to join Italian club Genoa, before president Enrico Preziosi decided to cancel the transfer. Borussia Dortmund 2010–2012: League and cup double Following press speculation that Lewandowski might move to one of a number of clubs, he joined Bundesliga club Borussia Dortmund in June 2010, signing a four-year contract with the German club for a fee reported to be worth around €4.5 million. On 19 September, he scored his first goal in the Bundesliga to make it 3–0 in the Revierderby against Schalke 04; the game ended 3–1. In the 2011–12 Bundesliga campaign, Lewandowski profited from an injury to Lucas Barrios and he was elevated to an ever-present position in the starting XI until the winter break. The striker responded by finding the net two times in Dortmund's 3–0 DFB-Pokal first round victory over Sandhausen. Lewandowski opened his league account in a 2–0 win over Nürnberg on 20 August 2011 by providing the finishing touch from a Mario Götze cross. On 1 October, Lewandowski netted a hat-trick and provided an assist in the club's 4–0 victory over Augsburg, following a disappointing 0–3 loss to Marseille in the UEFA Champions League group stage. He later scored his first Champions League goal in a 1–3 away defeat to Olympiacos on 19 October. Dortmund climbed into second place in the Bundesliga with a comfortable 5–0 victory over Köln on 22 October, with Lewandowski finding the net either side of half-time. Dortmund travelled to Freiburg on 17 December and Lewandowski struck twice and provided an assist for Kevin Großkreutz, as Dortmund eased to a 4–1 triumph, scoring his first hat-trick in Bundesliga. Due to his strong performances, he was named Footballer of the Year in Poland. Following the winter break, on 22 January 2012, Dortmund thrashed Hamburg 5–1 to move level on points with leaders Bayern Munich; Lewandowski netted twice and added an assist for Jakub Błaszczykowski in the rout. He scored in a 1–0 home win over Bayern Munich on 11 April. The result gave Dortmund a six-point cushion over their title rivals with only four games left to play. On 21 April, Lewandowski provided the assist for Shinji Kagawa's 59th-minute goal as Dortmund won 2–0 over Borussia Mönchengladbach to seal their second straight title. In the final Bundesliga game of the campaign, Lewandowski scored two first-half goals as Dortmund beat Freiburg 4–0 and celebrated lifting the title. Lewandowski finished the year as the third top goal scorer with 22 goals, none from the penalty spot, and six assists. On 12 May, in the final game of the season for Dortmund, he scored a hat-trick in the DFB-Pokal Final, a 5–2 win over Bayern Munich, to earn the club its first domestic double. Lewandowski finished as the DFB-Pokal's top goalscorer, with seven goals from six games. 2012–2014: Champions League runner-up and league top goalscorer On 12 August 2012, Lewandowski began the 2012–13 season by scoring in the 1–2 2012 DFL-Supercup defeat to Bayern Munich. He made his first appearance of the 2012–13 Bundesliga campaign in Dortmund's 2–1 victory over Werder Bremen on the opening day of the season. He netted his first goal in a 3–0 victory over Bayer Leverkusen on 15 September 2012, extending Dortmund's run to 31 games unbeaten and moved the club into third in the Bundesliga. Three days later, in the club's first Champions League game of the season, Lewandowski scored an 87th-minute winner to defeat Ajax, 1–0. He set club's new record of the longest scoring streak, having scored in 12 consecutive league games, surpassing Friedhelm Konietzka's record from 1964–65 season. On 9 February 2013, he opened the scoring in a home match against Hamburg, but was sent off in the 31st minute for a foul on Per Ciljan Skjelbred and Dortmund lost 4–1. According to Borussia Dortmund director Michael Zorc, speaking in February 2013, Lewandowski would not be renewing his contract with the club, and would leave either in the summer of 2013 or after the 2013–14 season. He finished season with 24 league goals, one goal short of the Bundesliga's top scorer, Bayer Leverkusen's Stefan Kießling. On 27 February 2013, Lewandowski played in his side's 1–0 defeat to Bayern Munich in the 2012–13 DFB-Pokal quarter final. On 24 April, Lewandowski became the first player to score four goals in a Champions League semi-final as Borussia Dortmund defeated Spanish champions Real Madrid 4–1 in the first leg at Dortmund's Signal Iduna Park. On 25 May, he played in the 2013 UEFA Champions League Final in which Borussia Dortmund were defeated 1–2 by Bayern Munich. On 27 July 2013, Lewandowski won the 2013 DFL-Supercup with Dortmund, 4–2, against Bayern Munich. He scored his first goal of the season in Dortmund's 4–0 win over Augsburg in the club's opening Bundesliga match on 10 August. On 1 November, he scored his only hat-trick of the season in a 6–1 Bundesliga win against Stuttgart. On 25 February 2014, Lewandowski scored twice in the Champions League round of 16 first leg against Zenit Saint Petersburg, becoming Dortmund's overall top scorer in European competition, surpassing Stéphane Chapuisat's 16 goals. He scored his 100th goal for the club on his 182nd appearance, as Dortmund defeated VfL Wolfsburg 2–0 in the semi-finals of the 2013–14 DFB-Pokal on 16 April, and revealed a shirt with the number 100 during celebration. Lewandowski ended the 2013–14 season as the top goalscorer in the Bundesliga with 20 goals, which earned him the Torjägerkanone. He also scored six goals in the Champions League, as Dortmund reached the quarter-finals. During the second leg of the round of 16 match between Borussia Dortmund and Zenit, Lewandowski received a second yellow card, which resulted in his suspension for the first leg of the quarter-final against Real Madrid. Lewandowski played his final match for Dortmund in the 2014 DFB-Pokal Final against Bayern Munich on 17 May. Head coach Jürgen Klopp had excused him from some training ahead of the final due to injury concerns; although Lewandowski played all 120 minutes of the final, Dortmund lost, 0–2. He finished the season with 28 goals in 48 matches. Bayern Munich In November 2013, Lewandowski confirmed he would sign a pre-contractual agreement for Borussia Dortmund's rivals Bayern Munich, which officially happened on 3 January 2014, when he signed a five-year contract beginning at the start of the 2014–15 season. Lewandowski was officially presented as a Bayern Munich player on 9 July 2014. 2014–2015: Third Bundesliga title Pre-season started on 9 July 2014 at which time he was presented. He made his pre–season debut against MSV Duisburg on 21 July, scoring a goal in the process. On 6 August, he opened the scoring as Bayern contested the 2014 MLS All-Star Game at the Providence Park in Portland, Oregon, eventually losing 1–2. He made his competitive debut for his new club in a 0–2 loss to Borussia Dortmund in the 2014 DFL-Supercup on 13 August 2014, and scored his first goal in a 1–1 draw against Schalke 04 in his second league match on 30 August. On 21 October, Lewandowski scored his first Champions League goal for Bayern Munich in a 7–1 away win against Roma. On 1 November, in his first league match against Dortmund, Lewandowski scored in a 2–1 win which put Bayern four points clear at the top of the table while leaving his former club in a relegation play-off place. In his third match of the season against Dortmund on 4 April 2015, Lewandowski scored in the 36th minute in a 1–0 win, after Dortmund's goalkeeper Roman Weidenfeller "parried" Thomas Müller's shot. On 21 February 2015, Lewandowski scored twice in Bayern's 6–0 win away at Paderborn, his second goal of the game was his 10th of the league season. He scored twice in the first half on 21 April as Bayern overturned a deficit from the first leg to defeat Porto 7–4 on aggregate and advance to the semi-finals of the Champions League. Five days later, after VfL Wolfsburg lost to Borussia Mönchengladbach, Bayern won the Bundesliga title. He scored again on 28 April, opening a 1–1 draw in the DFB-Pokal semi-final against Dortmund, but was later involved in a mid-air collision with Mitchell Langerak in the 116th minute of extra time. The game ended in Bayern's elimination via a penalty shoot-out (0–2), and, unusually, none of the four attempts were converted by the Munich side, at their own stadium. Although Lewandowski stayed until the end of the match, he didn't participate in the shootout; and tests later confirmed that he had fractured jaw and nose bone, and had a concussion, ruling him out for approximately one week. On 12 May, playing in a protective mask, he curled in at the 59th minute in his team's 3–2 home victory against eventual winners Barcelona in the Champions League semifinal second leg, albeit they were eliminated by an aggregate score of 3–5. With 17 goals in 31 games, Lewandowski was joint-second highest scorer of the Bundesliga season alongside teammate Arjen Robben, behind Eintracht Frankfurt's Alexander Meier. He finished the season with 25 goals in 49 appearances. 2015–2017: Domestic success, Torjägerkanone, and 100 Bayern goals Lewandowski's second season began with the 2015 DFL-Supercup on 1 August, with Bayern losing in a penalty shootout away to VfL Wolfsburg; he had been substituted in the 72nd minute for Rafinha. Eight days later in the DFB-Pokal first round match, he scored the last goal in a 3–1 win against Oberliga Baden-Württemberg club Nöttingen. On 14 August, in the opening match of the new Bundesliga season, he scored the second goal of a 5–0 win over Hamburg. On 22 September 2015, Lewandowski set a Bundesliga record by coming on as a substitute with Bayern trailing 0–1 to Wolfsburg and scoring five goals in 8 minutes and 59 seconds, the fastest by any player in Bundesliga history, to take a 5–1 lead. He also set Bundesliga records for the fastest hat-trick (three goals in four minutes), and most goals scored by a substitute (five). Lewandowski's five goals in nine minutes was also the fastest in any major European football league since Opta began keeping records, and it ended Wolfsburg's 14-match unbeaten run. He was awarded four certificates by Guinness World Records for this feat. Four days later, he scored twice in a 3–0 win at Mainz, the first goal being his 100th Bundesliga goal on his 168th appearance, a league record for a foreign player. He also reached 10 goals in the opening 7 matches with this brace, a feat only achieved before by Gerd Müller. On 29 September, he scored a Champions League hat-trick in a 5–0 win over Dinamo Zagreb, putting him on ten goals in three games in a week. He added two in a 5–1 rout of Dortmund five days later, to total 12 goals in his last four appearances. On 24 October, Lewandowski scored in a 4–0 home win over Köln, a result which made Bayern the first Bundesliga team ever to win all 10 of their opening games of a season. The victory in Cologne was also Bayern's 1,000th win in the Bundesliga. On 11 January 2016, he achieved fourth place at the 2015 FIFA Ballon d'Or awards. On 19 March 2016, Lewandowski scored the only goal in a 1–0 win against Köln to bring his league total up to 25 goals; a new personal best. He had scored 24 goals for Borussia Dortmund during the 2012–13 season. He also started Bayern's comeback with a 73rd-minute header in the second leg of the round of 16 on 16 March, after trailing 0–2 home to Juventus, which Munich eventually won 4–2 after extra time, and 6–4 on aggregate. His goal against Atlético Madrid on 3 May in the second leg of Bayern's Champions League semifinal exit saw him end the season's competition with nine goals. On 7 May 2016, Lewandowski scored both goals for Bayern in a 2–1 win at Ingolstadt to confirm the Bavarian club as champions of Germany for the fourth consecutive season. A week later, he scored his 30th goal of the season in Bayern's final league match of the season at home to Hannover 96. This made him the first foreign player to score 30 goals in the Bundesliga, the first player since Dieter Müller in 1976–77, and secured him the Torjägerkanone for the second time in three seasons. He finished the season with 42 goals in 51 matches. The 2016–17 season started with Bayern winning the 2016 DFL-Supercup on 14 August. Five days later, Bayern defeated Carl Zeiss Jena 5–0 in the DFB-Pokal first round, with the help of Lewandowski's hat-trick during the first half and assist to Arturo Vidal in the 72nd minute. He opened the 2016–17 Bundesliga season with another hat-trick in a 6–0 victory against Werder Bremen. On 13 December, Lewandowski signed a new contract with Bayern, keeping him at the club until 2021. On 11 March 2017, Lewandowski reached 100 goals for Bayern in his 137th appearance for the club, scoring twice in a 3–0 victory against Eintracht Frankfurt in the Bundesliga. He finished the season with 42 goals in 47 matches. 2017–2019: Consecutive Golden Boots and all-time foreign Bundesliga goalscorer The season began with Bayern Munich winning the 2017 DFL-Supercup against Borussia Dortmund, in which Lewandowski scored the opening goal for the Bavarians by controlling a low cross from Joshua Kimmich to cancel out Christian Pulisic's opener. The match ended 2–2 after extra time. Lewandowski, again, scored the first penalty of the shootout as Bayern eventually won 5–4. Lewandowski started from where he left in the last season and once again was the top scorer in the early stages of the 2017–18 Bundesliga. On 13 December, in the league fixture against Köln, he scored the only goal of the game, to reach Bundesliga's top ten goalscorers of all time. A couple of months later, on Matchday 22, Lewandowski again found the back of the net against Schalke 04 at the Allianz Arena to equal the record of scoring in 11 successive home games in a single season, a record also held by then Bayern manager Jupp Heynckes. He continued his goal scoring form by netting a hat-trick against Hamburg as the runaway leaders won 6–0, while he also missed a kick from the spot which would have been his fourth goal of the day. This was his first penalty missed for Bayern in the Bundesliga, nevertheless he scored the second spot kick to complete his hat-trick. On 11 February 2018, he was voted Poland's Footballer of the Year for the seventh time in a row. On 22 February, he fired his long-time agent, Cezary Kucharski. Lewandowski hired renowned dealmaker Pini Zahavi as his new agent; the hiring of Zahavi was rumoured to be the start of Lewandowski trying to seal a summer move to Real Madrid. On 24 February, he played his 250th Bundesliga game against Hertha Berlin. On 19 May, Lewandowski scored Bayern's only goal in a 3–1 defeat in the DFB-Pokal Final against Eintracht Frankfurt. Lewandowski finished the league as the Bundesliga's top goalscorer with 29 goals. This was the third time he won the Torjägerkanone award. He finished the season with 41 goals in 48 matches in all competitions. On 1 August, after a summer of transfer speculation, Bayern CEO Karl-Heinz Rummenigge, confirmed in an interview that Lewandowski would not be allowed to leave Bayern at any price, saying "the top quality we have at Bayern Munich will stay here. With Robert, we clearly want to send a signal to people within and outside the club: Bayern Munich are completely different to other clubs who get weak when certain sums are mentioned" On 12 August, Lewandowski recorded the first ever hat-trick in the DFL-Supercup in a 0–5 away victory against Eintracht Frankfurt in the 2018 edition as Bayern Munich went on to win the title for the record seventh time. He also became the all-time top scorer in the German Supercup history. On 27 November, Lewandowski became the third-fastest player to score 50 goals (after Lionel Messi and Ruud van Nistelrooy) in the Champions League, when he scored two goals in a 5–1 group stage home win over Benfica. It took Lewandowski just 77 Champions League matches to reach the milestone. He finished as the top scorer in the Champions League group stage with eight goals in six matches. On 9 February 2019, Lewandowski scored in a 3–1 win over Schalke 04 and became the first player to score 100 competitive goals at the Allianz Arena. His goal was also his 119th league goal for Bayern Munich, which saw him draw level with Roland Wohlfarth as the club's third-highest goalscorer of all-time. He surpassed Wohlfarth the following month after scoring a brace in a 5–1 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach, with his second goal also seeing him equal Claudio Pizarro's record of 195 league goals for the most Bundesliga goals by a foreign player. In his very next fixture, he broke Pizarro's record by scoring twice in a 6–0 win over Wolfsburg. On 6 April, in the 100th Bundesliga meeting between Bayern Munich and Dortmund, Lewandowski scored twice in a 5–0 win, with his first goal taking him to 200 goals in the league. Lewandowski ended the league campaign as the Bundesliga's top goalscorer with 22 goals for the fourth time. On 25 May, he scored a brace as Bayern won against Leipzig 3–0 in the 2019 DFB-Pokal Final. With his goals, he became the all-time top scorer in the DFB-Pokal finals with six, surpassing Gerd Müller on five. Lewandowski finished the season with 40 goals in 47 matches in all competitions, reaching the 40-goal landmark for the fourth consecutive season, also winning his second domestic double with Bayern. 2019–2020: Treble, Best FIFA Men's Player, and UEFA Men's Player of the Year On 12 August, Lewandowski scored his first goal of the season when Bayern defeated Energie Cottbus 3–1 in the first round of the DFB-Pokal. Four days later, he scored two goals in the 2019–20 Bundesliga opener against Hertha BSC. With his goals, Lewandowski set a Bundesliga record for scoring a goal in the season opener for the fifth year in a row. He then scored a hat-trick against Schalke at the Veltins Arena on 24 August, as the Reds won 3–0. On 29 August, Lewandowski extended his contract at Bayern until 2023. Lewandowski scored his 200th goal for Bayern in a 3–0 win against Serbian club Red Star Belgrade in the Champions League on 18 September. Later that month, after scoring his tenth goal of the campaign during a 3–2 win over Paderborn, he became the first player in Bundesliga history to achieve double figures for goals scored after the first six match rounds. Lewandowski then became the first player in Bundesliga history to score in each of the opening nine, ten and eleven matches of a season, surpassing the record of eight set by former Borussia Dortmund striker Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. On 26 November, Lewandowski scored 4 goals in under 15 minutes as Bayern defeated Red Star Belgrade 6–0 in their reverse fixture and clinched first place in their Champions League group, setting a new record for fastest time to score four goals in a Champions League match. He also became only the second player ever to score four goals in multiple Champions League matches. On 25 February 2020, Lewandowski equalled Cristiano Ronaldo's record of nine away goals in a season in Europe's top club competition. He did so by scoring a goal in a 3–0 win against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge (he also assisted Serge Gnabry twice in that match). On 10 August, Lewandowski scored a brace and provided two assists in a 4–1 win over Chelsea in the return leg. On 14 August, he assisted and scored in Bayern's 8–2 decimation of Barcelona in the quarter-finals. Lewandowski scored another goal, to be 15 goals in total, in his ninth consecutive Champions League match in Bavarian's semifinal 3–0 win against Lyon. His European scoring streak ended when he failed to score a goal in the Champions League final match against Paris Saint-Germain on 23 August; nevertheless, Bayern defeated PSG 1–0, giving Lewandowski his first Champions League title. He also became the second player ever to win the European treble while being the top scorer in all three competitions, repeating Johan Cruyff's achievement with Ajax from the 1971–72 season. However, Lewandowski was the first to do so as the sole top scorer in all three competitions. 2020–2021: Ballon d'Or Striker of the Year and European Golden Shoe On 18 September, in an 8–0 win over Schalke 04, in which Lewandowski scored a penalty, he provided a rabona assist to Thomas Müller, which was praised as the best of the season. On 24 September, Lewandowski assisted Leon Goretzka's opener in 2–1 victory over 2019–20 UEFA Europa League winners Sevilla in the 2020 UEFA Super Cup in Budapest. 6 days later, he played in Bayern's 3–2 win over Borussia Dortmund in the 2020 DFL-Supercup, to win their fifth trophy of the year. On 4 October, he scored all four goals in a 4–3 win against Hertha BSC. On 24 October, he scored a hat-trick in a 5–0 win against Eintracht Frankfurt, to become the first player in Bundesliga to score ten goals in only five matches. On 16 December, he scored a brace against Wolfsburg to be the third player to pass the 250-goal mark in Bundesliga, after Gerd Müller and Klaus Fischer. After winning the treble with Bayern Munich and his performances in the tournaments, he was named The Best FIFA Men's Player 2020 on 17 December, becoming the first Polish player to win the award. The cancellation of the 2020 Ballon d'Or was met with extensive criticism, as most news and sports organisations believed Lewandowski was the front-runner and should have won the award. On 17 January 2021, Lewandowski became the first player in Bundesliga history to score 21 goals after just 16 games – a new Hinrunde record, beating Gerd Müller's 20 goals during the 1968–69 season. On 8 February, he scored a brace in a 2–0 win over Al Ahly in the 2020 FIFA Club World Cup semi-finals. On 11 February, he won the FIFA Club World Cup 2020 with the club after 1–0 win against Mexican top-flight club Tigres in the final, as Bayern became the second club ever (after Barcelona in 2009) to win the sextuple. He was also involved in Benjamin Pavard's winning goal, and was named player of the tournament. On 23 February, Lewandowski opened the score in a 4–1 win against Lazio in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16, reaching his 72nd Champions League goal and surpassing Raúl as the third highest goalscorer in the competition's history. On 6 March, he scored his 12th Bundesliga hat-trick in a 4–2 win over his former club Borussia Dortmund, to reach 31 goals in 23 matches. On 13 March, he scored a goal in a 3–1 away win over Werder Bremen, hence he became the joint-second on the all-time Bundesliga scoring list with 268 goals along with Klaus Fischer. On 20 March, he surpassed Fischer, as he scored a perfect hat-trick in the first half of a 4–0 win over VfB Stuttgart. On 28 March, Lewandoski scored two goals in a 3–0 home win against Andorra in a World Cup qualification match, and also damaged ligaments in his right knee (he was taken off after 63 minutes); he missed both Champions League quarter-final matches against Paris Saint-Germain, in which Bayern Munich lost on away goals rule after a 3–3 draw on aggregate. On 24 April, he returned after almost a month on the sidelines in a 1–2 defeat to Mainz, where he scored in added time. On 8 May, he scored his 14th Bundesliga hat-trick in a 6–0 win over Borussia Mönchengladbach. On 22 May, he broke Gerd Müller's record of 40 goals in the 1971–72 season with a 90th-minute goal in Bayern's 5–2 win over Augsburg to reach his 41st goal on the final day of the season. He also managed to win his first European Golden Shoe award. Lewandowski finished the season with 48 goals in 40 matches in all competitions, reaching at least the 40-goal landmark for the sixth time. 2021–2022: Final season with Bayern and second European Golden Shoe Lewandowski kicked off his 2021–22 Bundesliga season with a volley-shot equaliser in a 1–1 opening fixture draw against Borussia Mönchengladbach on 13 August, making him the first player to score in seven consecutive Bundesliga opening games. He also scored a brace and backheeled to Thomas Müller in a 3–1 away win against Dortmund in the 2021 DFL-Supercup on 17 August. The match was preceded by a moment of silence for Gerd Müller, who died two days earlier. On 28 August, he scored his 15th Bundesliga hat-trick in a 5–0 win over Hertha Berlin, setting a new club and German record for the most consecutive appearances in all competitions with a goal at 16, surpassing the previous record of 15 held by Gerd Müller from 1969 to 1970. In addition, he managed to reach more than 300 goals with Bayern Munich in all competitions. On 18 September, Lewandowski scored in his 13th consecutive Bundesliga home match against VfL Bochum, surpassing the previous league record of 12 held by Gerd Müller (October 1969 to April 1970) and Jupp Heynckes (June 1972 to February 1973). He ended the streak for most consecutive appearances in all competitions with a goal at 19, the new all-time German record. On 21 November, Lewandowski scored a hat-trick against Benfica in a Champions League group stage match, becoming the fastest player to 80 UCL goals, in 100 appearances, edging past the previous record of Lionel Messi. On 23 November, he opened the score with a bicycle kick in a 2–1 away win against Dynamo Kiev in a Champions League group stage match, thereby becoming the first player to score in nine consecutive games in two separate seasons of the competition. Midway through the season, Lewandowski finished second in the 2021 Ballon d'Or award, behind Lionel Messi of Paris Saint-Germain and received the Striker of the Year award by the France Football magazine. On 17 December, Lewandowski set the Bundesliga record for most goals in a calendar year with his 43rd goal. He became the second player, after Cristiano Ronaldo, to be the top goalscorer for club and country as a player playing in Europe for three consecutive years. On 15 January 2022, Lewandowski scored his 16th hat-trick and 300th Bundesliga goal in a 4–0 away win over Köln. On 8 March, Lewandowski scored a hat-trick in a 7–1 win over Red Bull Salzburg in the second leg of Champions League round of 16. Coming inside the first 23 minutes of the match, Lewandowski's hat-trick becomes the earliest ever scored by a player from the start of a Champions League match. Taking just 11 minutes from first goal to last, Lewandowski's three-goal extravaganza against Salzburg also ranks as the quickest hat-trick ever scored in the knockout phases of the Champions League. With these goals he took himself beyond the 40-goal mark in all competitions for the seventh consecutive season. With the hat-trick, he also became the fastest player to 85 UCL goals, again edging past Lionel Messi's previous record. He also joined Cristiano Ronaldo and Messi as the only three players to have ten or more goals in three or more UCL campaigns, and joined Messi as the only two players who have scored a first half hat trick in a UCL knockout game. However, Lewandowski finished the league with 35 goals as top scorer for the fifth consecutive season and seventh outright, equaling the record of Gerd Müller. He also broke the Bundesliga record for most away goals in a single season with 19 goals. In addition, he won his second European Golden Shoe award for the second consecutive season. On 30 May 2022, Lewandowski stated his desire to leave Bayern Munich, saying "My story with Bayern has come to an end, I cannot imagine further good cooperation... I hope they will not stop me (from leaving) just because they can. A transfer is the best solution for everyone." Barcelona Transfer At Bayern Munich, Lewandowski established himself as one of the best players of his generation. On 16 July 2022, Barcelona confirmed they had reached an agreement with Bayern Munich for Lewandowski's transfer. Three days later, Lewandowski signed a four-year contract for a fee of €45 million, potentially rising to €50 million with add-ons. The contract included a release clause set at €500 million. Lewandowski became the most expensive Polish player in history and Bayern Munich's most expensive sale of all time. Lewandowski was formally unveiled in front of 50,000 fans on 5 August at the Camp Nou, and was handed the number 9 shirt, previously worn by Memphis Depay, and was officially registered on 12 August, amid speculation that the club could not register him as they were over the league's salary cap limit, due to their financial difficulties. 2022–23: La Liga title and Pichichi Trophy On 7 August 2022, he scored his first ever goal for Barcelona in a 6–0 victory over Mexican club UNAM in the Joan Gamper Trophy pre-season match held at the Camp Nou. On 13 August, he made his competitive debut for the club in 0–0 draw against Rayo Vallecano in the league. On 21 August, he scored his first competitive goals for Blaugrana, netting a brace in a 4–1 victory over Real Sociedad on 21 August, followed by another brace against Real Valladolid in a 4–0 victory on 28 August. On 7 September, in his first game as a Barcelona player in Champions League, he scored a hat-trick in a 5–1 victory over Viktoria Plzeň, becoming the first player in history to score a Champions League hat-trick for three different clubs. On 11 September, he scored his sixth league goal of the season in his fifth league match for Barcelona, in their 4–0 win over Cádiz, setting the record for most goals in the first five La Liga games of the season in the 21st century, and eventually registered eleven goal contributions including nine goals and two assists in seven matches, after scoring the only goal of an away win over Mallorca on 1 October. On 12 October, Lewandowski scored a brace in Barcelona's Champions League fixture against Inter Milan, with his last minute equalizer securing a 3–3 home draw for the Blaugrana at Camp Nou. Despite scoring five goals in the competition, his goals were not able to help Barcelona, as they finished third in the group stage which put them in the Europa League knockout round play-offs for the second consecutive season. On 8 November, Lewandowski was sent off for the second time in his club career for a foul on David García, later receiving a three-game ban, as Barcelona won 2–1 against Osasuna. However, Lewandowski participated in the 1–1 tie against rivals Espanyol on 31 December after his ban was suspended by a court in Madrid, but still ended up serving the disqualification, as Spain's sports court upheld the punishment, missing the league matches against Atlético Madrid, Girona and Getafe. On 16 January 2023, he scored the second goal in the 2023 Supercopa de España final, as Barcelona defeated Real Madrid 3–1 in El Clásico, winning his first title with the club. On 14 May, he scored two goals as Barcelona defeated Espanyol 4–2, confirming them as La Liga champions. He was the first Barcelona player to score more than 30 goals across all competitions in his debut season since Ronaldo Nazário in 1996–97. By the end of the 2022–23 La Liga season, Lewandowski won his first Pichichi Trophy with 23 goals in 34 matches, becoming the first player in top 5 European leagues to get top scorer award in six consecutive seasons. Lewandowski also tied Lionel Messi for most top scorer awards in top 5 European leagues with eight. 2023–24: La Liga runner-up On 19 September 2023, Lewandowski scored once in Barcelona's 5–0 home win over Antwerp in the first matchday of the 2023–24 UEFA Champions League to bring his UEFA competitions tally to 100 goals, becoming only the third player to reach such a milestone after Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. He also became the oldest player, at 35 years and 29 days, to score for Barcelona in the UEFA Champions League, surpassing Gerard Piqué's previous record. On 23 September, he scored a brace to help Barcelona overturn a two-goal deficit in a 3–2 home victory against Celta Vigo, becoming the best scorer in first 50 matches for the club in 21st century, with 35 goals, surpassing the record previously held by Samuel Eto'o. On 17 February 2024, Lewandowski secured a win for Barcelona in a 2–1 victory over Celta Vigo by converting a retaken 97th-minute penalty. He became the most successful footballer in terms of the number of goals scored (407) over the past decade in the top five major European football leagues. On 22 February, he scored his 93rd Champions League goal in a 1–1 draw against Napoli. Then on 12 March, Lewandowski scored the final goal in a 3–1 win in the home leg, knocking out Napoli with a 4–2 aggregate score. On 17 March, he was a key player in Barcelona's 3–0 win over Atlético Madrid having been involved in all three goals. He scored one goal and produced two assists helping his side move to the second spot in the La Liga table. On 29 April, he scored his first La Liga hat-trick to help his team get a 4–2 win against Valencia. 2024–25 On 17 August 2024, Lewandowski scored two goals in a 2–1 victory against Valencia. It was the first match of the La Liga season for Barcelona and the first game with former Bayern Munich manager Hansi Flick in charge as the coach. On 22 September, Lewandowski scored two goals in a 5–1 victory against Villarreal CF. On 25 September, he scored the winning goal in Barcelona's 1–0 victory over Getafe. His goal was Lewandowski's 49th goal scored in La Liga beating Jan Urban's record as the top scoring Polish player in La Liga history. On 6 October, he scored a hat-trick in a 3–0 victory over Deportivo Alavés. International career 2007–2013: Youth level and early international career Lewandowski began his international career with Poland under-19 in 2007. He would also make three appearances for Poland's U21 team, in friendly matches against England, Belarus and Finland. His debut for the senior national team came on 10 September 2008, three weeks after his 20th birthday, against San Marino where he came on as a substitute and scored a goal in a 2–0 away win in 2010 FIFA World Cup qualification. Only Włodzimierz Lubański scored a goal on his debut for the national team at a younger age than Lewandowski, having been 16 at the time. Lewandowski scored another qualifying goal against the same team on 1 April 2009, in a 10–0 victory. Playing in Warsaw in the opening match of the UEFA Euro 2012 tournament against Greece, Lewandowski scored the first goal of the competition after an assist from then Dortmund teammate Jakub Błaszczykowski and was named Man of the Match. He played in all three games for Poland in the tournament, as the co-hosts crashed out of the group stage with two points earned. 2013–2017: Assuming the captaincy Lewandowski scored two penalties in the 5–0 win against San Marino on 26 March 2013 during the 2014 World Cup qualifying campaign, his first match as captain. Later on in the campaign, on 6 September, he scored the equaliser against Montenegro in a 1–1 home draw. Poland did not qualify for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. On 7 September 2014, in Poland's first UEFA Euro 2016 qualifier, away against Gibraltar, Lewandowski scored his first international hat-trick, netting four goals in a 7–0 win. On 13 June 2015, he scored another hat-trick in Poland's 4–0 defeat of Georgia, with the three goals scored within the space of four minutes. On 8 October, he scored twice in a 2–2 draw away to Scotland, opening and equalising with the last kick of the game to eliminate the hosts. Three days later he headed the winner in a 2–1 victory against the Republic of Ireland, qualifying Poland for the tournament finals in France. Lewandowski ended the campaign with 13 goals, a joint European Championships qualifying record with David Healy's tally for Northern Ireland in UEFA Euro 2008 qualifying. At UEFA Euro 2016 in France, Lewandowski did not have a shot on target until the last-16 match against Switzerland in Saint-Étienne. Following the 1–1 draw, he scored his team's first attempt in the penalty shootout victory that sent them to the quarter-finals for the first time. In the 100th second of the quarter-final against Portugal at the Stade Vélodrome, he finished Kamil Grosicki's cross to open another 1–1 draw, and again scored in the shootout although the Poles lost. At the time of Poland's exit, Lewandowski had suffered more fouls than any other player in the tournament. 2017–present: All-time Poland top scorer On 5 October 2017, Lewandowski scored a hat-trick in a 6–1 win over Armenia to take his tally to 50 goals for Poland, surpassing the previous record of 48 goals set by Włodzimierz Lubański to become the all-time top scorer for Poland. On 8 October 2017, Lewandowski scored a goal in a 4–2 win over to Montenegro taking his tally to 51 goals for Poland. He finished the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification campaign with 16 total goals, a record for a European World Cup qualifier. Lewandowski was called up to the 23-man Polish squad for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia. Lewandowski played every minute in all three matches, against Senegal, Colombia and Japan. He did not score any goals and Poland failed to qualify for the knockout phase. On 19 June 2021, in Poland's second group match of UEFA Euro 2020 against Spain, Lewandowski scored the equalising goal in a 1–1 draw; hence, he became the first Polish player to score in three consecutive European Championships. On 23 June, he scored a brace in a 3–2 defeat against Sweden; however, Poland finished last in their group and were knocked out in the group stage. Lewandowski was selected for the national squad ahead of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. During the first game against Mexico, he missed a penalty; however, in the second match against Saudi Arabia, he scored his maiden goal at a FIFA World Cup as his Poland won 2–0. He scored his second World Cup goal on a penalty in a 3–1 loss to France in the round of 16. In June 2024, he was named in the final 26-man squad for UEFA Euro 2024 in Germany. In Poland's third group stage game, he converted a penalty kick to equalize in a 1–1 draw against France, though Poland exited the tournament after finishing at the bottom of their group. Style of play Lewandowski is widely regarded as one of the best strikers in the world, and is considered by many to be one of the greatest centre-forwards of all time. An accurate and efficient finisher with his head and both feet, Lewandowski is a prolific goalscorer, which has led him to be dubbed Lewangoalski. A well-rounded forward, he is said to possess almost all the necessary qualities of a traditional number nine: height, strength, balance, pace, intelligent movement and proficiency with both feet. Although he primarily operates as a goal-poacher in the penalty area, due to his positional sense, ability to shoot first time, strength in the air, and powerful shot with either foot, his excellent technical skills, quick feet, proficient dribbling, vision, and physique also enable him to hold up the ball with his back to goal and either bring his teammates into play, or win fouls for his team in useful positions. Despite often functioning as a lone-centre forward or as an out-and-out striker, he has also stood out for his work-rate and defensive contribution off the ball, and is capable of dropping into deeper roles on the pitch, in order to create space for teammates with his movement, or surprise defenders by making late and sudden attacking runs into the area. He became more of a team player as his career progressed, having been criticised by pundits earlier in his career for his perceived selfishness. Lewandowski is an accurate penalty taker and has repeatedly shown coolness and composure on the spot; he is also capable of scoring from long range, and has been known to take free kicks. In addition to his playing ability, Lewandowski has also been praised for his outstanding work-ethic, fitness, mentality, and discipline, both on the pitch and in training, by pundits, players and managers. Outside football Personal life Lewandowski's father gave him the name Robert to make it easier for him when moving abroad as a professional footballer. Lewandowski's father, Krzysztof (died in 2005), was a Polish judo champion, and also played football for Hutnik Warsaw in the second division. His mother, Iwona, is a former volleyball player for AZS Warsaw and later vice-president of Partyzant Leszno. His sister, Milena, also plays volleyball and has represented the U21 national team. His wife, Anna Lewandowska, won the bronze medal at the 2009 Karate World Cup. They married on 22 June 2013 in the Church of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Serock. They have two daughters: Klara (born 2017) and Laura (born 2020). Lewandowski is a practising Catholic. He met Pope Francis in October 2014, when Bayern Munich visited Vatican City following a 7–1 win over A.S. Roma in the UEFA Champions League. In October 2017, the day after scoring to help Poland qualify for the 2018 World Cup, Lewandowski finished his Bachelor of Physical Education (BPhEd) with coaching and management at the Academy of Sport Education in Warsaw, concluding a decade of studies. In addition to his native Polish, Lewandowski also speaks English and German. Lewandowski is a fan of tennis and paddle tennis. He practiced playing tennis with Ana Ivanovic, the wife of his friend Bastian Schweinsteiger and knows personally Novak Djokovic. He attended his matches in Qatar and United Arab Emirates. In 2022, he personally congratulated Iga Świątek on winning the 2022 Roland Garros. He also plays golf and is interested in motor sports, including Formula One. In 2017 and 2022 as Aston Martin special guest, he attended the Monaco Grand Prix. In 2023, he visited the paddock of Scuderia Ferrari during the Spanish Grand Prix. Philanthropy and business Lewandowski and his wife, Anna, have supported, donated and raised money for various charitable organisations and for children throughout their career, including Children's Memorial Health Institute in Warsaw, for which they've raised more than PLN 150,000 during Anna's birthday party on 25 August 2018. Lewandowski also donated PLN 100,000 for the treatment of Cyprian Gaweł, a three-year-old boy from Hel; and helps raising funds for the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity each year, donating his personal items or private meetings that are sold at online auctions. In March 2014, he was named a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. In June the same year, he visited a refugee camp in Zaatari, Jordan, and took part in the "Voice of the Children" campaign in which he appealed for support of children affected by humanitarian crises. In 2018, he and his wife donated PLN 500,000 to Children's Memorial Health Institute in Warsaw. In March 2020, Lewandowski and his wife, Anna, donated €1 million during the COVID-19 pandemic. In January 2022, he won a charity auction in which he paid PLN 280,000 for Dawid Tomala's Olympic gold medal. The funds were used to finance the operation of a seriously ill boy. Lewandowski subsequently returned the medal to Tomala. In February 2022, Lewandowski condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine and showed his solidarity with the Ukrainian people by wearing a blue and yellow armband during a Bundesliga match. The armband was later auctioned for PLN 27,000 and the money was used to purchase humanitarian aid for Ukraine. Beside philanthropy, Lewandowski also invests primarily in startups, e-commerce, and websites, mainly through Protos Venture Capital, a company of which he is a shareholder. He also owns Stor9_, an agency specialising in marketing communications. In 2022, Lewandowski and his wife Anna's net worth was estimated at PLN 625 million (US$ 140 million), making them claim the 89th place on the "List of 100 Richest Poles" compiled by the Wprost magazine. Sponsorship and media appearances Since 2011 until 2018, he had a sponsorship contract with Gillette and appeared in numerous advertising campaigns of the brand. In 2020, the contract was renewed. In 2013, Lewandowski signed a sponsorship deal with Nike. He also collaborated and appeared in advertisements of Panasonic, T-Mobile Polska, Coca-Cola, Head & Shoulders and 4F. In 2016, a mobile game Lewandowski: Euro Star 2016 was released on Android and iOS platforms. In March 2022, Lewandowski cancelled his sponsorship deal with Chinese telecom company Huawei after the company's reported support to Russia following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Lewandowski had signed on as the global ambassador for Huawei, after agreeing to a partnership in November 2015. Lewandowski featured on the cover of the Polish edition of EA Sports' FIFA 15 video game, alongside Lionel Messi. Lewandowski's "X" goal celebration—arms crossed and index fingers pointing up—has appeared in EA Sports' FIFA series since FIFA 18. In 2022, Lewandowski was the most popular Pole on social media. His accounts on Instagram, YouTube and Tik Tok were followed by over 62 million people. In 2023, he was the subject of a documentary film entitled Lewandowski − Nieznany (Lewandowski − Unknown), which premiered on 28 March and is available on Amazon Prime. Career statistics Club As of match played 6 October 2024 International As of match played 8 September 2024 Honours Znicz Pruszków III liga: 2006–07 Lech Poznań Ekstraklasa: 2009–10 Polish Cup: 2008–09 Polish Super Cup: 2009 Borussia Dortmund Bundesliga: 2010–11, 2011–12 DFB-Pokal: 2011–12 DFL-Supercup: 2013 UEFA Champions League runner-up: 2012–13 Bayern Munich Bundesliga: 2014–15, 2015–16, 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 DFB-Pokal: 2015–16, 2018–19, 2019–20 DFL-Supercup: 2016, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2021 UEFA Champions League: 2019–20 UEFA Super Cup: 2020 FIFA Club World Cup: 2020 Barcelona La Liga: 2022–23 Supercopa de España: 2023 Individual Ballon d'Or Striker of the Year / Gerd Müller Trophy: 2021, 2022 European Golden Shoe: 2020–21, 2021–22 The Best FIFA Men's Player: 2020, 2021 FIFA FIFPro World11: 2020, 2021 FIFA Club World Cup Golden Ball: 2020 IFFHS World's Best Man Player: 2020, 2021 IFFHS World's Best Top Goal Scorer: 2020, 2021 IFFHS World's Best International Goal Scorer: 2015, 2021 IFFHS World's Best Top Division Goal Scorer: 2021 IFFHS Men's World Team: 2020, 2021 IFFHS World Team of the Decade: 2011–2020 IFFHS UEFA Team of the Decade: 2011–2020 UEFA Men's Player of the Year: 2019–20 UEFA Champions League Forward of the Season: 2019–20 UEFA Champions League top goalscorer: 2019–20 UEFA Champions League top assist provider: 2019–20 UEFA Champions League Squad of the Season: 2015–16, 2016–17, 2019–20, 2020–21 UEFA Team of the Year: 2019, 2020 UEFA Euro qualifying Best Player: 2016 Laureus World Sports Awards – Exceptional Achievement Award (2022) Golden Foot: 2022 ESM Team of the Year: 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 ESPN Striker of the Year: 2020, 2021–22 AIPS European Sportsman of the Year: 2020 European Sportsperson of the Year: 2020 World Soccer Player of the Year: 2020, 2021 FourFourTwo Player of the Year: 2020, 2021 Tuttosport Golden Player: 2020, 2021 The Guardian Best Footballer in the World: 2020, 2021 Goal 50: 2019–20 Dongqiudi Player of the Year: 2020 Globe Soccer Best Player of the Year: 2020 Globe Soccer Fans' Player of the Year: 2021 Globe Soccer Maradona Award: 2021 Guinness World Record (x4): 2015 Ekstraklasa Player of the Season: 2009–10 Ekstraklasa Player of the Year: 2009 Ekstraklasa top goalscorer: 2009–10 Ekstraklasa Goal of the Season: 2008–09 II liga top goalscorer: 2007–08 III liga top goalscorer: 2006–07 III liga Polish Footballer of the Year: 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 Polish Sports Personality of the Year: 2015, 2020, 2021 Polish Young Player of the Year: 2008 Polish Football Association National Team of the Century: 1919–2019 VDV Bundesliga Player of the Season: 2012–13, 2016–17, 2017–18, 2019–20, 2020–21 VDV Bundesliga Team of the Season: 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 Bundesliga Player of the Season: 2016–17, 2019–20 Bundesliga Goal of the Month: March 2019, August 2019, May 2021 Bundesliga top goalscorer: 2013–14, 2015–16, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 Bundesliga Team of the Season: 2012–13, 2013–14, 2014–15, 2015–16, 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2020–21, 2021–22 Bundesliga Fantasy Team of the Season: 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 Bundesliga Player of the Month: August 2019, October 2020 Footballer of the Year in Germany: 2020, 2021 kicker Bundesliga Team of the Season: 2013–14, 2015–16, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20, 2020–21, 2021–22 DFB-Pokal top goalscorer: 2011–12, 2016–17, 2017–18, 2018–19, 2019–20 Lech Poznań All-time XI Bayern Munich Player of the Season: 2015–16, 2019–20, 2020–21 Pichichi Trophy: 2022–23 La Liga Team of the Season: 2022–23, 2023–24 La Liga Player of the Month: October 2022, February 2024 Orders Order of Polonia Restituta, Commander's Cross: 2021 Order of the Smile: 2022 See also List of footballers with 100 or more UEFA Champions League appearances List of top international men's football goalscorers by country List of men's footballers with 100 or more international caps List of men's footballers with 50 or more international goals List of men's footballers with the most official appearances List of men's footballers with 500 or more goals List of UEFA Champions League top scorers Bundesliga records and statistics List of Bundesliga top scorers List of foreign La Liga players List of Polish people References External links Profile at the FC Barcelona website Profile at the La Liga website Robert Lewandowski – FIFA competition record (archived) Robert Lewandowski – UEFA competition record (archive)

19th_People%27s_Choice_Awards

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/19th_People%27s_Choice_Awards

The 19th People's Choice Awards, honoring the best in popular culture for 1992, were held on March 9, 1993, at Universal Studios Hollywood, in Universal City, California. They were hosted by John Ritter and Jane Seymour, and broadcast on CBS. Special tributes were paid to both Knots Landing and Cheers for their long runs on television. Awards Winners are listed first, in bold. References External links 1993 People's Choice.com

Home_Alone_2:_Lost_in_New_York

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Alone_2:_Lost_in_New_York

Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is a 1992 American Christmas comedy film directed by Chris Columbus and written and produced by John Hughes. The sequel to the 1990 film Home Alone and the second film in the Home Alone franchise, the film stars Macaulay Culkin, Joe Pesci, Daniel Stern, John Heard, Tim Curry, Brenda Fricker and Catherine O'Hara. It follows Kevin McCallister as he is separated from his family on their holiday vacation to Florida, this time in New York City where he has another encounter with the Wet Bandits after their escape from prison. Hughes finished writing the film by February 1991, after signing a six-picture deal with 20th Century Fox. Culkin's return was confirmed in May, and the rest of the cast was finalized soon after. Principal photography took place between December 1991 and May 1992, and was done on location in Illinois and New York, including at the Rockefeller Center and the original World Trade Center. Home Alone 2 was theatrically released in the United States by 20th Century Fox on November 20, 1992. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the performances while criticizing its darker tone and violence, as well as its similarities to the first film. The film grossed over $359 million worldwide, becoming the third-highest-grossing film of 1992. A sequel with a new cast, Home Alone 3, was released in 1997. Home Alone 2 is the only Home Alone sequel to feature the majority of the cast from the first film; Devin Ratray reprised his role as Buzz McCallister in the sixth film in the franchise, Home Sweet Home Alone. Plot The McCallister family is preparing to spend Christmas in Miami, and gathers at Kate and Peter's Chicago home. Their youngest son, Kevin, views Florida as contradictory to Christmas, due to its tropical climate and lack of Christmas trees. At a school Christmas pageant, during Kevin's solo, his older brother Buzz embarrasses him; Kevin retaliates by pushing him, which causes the entire choir to fall and ruins the pageant. At home, Buzz makes a false apology to Kevin, which the family accepts. Kevin, however, refuses to apologize for his actions and berates his family for believing Buzz's lies and for wanting to spend Christmas in Florida. He storms off to the attic, wishing to have his own vacation alone. The next morning, the family oversleeps and rushes to the airport. Kevin goes with them, but he becomes separated while carrying Peter's bag and accidentally boards a flight to New York City. Upon arrival, he decides to tour the city and encounters a homeless woman tending to pigeons in Central Park, who scares him off. He uses Peter's credit card to check in at the Plaza Hotel, not knowing that his old rivals, the Wet Bandits (Harry and Marv), now renamed the “Sticky Bandits” due to Marv’s sticky glove, have also reached the city after escaping from prison. On Christmas Eve, Kevin visits a toy store whose kindly owner, Mr. Duncan, plans to donate the day's sale proceeds to a children's hospital. After Kevin makes a donation, Mr. Duncan gives him a pair of ceramic turtledoves in thanks, instructing him to give one to another person as a gesture of eternal friendship. Kevin encounters Harry and Marv upon leaving the store and flees back to the Plaza. The concierge at the hotel confronts Kevin about his use of Peter's credit card, now reported as stolen; Kevin flees the hotel but is caught by Harry and Marv. Marv mentions his and Harry's plan to rob the toy store before Kevin escapes in an encounter with a female passerby, who slugs Harry and Marv. Earlier, upon landing in Miami, the McCallister family discover that Kevin is missing and file a police report. After the police trace Peter's credit card, the family flies immediately to New York. Meanwhile, Kevin goes to his uncle Rob’s townhouse, only to find it vacant and undergoing renovations. In Central Park, Kevin encounters and eventually befriends the pigeon lady, who takes him to Carnegie Hall. She explains how her life collapsed when her lover left her, and Kevin encourages her to trust people again. After considering her advice that he perform a good deed to make up for his misdeeds, and recalling Mr. Duncan's intent to donate to the hospital, he decides to prevent the toy store robbery. Kevin rigs the townhouse with handmade booby traps, catches Harry and Marv in the process of robbing the store, and breaks its front window to set off the alarm. After taking their picture, he lures them to the townhouse where they repeatedly injure themselves in the traps. Kevin evades them, calls the police from a pay phone, and flees toward Central Park. Harry and Marv catch him after he slips on ice and prepare to shoot him, but the pigeon lady throws a bucket of birdseed onto them, attracting a massive flock of pigeons and incapacitating the pair until the police arrive to arrest them. Kevin slips away, leaving photographic and tape-recorded evidence against Harry and Marv, and Mr. Duncan recovers the donation money and finds a note from Kevin explaining the broken window. The McCallisters arrive in New York, and Kate, remembering Kevin's fondness for Christmas trees, finds him making a wish at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. On Christmas morning, a truckload of free gifts arrives at the McCallisters' hotel room, sent from a grateful Mr. Duncan for foiling the robbery. Kevin reconciles with his family and gives one of his turtledoves to the pigeon lady, cementing their friendship. Cast Production In February 1991, the Los Angeles Times reported that John Hughes was to sign a six-picture deal with 20th Century Fox; among the projects was a sequel to Home Alone. In May 1991, Culkin was paid $4.5 million plus 5 percent of the film's gross to appear in the sequel, compared to $110,000 for the original. The production budget was $28 million. Principal photography took place from December 9, 1991, to May 1, 1992, over a course of 144 days; the film was shot in Winnetka, Illinois; O'Hare International Airport in Chicago; Evanston, Illinois; and New York City. According to director Chris Columbus, Donald Trump, the owner of the Plaza Hotel at the time, allowed the crew to shoot scenes in the hotel lobby and one of its suites in exchange for a cameo in the film in addition to the standard fee for film productions. Pesci suffered burns to his head while filming the scene in which Harry's hat is set on fire. Music John Williams returned to score Home Alone 2, as well as other festive tracks. While the film featured the first film's theme song "Somewhere in My Memory" (with lyrics by Bette Midler), it also contained its own theme entitled "Christmas Star" (lyrics by Leslie Bricusse). Two soundtrack albums of the film were released on November 20, 1992, with one featuring Williams' score and the other featuring Christmas songs featured in the film. Ten years later, a 2-disc Deluxe Edition of the film score soundtrack was released by Varèse Sarabande. Release Marketing Numerous video games based on Home Alone 2 were released by THQ for such systems as the Sega Genesis, the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, Game Boy and personal computers, mostly in late 1992. A separate hand-held game was released by Tiger Electronics. Numerous board games were also released, some based around play cards, while another was a close emulation of the classic Mouse Trap. The Talkboy cassette recorder was produced as a tie-in for the movie by Tiger Electronics based on specifications provided by John Hughes and the movie studio, and sold particularly well after the film was released on home video. Additional promotional partners included American Airlines through which the McCallisters make their trip via the airline's two Boeing 767s, the Coca-Cola Company, Jack in the Box, Hardee's, and Roy Rogers Restaurants. Home media The film was first released by Fox Video on VHS and LaserDisc on July 27, 1993. It was later released on DVD on October 5, 1999, as a basic package. The film was released on Blu-ray on October 6, 2009, with no special features, and was released alongside Home Alone in a collection pack on October 5, 2010. The film was reissued again on DVD and Blu-ray on October 6, 2015, alongside all five Home Alone franchise films, titled Home Alone: 25th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Christmas Edition. Reception Box office Home Alone 2 opened with $31.1 million from 2,222 theaters, averaging $14,009 per site. It broke the short-lived record set one week earlier by Bram Stoker's Dracula for having the largest November opening weekend. The film went on to hold this record until 1994 when it was taken by Interview with the Vampire. Additionally, it achieved the highest opening weekend for a Chris Columbus film and would hold that record until it was surpassed by Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in 2001. It started off better than Home Alone, grossing $100 million in 24 days compared to 33 days for the original. However the final box office gross was lower with $173.6 million in the United States and Canada and a worldwide total of $359 million, compared to $476 million for the first film. The film was released in the United Kingdom on December 11, 1992, and topped the country's box office that weekend. The film is the third-highest-grossing film released in 1992 behind The Bodyguard and Aladdin. In the United States and Canada, it grossed more than The Bodyguard and ranked second. Critical response Initial On Rotten Tomatoes Home Alone 2: Lost in New York has an approval rating of 35% based on 57 reviews, with an average rating of 4.5/10. The site's critical consensus reads: "A change of venue – and more sentimentality and violence – can't obscure the fact that Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is a less inspired facsimile of its predecessor." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 46 out of 100 based on 22 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A−" on an A+ to F scale, a grade lower than the "A" earned by its predecessor. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two out of four stars and stated that "cartoon violence is only funny in cartoons. Most of the live-action attempts to duplicate animation have failed, because when flesh-and-blood figures hit the pavement, we can almost hear the bones crunch, and it isn't funny." Kenneth Turan, reviewing for the Los Angeles Times, wrote: "Whatever was unforced and funny in the first film has become exaggerated here, whatever was slightly sentimental has been laid on with a trowel. The result, with some exceptions, plays like an over-elaborate parody of the first film, reminding us why we enjoyed it without being able to duplicate its appeal." Dave Kehr of the Chicago Tribune wrote the sequel "plays like a coarsened, self-parodying version of the original, in which the fantasy elements have become grubbier and more materialistic, the sentimentality more treacly and aggressive, and the slapstick violence—already astonishingly intense in the first film—even more graphic and sadistic." Brian Lowry of Variety noted the sequel's derivativeness when compared to the original film, but wrote the "action sequences are well-choreographed, if, perhaps, too mean-spirited even in light of their cartoonish nature". Janet Maslin for The New York Times acknowledged that "Home Alone 2 may be lazily conceived, but it is staged with a sense of occasion and a lot of holiday cheer. The return of Mr. Culkin in this role is irresistible, even if this utterly natural comic actor has been given little new to do. Mr. Pesci and Mr. Stern bring great gusto to their characters' stupidity, to the point where they are far funnier just walking and talking than they are being hurt." Reviewing for Time magazine, Richard Schickel noted "Home Alone 2 precisely follows the formula that made its predecessor the biggest grossing comedy in human history. But no, it is not a drag, and it is not a rip-off. Look on it as a twice-told fairy tale." He praised Hughes and Chris Columbus and felt "the details of the situations are developed vividly and originally. And they are presented with an energy and a conviction that sequels usually lack." Duane Byrge of The Hollywood Reporter wrote that while the "sequel is merely a superimposition of the original, kids will be delighted" by it. He further praised Culkin as "breezily winning", felt Pesci and Stern deserved combat medals, and Curry served as "a terrific foil for Kevin's pranks". Retrospective During the 21st century, online reviewers have looked more favorably on the film. John Nugent of Empire magazine, in a 2022 article entitled 'Why Home Alone 2: Lost In New York Is Better Than Home Alone', argued that the film was "a sequel that effectively also functions as a remake, a film that recognises the greatness of what came before and wisely hews as close to that winning formula as possible." Nugent also opined that "by setting the final showdown in a house undergoing renovations, the filmmakers give themselves room to be more ambitious, wild, and far more brutal" and praised the work of stunt coordinator Freddie Hice since no CGI was used. Also writing in 2022, Reid Goldberg of Collider noted: "A significant part of the film's appeal... is that it's unapologetic in taking everything they loved about the first film to a higher level." Other media Sequels A third film with a new cast, Home Alone 3, followed in 1997. Two television movies, Home Alone 4: Taking Back the House, which features returning characters but with a different cast, and Home Alone: The Holiday Heist, aired in 2002 and 2012, respectively. Home Sweet Home Alone, the sixth film in the series which has Devin Ratray reprise his role as Buzz, was released on the streaming service Disney+ in 2021. Novelization Home Alone 2 was novelized by Todd Strasser and published by Scholastic in 1992 to coincide with the film. The "point" version, which has the same storyline, was also novelized by A.L. Singer. It has an ISBN of 0-590-45717-9. An audiobook version was also released read by Tim Curry (who played the concierge in the film). As in the novelization of the first film, the McCallisters live in Oak Park, Illinois and the crooks are named as Harry Lime and Marv Murchins. The novel also takes place one year after the events of the first film, but the ages of Kevin and his siblings are given as being two years older than the first film. In the beginning of the novelization, a prologue, which ends up being Marv's nightmare in prison, he and Harry sneak away from the cops and return to Kevin's house to seek revenge on Kevin. Kevin bolts into the garage with Marv and Harry in hot pursuit. Harry and Marv end up triggering extra traps that Kevin had set up in the garage. Kevin watches as Marv ends up triggering a trap where a running lawnmower falls on his head (this was a trap featured in Home Alone 3). See also List of Christmas films List of films featuring fictional films References External links Home Alone 2: Lost in New York at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films Home Alone 2: Lost in New York at IMDb Home Alone 2: Lost in New York at the TCM Movie Database Home Alone 2: Lost in New York at AllMovie

List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_presidents_of_the_United_States

The president of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States, indirectly elected to a four-year term via the Electoral College. The officeholder leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. Since the office was established in 1789, 45 men have served in 46 presidencies. The first president, George Washington, won a unanimous vote of the Electoral College. Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms and is therefore counted as the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, giving rise to the discrepancy between the number of presidencies and the number of individuals who have served as president. The presidency of William Henry Harrison, who died 31 days after taking office in 1841, was the shortest in American history. Franklin D. Roosevelt served the longest, over twelve years, before dying early in his fourth term in 1945. He is the only U.S. president to have served more than two terms. Since the ratification of the Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1951, no person may be elected president more than twice, and no one who has served more than two years of a term to which someone else was elected may be elected more than once. Four presidents died in office of natural causes (William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor, Warren G. Harding, and Franklin D. Roosevelt), four were assassinated (Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy), and one resigned (Richard Nixon, facing impeachment and removal from office). John Tyler was the first vice president to assume the presidency during a presidential term, and set the precedent that a vice president who does so becomes the fully functioning president with their own administration. Throughout most of its history, American politics has been dominated by political parties. The Constitution is silent on the issue of political parties, and at the time it came into force in 1789, no organized parties existed. Soon after the 1st Congress convened, political factions began rallying around dominant Washington administration officials, such as Alexander Hamilton and Thomas Jefferson. Concerned about the capacity of political parties to destroy the fragile unity holding the nation together, Washington remained unaffiliated with any political faction or party throughout his eight-year presidency. He was, and remains, the only U.S. president never affiliated with a political party. The incumbent president is Joe Biden, who assumed office on January 20, 2021. Presidents See also Acting President of the United States Founding Fathers of the United States List of vice presidents of the United States President of the Continental Congress Notes References Works cited External links Media related to President of the United States at Wikimedia Commons Quotations related to List of presidents of the United States at Wikiquote

Indigenous_people_of_New_Guinea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_people_of_New_Guinea

The indigenous peoples of Western New Guinea in Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, commonly called Papuans, are Melanesians. There is genetic evidence for two major historical lineages in New Guinea and neighboring islands: a first wave from the Malay Archipelago perhaps 50,000 years ago when New Guinea and Australia were a single landmass called Sahul and, much later, a wave of Austronesian people from the north who introduced Austronesian languages and pigs about 3,500 years ago. They also left a small but significant genetic trace in many coastal Papuan peoples. Linguistically, Papuans speak languages from the many families of non-Austronesian languages that are found only on New Guinea and neighboring islands, as well as Austronesian languages along parts of the coast, and recently developed creoles such as Tok Pisin, Hiri Motu, Unserdeutsch, and Papuan Malay. The term "Papuan" is used in a wider sense in linguistics and anthropology. In linguistics, "Papuan languages" is a cover term for the diverse, mutually unrelated, non-Austronesian language families spoken in Melanesia, the Torres Strait Islands, and parts of Wallacea. In anthropology, "Papuan" is often used to denote the highly diverse aboriginal populations of Melanesia and Wallacea prior to the arrival of Austronesian-speakers, and the dominant genetic traces of these populations in the current ethnic groups of these areas. Languages Ethnologue's 14th edition lists 826 languages of Papua New Guinea and 257 languages of Western New Guinea, a total of 1083 languages, with 12 languages overlapping. They can be divided into two groups, the Austronesian languages, and all the others, called Papuan languages for convenience. The term Papuan languages refers to an areal grouping, rather than a linguistic one. So-called Papuan languages comprise hundreds of different languages, most of which are not related. Papuan ethnic groups The following indigenous peoples live within the modern borders of Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Austronesian-speaking (AN) groups are given in italics. Indonesia West Papua Papuan ethnic groups / tribes in the Indonesian province of West Papua include Arfak, Borai, Doreri, Hatam, Irarutu, Koiwai, Kuri, Madewana, Mairasi, Maniwak, Mbaham, Matta, Meiah, Miere, Meyah, Moire, Moru, Moskona, Napiti, Oburauw, Roon, Roswar, Sebyar, Sougb, Soviar, Sumuri, Wamesa, Warumba, Waruri, Wondama. Southwest Papua Papuan ethnic groups / tribes in the Indonesian province of Southwest Papua include Abun, Ambel, Batanta, Biak (Betew, Kafdaron, Bikar, Usba, Wardo), Biga, Butlih, Domu, Fiawat, Imekko (Inanwatan-Bira, Matemani-Iwaro, Kais-Awe, Kokoda-Emeyode), Irires, Ma'ya (Kawe, Langanyan, Wawiyai), Matbat, Maybrat (Ayamaru, Mare, Karon Dori, Ayfat, Aytinyo), Meyah, Moi-Ma'ya, Moi, Mpur, Nerigo, Tehit, Tepin, Yahadian, Yaben-Konda. Papua Papuan ethnic groups/tribes in the Indonesian province of Papua include: Highland Papua Papuan ethnic groups/tribes in the Indonesian province of Highland Papua include: Central Papua Papuan ethnic groups/tribes in the Indonesian province of Central Papua include: South Papua Papuan ethnic groups/tribes in the Indonesian province of South Papua include: Papua New Guinea Bismarck Archipelago Origin and genetics The origin of Papuans is generally associated with the first settlement of Australasia by a lineage dubbed 'Australasians' or 'Australo-Papuans' during the Initial Upper Paleolithic, which is "ascribed to a population movement with uniform genetic features and material culture" (Ancient East Eurasians), and sharing deep ancestry with modern East Asian peoples and other Asia-Pacific groups. It is estimated that people reached Sahul (the geological continent consisting of Australia and New Guinea) between 50,000 and 37,000 years ago. Rising sea levels separated New Guinea from Australia about 10,000 years ago. However, Aboriginal Australians and Papuans had diverged genetically much earlier, around 40,000 years BP. Papuans are more closely related to Melanesians than to Aboriginal Australians. Haplogroups The majority of Papuan Y-DNA Haplogroups belong to subclades of Haplogroup MS, and Haplogroup C1b2a. The frequency of each haplogroup varies along geographic clines. Autosomal DNA The genetic makeup of Papuans is primarily derived from Ancient East Eurasians, which relates them to other mainland Asian groups such as the "AASI", Andamanese, as well as East/Southeast Asians, although Papuans may have also received some gene flow from an earlier group (xOoA), around 2%, next to additional archaic Denisovan admixture in the Sahul region. Papuans may habor varying degrees of deep admixture from "a lineage basal to West and East-Eurasians which occurred sometimes between 45 and 38kya", although they are generally regarded "as a simple sister group of Tianyuan" ("Basal East Asians"). There is evidence that the ancestors of Papuans and related groups "underwent a strong bottleneck before the settlement of the region, and separated around 20,000–40,000 years ago". Papuans display pronounced genetic diversity, explained through isolation and drift between different subgroups after the settlement of New Guinea. The most notable differentiation was found to be between Highlanders and Lowlanders. Papuan Highlanders fall into three clusters, but form a single clade compared against Lowlanders. The Highlanders underwent a population bottleneck around 10,000 years ago, associated with the adoption of Neolithic lifestyles. Papuan Lowlanders display increased diversity and can be broadly differentiated into a Southern Lowlander cluster and a Northern Lowlander cluster. The genetic differentiation among Papuans is suggested to date back at least 20kya, while the sub-structure among Highlanders dates back around 10kya, with higher diversity among western Highlanders than Eastern ones. The genetic diversity is paralleled by linguistic and cultural diversity. Archaic introgression Based on his genetic studies of the Denisova hominin, an ancient human species discovered in 2010, Svante Pääbo claims that ancient human ancestors of the Papuans interbred in Asia with these humans. He has found that people of New Guinea share 4%–7% of their genome with the Denisovans, indicating this exchange. Denisovan introgressions may have influenced the immune system of present-day Papuans and potentially favoured "variants to immune-related phenotypes" and "adaptation to the local environment". ASPM gene In a 2005 study of ASPM gene variants, Mekel-Bobrov et al. found that the Papuan people have among the highest rate of the newly evolved ASPM Haplogroup D, at 59.4% occurrence of the approximately 6,000-year-old allele. While it is not yet known exactly what selective advantage is provided by this gene variant, the haplogroup D allele is thought to be positively selected in populations and to confer some substantial advantage that has caused its frequency to rapidly increase. Notable people See also Aboriginal Australians Indigenous Australians Koteka Tribal Assembly List of ethnic groups of West Papua Malagasy people (Africa) Moluccans (to the west of New Guinea) Negrito (Southeast Asia) Papua conflict Proto-Australoid Stéphane Breton (filmmaker) Torres Strait Islanders between New Guinea and mainland Australia (including the Meriam people, whose language family is otherwise found in New Guinea) References Further reading External links Media related to People of Papua at Wikimedia Commons

List_of_indigenous_peoples_of_Brazil

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_indigenous_peoples_of_Brazil

This is a list of the Brazil's Indigenous or Native peoples. This is a sortable listing of peoples, associated language families, Indigenous locations, and population estimates with dates. A particular group listing may include more than one area because the group is distributed in more than one area. Background The Indigenous peoples in Brazil (Portuguese: povos indígenas no Brasil) comprise a large number of distinct ethnic groups, who have inhabited the country prior to the European. The word índios ("Indians"), was by then established to designate the people of the Americas and is still used today in the Portuguese language to designate these peoples, while the people of Asiatic India are called indianos. At the time of first European contact, some of the Indigenous peoples were traditionally semi-nomadic tribes who subsisted on hunting, fishing, gathering, agriculture, and arboriculture. Many of the estimated 2,000 nations and tribes which existed in the 16th century died out as a consequence of the European settlement. Most of the Indigenous population died due to European diseases and warfare, declining from an estimated pre-Columbian high of millions to some 300,000 in 1997, grouped into some 200 tribes. A few tribes were assimilated into the Brazilian population. In 2007, FUNAI reported that it had confirmed the presence of 67 different uncontacted tribes in Brazil, an increase from 40 in 2005. With this addition Brazil has now surpassed New Guinea as the country having the largest number of uncontacted peoples. Seven Terras Indígenas (TI) (Reservations) are exclusively reserved for isolated people: TI Alto Tarauacá in Acre – Various tribes. (Isolados do Alto Tarauacá) TI Hi-Merimã in Amazonas – Himerimã. (Isolados do médio Purus) TI Massaco in Rondônia – Sirionó (Isolados do rio São Simão) TI Igarapé Omerê in Rondônia – Kanoe do Omerê & Akuntsu TI Rio Muqui in Rondônia – Isolados das cabeceiras do rio Muqui (Given as Miqueleno-Kujubim in the table). TI Rio Pardo in Mato Grosso and Amazonas – Isolados do Rio Pardo (Tupi–Guarani–Kawahibi). TI Xinane isolados in Acre – Unidentified. Table of Indigenous peoples of Brazil See also List of Indigenous territories (Brazil) References External links Table of the Indigenous peoples, Povos Indígenas no Brasil

Svetlana_Boginskaya

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svetlana_Boginskaya

Svetlana Leonidovna Boginskaya (born February 9, 1973) is a former artistic gymnast for the Soviet Union and Belarus of Belarusian origin. She is a three-time Olympic champion, with an individual gold medal on vault from the 1988 Summer Olympics and team gold medals from the 1988 and 1992 Summer Olympics. Early life Boginskaya was born in Minsk, Belarus on February 9, 1973. She practiced figure skating before beginning gymnastics at age six, after seeing Nadia Comăneci compete at the Olympics. Two years later, she moved to Moscow to train full-time at the Round Lake Gymnastics Center, where she trained with Lyubov Miromanova. Gymnastics career Boginskaya became a member of the Soviet national team at age 14. She competed internationally for the first time at the 1987 World Championships, where she placed third on balance beam; the team placed second. She went on to compete in the 1988 Olympic Games in Seoul, South Korea, where she won four medals: gold in the team competition, gold on vault, silver on floor, and bronze in the individual all-around. Three days after the Olympics, Boginskaya's longtime coach, Lyubov Miromanova, died by suicide. Miromanova had been a surrogate mother to Boginskaya, coaching and caring for her after she moved from Minsk to train full-time in Moscow. After Miromanova's death, Boginskaya began training with Tatiana Grosovivich. Under Grosovivich's tutelage, Boginskaya competed at the 1989 European Women's Artistic Gymnastics Championships, where she received gold in all-round, vault, and floor. Later that year, she placed first in all-around, floor, and team events at the 1989 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, eventually dedicating her performance to her late mentor. The following year, Boginskaya became the fourth woman to win the gold medal in every individual event at the European Championships. She also competed at the FIG World Cup, where she placed first on floor. In 1991, Boginskaya won gold at the World Championships on beam and silver in the all-around; the team won gold. In a controversial finish, Boginskaya lost the gold medal in the all-around to American gymnast Kim Zmeskal. In 1992, Boginskaya competed at the European Championships, where she won gold on beam with a score of 9.95. However, she fell during her final event, the floor exercise, ultimately finishing fifth in the all-around. Her teammate, Tatiana Gutsu, received the all-around title. Despite Boginskaya's fall on floor, she remained a favorite to win the all-around title at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. At the World Championships, Boginskaya won gold on vault and was selected for the Unified Team at the 1992 Summer Olympics. Many in the gymnastics world expected a duel between Boginskaya and Zmeskal at the Olympics, and the media promoted this story. At the Olympic games, Boginskaya won her third Olympic gold in the team competition; in the individual competition, she faltered on the uneven bars and finished fifth in the individual all-around; Zmeskal finished tenth. Following the 1992 Olympics, Boginskaya retired. However, she returned to the sport in 1995, stating that she had been inspired by Katarina Witt who had a memorable comeback at the 1994 Winter Olympics. Boginskaya moved to Houston, Texas to train with Bela Karolyi and upgraded the difficulty of her routines. At the 1995 European Championships, she won silver in the all-around. In 1996, at age 23, she placed second in the all-around at the American Cup behind one of Karolyi's pupils, Kerri Strug. She also placed second at the European Championships in Birmingham behind the defending world champion Lilia Podkopayeva. She then progressed to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia, where she was one of a number of older gymnasts competing. Boginskaya competed in the all-around and vault finals, but did not medal. The Belarusian team came in sixth. Following the 1996 Olympics, Boginskaya retired from gymnastics. Boginskaya is among a small group of women to have competed in three Olympic Games; and due to the break-up of the Soviet Union, she competed at each Games under a different flag: USSR, the Unified Team, and Belarus. She was inducted into the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame in 2005. Boginskaya has remained active in both the American and international gymnastics communities, and works as a consulting guest coach. In the early 2010s, she frequently supported former teammate Oksana Chusovitina, who continues to compete in her late 40s, and has appeared on the competition floor as her coach. Post-gymnastics and personal life Boginskaya lives in Houston, Texas with her husband and two children. She runs several businesses, including an online gymnastics apparel retailer and a summer camp for gymnasts. In popular culture After the 1992 Olympics, Boginskaya appeared alongside her compatriot Vitaly Scherbo in the music video for the song "Revolution Earth," by The B-52's. Trademarks Boginskaya's floor routine at the 1988 Olympics was done to the music of Georges Bizet's Carmen, and another routine she performed in parts of 1990 and 1991 was choreographed by the Bolshoi Ballet. Her uneven bars exercise included a signature giant to handstand with 180° split into a toe-on element. Commentators and reporters cited her height and slim stature as elements she used to her advantage through attention to posture and body alignment; meanwhile they also suggested that she relied more on execution and presentation than difficulty, though she did usually fulfill requirements and earn 10.0 start values. She frequently landed dismounts and vaults with her right foot placed slightly in front of her left, an intentional touch of artistry that also helped her stick landings. Competitive history See also List of top Olympic gymnastics medalists List of top medalists at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships Notes References External links Svetlana Boginskaya - Bio and Competition Results at Gymn Forum Svetlana Boguinskaya at the International Gymnastics Federation Svetlana Boguinskaia at the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame Svetlana Boguinskaia bio at CBS Sports at the Wayback Machine (archived April 15, 2003) Svetlana Boguinskaia at Olympics.com Sviatlana Bahinskaya at Olympedia Svetlana Boginskaya at the National Olympic Committee of the Republic of Belarus

Gymnastics_at_the_1992_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_artistic_team_all-around

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnastics_at_the_1992_Summer_Olympics_%E2%80%93_Women%27s_artistic_team_all-around

These are the results of the women's artistic team all-around competition, one of six events for female competitors in artistic gymnastics at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. The compulsory and optional rounds took place on July 26 and 28 at the Palau d'Esports de Barcelona. Qualification The top 12 teams at the 1991 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships earned places in the team all-around competition. Results Tatiana Gutsu did not officially qualify for the individual all-around, and Rozalia Galiyeva did. However, coaches pulled Galiyeva out due to a fake knee injury and replaced her with Gutsu, who later won the all-around. External links Official Olympic Report www.gymnasticsresults.com

Haribomo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haribomo

Haribomo is a rural commune of the Cercle of Gourma-Rharous in the Tombouctou Region of Mali. The commune contains 29 villages and in the 2009 census had a population of 7,389. The principal village (chef-lieu) is Daka Fifo. References External links Plan de Sécurité Alimentaire Commune Rurale de Haribomo 2006-2010 (PDF) (in French), Commissariat à la Sécurité Alimentaire, République du Mali, USAID-Mali, 2006, archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-09-02, retrieved 2012-05-06. Situation des points d'eau modernes au Mali en 2003: Haribomo (in French), Ministère des Mines, de l'Energie et de l'Eau, République du Mali, 2003.

Mali

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mali

Mali, officially the Republic of Mali, is a landlocked country in West Africa. It is the eighth-largest country in Africa, with an area of over 1,241,238 square kilometres (479,245 sq mi). The country is bordered to the north by Algeria, to the east by Niger, to the northwest by Mauritania, to the south by Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast, and to the west by Guinea and Senegal. The population of Mali is 24,478,595, 47.19% of which are estimated to be under the age of 15 in 2024. Its capital and largest city is Bamako. The country has 13 official languages, of which Bambara is the most commonly spoken, although French is a frequent lingua franca. The sovereign state's northern borders reach deep into the middle of the Sahara Desert. The country's southern part, where the majority of inhabitants live, is in the Sudanian savanna and has the Niger and Senegal rivers running through it. The country's economy centres on agriculture and mining with its most prominent natural resources including gold, (of which it is the third largest producer in Africa), and salt. Mali was part of three successive powerful and wealthy West African empires that controlled trans-Saharan trade: the Ghana Empire (for which Ghana is named), the Mali Empire (for which Mali is named), and the Songhai Empire. At its peak in 1300, the Mali Empire was the wealthiest country in Africa with its 14th-century emperor Mansa Musa believed to be one of the wealthiest individuals in history. Besides being a hub of trade and mining, medieval Mali was a centre of Islam, culture and knowledge, with Timbuktu becoming a renowned place of learning with its university, one of the oldest in the world and still active. The expanding Songhai Empire absorbed the empire in 1468, followed by a Saadian army which defeated the Songhai in 1591. In the late 19th century, during the Scramble for Africa, France seized control of Mali, making it a part of French Sudan; as the Sudanese Republic, a brief federation with Senegal was formed, achieving independence in 1960. After Senegal's withdrawal, the Republic of Mali was established. After a long period of one-party rule, a coup in 1991 led to a new constitution and the establishment of Mali as a democratic, multi-party state. In January 2012, an armed conflict broke out in northern Mali, in which Tuareg rebels took control of a territory in the north, and in April declared the secession of a new state, Azawad. The conflict was complicated by a military coup in March 2012 and later fighting between Tuareg and other rebel factions. In response to territorial gains, the French military launched Operation Serval in January 2013. A month later, Malian and French forces recaptured most of the north, although the conflict continued. Presidential elections were held on 28 July 2013, with a second-round run-off held on 11 August, and legislative elections were held on 24 November and 15 December 2013. In the early 2020s, Mali experienced two military takeovers by Assimi Goïta. Etymology The name Mali is taken from the name of the Mali Empire. It means "the place where the king lives" and carries a connotation of strength. Fourteenth-century Maghrebi traveller Ibn Battuta reported that the capital of the empire was called Mali. One Mandinka tradition tells that the legendary first emperor Sundiata Keita changed himself into a hippopotamus upon his death in the Sankarani River and that it was possible to find villages in the area of this river called "old Mali". A study of Malian proverbs noted that in old Mali, there is a village called Malikoma, which means "New Mali", and that Mali could have formerly been the name of a city. Another theory suggests that Mali is a Fulani pronunciation of the name of the Mande peoples. It is suggested that a sound shift led to the change, whereby in Fulani the alveolar segment /nd/ shifts to /l/ and the terminal vowel denasalizes and raises, leading "Manden" to shift to /mali/. History Before colonization The rock art in the Sahara suggests that northern Mali has been inhabited since 10,000 BC, when the Sahara was fertile and rich in wildlife. Early ceramics have been discovered at the central Malian site of Ounjougou dating to about 9,400 BC, and are believed to represent an instance of the independent invention of pottery in the region. Farming took place by 5000 BC and iron was used around by 500 BC. In the first millennium BC, early cities and towns were created by Mande peoples related to the Soninke people, along the middle Niger River in central Mali, including Dia which began from around 900 BC, and reached its peak around 600 BC, and Djenne-Djenno, which lasted from around 300 BC to 900 AD. By the sixth century AD, the lucrative trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt and slaves had begun, facilitating the rise of West Africa's great empires. There are a few references to Mali in early Islamic literature. Among these are references to "Pene" and "Malal" in the work of al-Bakri in 1068, the story of the conversion of an early ruler, known to Ibn Khaldun (by 1397) as Barmandana, and a few geographical details in the work of al-Idrisi. Mali was once part of three famed West African empires which controlled trans-Saharan trade in gold, salt, other precious commodities, and slaves majorly during the reign of Mansa Musa from c. 1312 – c. 1337. These Sahelian kingdoms had neither rigid geopolitical boundaries nor rigid ethnic identities. The earliest of these empires was the Ghana Empire, which was dominated by the Soninke, a Mande-speaking people. The empire expanded throughout West Africa from the eighth century until 1078, when it was conquered by the Almoravids. The Battle of Kirina in 1235, culminated in a victory for the Mandinka under the command of the exiled prince Sundiata Keita, which led to the downfall of the Sosso Empire. The Mali Empire later formed on the upper Niger River, and reached the height of power in the 14th century. Under the Mali Empire, the ancient cities of Djenné and Timbuktu were centers of both trade and Islamic learning. The empire later declined as a result of internal intrigue, ultimately being supplanted by the Songhai Empire. The Songhai had long been a major power in West Africa subject to the Mali Empire's rule. In the late 14th century, the Songhai gradually gained independence from the Mali Empire and expanded, ultimately subsuming the entire eastern portion of the Mali Empire. The Songhai Empire's eventual collapse was largely the result of the Moroccan invasion of 1591 under the command of Judar Pasha. The fall of the Songhai Empire marked the end of the region's role as a trading crossroads. Following the establishment of sea routes by the European powers, the trans-Saharan trade routes lost significance. At that time, the Mali Empire's abundance in wealth expanded its commercial assets of salt and gold. One of the worst famines in the region's recorded history occurred in the 18th century. According to John Iliffe, "The worst crises were in the 1680s, when famine extended from the Senegambian coast to the Upper Nile and 'many sold themselves for slaves, only to get a sustenance', and especially in 1738–1756, when West Africa's greatest recorded subsistence crisis, due to drought and locusts, reportedly killed half the population of Timbuktu." French colonial rule Mali fell under the control of France during the Scramble for Africa in the late 19th century. By 1905, most of the area was under firm French control as a part of French Sudan. In November 1915, a large anti-French uprising broke out among the tribes in the regions of present-day Mali and Burkina Faso. The last resistance was suppressed only in September 1916. During the suppression of the uprising, over 100 villages were destroyed by French colonial troops. On 24 November 1958, French Sudan (which changed its name to the Sudanese Republic) became an autonomous republic within the French Community. In January 1959, Mali and Senegal united to become the Mali Federation. Independence The Mali Federation gained independence from France on 20 June 1960. Senegal withdrew from the federation in August 1960, which allowed the Sudanese Republic to become the independent Republic of Mali on 22 September 1960, and that date is now the country's Independence Day. Modibo Keïta was elected the first president. He quickly established a one-party state, adopted an independent African and socialist orientation with close ties to the East, and implemented extensive nationalization of economic resources. In 1960, the population of Mali was reported to be about 4.1 million. On 19 November 1968, following progressive economic decline, the Keïta regime was overthrown in a bloodless military coup led by Moussa Traoré, a day which is now commemorated as Liberation Day. Moussa Traoré regime The subsequent military-led regime, with Traoré as president, attempted to reform the economy. His efforts were frustrated by political turmoil and a devastating drought from 1968 to 1974, in which famine killed thousands of people. The Traoré regime faced student unrest beginning in the late 1970s and three coup attempts. The Traoré regime repressed all dissenters until the late 1980s. Opposition to the corrupt and dictatorial regime of General Moussa Traoré grew during the 1980s. During this time strict programs, imposed to satisfy demands of the International Monetary Fund, brought increased hardship upon the country's population, while elites close to the government supposedly lived in growing wealth. The government continued to attempt economic reforms, and the populace became increasingly dissatisfied. In response to growing demands for multi-party democracy, the Traoré regime allowed some limited political liberalization in the late 1980s, but refused to usher in a full-fledged democratic system. In 1990, cohesive opposition movements began to emerge, and was complicated by the turbulent rise of ethnic violence in the north following the return of many Tuaregs who had migrated to Algeria and Libya during the drought. Peaceful student protests in January 1991 were brutally suppressed, with mass arrests and torture of leaders and participants. Scattered acts of rioting and vandalism of public buildings followed, but most actions by the dissidents remained nonviolent. From 22 March through 26 March 1991, mass pro-democracy rallies and a nationwide strike was held in both urban and rural communities, which became known as les évenements ("the events") or the March Revolution. In Bamako, in response to mass demonstrations organized by university students and later joined by trade unionists and others, soldiers opened fire indiscriminately on the nonviolent demonstrators. Riots broke out briefly following the shootings. Barricades as well as roadblocks were erected and Traoré declared a state of emergency and imposed a nightly curfew. Despite an estimated loss of 300 lives over the course of four days, nonviolent protesters continued to return to Bamako each day demanding the resignation of the dictatorial president and the implementation of democratic policies. 26 March 1991 is the day that marks the clash between military soldiers and peaceful demonstrating students which climaxed in the massacre of dozens under the orders of Traoré. He and three associates were later tried and convicted and received the death sentence for their part in the decision-making of that day. Nowadays, the day is a national holiday in order to remember the tragic events and the people who were killed. The coup is remembered as Mali's March Revolution of 1991. By 26 March, the growing refusal of soldiers to fire into the largely nonviolent protesting crowds turned into a full-scale tumult, and resulted in thousands of soldiers putting down their arms and joining the pro-democracy movement. That afternoon, Lieutenant Colonel Amadou Toumani Touré announced on the radio that he had arrested the dictatorial president, Moussa Traoré. Multi-party democracy Opposition parties were legalized, a transitional government was formed and a national congress of civil and political groups met to draft a new democratic constitution to be approved by a national referendum. In 1992, Alpha Oumar Konaré won Mali's first democratic, multi-party presidential election, before being re-elected for a second term in 1997, which was the last allowed under the constitution. Amadou Toumani Touré, a retired general who had been the leader of the military aspect of the 1991 democratic uprising, was elected in 2002. During this democratic period Mali was regarded as one of the most politically and socially stable countries in Africa. Slavery persists in Mali today with as many as 200,000 people held in direct servitude to a master. In the Tuareg Rebellion of 2012, ex-slaves were a vulnerable population with reports of some slaves being recaptured by their former masters. Northern Mali conflict In January 2012 a Tuareg rebellion began in northern Mali, led by the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA). In March, military officer Amadou Sanogo seized power in a coup d'état, citing Touré's failures in quelling the rebellion, and leading to sanctions and an embargo by the Economic Community of West African States. The MNLA quickly took control of the north, declaring its independence as Azawad. However, Islamist groups, including Ansar Dine and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), who had helped the MNLA defeat the government, turned on the Tuareg and took control of the north with the goal of implementing sharia in Mali. On 11 January 2013, the French Armed Forces intervened at the request of the interim government of president Dioncounda Traoré. On 30 January, the coordinated advance of the French and Malian troops claimed to have retaken the last remaining Islamist stronghold of Kidal, which was also the last of three northern provincial capitals. On 2 February, French president François Hollande joined Dioncounda Traoré in a public appearance in recently recaptured Timbuktu. In August 2013, Ibrahim Boubacar Keita was elected as the new president of Mali in the second round of the election. Conflict in Central Mali In the central Mali province of Mopti, conflict has escalated since 2015 between agricultural communities like the Dogon and the Bambara, and the pastoral Fula (or Fulani) people. Historically, the two sides have fought over access to land and water, factors which have been exacerbated by climate change as the Fula move into new areas. The Dogon and the Bambara communities have formed "self-defense groups" to fight the Fula. They accuse the Fula of working with armed Islamists linked to al-Qaeda. While some Fula have joined Islamist groups, Human Rights Watch reports that the links have been "exaggerated and instrumentalized by different actors for opportunistic ends". Added a top Mali military commander:I’ve discussed the growing violence with my commanders and with village chiefs from all sides. Yes, sure, there are jihadists in this zone, but the real problem is banditry, animal theft, score settling – people are enriching themselves using the fight against terrorists as a cover. The conflict has seen the creation and growth of Dogon and Bambara militias. The government of Mali is suspected of supporting some of these groups under the guise of being proxies in the war against Islamists in the Northern Mali conflict. The government denies this. One such militia is the Dogon group Dan Na Ambassagou, created in 2016. In the 2018 Malian presidential election held on 29 July 2018, no candidate received more than 50% of the vote in the first round. A runoff was held on 12 August 2018 between the top two candidates, incumbent president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta of the Rally for Mali and Soumaïla Cissé of the Union for the Republic and Democracy, and Keïta was re-elected with 67% of the vote. In September 2018, the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue negotiated a unilateral ceasefire with Dan Na Ambassagou "in the context of the conflict which opposes the group to other community armed groups in central Mali". However, the group has been blamed for the 24 March 2019 massacre of 160 Fula villagers. The group denied the attack, but afterwards Malian president Keita ordered the group to disband. The UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Adama Dieng, warned of a growing ethnicization of the conflict. By 2020, more than 600,000 people had been displaced by the conflict in Mali. The United Nations reported that the number of children killed in the conflict in the first six months of 2019 was twice as many for the entire year of 2018. Many of the children have been killed in intercommunal attacks attributed to ethnic militias, with the majority of attacks occurring around Mopti. It is reported that around 900 schools have closed down and that armed militias are recruiting children. During the first week of October 2019, two jihadist attacks in the towns of Boulikessi and Mondoro killed more than 25 Mali soldiers near the border with Burkina Faso. President Keïta declared that "no military coup will prevail in Mali", continuing by saying that he does not think it "is on the agenda at all and cannot worry us". In February 2020, Human Rights Watch documented atrocities against civilians in Central Mali and said that at least 456 civilians were killed, while hundreds were injured from January 2019 until November. 2020s coups and Assimi Goïta junta Popular unrest began on 5 June 2020 following irregularities in the March and April parliamentary elections, including outrage against the kidnapping of opposition leader Soumaïla Cissé. Between 11 and 23 deaths followed protests that took place from 10 to 13 June. In July, President Keïta dissolved the constitutional court. Members of the military led by Colonel Assimi Goïta and Colonel-Major Ismaël Wagué in Kati, Koulikoro Region, began a mutiny on 18 August 2020. President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta and Prime Minister Boubou Cissé were arrested, and shortly after midnight Keïta announced his resignation, saying he did not want to see any bloodshed. Wagué announced the formation of the National Committee for the Salvation of the People (CNSP) and promised elections in the future. A curfew was begun and the streets of Bamako were quiet. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) condemned the coup and demanded that Keïta be reinstated as president. On 12 September 2020, the CNSP agreed to an 18-month political transition to civilian rule. Shortly after, Bah N'daw was named interim president by a group of 17 electors, with Goïta being appointed vice president. The government was inaugurated on 25 September 2020. On 18 January 2021, the transitional government announced that the CNSP had been disbanded, almost four months after had been promised under the initial agreement. Tensions between the civilian transitional government and the military ran high after the handover of power in September 2020. The tensions came to a head on 24 May 2021 after a cabinet reshuffle, where two leaders of the 2020 military coup – Sadio Camara and Modibo Kone – were replaced by N'daw's administration. Later that day, journalists reported that three key civilian leaders – President N'daw, Prime Minister Moctar Ouane and Defence Minister Souleymane Doucouré, were being detained in a military base in Kati, outside Bamako. On 7 June 2021, Mali's military commander Assimi Goïta was sworn into office as the new interim president. In 2022 and 2023, the Islamic State in the Greater Sahara saw major gains in the Mali War, occupying large swathes of territory in southeastern Mali. Ansongo and Tidermène were also captured by the group. By mid-2023, the militant group had doubled the amount of territory it controlled since the overthrow of the previous government and establishment of the junta. On 10 January 2022, Mali announced the closure of its borders and recalled several ambassadors to ECOWAS countries in response to sanctions placed on Mali for deferring elections for four years. On 4 February, France's ambassador was expelled. According to Human Rights Watch, Malian troops and suspected Russian mercenaries from the Wagner Group executed around 300 civilian men in central Mali in March 2022. France had started withdrawing French troops from Mali in February 2022, commencing the end of Operation Barkhane. On 2 May, the military government announced breaking its defence accords concluded in 2013 with France, constituting an additional step in the deterioration of Malian–French relations. This latest announcement has been criticized by French authorities and considered as "illegitimate". A UN panel reported that in the first three months of 2022, 543 civilians were killed and 269 wounded, warning the 2015 peace agreement between the government and pro-independence groups was threatened by a potential risk of confrontation for the first time in five years. The report also noted a sharp increase in the number of people needing humanitarian assistance over the previous year. Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, visited Bamako on 7 February 2023 and said that Moscow would continue to help Mali improve its military capabilities. In June 2023 Mali removed French, the language of its former colonizer, as an official language with the approval of a new constitution by 97% of voters in a referendum conducted by the junta. On 5 August 2024 the Republic of Mali announced that it was severing diplomatic relations with Ukraine. Geography Mali is a landlocked country in West Africa, located southwest of Algeria. It lies between latitudes 10° and 25°N, and longitudes 13°W and 5°E. Mali borders Algeria to the north-northeast, Niger to the east, Burkina Faso to the south-east, Ivory Coast to the south, Guinea to the south-west, and Senegal to the west and Mauritania to the north-west. At 1,242,248 square kilometres (479,635 sq mi), Mali is the world's 24th-largest country and is comparable in size to South Africa or Angola. Most of the country lies in the southern Sahara Desert, which produces an extremely hot, dust-laden Sudanian savanna zone. Mali is mostly flat, rising to rolling northern plains covered by sand. The Adrar des Ifoghas massif lies in the northeast. Mali lies in the torrid zone and is among the hottest countries in the world. The thermal equator, which matches the hottest spots year-round on the planet based on the mean daily annual temperature, crosses the country. Most of Mali receives negligible rainfall and droughts are very frequent. Late April to early October is the rainy season in the southernmost area. During this time, flooding of the Niger River is common, creating the Inner Niger Delta. The vast northern desert part of Mali has a hot desert climate (Köppen climate classification BWh) with long, extremely hot summers and scarce rainfall which decreases northwards. The central area has a hot semi-arid climate (Köppen climate classification BSh) with very high temperatures year-round, a long, intense dry season and a brief, irregular rainy season. The southern areas have a tropical wet and dry climate. (Köppen climate classification Aw) In review, Mali's climate is tropical, with March to May being the hot, dry season. June to October is rainy, humid and mild. November to February is the cool, dry season. Mali has considerable natural resources, with gold, uranium, phosphates, kaolinite, salt and limestone being most widely exploited. Mali is estimated to have in excess of 17,400 tonnes of uranium (measured + indicated + inferred). In 2012, a further uranium mineralized north zone was identified. Mali faces numerous environmental challenges, including desertification, deforestation, soil erosion, and inadequate supplies of potable water. Biodiversity Five terrestrial ecoregions lie within Mali's borders: Sahelian Acacia savanna, West Sudanian savanna, Inner Niger Delta flooded savanna, South Saharan steppe and woodlands, and West Saharan montane xeric woodlands. The country had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 7.16/10, ranking it 51st globally out of 172 countries. Politics and government Government Until the military coup of 22 March 2012, Mali was a constitutional democracy governed by the Constitution of 12 January 1992, which was amended in 1999. The constitution provides for a separation of powers among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. The system of government can be described as "semi-presidential". Executive power is vested in a president, who is elected to a five-year term by universal suffrage and is limited to two terms. The president serves as a chief of state and commander in chief of the armed forces. A prime minister appointed by the president serves as head of government and in turn appoints the Council of Ministers. The unicameral National Assembly is Mali's sole legislative body, consisting of deputies elected to five-year terms. Following the 2007 elections, the Alliance for Democracy and Progress held 113 of 160 seats in the assembly. The assembly holds two regular sessions each year, during which it debates and votes on legislation that has been submitted by a member or by the government. Mali's constitution provides for an independent judiciary, but the executive continues to exercise influence over the judiciary by virtue of power to appoint judges and oversee both judicial functions and law enforcement. Mali's highest courts are the Supreme Court, which has both judicial and administrative powers, and a separate Constitutional Court that provides judicial review of legislative acts and serves as an election arbiter. Various lower courts exist, though village chiefs and elders resolve most local disputes in rural areas. The transition government pushed back the timetable for a new election, initially to be held in February 2022, to February 2024. In exchange for the government's commitment to a 2024 election, ECOWAS agreed to lift sanctions on the country. Foreign relations Until 2012, Mali's foreign policy orientation had become increasingly pragmatic and pro-Western over time. Since the institution of a democratic form of government in 2002, Mali's relations with the West in general and with the United States in particular have improved significantly. Mali has a longstanding yet ambivalent relationship with France, a former colonial ruler. Mali was active in regional organizations such as the African Union until its suspension over the 2012 Malian coup d'état. Working to control and resolve regional conflicts, such as in Ivory Coast, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, is one of Mali's major foreign policy goals. Mali feels threatened by the potential for the spillover of conflicts in neighboring states, and relations with those neighbors are often uneasy. General insecurity along borders in the north, including cross-border banditry and terrorism, remain troubling issues in regional relations. In early 2019, Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for an attack on a United Nations base in Mali that killed 10 peacekeepers from Chad. 25 people were reported to have been injured in the attack. Al Qaeda's stated reason for the attack was Chad's re-establishing diplomatic ties with Israel. The base was attacked in Anguelhok, a village located in an especially unstable region of the country. Military Mali's military forces consist of an army, which includes land forces and air force, as well as the paramilitary Gendarmerie and Republican Guard, all of which are under the control of Mali's Ministry of Defense and Veterans, headed by a civilian. Regions and cercles Since 2016, Mali has been divided into ten regions and the District of Bamako. Each region has a governor. The implementation of the two newest regions, Taoudénit (formerly part of Tombouctou Region) and Ménaka (formerly Ménaka Cercle in Gao Region), has been ongoing since January 2016; a governor and transitional council has been appointed for both regions. Since 2023, Mali has added nine new regions to its administrative structure, bringing the total to 19 regions plus the district of Bamako. This reorganization aims to improve governance and bring public services closer to local populations. This initiative continues the decentralization efforts that began with the creation of the Taoudénit and Ménaka regions in 2016. The nineteen regions in turn are subdivided into 159 cercles and 815 communes. The régions and Capital District are: Economy The Central Bank of West African States handles the financial affairs of Mali and additional members of the Economic Community of West African States. Mali is considered one of the poorest countries in the world. The average worker's annual salary is approximately US$1,500. Mali underwent economic reform, beginning in 1988 by signing agreements with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. During 1988 to 1996, Mali's government largely reformed public enterprises. Since the agreement, sixteen enterprises were privatized, 12 partially privatized, and 20 liquidated. In 2005, the Malian government conceded a railroad company to the Savage Corporation. Two major companies, Societé de Telecommunications du Mali (SOTELMA) and the Cotton Ginning Company (CMDT), were expected to be privatized in 2008. Between 1992 and 1995, Mali implemented an economic adjustment programme that resulted in economic growth and a reduction in financial imbalances. The programme increased social and economic conditions, and led to Mali joining the World Trade Organization on 31 May 1995. Mali is also a member of the Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA). The gross domestic product (GDP) has risen since. In 2002, the GDP amounted to US$3.4 billion, and increased to US$5.8 billion in 2005, which amounts to an approximately 17.6% annual growth rate. Mali is a part of the "Franc Zone" (Zone Franc), which means that it uses the CFA franc. Mali is connected with the French government by agreement since 1962 (creation of BCEAO). Today all seven countries of BCEAO (including Mali) are connected to French Central Bank. Mali was ranked 129th out of 132 in the Global Innovation Index in 2023. Agriculture Mali's key industry is agriculture. Cotton is the country's largest crop export and is exported west throughout Senegal and Ivory Coast. During 2002, 620,000 tons of cotton were produced in Mali but cotton prices declined significantly in 2003. In addition to cotton, Mali produces rice, millet, corn, vegetables, tobacco, and tree crops. Gold, livestock, and agriculture amount to 80% of Mali's exports. Eighty percent of Malian workers are employed in agriculture. 15% of Malian workers are employed in the service sector. Seasonal variations lead to regular temporary unemployment of agricultural workers. Mining In 1991, with the assistance of the International Development Association, Mali relaxed the enforcement of mining codes which led to renewed foreign interest and investment in the mining industry. Gold is mined in the southern region and Mali has the third highest gold production in Africa (after South Africa and Ghana). The emergence of gold as Mali's leading export product since 1999 has helped mitigate some of the negative impact of the cotton and Ivory Coast crises. Other natural resources include kaolin, salt, phosphate, and limestone. Energy Electricity and water are maintained by the Energie du Mali, or EDM, and textiles are generated by Industry Textile du Mali, or ITEMA. Mali has made efficient use of hydroelectricity, consisting of over half of Mali's electrical power. In 2002, 700 GWh of hydroelectric power were produced in Mali. Energie du Mali is an electric company that provides electricity to Mali citizens. Only 55 percent of the population in cities have access to EDM. Transport infrastructure In Mali, there is a railway that connects to bordering countries. There are also approximately 29 airports, of which 8 have paved runways. Urban areas are known for their large quantity of green and white taxicabs. A significant sum of the population is dependent on public transportation. Demographics In 2021, Mali's population was an estimated 21.9 million. Mali's population grew from 7.7 million in 1982 to 19.9 million in 2018. The population is predominantly rural (68% in 2002), and 5%–10% of Malians are nomadic. More than 90% of the population lives in the southern part of the country, especially in Bamako, which has over 2 million residents. In 2007, about 48% of Malians were younger than 12 years old, 49% were 15–64 years old, and 3% were 65 and older. The median age was 15.9 years. The birth rate in 2014 was 45.53 births per 1,000, and the total fertility rate (in 2012) was 6.4 children per woman. The death rate in 2007 was 16.5 deaths per 1,000. Life expectancy at birth was 53.06 years total (51.43 for males and 54.73 for females). Mali has one of the world's highest rates of infant mortality, with 106 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2007. Largest cities in Mali Ethnic groups Mali's population encompasses a number of sub-Saharan ethnic groups. The Bambara are by far the largest single ethnic group, making up 36.5% of the population. Collectively, the Bambara, Soninké, Khassonké, and Malinké (also called Mandinka), all part of the broader Mandé group, constitute 50% of the population. Other significant groups are the Fula (17%), Voltaic (12%), Songhai (6%), and Tuareg and Moor (10%). In Mali and in Niger, the Moors are also known as Azawagh Arabs, named after the Azawagh region of the Sahara. They speak mainly Hassaniya Arabic, one of the regional varieties of Arabic. In the far north, there is a division between Berber-descended Tuareg nomad populations and the darker-skinned Bella or Tamasheq people, due to the historical spread of slavery in the region. An estimated 800,000 people in Mali are descended from slaves. Slavery has persisted in Mali for centuries. The Arabic population kept slaves well into the 20th century, until slavery was suppressed by French authorities around the mid-20th century. There still persist certain hereditary servitude relationships, and according to some estimates, even today approximately 200,000 Malians are still enslaved. Some mixed European/African descendants of Muslims of Spanish, as well as French, Irish, Italian and Portuguese origin, live in Mali, where they are known as the Arma people (1% of the nation's population). Although Mali has enjoyed reasonably good inter-ethnic relationships based on a long history of coexistence, some hereditary servitude and bondage relationship exist, as well as ethnic tension between settled Songhai and nomadic Tuaregs of the north. Due to a backlash against the northern population after independence, Mali is now in a situation where both groups complain about discrimination on the part of the other group. This conflict also plays a role in the continuing Northern Mali conflict where there is a tension between both Tuaregs and the Malian government, and the Tuaregs and radical Islamists who are trying to establish sharia law. Languages In January 2022, due to deteriorating relations between Mali and the French government, the Mali government announced making Bambara the official language. In July 2023, French was dropped as an official language, becoming instead a working language. At the same time, the 13 national languages, namely Bambara, Bobo, Bozo, Dogon, Fula, Hassaniya Arabic, Kassonke, Maninke, Minyanka, Senufo, the Songhay languages, Soninke and Tamasheq, became official languages. The lingua franca in Mali is mainly Bambara, which about 80 percent of the population can communicate in. Over 40 other African languages are spoken by the various ethnic groups of Mali. According to the 2009 census, the languages spoken natively in Mali were Bambara by 51.5%, Fula (8.3%), Dogon (6.6%) Soninké (5.7%), Songhai (5.3%), Mandinka (5.2%), Minianka (3.8%), Tamasheq (3.2%), Sénoufo (2%), Bobo (1.9%), Tieyaxo Bozo (1.6%), Kassonké (1.1%), Maure (1%), Dafing (0.4%), Samogo (0.4%), Arabic (Hassaniya) (0.3%), other Malian languages (0.5%), other African languages (0.2%), and other non-African languages (0.2%); 0.7% did not declare their first language. Religion Islam was introduced to West Africa in the 11th century and remains the predominant religion in much of the region. An estimated 90% of Malians are Muslim (mostly Sunni), approximately 5% are Christian (about two-thirds Roman Catholic and one-third Protestant) and the remaining 5% adhere to traditional African religions such as the Dogon religion. Atheism and agnosticism are believed to be rare among Malians, most of whom practice their religion daily. The constitution establishes a secular state and provides for freedom of religion, and the government largely respects this right. Islam as historically practiced in Mali has been malleable and adapted to local conditions; relations between Muslims and practitioners of minority religious faiths have generally been amicable. After the 2012 imposition of sharia rule in northern parts of the country, however, Mali came to be listed high (number 7) in the Christian persecution index published by Open Doors, which described the persecution in the north as severe. Education Public education in Mali is in principle provided free of charge and is compulsory for nine years between the ages of seven and sixteen. The system encompasses six years of primary education beginning at age 7, followed by six years of secondary education. Mali's actual primary school enrolment rate is low, in large part because families are unable to cover the cost of uniforms, books, supplies, and other fees required to attend. In 2017, the primary school enrolment rate was 61% (65% of males and 58% of females). In the late 1990s, the secondary school enrolment rate was 15% (20% of males and 10% of females). The education system is plagued by a lack of schools in rural areas, as well as shortages of teachers and materials. Estimates of literacy rates in Mali range from 27–30 to 46.4%, with literacy rates significantly lower among women than men. The University of Bamako, which includes four constituent universities, is the largest university in the country and enrols approximately 60,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Health Mali faces numerous health challenges related to poverty, malnutrition, and inadequate hygiene and sanitation. Mali's health and development indicators rank among the worst in the world. Life expectancy at birth is estimated to be 53.06 years in 2012. In 2000, 62–65% of the population was estimated to have access to safe drinking water and only 69% to sanitation services of some kind. In 2001, the general government expenditures on health totaled about US$4 per capita at an average exchange rate. Efforts have been made to improve nutrition, and reduce associated health problems, by encouraging women to make nutritious versions of local recipes. For example, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and the Aga Khan Foundation, trained women's groups to make equinut, a healthy and nutritional version of the traditional recipe di-dèguè (comprising peanut paste, honey and millet or rice flour). The aim was to boost nutrition and livelihoods by producing a product that women could make and sell, and which would be accepted by the local community because of its local heritage. Medical facilities in Mali are very limited, and medicines are in short supply. Malaria and other arthropod-borne diseases are prevalent in Mali, as are a number of infectious diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis. Mali's population also suffers from a high rate of child malnutrition and a low rate of immunization. An estimated 1.9% of the adult and children population was afflicted with HIV/AIDS that year, among the lowest rates in Sub-Saharan Africa. An estimated 85%–91% of Mali's girls and women have had female genital mutilation (2006 and 2001 data). Gender equality In 2017, Mali ranked 157th out of 160 countries in the gender inequality index as reported by the United Nations Development Programme. The Malian Constitution states that it protects women's rights, however many laws exist that discriminate against women. Provisions in the laws limit women's decision-making power after marriage, in which the husband becomes superior to his wife. Women are blamed for not maintaining the appearance of their husbands and are also blamed for the actions of their children if they misbehave, which encourages the cultural attitude that women are inferior to men. The lack of participation of women in politics is due to the idea that politics is associated with men and that women should avoid this sector. Education is also an area in which boys dominate, since it is a better investment for the parents. As traditional values and practices have contributed to gender inequality in Mali, conflict and lawlessness have also influenced the growing gap in gender through gender-based violence. The unstable government of Mali has led to organizations like USAID attempting to improve the lives of the people, mainly women and girls' rights in order to re-engage the development of the country. Gender relations Religion, the patriarchal norms, and gender-based violence are major negative factors shaping the life of women in Mali. Patriarchal norms cause major gender inequalities and lead to male domination within the household. Girls learn household activities like chores, cooking, childcare, etc. at a young age and are expected to take the main responsibility of household chores throughout their life. This hampers women's ability to enter the formal workforce and leads to a lack of education of girls. Gender-based violence in Mali happens both on a national and a family level. At the national level, in 2012 the conflict in the Northern part of the country increased cases of kidnappings and rapes. The conflict also reduced women's access to resources, economy, and opportunities. At the household level, Malian women face gender-based violence through domestic violence, forced marriages, and marital rape. The Demographic Health Survey for Mali in 2013 stated that 76% of women and 54% of men believed physical harm towards women was acceptable if the women burnt food, argued back, went out without notifying her husband, or refused sexual relations with her husband. Area of opportunity The lack of education has increased gender inequality in Mali because not many women are working outside the household are even participating in the Public Administration sector. After adjusting the entrance requirements and access to education, girls still have lower enrollment rates and less access to formal education. Drop-out rates for girls are 15% higher than that of boys because they have a higher responsibility at home and most parents refuse to allow all their children to go to school, so boys tend to become educated. Similarly, technical and vocational education has a lower numbers of girls participating and are inadequately distributed in the country because the training centers are focused in the urban cities. Finally, higher education for girls consist of short programs because early marriages prevent most girls from pursuing a longer term education program like those in science. Although women do not have the same access of education, in recent decades women have been entering and representing in decision-making positions in the Public Administration sector. Out of 147 members of Parliament, 15 were women in 2010. Recent decades show that women are slowly joining important decision-making positions which is changing the attitude and status of women in Mali, which has led to the promotion of women's rights in the political sphere. Efforts Legislation at the international and national levels have been implemented over the decades to help promote women's rights in Mali. At the international, Mali signed the Beijing Platform for Action which suggest that women should participate in decision-making and the convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women which is the foundation to women's rights promotion. At the national level, Mali's Constitution has the Decree No. 092-073P-CTSP that claims equality to all Malian citizens and discrimination is prohibited, which has not been followed. The Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme (PRSP) and the Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy Programme under the Malian Government seek to improve the well-being of the citizens, and changes to governance and gender in the country. The Ministry for Advancement of Women, Children and the Family was created specifically for women and children so that their basics rights and needs get met under the law. Although there exists legislation and policy for gender equality the institutionalization of the National Gender Policy of Mali is necessary to support the importance of women's rights. Strengthening and the support of girls' and women's access to education and training is recommended to improve gender equality in Mali. The involvement of international organizations like USAID assist Mali financially to enhance their development through the efforts of the improvement of women's rights. Culture The varied everyday culture of Malians reflects the country's ethnic and geographic diversity. Most Malians wear flowing, colorful robes called boubous that are typical of West Africa. Malians frequently participate in traditional festivals, dances, and ceremonies. Music Malian musical traditions are derived from the griots, who are known as "Keepers of Memories". Malian music is diverse and has several different genres. Some famous Malian influences in music are kora virtuoso musician Toumani Diabaté, the ngoni with Bassekou Kouyate the virtuoso of the electric jeli ngoni, the late roots and blues guitarist Ali Farka Touré, the Tuareg band Tinariwen, Khaira Arby, and several Afro-pop artists such as Salif Keita, the duo Amadou et Mariam, Oumou Sangare, Fatoumata Diawara, Rokia Traore, and Habib Koité. Dance also plays a large role in Malian culture. Dance parties are common events among friends, and traditional mask dances are performed at ceremonial events. Literature Though Mali's literature is less famous than its music, Mali has always been one of Africa's liveliest intellectual centers. Mali's literary tradition is passed mainly by word of mouth, with jalis reciting or singing histories and stories known by heart. Amadou Hampâté Bâ, Mali's best-known historian, spent much of his life writing these oral traditions down for the world to remember. The best-known novel by a Malian writer is Yambo Ouologuem's Le devoir de violence, which won the 1968 Prix Renaudot but whose legacy was marred by accusations of plagiarism. Other well-known Malian writers include Baba Traoré, Modibo Sounkalo Keita, Massa Makan Diabaté, Moussa Konaté, and Fily Dabo Sissoko. Sport The most popular sport in Mali is association football, which became more prominent after Mali hosted the 2002 African Cup of Nations. Most towns and cities have regular games; the most popular teams nationally are Djoliba AC, Stade Malien, and Real Bamako, all based in the capital. Informal games are often played by youths using a bundle of rags as a ball. Basketball is another major sport; the Mali women's national basketball team, led by Hamchetou Maiga, competed at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Traditional wrestling (la lutte) is also somewhat common, though popularity has declined in recent years. The game wari, a mancala variant, is a common pastime. Mali featured a men's national team in beach volleyball that competed at the 2018–2020 CAVB Beach Volleyball Continental Cup. Cuisine Rice and millet are the staples of Malian cuisine, which is heavily based on cereal grains. Grains are generally prepared with sauces made from edible leaves, such as spinach or baobab, with tomato peanut sauce, and may be accompanied by pieces of grilled meat (typically chicken, mutton, beef, or goat). Malian cuisine varies regionally. Other popular dishes include fufu, jollof rice, and maafe. Media In Mali, there are several newspapers such as Les Echos, L'Essor, Info Matin, Nouvel Horizon, and Le Républicain. Office de Radiodiffusion-Télévision du Mali is the state-owned service. Telecommunications in Mali include 869,600 mobile phones, 45,000 televisions and 414,985 Internet users. See also Index of Mali-related articles Outline of Mali Notes References Bibliography External links Official website Archived 9 June 2020 at the Wayback Machine Wikimedia Atlas of Mali Geographic data related to Mali at OpenStreetMap Mali Archived 30 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Mali profile Archived 24 June 2018 at the Wayback Machine from the BBC News Possibilities and Challenges for Transitional Justice in Mali Archived 18 September 2016 at the Wayback Machine from the ICTJ Facebook group about Ngoni Archived 19 February 2022 at the Wayback Machine, considered a traditional instrument of Mali; also known as Xalam, Jeli N'goni, Hoddu, Khalam, Tehardent, or Gambare Mali 2012 Trade Summary Statistics Archived 7 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine - Mali Population-Worldometer

Kansas_State_Treasurer

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansas_State_Treasurer

The State Treasurer of Kansas is the chief custodian of Kansas's cash deposits, monies from bond sales, and other securities and collateral and directs the investments of those assets. The Treasurer provides for the safe and efficient operation of state government through effective banking, investment, and cash management. The treasurer oversees an office that currently handles over $20 billion and an annual operating budget of $3.5 million. Key programs in the office are Bonds Services, Cash Management, Unclaimed Property, the Ag Loan and Housing Loan Deposit Programs and the Kansas 529 Education Savings Program, which has more than 143,000 accounts with total assets of over $2.7 billion. The Treasurer's office is a fee-funded agency. The treasurer also serves as a member of the Kansas Public Employee's Retirement System (KPERS) and the Pooled Money Investment Board. Divisions Administration Bond Services Cash Management Kansas Learning Quest Unclaimed Property Office holders Territorial Treasurers State Treasurers References External links Official website

Lynn_Rogers_(politician)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Rogers_(politician)

Lynn Wayne Rogers (born September 11, 1958) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 41st Kansas State Treasurer from 2021 to 2023. He previously served as the 51st lieutenant governor of Kansas from 2019 to 2021. A Democrat, he had previously served on the board of Wichita Public Schools from 2001 to 2017, and in the Kansas Senate representing the 25th district in west Wichita from 2017 to 2019. Early life and education Rogers was born on September 11, 1958, in Fremont, Nebraska. Raised by Republican parents, he grew up on a large hog farm in rural Nebraska. His grandfather was a county commissioner, and his father served on a local school board. Rogers earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in business administration from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1980. Career After graduating from college, Rogers began working as a marketing specialist for Citibank Savings. After working for Citibank in Chicago, he moved with his wife to Wichita, Kansas in 1985, where he accepted a marketing position with the Farm Credit Bank of Wichita. In 1993, Rogers became a vice president with CoBank Farm Credit Leasing, where he would remain until his election to the Kansas Senate in 2016. School district politics In the 1990s, as a parent of a public school student, Rogers was active in a Wichita-area Parent-teacher organization (PTO), and aided fundraising for the Wichita Public Schools, including the district's bond drive in 2000. Rogers' first elected office was as a member of the Wichita School Board, where he served from 2001 to 2018. During his tenure on the school board, Rogers switched his affiliation from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party, citing frustration with Republicans in attempts to gut support for the public schools. Kansas Senate In 2016, he was elected to the Kansas Senate's 25th district, replacing outgoing Republican Senator Michael O'Donnell, who vacated the seat to run for Sedgwick County Commissioner. In his time as a senator, Rogers worked to "reverse the Brownback-Colyer tax experiment and invest more in our schools." Rogers focused primarily on education, agricultural and banking issues. In the Kansas Senate, senator Laura Kelly sat at the desk next to his, and became his mentor. Lieutenant governor On May 24, 2018, Senator Kelly announced that she had selected Rogers as her running mate in the 2018 Kansas gubernatorial election. On November 6, 2018, Kelly and Rogers defeated the Republican gubernatorial ticket of Kris Kobach and Wink Hartman, as well as the independent ticket of Greg Orman and John Doll. Rogers became the first lieutenant governor from Wichita since fellow Democrat Thomas Docking served in the 1980s. In addition to representing Kansas in official visits to other states, Rogers has spent much of his tenure traveling extensively throughout the state, engaging in political outreach, and visiting over half of the state's 105 counties. Kansas Treasurer In December 2020, Governor Laura Kelly announced that she had selected Rogers to replace Jake LaTurner as Kansas State Treasurer after LaTurner was elected to the United States House of Representatives. Rogers assumed office on January 2, 2021, with David Toland succeeding him as Lieutenant Governor. He ran for a full term in 2022, losing to Republican State Representative Steven C. Johnson. Personal life Rogers is married to Kris Rogers. They have grown children, including a son who serves as a staff attorney for the Oklahoma Supreme Court. They have a daughter who teaches in the Kansas City area, and another son "involved in [Wichita's] arts community." References External links Government website Profile at Vote Smart Candidate website Profile at Vote Smart

Jonas_Brothers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonas_Brothers

The Jonas Brothers () are an American pop rock band. Formed in 2005, they gained popularity from their appearances on the Disney Channel television network. They consist of three brothers: Kevin Jonas, Joe Jonas, and Nick Jonas. Raised in Wyckoff, New Jersey, the Jonas Brothers moved to Little Falls, New Jersey, in 2005, where they wrote their first record that made its Hollywood Records release. They starred in the 2008 Disney Channel Original Movie Camp Rock and its 2010 sequel, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam. They also starred in their own Disney Channel series Jonas, which was rebranded as Jonas L.A. for its second season. The band has released six albums: It's About Time (2006), Jonas Brothers (2007), A Little Bit Longer (2008), Lines, Vines and Trying Times (2009), Happiness Begins (2019), and The Album (2023). In 2008, the group was nominated for the Best New Artist award at the 51st Grammy Awards and won the award for Breakthrough Artist at the American Music Awards. Before the release of Lines, Vines and Trying Times, they had sold over eight million albums worldwide. After a hiatus between 2010 and 2011 to pursue solo projects, the group reunited in 2012 to record a new album, which was cancelled following their break-up on October 29, 2013. As of that year, they had sold over 17 million albums worldwide. Six years following their split, the group reunited with the release of "Sucker" on March 1, 2019. The song became the 34th song in history to debut at number one on the Billboard Hot 100, and became the Jonas Brothers' first number one single on the chart. Their fifth studio album, Happiness Begins, was released on June 7, 2019, topping the US Billboard 200. The brothers released their sixth studio album, The Album, on May 12, 2023, preceded by two singles, "Waffle House" and "Wings". The 12-track record was produced by Jon Bellion. History 2005–2007: It's About Time In 2005, Joe, Kevin and Nick recorded "Please Be Mine", their first song recorded. Upon hearing the song, the Columbia Records president Steve Greenberg decided to sign the brothers as a group. They considered naming their group "Sons of Jonas" before settling on the name Jonas Brothers. While working on their debut studio album, the band toured throughout 2005 with artists such as Jump5, Kelly Clarkson, Jesse McCartney, the Backstreet Boys, and The Click Five among others. They spent the latter portion of the year on a tour with Aly & AJ and The Cheetah Girls. Additionally, they opened for the Veronicas in early 2006. For their first album, titled It's About Time, the band collaborated with several writers, including Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne), Michael Mangini (Joss Stone), Desmond Child (Aerosmith, Bon Jovi), Billy Mann (Destiny's Child, Jessica Simpson) and Steve Greenberg. The album was initially supposed to be released in February 2006, but was pushed back several times, due to executive changes at Sony (the parent company of Columbia) and the executives' desire to have "another lead single" on the album. For the album, the Jonas Brothers covered two hit songs by UK band Busted – "Year 3000" and "What I Go to School For". The Jonas Brothers' first single, "Mandy", was released on December 27, 2005. Its music video was shown on MTV's Total Request Live on February 22, 2006, and reached number four. Another song, "Time for Me to Fly", was released on the Aquamarine soundtrack, also in February. In March, "Mandy" was featured in the Nickelodeon television film Zoey 101: Spring Break-Up and the Zoey 101: Music Mix soundtrack album, with Nicholas Jonas listed as the artist name. The group's music was also featured on Cartoon Network's Friday night programming block Fridays. The band covered "Yo Ho (A Pirate's Life for Me)" from Pirates of the Caribbean for the Disneymania 4 album, released on April 4, 2006. Over the summer of 2006, the Jonas Brothers went on tour with Aly & AJ. The Jonas Brothers also created the theme song for the second season of American Dragon: Jake Long, airing from June 2006 to September 2007 on the Disney Channel. It's About Time was finally released on August 8, 2006. According to the band's manager, it was only a "limited release" of 50,000 copies, so the album's price can rise as high as $200–$300 USD on auction sites like eBay. Because Sony was not interested in further promoting the band, the Jonas Brothers considered switching labels. On October 3, 2006, Nick's 2004 solo single, "Joy to the World (A Christmas Prayer)", was re-released on Joy to the World: The Ultimate Christmas Collection. The same month, the Jonas Brothers covered "Poor Unfortunate Souls" from The Little Mermaid. Along with a music video, the song was released on a two-disc special-edition release of The Little Mermaid soundtrack. The second single from It's About Time was "Year 3000", the music video of which premiered on the Disney Channel in January 2007. The band was ultimately dropped by Columbia Records in early 2007. 2007–2008: Jonas Brothers After being without a label for a short time, the Jonas Brothers signed with Hollywood Records in February 2007. Around the same time, the brothers began appearing in commercials for Baby Bottle Pops, singing the jingle. On March 24, two additional songs on two different albums were released: "Kids of the Future", from the Meet the Robinsons soundtrack (spoof of Kim Wilde's "Kids in America"), and "I Wanna Be Like You", from Disneymania 5. The Jonas Brothers made their first appearance at the White House on Monday, April 9, 2007, during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll, where they sang the National Anthem. They returned on Wednesday June 27, 2007, during a Celebrating Women in Sports Tee Ball game on the South Lawn. They sang the National Anthem again, and, after the game, the Jonas Brothers entertained at the picnic-reception with a selection of their hits. Their self-titled second album was released on August 7, 2007. It reached number five on the Billboard Hot 200 chart in its first week. Two singles with music videos were also released around this time – "Hold On" two weeks before, and "S.O.S.", four days before the release of the album. In August 2007, the Jonas Brothers made several appearances on television. On August 17, they guest-starred in an episode of the Disney Channel show Hannah Montana titled "Me and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas". They also performed "We Got the Party" with Miley Cyrus in the episode, which premiered after High School Musical 2 and was viewed by 10.7 million people that night. On August 24, the Jonas Brothers performed two songs at the Miss Teen USA contest. On August 26, the Jonas Brothers co-presented an award with Miley Cyrus at the Teen Choice Awards. On November 18, 2007, they performed at the American Music Awards, performing the song "S.O.S." On November 22, the brothers appeared in the 81st annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. For their final performance of 2007, the three brothers performed their singles "Hold On" and "S.O.S." at Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve. The Jonas Brothers kicked off their Look Me in the Eyes Tour on January 31, 2008, in Tucson, Arizona. They performed several new songs on the tour that were slated to be on their third studio album, A Little Bit Longer. The Jonas Brothers made their acting debut in Season 2 of the Disney Channel series Hannah Montana, where they guest starred and performed "We Got The Party With Us" on the episode "Me and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas". In 2008, they collaborated with Miley Cyrus on her 3D concert film Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert, filmed during Cyrus' Best of Both Worlds Tour, where they sang "We Got The Party With Us" with Cyrus as Hannah Montana. While on the Look Me in the Eyes Tour, the Jonas Brothers filmed a Disney Channel reality short series entitled, Jonas Brothers: Living the Dream, that premiered on Disney Channel. 2008–2009: A Little Bit Longer and acting The Jonas Brothers' third studio album, A Little Bit Longer, was released in the United States on August 12, 2008. On June 24, 2008, iTunes announced that it would release four songs from A Little Bit Longer, one roughly every two weeks. The purchase of each of the songs applies to the cost of the entire album, which could be purchased via iTunes' Complete the Album feature after release. Each song released also featured a podcast. Each song occupied the number one spot on iTunes for at least three days. After the Look Me in the Eyes Tour ended on March 22, 2008, the Jonas Brothers announced that they would be opening up for Avril Lavigne's Best Damn Tour along with Boys Like Girls, for the second leg of the tour in Europe, which lasted from late May to late June 2008. While filming Camp Rock, the Jonas Brothers co-wrote and co-produced six songs for fellow Disney Channel star and close friend Demi Lovato, for Lovato's album Don't Forget. The album, co-produced by the Jonas Brothers, was released on September 23, 2008. A soundtrack was released for the film Camp Rock on June 17, 2008, debuting at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 with 188,000 copies sold in its first week. The Jonas Brothers also did a half-hour variety special on Disney Channel entitled, Studio DC: Almost Live, that featured The Muppets and other Disney Channel stars. During this time, the Jonas Brothers also appeared on the Olympics-based special miniseries the Disney Channel Games, for the third annual show. During the summer of 2008, the Jonas Brothers started the Burnin' Up Tour in North America, promoting A Little Bit Longer. The tour began on July 4, 2008, at Molson Amphitheatre in Toronto, Ontario. The band made their film debut in the Disney Channel Original Movie Camp Rock, in which they played a band called Connect Three. Joe Jonas plays the lead male role and lead singer Shane Gray, Nick Jonas plays the role of Nate, a guitarist, and Kevin Jonas plays the role of Jason, another guitarist. The film premiered on June 20, 2008, in the United States on Disney Channel, and Canada on Family, receiving mixed reviews. On the Disney Channel, the film was followed by the premiere of the music video for Burnin' Up, which featured cameos from Selena Gomez, Robert Davi, Danny Trejo and David Carradine. Directed by Brendan Malloy, the video earned nominations for Video of the Year and Best Pop Video at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards. A Disney Digital 3-D production crew filmed the two shows of theirs Burnin' Up Tour in Anaheim on July 13 and 14, 2008, including a performance by Lovato with the Jonas Brothers on "This Is Me" and Taylor Swift with the brothers on "Should've Said No". Both shows and additional footage recorded while on tour were used for the theatrical release of their 3D concert biopic, Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, on February 22, 2009. On July 14, they announced on stage that the band had already written five songs for their fourth studio album. The band was featured in the July 2008 issue of Rolling Stone magazine and became the youngest band to be on the cover of the magazine. The Jonas Brothers visited downtown Cleveland, Ohio's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame before their sold-out concert on the evening of August 22, 2008, at Blossom Music Center. They presented the suits and pants they wore on the cover artwork of A Little Bit Longer to Jim Henke, vice president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The suits are part of the Right Here, Right Now! exhibit. In December 2008, the Jonas Brothers were nominated for the Best New Artist award at the 51st Grammy Awards. The Jonas Brothers appeared as musical guest on Saturday Night Live's 34th season on February 14, 2009, making their SNL debut. The band also announced on March 11, 2009, that they will be embarking on a world tour in mid-2009. They were joined by the popular Korean girl band Wonder Girls, who debuted in America, as their opening act. In April 2009, the Jonas Brothers finished filming the first season of their Disney Channel Original Series, Jonas and was premiered on May 2, 2009. The Jonas Brothers also voiced three stone cherubs in the film Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, which was released on May 22, 2009. 2009–2010: Jonas and Lines, Vines and Trying Times The brothers finished recording their fourth studio album, Lines, Vines and Trying Times, and began to talk about the album in the beginning of 2009. They said on several occasions that they had been working on writing and recording songs since their Burnin' Up tour in mid-2008. On March 11, 2009, the Jonas Brothers announced that their fourth studio album, Lines, Vines and Trying Times, would be released on June 15, 2009. They said about the title in the interview with Rolling Stone that, "Lines are something that someone feeds you, vines are the things that get in the way, and trying times, well, that's obvious." They also told Billboard, "We're trying to learn as much as we can, continuing to grow." Kevin added that, "The overall message is it's the same old Jonas Brothers, in a sense, but we're adding more and more music, including different musical instruments that are going to add and build to the sound we already have." Nick also said the songs on the album are "our journal in songs, about all things we've gone through, personal experiences we get inspiration from. We've also been working on trying to use metaphors.. to kind of mask a literal thing that happens to us.". Before the release of Lines, Vines and Trying Times, they released two singles, "Paranoid" (a month before) and "Fly with Me" (seven days before). Lines, Vines and Trying Times debuted at number one, thus becoming their second No. 1 album. On July 7, 2009, the Jonas Brothers announced that they had signed Honor Society to the record label they started with Hollywood Records. A month later, "Send It On" was released on Radio Disney. The radio single was performed with Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, and Demi Lovato for Disney's Friends for Change. On August 9, 2009, the Jonas Brothers hosted and performed on the 2009 Teen Choice Awards. Hollywood Records announced via YouTube Demi Lovato and Jonas Brothers' Walmart CD+DVD Soundcheck. Joe was a guest judge on American Idol during the Dallas auditions, which aired January 27, 2010. After the success of Camp Rock, a sequel was in immediate development. Production on the film began on September 3, 2009, and wrapped on October 16, 2009. The film, entitled Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam, was aired on Disney Channel on September 3, 2010. The movie was filmed in Ontario, Canada. In late 2010, the Brothers took part in a concert at the White House honoring Paul McCartney's reception of a Gershwin Prize for Popular Music by U.S. President Barack Obama. As a personal request from McCartney, they covered "Drive My Car" from the Beatles' Rubber Soul. 2011–2013: Hiatus, LiVe and split In 2011, the brothers took a hiatus to focus on their solo careers – Joe released his debut album Fastlife, Nick embarked on 2011 Tour with his band Nick Jonas & the Administration and Kevin studied music production. In addition, they parted ways with Hollywood Records, who had been their label since February 2007. In December 2011, a new song leaked on the internet, "Dance Until Tomorrow", but they never released it. Despite rumors that they had split, Kevin said the band would release new material in the future: "I think the tides are perfectly lining up for the future of the Jonas Brothers again". In August 2012, Kevin starred in the E! reality series Married to Jonas alongside his wife Danielle and brothers Nick and Joe, documenting the young couple's domestic life. On August 17, 2012, after two years of their last work together, they announced a new concert tour, the World Tour 2012/2013. On October 3, 2012, a preview of the song "Meet You in Paris" was released on Cambio. The new tour started on October 11, 2012, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, where they performed several songs from their previous albums along with a new song entitled "Let's Go". During the reunion concert, they also performed other new songs: "Wedding Bells", "First Time" and "Neon". They performed at Jingle Ball at L.A. Live on December 1, 2012, and announced several tour dates to take place in South America. They performed at the Viña del Mar International Song Festival on February 28, 2013, in Chile. Their fifth studio album, which would have been their first not to be released through Hollywood Records since 2006 and their first record since 2009's Lines, Vines and Trying Times, was scheduled to be released in 2013. The album would be titled V (pronounced: Five), the Roman numeral for five. The lead single, "Pom Poms" was released on April 2, 2013. The music video for the song was filmed in February 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana, and premiered on E! on April 2, 2013. "First Time", the second single from their fifth album, was released on June 25, 2013. In June they embarked at Live Tour to promote the new songs. On October 9, 2013, the group cancelled 23 tour dates between October and December, citing a "deep rift within the band" over "creative differences". On October 29, 2013, the Jonas Brothers officially confirmed their split. During an interview, Nick Jonas stated that the album wouldn't be released but decided to release songs in a live album: "We want to do something special for our fans because they've been so supportive of us for so many years. What we've decided to do is package an album with 10 live tracks from the summer tour and four of the songs that would have been on 'V', and if you count 'Pom Poms' and 'First Time', it's actually 6 songs that would have been on 'V'. We’ll be sending that out soon for the fans." The album was released with the title Live, noting the letter "V" in caps as a reference to their would-be fifth studio album of the same name. 2019–2022: Reunion and Happiness Begins On February 28, 2019, the Jonas Brothers announced their comeback via social media. On March 1, they released a new single, "Sucker" under Republic Records. They appeared on The Late Late Show with James Corden each night from March 4 to 7 to promote the track. The song debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and the US Hot Digital Songs chart, with 88,000 copies sold in its first week, becoming the Jonas Brothers' first number-one song and the first number one by a boy band on the chart since 2003's "Bump, Bump, Bump" by B2K. It became the band's first entry on the chart since 2013's "Pom Poms" and their first top 10 since 2008's "Tonight". The Jonas Brothers also became the second group in history to have a song debut at number one after Aerosmith's "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" and the first group in this century to achieve this. In its April 13, 2019, issue, "Sucker" became the Jonas' first top 10 on Dance/Mix Show Airplay, surging 20–6 in its third week of charting. On April 5, the group released the single "Cool". On April 22, the band announced their upcoming album Happiness Begins, which was released on June 7, 2019 and preceded by a documentary titled Chasing Happiness, which premiered on June 4 on Amazon Prime Video. The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, marked the biggest debut of 2019 and maintained the record until Taylor Swift's seventh studio album, Lover, was released on August 23 of the same year. The group embarked on their tenth headlining tour, the "Happiness Begins Tour", performing 92 shows around the globe. On June 8, the band performed at Capital's Summertime Ball 2019 in the United Kingdom; the setlist included performing "Year 3000" with the original band behind the song, Busted. On June 18, the band released the promotional single "Greenlight" from their episode of Songland. On June 21, they were featured on Latino singers Sebastián Yatra, Daddy Yankee, and Natti Natasha's single called "Runaway". On July 2, the band released "Only Human", the third single off Happiness Begins, followed by the music video on August 13. On September 27, Diplo released a single titled "Lonely", which featured the Jonas Brothers. On November 8, the group released a Christmas song titled "Like It's Christmas". The subsequent year, the band made a cameo appearance on the series Dash & Lily and performed the single. On January 17, 2020, the band released the single "What a Man Gotta Do". On January 24, they announced a residency show in Las Vegas named Jonas Brothers in Vegas at the Park Theater at Park MGM beginning on April 1, with eight other dates during the month keeping them in place until the 18th. The residency was ultimately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The band performed at the 62nd Annual Grammy Awards on January 26, revealing a new song titled "Five More Minutes". On May 15, they released a two-track bundle titled XV, which contains the singles "X" and "Five More Minutes", the former of which features Colombian singer Karol G. On May 16, they made an appearance on Graduate Together: America Honors the High School Class of 2020 to perform their new song. On October 30, they released another Christmas song titled "I Need You Christmas". On March 15, 2021, a deluxe version of Nick Jonas' fourth studio album, Spaceman, was released. The record included the song "Selfish", which featured the Jonas Brothers. On May 19, 2021, the Jonas Brothers announced that they would be embarking on their eleventh headlining tour, the Remember This Tour, consisting of 44 shows at outdoor venues around the United States, with the tour beginning on August 20, 2021, in Las Vegas. During their Remember This Tour tour, the Jonas Brothers required all fans attending their shows to present a proof of vaccination against COVID-19 or a negative COVID-19 test. The brothers released a statement on social media saying "We believe this is the best thing we can do for our fans, our hard working crew, and the communities we're visiting." Kelsea Ballerini was announced as a special guest for a majority of shows. On May 21, DJ Marshmello released "Leave Before You Love Me", a single featuring the Jonas Brothers. Two days later, they performed the single at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards, with Nick Jonas also serving as the host for the ceremony. The single "Remember This" premiered on June 18 and was used in NBC's coverage of the 2020 Summer Olympics. They recorded the song "Mercy" for the soundtrack of Space Jam: A New Legacy which was released on July 9. On September 5, 2021, during the band's Remember This Tour, the Jonas Brothers premiered a song titled "Who's in Your Head" while performing at the Red Rocks Parks and Amphitheater in Colorado. The single was released on September 17. On March 1, 2022, they announced a 5-dates residency show in Las Vegas named Jonas Brothers: Live in Vegas, taking place from June 3 to 11. It was followed by a second 3-dates residency, which took place in November of the same year. 2023–present: The Album In January 2023, while appearing on The Kelly Clarkson Show, Nick Jonas announced that the band's new album was completed. On January 30, 2023, the Jonas Brothers received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and announced that their sixth studio album, titled The Album, would be released on May 5, 2023, later delayed to and released on May 12. The Album debuted at number three on Billboard 200 chart, marking the Jonas Brothers' seventh top ten album on the chart. The record was preceded by its lead single, "Wings", which was released on February 24 of the same year. "Waffle House" was released as the second single on April 7, 2023. The third single, "Summer Baby", was sent to adult contemporary radio on June 5, 2023. In support of The Album, the band embarked the tour "Five Albums. One Night. The World Tour". The single "Do It Like That", a collaboration with South Korean boy band Tomorrow X Together from the album The Name Chapter: Freefall, was released on July 7, 2023. On July 27, 2023, Busted released "Year 3000 2.0", which features the Jonas Brothers in a collaboration celebrating the 20th anniversary of Busted. The song is included in the compilation album Greatest Hits 2.0. The single "Strong Enough", a collaboration with Bailey Zimmerman, was released on November 10, 2023. The band will be performing at the halftime show at the 111th Grey Cup on November 17th, 2024 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Philanthropy The Jonas Brothers earned an estimated $12 million in 2007, and have donated 10% of their earnings to their charity, Change for the Children Foundation. Change for the Children Foundation, started by the Jonas Brothers, has contributors donate to charities such as Nothing But Nets, American Diabetes Foundation, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Children's Hospital Los Angeles, and Summer Stars Camp for the Performing Arts. Since August 6, 2008, Bayer Diabetes Care has partnered with Nick Jonas as a diabetes ambassador to promote the idea that young people should manage their diabetes, as Nick was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes when he was 13. Jonas testified in the U.S. Senate to promote more research funding for the disease. The Jonas Brothers have been strong supporters of Do Something. In 2007, the brothers filmed a public service announcement raising awareness about teenage homelessness and encouraging teens to begin "jeans drives" in their communities to donate to the homeless. In 2010, Nick further volunteered his efforts for Do Something by offering his time as a prize to teens who donated jeans to Do Something and Aeropostale's "Teens for Jeans" campaign. Further, Nick filmed another public service announcement, this one in support of Do Something's "Battle of the Bands" campaign for the advancement of music education in schools. The Jonas Brothers have made several appearances at We Day, an event that encourages young people to do local and global acts of charity. In a post on Twitter, the band also announced that a portion of every ticket purchased for their Toronto show would be donated to WE to help provide secondary school scholarships to young girls in Kenya. In August 2021, the Jonas Brothers partnered with NGO Feeding America to promote donations to the organization by holding a competition to have dinner with a selected fan at a Los Angeles restaurant. The Jonas Brothers have continued to advocate to fight hunger worldwide by partnering, in early 2022, with Global Citizen, which fights extreme poverty, among other issues. Musical style The Jonas Brothers' musical style has generally been described as rock, pop rock, pop punk, and power pop. Members Accolades Discography It's About Time (2006) Jonas Brothers (2007) A Little Bit Longer (2008) Lines, Vines and Trying Times (2009) Happiness Begins (2019) The Album (2023) Filmography Film Television Web Bibliography Burning Up: On Tour with the Jonas Brothers (2008) ISBN 9781423120292 Blood: A Memoir by the Jonas Brothers (2020) ISBN 9780063091870 Concert tours References Footnotes Sources External links Official website Jonas Brothers at Rotten Tomatoes Jonas Brothers at IMDb Jonas Brothers on WISH-TV

Nick_Jonas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Jonas

Nicholas Jerry Jonas (born September 16, 1992) is an American singer, songwriter and actor. Jonas began acting on Broadway at the age of seven, and released his debut single in 2002; this caught the attention of Columbia Records, where Jonas formed a band with his older brothers, Kevin and Joe, known as the Jonas Brothers. The group released their debut studio album, It's About Time, through the Columbia label in 2006. After leaving Columbia Records and signing with Hollywood Records, the group released their self-titled second studio album in 2007, which became their breakthrough record. The band became prominent figures on the Disney Channel during this time, gaining a large following through the network, and appeared in the widely successful musical television film Camp Rock (2008) and its sequel Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (2010), as well as two of their own series, Jonas Brothers: Living the Dream (2008–2010) and Jonas (2009–2010). The band's third studio album, A Little Bit Longer (2008), saw continued commercial success for the group; the album's lead single "Burnin' Up" hit the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Following the release of their fourth studio album, Lines, Vines and Trying Times (2009), the Jonas Brothers confirmed a hiatus. Jonas formed a new band known as Nick Jonas & the Administration, who released the album Who I Am in 2010. Afterward, Jonas shifted his focus to acting and had a recurring role on the television series Smash and some Broadway shows roles. After the group's official disbandment in 2013, Jonas began work on his second solo studio album, signing with Island Records and releasing Nick Jonas through the label in 2014, which saw the commercial success of the single "Jealous". Jonas later co-founded Safehouse Records, a record label in conjunction with the Island and Hollywood labels. His third studio album Last Year Was Complicated (2016) peaked at number two on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States. Following the release, Jonas won the Songwriters Hall of Fame's Hal David Starlight Award in 2016. In 2017, Jonas appeared in the adventure comedy film Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which became the fifth highest-grossing film of the year. The Jonas Brothers reformed in early 2019, and released the album Happiness Begins in June of that year. Jonas' fourth solo studio album, Spaceman, was released on March 12, 2021. Life and career 1992–2006: Childhood and career beginnings Jonas was born in Dallas, Texas, the third son of Denise (née Miller) and Paul Kevin Jonas. Jonas' father is a songwriter, musician, and former ordained minister at an Assemblies of God church, while his mother is a former sign language teacher and singer. Nick has a younger brother, Frankie, and two older brothers, Joe and Kevin. Jonas was raised in Wyckoff, New Jersey and homeschooled by his mother. Jonas' career started when he was discovered at the age of six in a barber shop, where his mother was getting her hair cut, and was referred to a professional show business manager. He began performing on Broadway at the age of seven, portraying characters such as Tiny Tim, Chip Potts, Little Jake, and Gavroche among other roles. Jonas wrote a song titled "Joy to the World (A Christmas Prayer)" with his father while performing in Beauty and the Beast (2002), featuring background vocals from Jonas' fellow cast members, which was featured on the compilation album Broadway's Greatest Gifts: Carols for a Cure, Vol. 4. The song was later released through INO Records to Christian Radio in 2003, serving as Jonas' debut single. The single caught the attention of Columbia Records, leading to Jonas signing with Columbia and INO to release his debut studio effort. "Dear God" (2004) was released as the lead single from the project, followed by a re-recorded version of "Joy to the World (A Christmas Prayer)". Jonas co-wrote songs for the album with his two older brothers, who also provided background vocals for the release. Nicholas Jonas (2004) received a limited release on September 5, 2004. The project was scheduled for a wide release in December, but was pushed back before ultimately being cancelled altogether. The new president of Columbia Records, Steve Greenberg, liked Jonas' voice on the record, but did not like the album. Upon hearing the song "Please Be Mine", he decided to sign Jonas and his brothers as a group. After being signed to Columbia, the brothers considered naming their group Sons of Jonas before settling on the name Jonas Brothers. In 2005, Jonas was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of 13. While working on their debut studio album, the band toured throughout 2005 with artists such as Jump5, Kelly Clarkson, Jesse McCartney, the Backstreet Boys, and The Click Five, among others. The band's debut single, "Mandy", was released in December 2005. The album was initially scheduled for a February 2006 release date, but executive changes at Columbia's parent company Sony led to numerous delays on the project's release. It was during this time that the group began making appearances on various Disney Channel-related soundtracks, and toured with Aly & AJ throughout 2006. The band's debut album, It's About Time (2006), was released on August 8, 2006. The album received little backing from the label, who had no further interest in promoting the band. During its initial run, the album only received a limited release of 50,000 copies. Unhappy with how the release of the record was handled, the band hoped to depart from Columbia Records and find a new label; it was later confirmed in 2007 that the group had been dropped by the label. The album went on to sell a total of 1,750,000 copies. 2007–2011: Breakthrough with Jonas Brothers and other projects Shortly following their departure from Columbia Records, it was confirmed that the Jonas Brothers had signed with Hollywood Records. While working on their new album, the group continued to gain popularity from soundtrack appearances and promotional appearances. The group released their self-titled second studio album through Hollywood Records on August 7, 2007. The album entered the top five of the Billboard 200 in the United States, going on to sell over two million copies in the country. The group's single "S.O.S" became their first top twenty hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and has sold over 1.5 million copies in the country. Nick and his brothers made their acting debut on an August 17 episode of the Disney series Hannah Montana titled "Me and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas". The band performed the collaboration "We Got the Party" with lead actress Miley Cyrus, with the episode garnering over ten million viewers and becoming basic cable's most watched series telecast ever. In May 2008, he and the band began starring in their own Disney series Jonas Brothers: Living the Dream. Jonas made his film debut along with his brothers in the Disney Channel film Camp Rock (2008), starring alongside Demi Lovato. The film's soundtrack was released on June 17, 2008, and sold 188,000 copies in its first week of release in the United States. The movie went on to become a major hit for the network, receiving 8.86 million viewers. The band achieved further success with their third studio album, A Little Bit Longer (2008), which became their first to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 chart; the project sold over 525,000 in its first week of release. The album went on to sell over two million copies in the United States, making it their second multi-platinum album. A Little Bit Longer remains the band's highest-selling effort to date. "Burnin' Up" (2008) served as the album's lead single, becoming the band's first top five hit in the United States. The band starred in the 3D biopic Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, which received a theatrical release on February 27, 2009. The film was a financial success, and is the sixth highest-grossing concert film. Jonas starred with all three of his brothers in their second Disney Channel series, Jonas, which made its debut on May 2, 2009. The band released their fourth studio album, titled Lines, Vines and Trying Times, on June 16, 2009. The project debuted at the top spot on the Billboard 200, boasting first week sales of 247,000 copies. Following the release of their fourth studio album, the Jonas Brothers confirmed that they would be taking a hiatus to focus on solo projects. While Joe chose to record a solo record, Nick opted to form the band Nick Jonas & the Administration, signing with Hollywood Records to release the project and later doing a tour. On June 21, Jonas made his West End debut performing in Les Misérables for the second time, this time in the role of Marius Pontmercy. Jonas was originally supposed to play the role for only three weeks, but was able to extend his run until July 24, 2010, because of changes in the Jonas Brothers touring schedule. He also appeared in the 25th Anniversary Concert at The O2 Arena on October 3, 2010, again playing the role of Marius Pontmercy. He starred in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying on Broadway. From August 5–7, Jonas performed in the musical Hairspray as Link Larkin at the Hollywood Bowl. He also starred in the sequel Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (2010), which was a commercial success. Jonas later appeared in the 2011 series Mr. Sunshine; he played Eli Cutler, an up-and-coming singer who wants everything his way before he performs at the Sunshine Center. He also played the role of Ryan on an episode of the sitcom Last Man Standing. 2012–2013: Jonas Brothers split Jonas guest-starred on an episode of Smash as Lyle West, a young musician and television star backing a promising Broadway musical; Jonas would later reprise the role in the show's season finale on May 14. Jonas had a cameo appearance in the last episode of the second season of the comedy web series Submissions Only. Jonas was to perform in the musical How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying as J. Pierrepont Finch from January 24 to July 1, 2012. Despite this, the musical ended its run on May 20. Jonas recorded five songs for the project, which were released as an extended play in 2012. The Jonas Brothers confirmed in March that work had begun on their fifth studio album. The band officially parted ways with Hollywood Records in May 2012; they purchased the rights to all of their music from the label. Despite claims that Jonas would be signing on as a judge for the twelfth season of the singing competition American Idol, Jonas opted to appear instead as a mentor with Demi Lovato on The X Factor. Jonas made guest appearances on the television series Married to Jonas, starring his older brother Kevin and his wife. The television show also documented their return to music and the process of working on their fifth album. The Jonas Brothers released a new single, "Pom Poms" (2013), on April 2 through their own record label. The music video for the song was filmed in February 2013 in New Orleans, Louisiana and premiered on E! on April 2, 2013. Nick was the co-host of the Miss USA 2013 competition on NBC; Jonas and his brothers performed during the event. The band released "First Time" as the second single from their forthcoming album. The band cancelled their highly anticipated tour in October only days before it was set to begin, citing a "deep rift within the band" over "creative differences", leading to speculation that the brothers would be parting ways musically. They officially confirmed on October 29 that the band had split up for good. The split led to the cancellation of their comeback album, though Nick confirmed that some of the songs recorded for the project would become available for fans through an upcoming release; the band released a live album featuring five songs from their unreleased fifth studio album. Around this time, Jonas guest starred as a computer hacker on an episode of Hawaii Five-0. 2014–2018: Nick Jonas and Last Year Was Complicated With the Jonas Brothers officially broken up, Jonas began working on material for his second studio album. In 2014, he worked as the musical and creative director on Demi Lovato's Neon Lights Tour, overseeing video content, wardrobe, lighting and staging, and song arrangement. He joined Lovato on stage for select shows of the concert, performing three of her songs with her. Jonas went on to appear in two more episodes of Hawaii Five-O, and was cast in a starring role as Nate Kulina in the drama series Kingdom. The series premiered on DirecTV's Audience Network, and was renewed for two more seasons only two weeks later. Jonas made his return to music with the release of "Chains", the lead single to his second studio album. "Jealous" was later released as the album's second single, going on to become Jonas' first top ten hit as a solo artist on the Billboard Hot 100. Jonas released his second studio album, Nick Jonas, though Island Records on November 10, 2014. The album debuted at number six on the Billboard 200, selling over 37,000 copies in its first week of release. Following the success of "Jealous" and the album, "Chains" was re-released as the next single from the album. The single achieved commercial success, reaching the top twenty of the Billboard Hot 100 and becoming his second multi-platinum single. Jonas served as a guest mentor for Christina Aguilera on the eighth season of The Voice. He also starred in the film Careful What You Wish For, which was filmed in 2013. In 2015, Jonas released a new single, "Levels", as the lead single to the re-released version of his debut album, Nick Jonas X2. Jonas had a recurring role as Boone Clemens in the comedy horror series Scream Queens; he is credited for five episodes of the first season. Work on Jonas' third studio album began as early as 2014, prior to the release of Nick Jonas. The album was initially set to be titled Unhinged, but was changed to Last Year Was Complicated prior to its release. "Close", a collaboration with Tove Lo, was released as the album's lead single. The project was a commercial success, reaching the top twenty of the Billboard Hot 100 and becoming his third top ten hit on the Mainstream Top 40 chart. Last Year Was Complicated was released on June 10 to a generally positive reception. The album sold a total of 66,000 equivalent album units in its first week of release, entering the Billboard 200 chart at number two. This marks his highest peaking effort as a solo artist to date. "Bacon" has been serviced as the second single from the album. Jonas's contributions as a songwriter led to him receiving the Hal David Starlight Award in the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Jonas embarked on the co-headlining Future Now Tour (2016) alongside Demi Lovato on June 29, and continued on the tour until the final concert on September 17. In May 2015, Billboard revealed that Jonas was in the process of starting an "artist-centric" new record label, Safehouse Records, of which he would be co-founder and co-owner. The label would be a partnership between Jonas, Demi Lovato, and Lovato then-manager Phil McIntyre, and will form part of a new collaborative arrangement with record label Island. Jonas also starred in the drama film Goat alongside James Franco, which was released on September 23, 2016. He participated in a rap battle with Kevin Hart on October 27. On May 26, 2017, Jonas released the single "Remember I Told You" which features British singer-songwriter Anne-Marie and American singer and producer Mike Posner. Jonas released the song "Find You" on September 14, 2017. Jonas contributed to the Ferdinand soundtrack with the songs "Home" and "Watch Me", released on October 20. "Home" was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. In May 2018, Jonas released the single "Anywhere", a collaboration with DJ/Producer Mustard. Jonas and Mustard performed the song live, along with "Jealous", with contestant Jurnee during the finale of American Idol season 16 on May 21. They also performed the song during the 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards on June 18. In an August 2018 interview with Teen Vogue, Jonas announced the impending release of a collaboration with Robin Schulz titled "Right Now", which he co-wrote with Skylar Grey. In August 2018, it was announced that Jonas had joined the cast of the animated film UglyDolls alongside Kelly Clarkson and Pitbull, which was released on May 3, 2019. Jonas also performs the song "The Ugly Truth" for the film, which appears on the soundtrack album. 2019–present: Jonas Brothers reunion, The Voice and Spaceman Starting in late January, rumors were swirling online that the three brothers were going to reform the Jonas Brothers. On February 28, 2019, the Jonas Brothers officially announced their return along with a new single, "Sucker", which released the next day, March 1. The group's fifth album, Happiness Begins was released on June 7. In October 2019, it was announced that Jonas would join The Voice as a coach for its eighteenth season and later for its twentieth season. Jonas had a role in Roland Emmerich's World War II blockbuster movie Midway, which was released on November 8, 2019. On February 20, 2021, it was announced that Jonas would host Saturday Night Live for the first time on February 27. He was SNL's musical guest for the fourth time, performing his single, "Spaceman", from his fourth studio album, also titled Spaceman. The second single, titled "This Is Heaven", was released on March 4, 2021. On March 15, 2021, Jonas and his wife Priyanka Chopra announced the nominees for the 93rd Academy Awards. On April 30, 2021, it was announced that Jonas would host the 2021 Billboard Music Awards. Nick Jonas is set to star as Frankie Valli in a proshot taping of the musical Jersey Boys. In March 2023, Jonas and King released a single in Hindi and English, titled "Maan Meri Jaan (Afterlife)." Other ventures Outside of his acting and music career, Jonas ventured in various directions. In 2014, he signed a contract with modeling agency Wilhelmina Models. Fashion In 2017, he released his shoe collection 1410, a collaboration with versatile sneaker company Creative Recreation. In 2018, he released a spring clothing line with John Varvatos, labeled JV x NJ. Later in the year, they also released a fragrance, also labeled JV x NJ. In 2019, they released two more fragrances: JVXNJ Red and JVxNJ Silver. In October 2022 it was annmounced that Nick collaborated with PGX on a capsule collection for the golfsport. The PXG x NJ collection includes apparel and accessories, from hats and bags to shirts, pants, socks. Tequila In September 2019, Jonas announced that he had collaborated with John Varvatos and the spirits giant Stoli Group on an ultra-premium tequila named Villa One. The tequila, which was rolled out in the U.S. in September, came in Silver, Reposado and Añejo expressions. At the end of 2020, the tequila was made available for purchase in the United Kingdom. In May 2021, it was made available in Canada. Producing On September 29, 2021, it was announced that Nick Jonas and Priyanka Chopra Jonas had joined the producing team of Douglas Lyons’ Broadway comedy Chicken & Biscuits, currently in previews at Circle in the Square Theatre. Image 32 Jonas was an executive producer for the show Dash & Lily, with Stranger Things producer Shawn Levy. Levy produced the series with Josh Barry via his 21 Laps banner. The series was released on November 10, 2020, on Netflix. Jonas was involved on casting, filming, and music. He also made a cameo in the series, giving love advice and performing the single "Like It's Christmas" with his brothers. In 2020, Amazon Studios greenlit an unscripted series following engaged couples as they prepare for their sangeet, an Indian pre-wedding tradition. Jonas was announced as an executive producer through Image 32, and Chopra Jonas would executive produce through Purple Pebble Productions. Business In July 2022, Jonas and Chopra announced an investment in Perfect Moment, a 1979-founded company dedicated mainly to womenswear. The company said that the couple will play a "substantial role" in the marketplaces of Asia and the Middle East. Public image During the early stages of their career, the Jonas Brothers were seen as role models and teen idols by their fans, and they drew much media attention when they made the decision to begin wearing purity rings during their time on the Disney Channel. Though he has stated that the rings helped "shape [his] view of sex", Nick felt that his faith became more about his personal relationship with God. He claimed in 2016 that all of the youth at their church had been asked to wear them, and he didn't have a "full understanding" of what the ring meant. Jonas has more recently earned the title of a sex symbol following a string of provocative photo shoots. He has often rejected the title, stating that: "I don't really consider myself [a sex symbol]. If someone wants to give me that title, that's fine, but I don't say these words about myself. I just try to be humble, make sexy music and push the envelope a little bit." Jonas was featured on OK!'s list of 2014's Sexiest Men Alive, while his photo shoot for Flaunt was listed on their Most Memorable Naked Moments list. He was ranked at number ten on People's Sexiest Men Alive list in 2015. He was ranked in sixth place on Capital FM's list of Sexiest Men in Pop during 2016. Jonas' new public image has led to him receiving a large fan following in the LGBT community, a fact he claims to be "thrilled" about. Some of Jonas' interviews and comments have drawn criticism for being "gay pandering", though Jonas has denied these claims. He was deemed Sexiest Reality Show Judge in the 2020 People's Sexiest Men Alive poll. That same year, he was also nominated alongside Joe and Kevin for Sexiest Brothers. Personal life Health Jonas was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes at the age of thirteen and uses an insulin pump to help him manage his condition. He has developed the Change for the Children Foundation; partnering with five different charities, their goal is to raise money and awareness for diabetes. He also developed a public service announcement with the Washington Nationals to support diabetes care at Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C. Since August 6, 2008, Bayer Diabetes Care has partnered with Jonas as a diabetes ambassador to encourage young people to manage their diabetes. Jonas testified in the U.S. Senate to promote more research funding for the condition. On May 15, 2021, Jonas suffered an accident while biking and cracked a rib. He also suffered bumps and bruises and had to be transported in an ambulance to a hospital, from which he was discharged a day later. On May 17, he returned to the show The Voice after the accident. In an interview on May 19, Jonas said that he was feeling better and that his accident would not interfere with his hosting of the Billboard Music Awards. Relationships Jonas dated fellow Disney star Miley Cyrus from June 2006 to December 2007. He briefly dated another Disney star Selena Gomez in 2008, she appeared in his band music video for "Burnin' Up". In May 2011, Jonas started dating Australian singer Delta Goodrem. They broke up in February 2012. Jonas started dating model and Miss Universe 2012 Olivia Culpo in 2013. They ended their relationship in 2015 after nearly two years of dating. In May 2018, Jonas started dating Indian actress Priyanka Chopra. Jonas proposed to her on July 19, 2018, a day after her birthday, in Crete, Greece. Jonas and Chopra got engaged in August 2018 in a Punjabi Roka ceremony in Mumbai. In December 2018, the couple married at Umaid Bhawan Palace, Jodhpur, in traditional Hindu and Christian ceremonies. In January 2022, Jonas revealed he and his wife had welcomed their first child, a daughter, via surrogacy. Philanthropy In 2009, Jonas was involved in "Disney's Friends for Change", an organization which promoted "environmentally-friendly behavior", alongside his brothers. Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, Miley Cyrus, and Selena Gomez, as the ad hoc musical team "Disney's Friends For Change", recorded the charity single "Send It On", all of the proceeds of which were accepted into the Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund. It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 20. In January 2010, Jonas donated $25,000 from his family foundation to the North Texas Food Bank. He made the visit as part of a joint effort with the television program The Biggest Loser and Feeding America, a national network of food banks. In the same year, Jonas further volunteered his efforts for Do Something by offering his time as a prize to teens who donated jeans to Do Something and Aeropostale's "Teens for Jeans" campaign. Further, Jonas filmed another PSA, this one in support of Do Something's "Battle of the Bands" campaign, for the advancement of music education in schools. Jonas is also a member of the National Youth Leadership Committee for the Ronald Reagan Centennial Celebration, along with Jordin Sparks, Genevieve Ryan, and Brodi Conover. In 2017, Jonas, alongside Demi Lovato and DNCE, began a Crowd Rise campaign to raise money to support Hurricane Harvey relief. In March 2020, Jonas and his wife, Priyanka Chopra, announced they have donated to several organizations, including UNICEF, Feeding America, Goonj, Doctors Without Borders, No Kid Hungry, GiveIndia, PM CARES Fund, and others to help fight the outbreak of COVID-19. They also made donations to the Equal Justice Initiative and American Civil Liberties Union, amid the widespread protests over the murder of George Floyd in June 2020. The next month, they made donations to Bihar and Assam flood relief organizations following the Assam flood and asked their fans to provide help and support as well. In April 2021, Jonas and Chopra urged fans to donate to the GiveIndia NGO through their fundraiser "Together for India" during the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic in India. By 13 May 2021, the fundraiser had reached their initial target of $1 million, and they subsequently raised the target to $3 million. Discography Solo albums Nicholas Jonas (2005) Nick Jonas (2014) Last Year Was Complicated (2016) Spaceman (2021) with The Administration Who I Am (2010) with the Jonas Brothers It's About Time (2006) Jonas Brothers (2007) A Little Bit Longer (2008) Lines, Vines and Trying Times (2009) Happiness Begins (2019) The Album (2023) Filmography Theatre Film TV Web Music videos Commercials Tours With The Administration Who I Am Tour (2010) Nick Jonas 2011 Tour (2011) Headlining Nick Jonas Live (2014) Nick Jonas: Live in Concert (2015) Co-headlining Future Now Tour (with Demi Lovato) (2016) Opening act Maroon V Tour (Maroon 5) (2015) 24K Magic World Tour (Bruno Mars) (2018) Awards and nominations References External links Official website Nick Jonas at Rotten Tomatoes Nick Jonas at IMDb

Joe_Jonas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Jonas

Joseph Adam Jonas (born August 15, 1989) is an American singer, songwriter, and actor. He rose to fame as a member of the pop rock band the Jonas Brothers, alongside his brothers Kevin and Nick. The group released their debut studio album It's About Time through the Columbia label in 2006. After signing with Hollywood Records, the group released their self-titled second studio album in 2007, which became their breakthrough record. The band became prominent figures on the Disney Channel during this time, gaining a large following through the network: they appeared in the widely successful musical television film Camp Rock (2008) and its sequel Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (2010) as well as two of their own series, Jonas Brothers: Living the Dream (2008–2010) and Jonas (2009–2010). The band's third studio album, A Little Bit Longer (2008), saw continued commercial success for the group; the album's lead single "Burnin' Up" hit the top five on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Their fourth studio album, while still successful on the Billboard 200 chart, saw a decline in record sales. After the group confirmed a hiatus, Joe released his debut solo studio album, Fastlife (2011), which saw moderate commercial success. After the Jonas Brothers officially parted ways due to creative differences, Jonas formed the funk-pop band DNCE in 2015, serving as the lead vocalist. The group saw the significant commercial success of their debut single "Cake by the Ocean", which peaked at number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United States. Early life Joseph Adam Jonas was born on August 15, 1989. in Casa Grande, Arizona, the son of Denise (née Miller) and Paul Kevin Jonas. His father is a songwriter, musician, and former ordained minister at an Assemblies of God church while his mother is a former sign language teacher and singer. He has an older brother, Kevin, and two younger brothers, Nick and Frankie. He attended Eastern Christian High School in North Haledon, New Jersey. In 2002, Joe appeared in Baz Luhrmann's Broadway production of La bohème. Career 2005–2007: Breakthrough with Jonas Brothers In 2005, Joe, Kevin, and Nick recorded Please Be Mine, their first song recorded. Upon hearing the song, the Columbia Records president Steve Greenberg decided to sign the brothers as a group. They considered naming their group "Sons of Jonas" before settling on the name Jonas Brothers. While working on their debut studio album, the band toured throughout 2005 with artists such as Jump5, Kelly Clarkson, Jesse McCartney, the Backstreet Boys, and The Click Five among others. The group released their debut single, "Mandy", in December 2005. The album was initially scheduled for a February 2006 release date, though executive changes at Columbia's parent company Sony led to numerous delays on the project's release. During this time, the group began making appearances on various Disney Channel related soundtracks and toured with Aly & AJ throughout 2006. The band's debut album, It's About Time (2006), was released on August 8, 2006. The album received little backing from the label, who had no further interest in promoting the band. The album's second single, "Year 3000", had its music video premiere on the Disney Channel in the beginning of 2007. Dissatisfied with how the release of the record was handled, the band hoped to depart from Columbia Records and find a new label; it was later confirmed in 2007 that the group had been dropped by the label. The album went on to sell a total of 67,000 copies in the United States. Only a short period of time after their departure from Columbia Records, it was confirmed that the group had signed a new contract with Hollywood Records. While working on their new album, the group continued to gain popularity due to soundtrack appearances and promotional appearances. The group released their self-titled second studio album through Hollywood Records on August 7, 2007. The album entered the top five of the Billboard 200 in the United States, going on to sell over two million copies in the country. Joe and his brothers made their acting debut on an August 17 episode of the Disney series Hannah Montana titled "Me and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas". The band performed the collaboration "We Got the Party" with lead actress Miley Cyrus, with the episode gaining over ten million viewers and became basic cable's most watched series telecast ever. The group's single "S.O.S" became their first top twenty hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and has sold over 1.5 million copies in the country, they put out Hold On, When You Look Me in the Eyes among singles. 2008–2010: Acting In May 2008, he and the band began starring in their own Documentary series Jonas Brothers: Living the Dream. Jonas made his film debut along with his brothers in the Disney Channel film Camp Rock (2008). The film's soundtrack was released on July 17, 2008, and sold 188,000 copies in its first week of release in the United States. Joe recorded the duet "This Is Me" for the project, with the song reaching the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song served as Jonas' first release outside of the Jonas Brothers. It has sold just over 900,000 copies in the United States. The Jonas Brothers' third studio album, A Little Bit Longer, was released in the United States on August 12, 2008. The album became their first to debut at number one on the Billboard 200 chart, selling over 525,000 copies in its first week of release. The album went on to sell over two million copies in the United States, making it their second multi-platinum album. The album was preceded by the release of the single "Burnin' Up" (2008), which became the band's first top five hit in the United States. Love Bug, Tonight were put out among singles. Joe and his brothers starred in the 3D biopic Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience, which received a theatrical release on February 27, 2009. The film was a financial success and is the sixth highest-grossing concert film. Jonas starred with all three of his brothers their second Disney Channel series, Jonas, which made its debut on May 2, 2009. The show's second and final season aired under the name Jonas L.A. The band released their fourth studio album, entitled Lines, Vines and Trying Times, on June 16, 2009. The project debuted at the top spot on the Billboard 200, boasting first week sales of 247,000 copies. Paranoid and Fly with Me were put out as singles. Joe was featured as a guest judge on a January 2010 episode of the ninth season of the singing competition American Idol. In February 2010, Jonas made a cameo appearance in Vampire Weekend's music video for "Giving Up the Gun" along with Jake Gyllenhaal, Lil Jon, and RZA. He later guest starred in a 2010 episode of Hot In Cleveland as Valerie Bertinelli's son, Will. Jonas starred in the sequel Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam. 2011–2014: Fastlife and group disbandment In 2011, it was announced that Jonas was planning on recording a solo album. Jonas hoped to incorporate elements of funk into the album. Jonas released the album's lead single, titled "See No More", made in collaboration with Chris Brown on June 3, 2011. The single failed to have much commercial success, only reaching ninety-two on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. On August 4, 2011, Jonas announced via Twitter that he would join Britney Spears on her European tour starting October 16, 2011. Ryan Seacrest premiered the album's second single, "Just in Love", on September 9, 2011. The single was later remixed to include rapper Lil Wayne. Jonas later confirmed the album to be titled Fastlife. In support of the album, Joe co-headlined with Jay Sean in the Joe Jonas & Jay Sean Tour with JoJo as the opening act. The tour kicked off on September 9, 2011, and concluded on October 6, 2011. Fastlife was released through Hollywood Records on October 11, 2011. The album sold a total of 18,000 copies in its first week of release, debuting at number fifteen on the Billboard 200. The album quickly fell off of the albums chart, going on to sell a mere 45,000 copies by 2015. On May 1, 2012, it was announced that both the Jonas Brothers and Joe Jonas had parted ways with Hollywood Records. It was confirmed in April 2013 that the Jonas Brothers would reunite to begin working on their fifth studio album and an upcoming tour. Kevin Jonas later starred in his own E! reality series, Married to Jonas, which focused on his marriage to new wife Danielle. The show featured appearances from Joe and Nick and documented the band's preparations for their musical comeback. That same year, Jonas participated in Fox's dating game show The Choice. Jonas began dating model Blanda Eggenschwiler in September 2012, with the two dating until July 2014. Jonas co-wrote the song "Dreams" for the John Legend album Love in the Future (2013). The brothers performed in Russia in September 2012, making it their first live performance since their 2010 tour. Their much-anticipated reunion concert, which had been announced in August 2012, took place on October 11, 2012, at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. The band's fifth studio album, set to be released independently through their own label, was slated for release in 2013. The Jonas Brothers also announced an upcoming North American tour, with tickets going on sale. The album, initially titled V,Live included the previously released singles, "Pom Poms" and "First Time". On October 9, 2013, the group cancelled their upcoming tour days before it was slated to start, citing a "deep rift within the band" over "creative differences". Only days later, it was confirmed that the band had officially ended. 2015–2018: DNCE and The Voice With the band officially broken up, Jonas began working on a new musical project with producers such as Malay and Mattman & Robin. While working on the project, Jonas was unsure whether he wanted to record a second studio album or start a new band. Upon working with Justin Tranter on multiple songs, Jonas decided to form a band with his friends and former touring partners Jack Lawless and JinJoo Lee. Cole Whittle, a member of the alternative rock band Semi Precious Weapons, became the fourth and final member of the group. The group named themselves DNCE, a misspelling of the word dance. DNCE released their debut single, "Cake by the Ocean", in 2015. Their Swaay debut extended play was released in October 2015. Their self title DNCE album was later released. It debuted at number seventy-nine on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States but peaked at number nine. In 2018, he joined the Australian version of The Voice as a coach, a year after being a mentor on the American version. In June 2018, Jonas and British DJ Jonas Blue released their collaborative track "I See Love", a song for the film Hotel Transylvania 3: Summer Vacation. He also voiced a Kraken in the movie. 2019–2023: Jonas Brothers and DNCE reunions Starting in late January, rumors were swirling on Twitter and other social media that the three brothers were going to reform the Jonas Brothers. On February 28, 2019, the Jonas Brothers officially announced their return along with a new single, "Sucker", which released the next day, March 1. In April 2019, Joe Jonas appeared at WE Day California, portions of which were aired on ABC in August of the same year. In January 2021, it was announced that Jonas was among the cast of the Korean War movie Devotion. During March 2021, the filming took place on Tybee Island, Georgia. The movie, which is expected to premiere in 2022, also had filming on Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge in Charleston, South Carolina during May 2021. He has called his joining the cast of Devotion a "life changing" experience. In September 2022, it was announced that Jonas had co-authored a song titled "Not Alone" for the credits of the movie, calling the song "One of the favorites that I've ever written" and labeling the song as "spiritual". In February 2022, Jonas announced the return of DNCE along with Lawless and Lee. Jonas announced the return of the band with a new song by Norwegian DJ Kygo, titled Dancing Feet, which was released on February 25, 2022. The Jonas brothers released their sixth studio album The Album in May 2023. 2024: Music for People Who Believe in Love On July 17, 2024, Jonas announced the release of his second studio album, Music for People Who Believe in Love, which is set to be released on October 18, 2024. The lead single from the album, "Work It Out", was released on July 19, 2024. Personal life Jonas dated Gigi Hadid, Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato. He started dating English actress Sophie Turner in 2016. They got engaged in October 2017, and married on May 1, 2019, in Las Vegas, Nevada. They held their second wedding in Paris, France on June 29, 2019. The couple has two daughters. In September 2023, Jonas filed for divorce from Turner in Miami, Florida. Turner subsequently sued Jonas and cited "wrongful detention," saying that Jonas refused to allow their daughters to return to England, which had been registered as their permanent residence in April. Jonas and Turner reached a temporary custody agreement in October. The divorce was finalized in September 2024. In September 2021, Jonas and Turner purchased a mansion in Miami, Florida for $11 million. The mansion was reportedly inspired by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Prior to moving to Miami, Jonas and Turner sold their house in Encino, a neighborhood of Los Angeles, for $15.2 million. In November 2022, the Jonases' Miami residence was listed for sale with an asking price of nearly $17 million. Discography Solo albums Fastlife (2011) Music for People Who Believe in Love (2024) with the Jonas Brothers It's About Time (2006) Jonas Brothers (2007) A Little Bit Longer (2008) Lines, Vines and Trying Times (2009) Happiness Begins (2019) The Album (2023) with DNCE DNCE (2016) Filmography Film Television Web Music videos Commercials Awards and nominations References External links Joe Jonas at IMDb

Kevin_Jonas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Jonas

Paul Kevin Jonas Jr. (born November 5, 1987) is an American musician and actor. He rose to fame as the lead guitarist of the pop rock band Jonas Brothers alongside his younger brothers Joe and Nick. Jonas became a prominent figure on the Disney Channel alongside his brothers in the late 2000s, gaining a large following through the network: he appeared in the widely successful musical television film, Camp Rock (2008) and its sequel, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam (2010) as well as two other series, Jonas Brothers: Living the Dream (2008–2010) and Jonas (2009–2010). After the group confirmed a hiatus in 2012, Kevin appeared on his own E! reality series that same year, Married to Jonas, with his wife, Danielle. Following the band's initial break-up in 2013, Jonas appeared on the seventh season of The Celebrity Apprentice in 2014, founded the construction company Jonas Werner, and became the co-CEO of The Blu Market, an influencer marketing company. In 2019, he rejoined the Jonas Brothers following their reunion. The group would go on to release their fifth studio album. The reunited Jonas Brothers appeared in two Amazon Prime Video documentaries named Jonas Brothers: Chasing Happiness and Jonas Brothers: Happiness Continues in 2019 and 2020. Jonas appeared on People magazine's list of the Sexiest Men Alive in 2008 at the age of 21, and thus included as part of the 21 Club. Early life Paul Kevin Jonas Jr. was born on November 5, 1987, in Teaneck, New Jersey, and grew up in Wyckoff. His mother, Denise Marie (née Miller), is a former sign language teacher and singer, and his father, Paul Kevin Jonas Sr., is a songwriter, musician, and former ordained minister at an Assemblies of God church. He has three younger brothers, Joe (b. 1989), Nick (b. 1992), and Frankie (b. 2000). As a child, Jonas appeared in several TV commercials as well as print ads. Unlike his brothers, he originally did not intend to become a musician but became interested one day after stumbling upon a book on playing guitar and playing his father’s guitar.He attended Eastern Christian High School in North Haledon, New Jersey. Career 2005–2006: Career beginnings In early 2005, Columbia Records' new president, Steve Greenberg, listened to Nick's record. While Greenberg did not like the album, he did like Nick's voice. After hearing the song "Please Be Mine", written and performed by all the brothers, Daylight/Columbia Records decided to sign the three as a group act. After being signed to Columbia, the brothers considered naming their group "Sons of Jonas" before settling on the name "Jonas Brothers". It's About Time, the brothers' first album, was released on August 8, 2006. According to the band's manager, it was only a "limited release" of a little over 50,000 copies. Because Sony was not interested in further promoting the band, the Jonas Brothers then considered switching labels. The band was ultimately dropped by Columbia Records in early 2007. 2007–2012: Breakthrough with the Jonas Brothers After shortly being without a label, the Jonas Brothers signed with Hollywood Records in February 2007. Around the same time, the brothers began appearing in Gap Inc. commercials for Baby Bottle Pop, singing the jingle. Their self-titled second album, Jonas Brothers, was released on August 7, 2007. It reached number five on the Billboard Hot 200 chart in its first week. Jonas and his brothers guest-starred in an episode of Hannah Montana, titled "Me and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas and Mr. Jonas", which aired August 17, 2007 on Disney Channel. The episode debuted alongside the television film High School Musical 2 and a sneak peek of Phineas and Ferb. The episode broke basic cable records with a record 10.7 million viewers and became basic cable's most watched series telecast ever. Jonas and his brothers also starred in the Disney Channel Original Movie Camp Rock, where they played a band called "Connect 3". Kevin played Jason, a guitarist; Nick played Nate, also a guitarist; and Joe played the lead male role and lead singer, Shane Gray. A soundtrack for the movie was released on June 17, 2008. The film premiered on June 20, 2008, on Disney Channel in the United States, on Disney Channel, and on Family in Canada. They returned in the sequel, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam, which premiered on September 3, 2010. The Disney Channel reality short series, Jonas Brothers: Living the Dream, premiered on Disney Channel, May 16, 2008. The show, which ran until September 5, 2008, documented the brother's lives during the Look Me in the Eyes Tour. The name was inspired by their hit song When You Look Me in the Eyes. The series was renewed for a second season, which premiered March 21, 2010. The second season followed the band on the European leg of their World Tour 2009. The Jonas Brothers' third studio album, A Little Bit Longer, was released in the United States on August 12, 2008, and peaked at No. 1 on the Billboard 200. Kevin, Joe, Nick, and Frankie starred in their own Disney Channel Original Series, Jonas, which premiered May 2, 2009. The show was renewed for a second season premiering June 20, 2010 as Jonas L.A. It centered on the brothers vacationing at their summer house in Los Angeles with Stella and Macy. On June 16, 2009, the brothers' fourth studio album, and third release under Hollywood Records, titled Lines, Vines, and Trying Times was released. The album peaked at number 1 on the Billboard 200 with 247,000 copies sold. Jonas appeared on MTV's fourth episode of When I Was 17, talking about life as a teenager, regarding sports and his hairstyles. He guest hosted Live with Kelly, December 13, 2011, and did so a second time on July 4, 2012. It was announced on May 1, 2012, that the Jonas Brothers parted ways with their record label Hollywood Records, and bought the rights to their music. 2013–2018: Jonas Brothers split Kevin appeared in an E! reality series alongside his wife, Danielle, and his brothers, which premiered on August 19, 2012. Produced by Ryan Seacrest, Married to Jonas documented the young couple's domestic life as well as the brothers' recording efforts as they prepared to release their fifth studio album. The final episode of the second season aired on May 26, 2013. On October 29, 2013, The Jonas Brothers officially announced that the band was breaking up because of creative differences. After parting ways with the Jonas Brothers in 2013, he founded the real estate development, construction company called JonasWerner, and is the co-CEO of The Blu Market company, which deals with communications and plans for social media influencers. Jonas was part of the seventh season of Celebrity Apprentice taping in spring 2014, which was filmed throughout New York City. He was fired in the second episode when his team lost the competition, during which time he'd been acting as the team leader. Kevin also made a cameo in a 2014 episode of The Real Housewives of New Jersey, working in his new role as contractor, leading the construction on Housewife Kathy Wakile's home. In 2015, he created a food app Yood. As of 2016, he is also in partnership with the video-sharing app We Heart It. While the band was on hiatus, Nick was on his solo music and acting career, while Joe started the band DNCE in 2015 with Jonas Brothers drummer Jack Lawless, Semi Precious Weapons bassist Cole Whittle, and guitarist JinJoo Lee. 2019–present: Jonas Brothers reunion and Happiness Begins On February 28, 2019, nearly six years after the Jonas Brothers initial breakup, the brothers announced the band's reunion. They commenced their reunion the next day with releasing their new single, "Sucker" on March 1, 2019, and partaking in a week long segment on The Late Late Show with James Corden everyday from March 4 to March 7. Jonas and his brothers appeared in the band's documentary Chasing Happiness, which was released on June 4, 2019. On May 9, 2019, a compilation album titled Music from Chasing Happiness was released. It consists of old Jonas Brothers songs, two Nick songs, one Joe song featuring a guest appearance from Lil Wayne, and a song from Joe's band DNCE, who are currently in hiatus as of January 2019 since Joe and Jonas Brothers and DNCE drummer Jack Lawless have resumed work back with the brothers. Directed by John Lloyd Taylor, the documentary covers the brothers childhood life, how the brothers started as a band, why the band broke up, and how the band got back together. They released their fifth studio album, Happiness Begins on June 7, 2019. It is the band's first album released after their reunion. They have released two songs with other artists, which consist of: their feature on "Runaway" by Sebastián Yatra, Daddy Yankee, and Natti Natasha, as well as their collaboration on "Lonely" with Diplo. They released a song titled "Greenlight" for their episode of Songland the same day on June 18, three days before "Runaway". On November 8, they released a Christmas song, "Like It's Christmas". On January 17, 2020, they released a new single, "What a Man Gotta Do", the lead single for their upcoming sixth studio album. Since July 11, 2022, Kevin Jonas has been co-hosting the reality competition series Claim to Fame on ABC alongside his brother, Franklin Jonas. Personal life Kevin Jonas lives in New Jersey with his wife, Danielle Jonas, and their two daughters. Danielle is a former hairdresser with Ryan Rodgers Redken Ambassador, and the pair married at Oheka Castle on December 19, 2009, with his brothers Joe and Nick as his best men. The couple met while vacationing with their families in the Bahamas in May 2007. Their first daughter was born on February 2, 2014, and their second daughter was born on October 27, 2016. In April 2021, Jonas showed support for the NGO GiveIndia during the worsening situation of the COVID-19 pandemic in India and urged fans to help donate to the organization to help. In September 2021, Jonas and his wife Danielle announced the release of a book for children titled There's a Rock Concert in My Bedroom, which chronicles the story of Emma, a girl who is excited about participating in her school's talent show. The Jonases said the initiative was motivated by their daughters. It was released in April 2022. In June 2024, Jonas shared that he was diagnosed with skin cancer after discovering a malignant mole on his forehead. He got a basal cell carcinoma removed from his head. Filmography Film Television Internet Video games References External links Kevin Jonas at IMDb

Disneynature

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneynature

Disneynature is an independent film studio that specializes in the production of nature documentary films for Walt Disney Studios, a division of Disney Entertainment, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. The production company was founded on April 21, 2008, and is headquartered in Paris, France. The company's nature films are consistently budgeted between $5 million to $10 million, with their distribution and marketing handled by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures. The label's event films are released on Earth Day and have a conservation campaign based on the feature of the film with an appropriate conservation charity receiving donations based on tickets sold, at a pace of one per year. The eight Disneynature theatrical films have a gross of $151.6 million at the box office, at an average of $19 million, with Earth the top earner at $32 million. Background Disney had a background in making nature films prior to the creation of Disneynature; Bambi (1942) featured forest life and was a hit. From 1948 through 1960, the company produced the True-Life Adventures series, which won several Academy Awards. Outside of film work, Disney parks were involved. Disneyland in 1955 opened the Jungle Cruise ride. Walt Disney World includes Disney's Animal Kingdom, which is a theme park crossed with a zoo. Animal Kingdom has contributed to conservation causes by nursing endangered sea turtles back to health, returning white rhinos to Africa and conducting a census of cotton-top tamarins, a monkey species native to Colombia. In addition, since its creation in 1995, the Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund has given over $11 million to 650 conservation projects in 110 countries. After a long absence from nature documentaries, Disney decided to get back into the market after the French release of March of the Penguins. The film was given U.S. distribution through Warner Independent Pictures in 2005. Made on an $8 million budget, it grossed almost 10 times its budget at the U.S. box office and won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2006. Jean-Francois Camilleri, head of Buena Vista International France at the time, had the company acquire the film for the French market. Buena Vista International France also managed to obtain a 20% ownership stake in the French version of the film, but Buena Vista Pictures Distribution's bid to distribute the film in the U.S. ultimately failed. Disney CEO Bob Iger, in consideration of Disney's past efforts, felt that Penguins "should have been a Disney film worldwide". This was the impetus behind the creation of Disneynature. The film's 2007 follow-up was Arctic Tale, which only took in $1.8 million worldwide. Paul Baribault, Vice President of Disney Studios Marketing, led the US efforts for Disneynature from 2008 forward, overseeing all marketing, production, brand development, and conservation programmatic efforts for the label. He was eventually named general manager of Disneynature. History Disneynature was announced on April 21, 2008, a day before Earth Day, with a starting slate of seven films. Camilleri was set to head the new division. A multi-film production agreement was made with Alastair Fothergill, BBC's Planet Earth series producer, for three scheduled films: Earth (2009), African Cats (2011) and Chimpanzee (2012). The other announced slate films and their release years were: The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos (2008), Oceans (2010), Orangutans: One Minute to Midnight (2010) and Wings of Life (2011). Original announced plans had the division releasing two films per year, which was curtailed by April 2009 due to a nature film's long period needed to film wildlife. No decision was made at that time as to whether or not the studio would donate the films' proceeds to conservation causes. The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos was the first film produced for Disneynature. The first film released domestically under the new label was Earth, opening on April 22, 2009, in the US. In 2012, a Disneynature TV cable channel was launched in France. It is currently carried by France Telecom. Animal Planet pick up for a two-year period three Disneynature films, Oceans, African Cats, and The Crimson Wing: Mystery of the Flamingos, in April 2012 from Disney-ABC Domestic Television. In April 2014, Jane Goodall was named Disneynature ambassador. Disneynature has recently expanded to China with the production of Born in China. The production was made possible due to an expansion of Disney's relationship with Shanghai Media Group starting in 2014. Following Born in China, Ghost of the Mountains and Expedition China were released to Netflix to reflect the incredible journeys involved in creating these films. In 2016, the company released its first compilation film, Growing Up Wild, direct-to-video (Blu-ray and DVD) and video on demand. Paul Baribault, vice president of studio marketing and Disneynature, was appointed general manager of Disneynature officially in 2018, after having been operating in the capacity for several years. Camilleri resigned his posts with Disney in March 2019. Helene Etzi was appointed to take over his responsibility as head of Disney's French operations. The unit's first streaming films for Disney+ were Dolphin Reef and Elephant. Filmography Notes References External links Official website

Priyanka_Chopra

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priyanka_Chopra

Priyanka Chopra Jonas (pronounced [pɾɪˈjəŋka ˈtʃoːpɽa]; née Chopra; born 18 July 1982) is an Indian actress and producer. The winner of the Miss World 2000 pageant, Chopra is one of India's highest-paid actresses and has received numerous accolades, including two National Film Awards and five Filmfare Awards. In 2016, the Government of India honoured her with the Padma Shri, and Time named her one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In the next two years, Forbes listed her among the World's 100 Most Powerful Women, and in 2022, she was named in the BBC 100 Women list. Chopra accepted offers to join the Indian film industry following her pageant wins. Her acting debut came in the Tamil film Thamizhan (2002), followed by her first Bollywood feature in The Hero: Love Story of a Spy (2003). She played the leading lady in the box-office hits Andaaz (2003) and Mujhse Shaadi Karogi (2004) and had her breakout role in the 2004 romantic thriller Aitraaz. Chopra established herself with starring roles in the top-grossing productions Krrish and Don (both 2006), and later reprised her role in their sequels. For playing a troubled model in the drama Fashion (2008), Chopra won a National Film Award and a Filmfare Award for Best Actress. Chopra gained further praise for portraying a range of characters in the films Kaminey (2009), 7 Khoon Maaf (2011), Barfi! (2012), Mary Kom (2014), Dil Dhadakne Do (2015) and Bajirao Mastani (2015). From 2015 to 2018, Chopra starred as Alex Parrish in the ABC thriller series Quantico, becoming the first South Asian to headline an American network drama series. Founding the production company Purple Pebble Pictures in 2015, she produced several films under it, including the Marathi films Ventilator (2016) and Paani (2019), and the self-starring Hindi biopic The Sky Is Pink (2019). Chopra has also appeared in Hollywood films, such as Baywatch (2017), Isn't It Romantic (2019), The White Tiger (2021), and The Matrix Resurrections (2021), and starred in the action thriller series Citadel (2023–present). Chopra ventured into music by releasing three singles and into writing with her memoir Unfinished (2021), which reached The New York Times Best Seller list. Her other ventures include tech investments, a haircare brand, a restaurant, and a homeware line. She promotes social causes such as environment and women's rights and is vocal about gender equality, the gender pay gap, and feminism. She has worked with UNICEF since 2006 and was appointed as the national and global UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for child rights in 2010 and 2016, respectively. Her namesake foundation for health and education works towards providing support to underprivileged Indian children. Despite maintaining privacy, Chopra's off-screen life, including her marriage to American singer and actor Nick Jonas, is the subject of substantial media coverage. The couple has one daughter. Early life Chopra was born on 18 July 1982 in Jamshedpur, Bihar (present-day Jharkhand), to Ashok and Madhu Chopra, both physicians in the Indian Army. Her father was a Punjabi Hindu from Ambala. Her mother is a Bihari-Magahi Hindu from Jharkhand and is the eldest daughter of Dr. Manohar Kishan Akhouri, a former Congress veteran, and Madhu Jyotsna Akhouri, a former member of Bihar Legislative Assembly. Chopra's maternal grandmother, Mrs. Akhouri, was a Malayalee Jacobite Syrian Christian originally named Mary John, who belonged to the Kavalappara Nair family in Kumarakom, Kerala. Chopra has a brother, Siddharth, who is seven years her junior. Bollywood actresses Parineeti Chopra, Meera Chopra, and Mannara Chopra are her cousins. Owing to Chopra's parents' professions as military physicians, the family was posted in a number of places in India, including Delhi, Chandigarh, Ambala, Ladakh, Lucknow, Bareilly, and Pune. Among the schools she attended were La Martiniere Girls' School in Lucknow and St. Maria Goretti College in Bareilly. In an interview published in Daily News and Analysis, Chopra said that she did not mind travelling regularly and changing schools; she welcomed it as a new experience and a way to discover India's multicultural society. Among the many places that she lived, Chopra has fond memories as a child of playing in the valleys of Leh, in the cold northwestern Indian desert region of Ladakh. She had said, "I think I was in Class 4 when I was in Leh. My brother was just born. My dad was in the army and was posted there. I stayed in Leh for a year, and my memories of that place are tremendous. We were all army kids there. We weren't living in houses, we were in bunkers in the valley and there was a stupa right on top of a hill which used to overlook our valley. We used to race up to the top of the stupa". She now considers Bareilly her home town, and maintains strong connections there. At 13, Chopra moved to the United States to study, living with her aunt, and attending schools in Newton, Massachusetts, and Cedar Rapids, Iowa, after a stop in Queens, New York, as her aunt's family also moved frequently. While in Massachusetts, she participated in several theatre productions, and studied Western classical music, and choral singing. During her teenage years in the United States, Chopra sometimes faced racial issues and was bullied for being Indian by an African-American classmate. She has said, "I was a gawky kid, had low self-esteem, came from a modest middle-class background, had white marks on my legs. But I was damn hard working. Today, my legs sell 12 brands." After three years, Chopra returned to India, finishing the senior year of her high-school education at the Army Public School in Bareilly. During this period, Chopra won the local May Queen beauty pageant, after which she was pursued by admirers; her family equipped their home with bars for her protection. Her mother entered her in the Femina Miss India contest of 2000; she finished second, winning the Femina Miss India World title. Chopra next won the Miss World pageant, where she was crowned Miss World 2000 and Miss World Continental Queen of Beauty—Asia & Oceania at the Millennium Dome in London on 30 November 2000. Chopra was the fifth Indian contestant to win Miss World, and the fourth to do so within seven years. She had enrolled in college, but left after winning the Miss World pageant. Chopra said that the Miss India and Miss World titles brought her recognition, and she began receiving offers for film roles. In 2001, the bridge of Chopra's nose collapsed during nasal surgery to remove a polyp. She fell into depression over her "completely different" appearance, but was satisfied with the results of corrective surgeries. Acting career Career beginnings and breakthrough (2002–2004) After winning Miss India World, Chopra was cast as the female lead in Abbas–Mustan's romantic thriller Humraaz (2002), in which she was to make her film debut. However, this fell through for various reasons: she stated the production conflicted with her schedule, while the producers said they recast because Chopra took on various other commitments. Her screen debut occurred in the 2002 Tamil film Thamizhan as the love interest of the protagonist, played by Vijay. A review published in The Hindu was appreciative of the film for its wit and dialogue; however it felt that Chopra's role was limited from an acting viewpoint. In 2003, Chopra made her Bollywood film debut as the second female lead opposite Sunny Deol and Preity Zinta in Anil Sharma's The Hero: Love Story of a Spy. Set against the backdrop of the Indian Army in Kashmir, the film tells the story of an RAW agent's fight against terrorism. She later recounted her experience, admitting she was very nervous and "shaking" when she first met Deol. Despite rumors that she was not a good actress and discussions about possibly removing her from the film, Deol recognized her potential and insisted on giving her a chance to prove herself. The Hero emerged as one of the highest-grossing Bollywood films that year, but received mixed reviews from critics. Derek Elley from Variety said that "mega-looker Chopra makes a solid screen debut." Later that year she appeared in Raj Kanwar's box-office success Andaaz with Akshay Kumar, sharing the female lead with debutante Lara Dutta. Chopra played a vivacious young woman who falls in love with Kumar's character. The Hindustan Times noted the glamour that she brought to the role; Kunal Shah of Sify praised her performance and stated she had "all the qualities to be a star." Her performance earned her the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut (along with Dutta) and a Best Supporting Actress nomination. Chopra's first three releases in 2004—Plan, Kismat, and Asambhav—performed poorly at the box office. Chopra was typically cast during this earlier period as a "glamour quotient", in roles that were considered forgettable by film critic Joginder Tuteja. Later that year she starred with Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar in David Dhawan's romantic comedy Mujhse Shaadi Karogi, which opened to commercial success and emerged the third-highest-grossing film of the year in India. In late 2004, she starred opposite Kumar and Kareena Kapoor in Abbas–Mustan's romantic thriller Aitraaz. Chopra considers her first role as an antagonist, portraying Soniya Roy, an ambitious woman who accuses her employee of sexual harassment, as the "biggest learning experience of her career". The film was a critical and commercial success, and Chopra's performance received critical acclaim. The Hindustan Times cited it as the film that changed her career significantly. A reviewer writing for the BBC said, "Aitraaz is Chopra's film. As the deliciously wicked, gold digging, scheming seductress, she chews up every scene she is in with her magnetic screen presence." She won a Filmfare Award for Best Performance in a Negative Role, becoming the second and final actress to win the award after Kajol (the category was discontinued in 2008). Chopra also received a nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actress, and the Producers Guild Film Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role. Rise to prominence (2005–2006) In 2005, Chopra appeared in 6 films. Her first two releases, the action thrillers Blackmail and Karam, were critically and commercially unsuccessful. Shilpa Bharatan-Iyer of Rediff.com considered Blackmail to be a very predictable film and believed that her role as a police commissioner's wife was very limited from an acting point of view. Her performance in Karam was better received, Subhash K. Jha wrote that Chopra "with her poised interpretation of high drama, flies high creating a character whose vulnerability and beauty are endorsed by both the inner and outer worlds created for her character." Later that year Chopra played the wife of Akshay Kumar in Vipul Amrutlal Shah's family drama Waqt: The Race Against Time, the story of a small businessman (played by Amitabh Bachchan) who, hiding his illness, wants to teach his irresponsible son some lessons before he dies. During production, Chopra revisited Leh, a favourite childhood haunt, for the shooting of the song "Subah Hogi". She suffered an accident during the filming for the song "Do Me A Favour Let's Play Holi" when she electrocuted herself, spending a day recovering in hospital. The film was well received by critics, and was a commercial success. She next starred opposite Arjun Rampal in the romantic mystery thriller Yakeen, portraying the role of a possessive lover. Critical reaction towards the film was mixed, but her performance received praise. Taran Adarsh wrote that Chopra "is bound to win laurels yet again [...] the actor is emerging as one of the finest talents in these fast-changing times". Her next release was Suneel Darshan's romance Barsaat, co-starring Bobby Deol and Bipasha Basu. The film was a critical and commercial failure in India, but fared better in the overseas market. Chopra's performance received mixed reviews, with Bollywood Hungama describing it as "mechanical". However, Rediff.com considered Chopra to be an "epitome of calm intelligence, who underplayed her role to perfection". Later that year, Rohan Sippy cast her alongside Abhishek Bachchan, Ritesh Deshmukh and Nana Patekar in the comedy Bluffmaster!. Chopra played independent working woman Simran Saxena, Bachchan's love interest. The film proved to be a box-office success. After starting 2006 with special appearances in three films, Chopra starred in Rakesh Roshan's superhero film Krrish (a sequel to the 2003 science-fiction film Koi... Mil Gaya). Co-starring with Hrithik Roshan, Rekha and Naseeruddin Shah, Chopra played a young television journalist who schemes to take advantage of an innocent young man with remarkable physical abilities, but eventually falls in love with him. The film was the second-highest-grossing film of the year in India and grossed over ₹1.17 billion (US$14 million) worldwide attaining a blockbuster status. Her next film was Dharmesh Darshan's romantic comedy Aap Ki Khatir, co-starring Akshaye Khanna, Ameesha Patel and Dino Morea. Neither the film nor Chopra's performance were well received. Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com stated that Chopra's portrayal of Anu was "erratically sketched" and that her character was never consistent: "first flaky, then cool, and later, sensitive". Chopra's final release of 2006 was Farhan Akhtar's action-thriller Don (a remake of the 1978 film of the same name), with Shah Rukh Khan. Chopra portrayed Roma (played by Zeenat Aman in the original film), who joins the underworld to avenge Don for killing her brother. Chopra received martial-arts training for her role in the movie, and performed her own stunts. The film was declared a box-office success in India and overseas, with revenues of ₹1.05 billion (US$13 million). Raja Sen of Rediff.com found Chopra to be film's "big surprise"; he believed that Chopra convincingly portrayed Roma, "looking every bit the competent woman of action" and wrote "This is an actress willing to push herself, and has definite potential for screen magic. Not to mention a great smile." Setbacks and resurgence (2007–2008) In 2007, Chopra had two leading roles. Her first film was Nikhil Advani's Salaam-e-Ishq: A Tribute to Love, a romantic comedy-drama in six chapters with an ensemble cast. She was featured opposite Salman Khan in the first chapter as Kamini, an item girl and aspiring actress who tries to land the lead role in a Karan Johar film with a publicity gimmick. Film critic Sukanya Verma praised her flair for comedy, especially her impressions of Meena Kumari, Nargis and Madhubala. Both Salaam-e-Ishq: A Tribute to Love and her next film, Big Brother, proved unsuccessful at the domestic box office. In 2008, Chopra starred opposite Harman Baweja in his father's Love Story 2050. Chopra played a double role, so she colored her hair twice; once red to portray the girl from the future and then black for the girl of the past. Her performance was poorly received; Rajeev Masand was unimpressed with Chopra's chemistry with her co-star, remarking that her character "fails to inspire either affection or sympathy". She next appeared in the comedy God Tussi Great Ho, portraying a TV anchor opposite Salman Khan, Sohail Khan and Amitabh Bachchan. Chopra next starred as a kindergarten teacher in Chamku opposite Bobby Deol and Irrfan Khan, and played the role of Sonia in Goldie Behl's fantasy superhero film Drona opposite Abhishek Bachchan and Jaya Bachchan. Drona, widely criticized for its extensive use of special effects, marked Chopra's sixth film in succession which had failed at both the box-office and critically, although Sukanya Verma of Rediff.com stated that Chopra displayed convincing action heroine skills. Critics generally perceived at this time that her career was over. The string of poorly received films ended when Chopra starred in Madhur Bhandarkar's Fashion, a drama about the Indian fashion industry which followed the lives and careers of several fashion models. She portrayed the ambitious supermodel Meghna Mathur, a role which she initially thought was out of her depth, but after six months' consideration she accepted the role, inspired by Bhandarkar's confidence in her. For the role, Chopra had to gain 6 kilograms (13 lb) and steadily shed the weight during the production as the character progressed in the film. Both the film and her performance received critical acclaim, proving to be a major turning point in her career. Rajeev Masand felt that she "turns in a respectable performance, one that will inevitably go down as her best." For her performance, she won several awards, including the National Film Award for Best Actress, the Filmfare Award for Best Actress, the IIFA Award for Best Actress, the Screen Award for Best Actress, and the Producers Guild Film Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. With a worldwide revenue of ₹600 million (US$7 million), Fashion emerged as a commercial success, and was listed by Subhash K. Jha as one of the best films of the decade with women protagonists. It was noted for being commercially successful despite being a women-centric film with no male lead. Chopra said in 2012: "I think actually Fashion kick started ... the process of female dominated films. Today you have so many other films which have done well with female leads." Chopra's final film of the year was Tarun Mansukhani's romantic comedy Dostana, with Abhishek Bachchan and John Abraham. Set in Miami, the film tells the story of a friendship between her character and two men who pretend to be gay to share an apartment with her. Chopra played a stylish young fashion-magazine editor Neha Melwani, who is trying to deal with professional pressures in her life. Produced by Dharma Productions, the film was a financial success with worldwide revenues of over ₹860 million (US$10 million). Chopra's performance and look in the film were praised. For her performances in both Fashion and Dostana, she jointly won the Stardust Award for Actor of the Year – Female. Experiment with unconventional roles (2009–2011) In 2009, Chopra played a feisty Marathi woman named Sweety in Vishal Bhardwaj's caper thriller Kaminey (co-starring Shahid Kapoor), about twin brothers and the journey in their life linked with the underworld. The film received critical acclaim and became successful at the box-office with the worldwide gross earnings of ₹710 million (US$9 million). Nikhat Kazmi of The Times of India thought that Chopra's role completely reinvented her, and Rajeev Masand wrote: "Springing a delightful surprise in a smaller part is [Chopra], who sprinkles her lines with a smattering of fluent Marathi and emerges one of the film's most lovable characters." Raja Sen of Rediff.com named Chopra's performance as the best by an actress that year. Her role earned her several awards and nominations, including a second consecutive Producers Guild Film Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role after Fashion and Best Actress nominations at the Filmfare, Screen and IIFA awards. Chopra subsequently appeared in Ashutosh Gowariker's romantic comedy What's Your Raashee?, based on the novel Kimball Ravenswood by Madhu Rye. The film depicts the story of a US-based Gujrati NRI in search of his soulmate among 12 girls (all played by Chopra) associated with the 12 zodiac signs. She received a nomination for the Screen Award for Best Actress for her performance in the film. She was considered for inclusion in the Guinness World Records book for being the first film actress to portray 12 distinct characters in one film. Chopra's heavy workload—filming for several productions, travelling for endorsements and performing at live shows (including the Miss India pageant)—took its toll; she fainted during filming, and was admitted to hospital. In 2010, Chopra starred with Uday Chopra in Jugal Hansraj's romantic comedy Pyaar Impossible! as Alisha, a popular college girl (and later a working mother) who falls in love with a socially inept man. Later that year, she starred with Ranbir Kapoor in Siddharth Anand's romantic comedy-drama Anjaana Anjaani. Set in New York and Las Vegas, the film follows the story of two suicidal strangers who fall in love with each other. The film received mixed-to-positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success at the box office. She starred as a femme fatale in her first film of 2011, Vishal Bhardwaj's black comedy 7 Khoon Maaf. Based on the short story Susanna's Seven Husbands by Ruskin Bond, 7 Khoon Maaf centers on Chopra's Susanna Anna-Marie Johannes, an Anglo-Indian woman who murders her husbands in an unending quest for love. The film and her performance received acclaim from critics. Nikhat Kazmi labelled the film "a milestone in Chopra's career graph", complimenting her "exquisite command over a complex character that is definitely a first in Indian cinema". Rachel Saltz of New York Times felt that Susanna was more conceit than a character and that Chopra "though charming as always, can't make her cohere". Chopra's performance earned her the Filmfare Award for Best Actress (Critics) and a nomination for the Filmfare Award, IIFA Award, Producers Guild Film Award, and Screen Award for Best Actress. Chopra's final release of the year saw her reprising her role as Roma in the second installment of the Don franchise, Don 2. Although the film received mixed reviews, Chopra's performance earned positive feedback from critics. According to The Express Tribune, "Chopra ... seems to be the perfect choice for an action heroine. As you watch her effortlessly beat up some thugs in the movie, you come to the realization that she may be the first proper female action hero in Bollywood." Don 2 was a major success in India and overseas, earning over ₹2.06 billion (US$25 million) worldwide. Further success (2012–2014) Chopra's first film of 2012 was Karan Malhotra's action drama Agneepath, in which she starred with Hrithik Roshan, Sanjay Dutt and Rishi Kapoor. Produced by Karan Johar, the film is a remake of his father's 1990 production of the same name. In one of several accidents to happen during production, Chopra's lehenga (a traditional skirt) caught fire while filming a sequence for an elaborate Ganpati festival song. She featured as Kaali Gawde, Roshan's loquacious love interest in the film. Mayank Shekhar noted how much Chopra stood out in the male-dominated film. Agneepath broke Bollywood's highest opening-day earnings record, and had a worldwide gross of ₹1.93 billion (US$23 million). Chopra next co-starred with Shahid Kapoor in Kunal Kohli's romance, Teri Meri Kahaani. The film relates the stories of three unconnected couples (each played by Kapoor and Chopra), born in different eras. Anurag Basu's Barfi!, with Ranbir Kapoor and Ileana D'Cruz, was her final appearance of 2012. Set in the 1970s, the film tells the story of three people, two of whom are physically disabled. Chopra played Jhilmil Chatterjee, an autistic woman who falls in love with a deaf, mute man (Kapoor). Director Rituparno Ghosh considered it a "very, very brave" role to accept given how demanding it is for an actor to convincingly portray a woman with autism. To prepare for the role, Chopra visited several mental institutions and spent time with autistic people. The film received critical acclaim and was a major commercial success, earning ₹1.75 billion (US$21 million) worldwide. Rachit Gupta of Filmfare found Chopra to be the film's "surprise package" and found her performance to be "the best representation of [autism] on Indian celluloid". Pratim D. Gupta of The Telegraph highly praised Kapoor and Chopra, although he found her to be a "tad showy" in her part. Chopra received Best Actress nominations at the Filmfare, Screen, IIFA and Producers Guild Film Awards. The film was chosen as India's entry for the 85th Academy Awards. Agneepath and Barfi! ranked among the highest grossing Bollywood films to that point. In 2013, she lent her voice to the character of Ishaani, the reigning Pan-Asian champion from India and the love interest of the main protagonist in the Disneytoon Studios film Planes, a spinoff of Pixar's Cars franchise. Chopra, a fan of Disney films, had fun voicing the character saying "The closest I could come to being a Disney princess, I think, was Ishaani". The film was a commercial success, grossing approximately US$240 million worldwide. She played an NRI girl in the Apoorva Lakhia's bilingual action drama Zanjeer (Thoofan in Telugu), a remake of the 1973 Hindi film of the same name, which met with poor reactions from critics and was unsuccessful at the box office. Chopra next reprised her role of Priya in Rakesh Roshan's Krrish 3—a sequel to the 2006 superhero film Krrish—with Hrithik Roshan, Vivek Oberoi and Kangana Ranaut. Critics felt that Chopra had very little to do in the film. Saibal Chatterjee of NDTV writing that she "is saddled with a sketchily written role and is reduced to the status of a hanger-on waiting for things to unfold". The feature became a box-office success, earning over ₹3 billion (US$36 million) worldwide, to become Chopra's biggest commercial success to that point and her fourth major hit in two years. She danced a contemporary mujra in the song "Ram Chahe Leela" for Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela. In 2014, Chopra played the lead female role in Yash Raj Films's romantic action drama Gunday directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, alongside Ranveer Singh, Arjun Kapoor and Irrfan Khan. She portrayed Nandita, a cabaret dancer in Calcutta. Set in the 1970s, the film tells the story of two best friends who fall in love with Nandita. Gunday proved to be a box-office success, grossing over ₹1 billion (US$12 million) worldwide. Chopra next starred as the title character in Mary Kom, a biographical film of the five time world boxing champion and Olympic bronze medalist Mary Kom. To prepare for the role, she spent time with Kom and received four months of boxing training. The film premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival, received positive reviews from critics, and her performance received critical acclaim. Sudhish Kamath from The Hindu criticized the film's screenplay but praised Chopra's "knockout" performance, writing "The spirited actress rises above the material and makes us invest in her and does full justice to the spirit" of the boxer. The Indo-Asian News Service review noted the actress for expressing every shade of the character with "a pitch-perfect bravado". Mary Kom emerged as a commercial success, with revenues of ₹1.04 billion (US$12 million) at the box office. She won the Screen Award for Best Actress, the Producers Guild Film Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role, and received another nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress. Expansion into American film and television (2015–2019) In 2015, Chopra starred in Zoya Akhtar's Dil Dhadakne Do, an ensemble comedy-drama, featuring Anil Kapoor, Shefali Shah, Ranveer Singh and Anushka Sharma. The film tells the story of a dysfunctional Punjabi family (the Mehras), who invite their family and friends on a cruise trip to celebrate the parents' 30th wedding anniversary. She portrayed the role of Ayesha Mehra, a successful entrepreneur and the eldest child. Pratim D. Gupta from The Telegraph wrote of Chopra, "From the propah body language to the measured speech [...] shows the kind of depth she is able to bring to her lines and characters these days. Conversely, Shubhra Gupta of The Indian Express commented that it was time for her "to being a little messy: all these not-a-hair-out-place roles are making her constrained." The cast of Dil Dhadakne Do won the Screen Award for Best Ensemble Cast, and Chopra was nominated for a Screen Award, IIFA Award, and Producers Guild Film Award for Best Actress. In 2016, she dubbed for Kaa, a female python, in the Hindi version of the film The Jungle Book. Chopra signed a talent holding deal with ABC Studios and was later cast in the American thriller series Quantico as the character Alex Parrish. The series premiered in 2015 on ABC, making Chopra the first South Asian to headline an American network drama series. The series received positive reviews from television critics and Chopra was praised for her performance. Rob Lowman of the Los Angeles Daily News applauded her "dynamic screen presence" and James Poniewozik of The New York Times named Chopra as the "strongest human asset" of the show, and added that "she is immediately charismatic and commanding." She received the People's Choice Award for Favourite Actress In A New TV Series for her role in Quantico, becoming the first South Asian actress to win a People's Choice Award. The following year, Chopra won a second People's Choice Award for Favorite Dramatic TV Actress. Quantico was cancelled after three seasons in 2018. Chopra later said that her move to America was prompted by disagreements with people in Bollywood: "I had people not casting me, I had beef with people, I am not good at playing that game so I kind of was tired of the politics and I said I needed a break.” Chopra next portrayed Kashibai, the first wife of the Maratha general Peshwa Bajirao I, in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's epic historical romantic drama Bajirao Mastani, alongside Ranveer Singh and Deepika Padukone. The feature opened to highly positive reviews, and Chopra received widespread praise for her portrayal which several reviewers regarded as her best performance to date. Rajeev Masand wrote "the film benefits from a nice touch of playfulness and humor in Priyanka Chopra's Kashibai. Chopra brings grace to the character, and practically steals the film." Film critic Raja Sen thought that Chopra, despite not being in the title role, owned the film, and wrote "Chopra's terrific in the part, her intelligently expressive eyes speaking volumes and her no-nonsense Marathi rhythm bang-on." A major commercial success, Bajirao Mastani grossed ₹3.5 billion (US$42 million) at the box office, becoming one of the highest-grossing Indian films of all time. For her performance, she won the Filmfare Award, IIFA Award, and Screen Award for Best Supporting Actress, and received a nomination for the Producers Guild Film Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role. In 2016, Chopra starred as a police officer in Prakash Jha's social drama Jai Gangaajal. Writing for The Hindu, Namrata Joshi thought that she "looks off-colour, disinterested and uninvolved with the goings on through most of the film". It did not perform well commercially. The following year, Chopra made her Hollywood live-action film debut by playing the antagonist Victoria Leeds in Seth Gordon's action comedy Baywatch opposite Dwayne Johnson and Zac Efron. The feature received unfavorable reviews. IGN declared Chopra as the highlight of the film, noting she "outshines pretty much anyone she's in a scene with" and wrote "Chopra's engaging and interesting and is the only character that speaks with any kind of distinctive cadence." Scott Mendelson of Forbes wrote "Chopra has fun as the baddie, but she stays in the background until the end of the movie and really only gets one big scene at the end of the picture." Baywatch was not a commercial success in North America but the film performed well in the overseas markets, grossing approximately $178 million at the worldwide box office. The 2018 Sundance Film Festival marked the release of Chopra's next American film, A Kid Like Jake, a drama about gender variance, starring Jim Parsons and Claire Danes. Amy Nicholson of Variety commended her "charming presence" but thought that her role added little value to the film. In early 2019, she had signed on to play the leading lady opposite Salman Khan in Bharat, but opted out days before filming her scenes. Nikhil Namit, a producer of the film, said that she quit due to her engagement to Nick Jonas and accused her of being "a little unprofessional". In 2019, Chopra had another supporting part, as a yoga ambassador, in Todd Strauss-Schulson's comedy Isn't It Romantic, which starred Rebel Wilson. The film was well received by critics and grossed approximately $49 million at the North American box office. Dana Schwartz of Entertainment Weekly considered her to be "perfectly cast" but Benjamin Lee of The Guardian thought that she was "not quite interesting enough". She returned to Hindi cinema (as Priyanka Chopra Jonas) later in 2019 with Shonali Bose's biographical drama The Sky Is Pink, in which she played mother to Aisha Chaudhary, a teenager suffering from a terminal illness. She also produced the project, and connected with the story for its blend of humour and tragedy. Kate Erbland of IndieWire found her to be "extraordinary" as "the film's driving force, a tough-talking mama bear", and Anna M. M. Vetticad took note of the "simmering restraint" in her performance. The film did not do well at the box office. She received another nomination for the Filmfare Award for Best Actress. Streaming projects (2020–present) In 2020, Chopra Jonas signed a multimillion-dollar first-look TV deal with Amazon Prime Video to back content by first time BIPOC and female filmmakers. Her only release that year was the Netflix children's superhero film We Can Be Heroes directed by Robert Rodriguez. She starred as Ms. Granada, the director of a superhero organisation called Heroics. The feature received generally positive reviews; Richard Roeper from the Chicago Sun-Times praised the actress for "livening up the proceedings" as the strait-laced Ms. Granada, and Ian Freer of the Empire magazine felt that she did the "kids' film acting to the hilt". Her first film of 2021 was Ramin Bahrani's The White Tiger, an adaptation of Aravind Adiga's satirical novel of the same name. She starred alongside Adarsh Gourav and Rajkummar Rao, and also executive produced this Netflix production. Critical reviews towards the film and her performance were positive. Writing for The Times, film critic Kevin Maher deemed Chopra Jonas' performance "impressive" and The Hollywood Reporter's David Rooney commended her for bringing "emotional depth" to her role. The film received a Best Adapted Screenplay nomination at the 93rd Academy Awards. Later that year, Chopra Jonas had a supporting role in the science fiction film The Matrix Resurrections. Chopra Jonas next starred alongside Richard Madden in Amazon Prime Video's action thriller series Citadel (2023). With a production budget of US$300 million, the six-episode first season ranks as one of the most-expensive television shows. It marked the first time in her career when she received equal pay with her male co-star. She performed many of her own stunts, and suffered a permanent scar from an injury on her eyebrow. Critics had mixed opinions on the series, but Jasper Rees of The Daily Telegraph was particularly impressed by Chopra Jonas' potential as a female James Bond, finding her "flirty and funny and hard as a bag of nine-inch nails". She then led the romantic comedy Love Again, opposite Sam Heughan and Celine Dion, which was panned by critics. Chopra Jonas will next star alongside John Cena and Idris Elba in the action film Heads of State and alongside Karl Urban in the action film The Bluff. Music career Chopra's main vocal influence was her father, who helped develop her interest in singing. She used her vocal talent early in her pageantry career. Her first recording, the song "Ullathai Killathe" in the Tamil film Thamizhan (2002), was made at the urging of her director and co-star, Vijay (who had noticed her singing on the set). She declined to sing playback for "Tinka Tinka" in her film Karam (2005), preferring to concentrate on her acting career, but later sang the song live on the television programme Sa Re Ga Ma Pa. Chopra recorded an unreleased song for Bluffmaster! (2005). In August 2011, Universal Music Group signed Chopra to a worldwide recording agreement with DesiHits. The deal indicated that her first studio album would be released by Interscope Records in North America and by Island Records elsewhere. In July 2012, Chopra became the first Bollywood star signed by Creative Artists Agency, an entertainment and sports agency based in Los Angeles. The album was produced by RedOne. Her first single, "In My City", debuted in the US on 13 September 2012 in a TV spot for the NFL Network's Thursday Night Football; a shortened version of the song was used to open each show of the season. "In My City" features rapper will.i.am; according to Chopra, a co-writer, the song was inspired by her unsettled childhood and her journey from a small-town girl to a celebrity. The song received mixed reviews from critics, and was a commercial success in India; it sold more than 130,000 copies in its first week, topped the Hindi pop chart and was certified triple platinum. In the United States the single was unsuccessful, with 5,000 digital downloads in its first week according to Nielsen SoundScan, and did not receive radio play. In October 2012, the single won her the Best International Debut award at the People's Choice Awards India. In December 2012, she received three nominations: Best Female Artist, Best Song and Best Video (for "In My City") at the World Music Awards. Chopra was also featured on "Erase", an EDM song produced by the American DJ and producer duo The Chainsmokers. In July 2013, Chopra released her second single "Exotic" featuring American rapper Pitbull, along with its music video. "Exotic" debuted at number 16 on the Billboard Dance/Electronic Songs and number 11 on the Dance/Electronic Digital Songs chart on 27 July 2013 issue. The single also entered at number 74 on the Canadian Hot 100 chart. "Exotic" debuted at number 44 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs chart and peaked at number 12. Her third single, a cover of Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" was released in April 2014. The song peaked at number 28 on the Billboard Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart. Chopra's first song as a playback singer in Bollywood was "Chaoro", a lullaby from Mary Kom (2014). In 2015, she sang the title song, a duet with Farhan Akhtar, for Dil Dhadakne Do. She recorded a promotional song for Ventilator (2016), making her Marathi language playback singing debut with "Baba". In 2017, Chopra collaborated with the Australian DJ Will Sparks for "Young and Free", an EDM song which she also wrote. Chopra later said that her music career "was not living up to my standards" and that it would have been "futile" to have kept pursuing it. Philanthropy Chopra supports various causes through her foundation "The Priyanka Chopra Foundation for Health and Education", which works towards providing support to unprivileged children across the country in the areas of Education and Health. She donates ten percent of her earnings to fund the foundation's operations, and pays for educational and medical expenses for seventy children in India, fifty among whom are girls. She often speaks out on women's issues: against female infanticide and foeticide, and in support of education for girls. A believer in feminism, Chopra has always been vocal about women's rights, gender equality, and gender pay gap. In 2006, a "day with Chopra" was auctioned on eBay; the proceeds were donated to an NGO, Nanhi Kali, which helps educate girls in India. She has made appearances in support of other charities, such as the 2005 HELP! Telethon Concert to raise funds for the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake. She has worked with UNICEF since 2006, recording public-service announcements and participating in media panel discussions promoting children's rights and the education of girls, and also participated in celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. She was appointed as the national UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador for Child Rights on 10 August 2010. UNICEF Representative Karin Hulshof said of the appointment: "She is equally passionate about her work on behalf of children and adolescents. We are proud of the work she has done with us so far on child rights, and, we are thrilled about all what we will be doing together so that no child gets left behind." In 2009, she shot a documentary for the organisation Alert India to increase understanding of leprosy. She modelled for designer Manish Malhotra and Shaina NC's charity fashion show to raise funds for the Cancer Patients Aid Association NGO. In 2010 Chopra was one of several celebrities who created promotional messages for Pearls Wave Trust, which campaigns against violence and abuse of women and girls. Chopra also launched the "Save the Girl Child" campaign, which aims to change the attitudes of Indians towards girls. In 2012 Chopra spoke at the launch of Awakening Youth, an anti-addiction programme. At a public event in 2019, an activist criticised Chopra for a tweet in which she hailed India's military forces while tensions amid Pakistan and India were escalating. The main line of argument was that she was warmongering and that was incompatible with her job as UN Peace Ambassador. Chopra's response at the event was that she is patriotic; she was also fast to silence the activist criticising her. Pakistan asked for Chopra being sacked from her UN job but UN supported Chopra's right to talk for herself. Chopra is a supporter of environmental charities and is brand ambassador for NDTV Greenathon, an initiative to support eco-friendliness and provide solar power to rural villages without electricity supplies. She appeared with children in an animated video to support the cause, and removed rubbish from the banks of the Yamuna river in Agra to increase awareness of environmental issues. During the third and fourth editions of Greenathon, She adopted up to seven villages to provide with a regular supply of electricity. She adopted a tigress in 2011 and a lioness in 2012 at the Birsa biological park, paying for both animals upkeep for a year. To promote organ donation, Chopra pledged to donate her own organs after death and was co-keynote speaker at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Bollywood-themed 20th-anniversary celebration of its liver-transplant programme in 2012. She donated ₹5 million (US$60,000) to Nanavati hospital to build a cancer ward. The ward, which is named after her late father, was inaugurated by her in 2013. The same year, she provided voice-over in English and Hindi for the documentary film Girl Rising for the organisation of the same name. She was invited as one of the speakers alongside Gordon Brown, Steve Wozniak, Bill Clinton, and Charlie Baker for the 50th anniversary of the World Leaders Conference at the Hynes Convention Center, Boston. She spoke about women empowerment through education, discussing inequality and the challenges of education for women, and received a standing ovation for her speech. Chopra also lent her voice to a music video of John Lennon's "Imagine". The video featuring her along with other singers, including Katy Perry, and The Black Eyed Peas was created as part of a global campaign by UNICEF to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Indian prime minister Narendra Modi selected Chopra as one of his nine nominees called "Navratna" in 2014 for the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, a national cleanliness campaign by the Government of India. She lent her support to the campaign by working as a sanitation worker for a day, cleaning and rehabilitating a garbage-laden neighbourhood in Mumbai, and urged people to maintain the cleanliness. In 2015, she voiced People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA's) life-size robotic elephant named "Ellie", who visited schools across the United States and Europe to educate kids about elephants and captivity, and to urge people to boycott circuses. Chopra was appointed as the global UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in December 2016. In 2017, Variety honoured her with the Power of Women award for her philanthropic work with UNICEF and she received the Mother Teresa Memorial Award for Social Justice for her contribution towards social causes. Two years later, Chopra was awarded the Danny Kaye Humanitarian Award by UNICEF for her "philanthropic work and dedication towards the welfare of the society" at the UNICEF Snowflake Ball 2019. In December 2019, Chopra teamed-up with the United Nations Children's Fund and the Crocs Company to donate 50,000 pairs of shoes to deserving school children in the Central American country, Belize. In late April 2021, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in India, Chopra along with husband Nick opened a fundraiser along with NGO GiveIndia to get donations for oxygen supply, COVID-19 care centers, testing, and vaccination efforts. The fundraiser had achieved USD 400,000 in the first few days. Chopra's brother-in-law Kevin Jonas also urged his followers to help donate to the fundraiser. By 13 May 2021, the fundraiser had achieved the $1 million landmark and put its newer target at $3 million for COVID-19 relief. Other works Film production and entrepreneurship Chopra set up her production company Purple Pebble Pictures with an aim to produce small budget films and introduce and promote new talent in the Indian film industry, particularly regional Indian films. Her first Marathi film, the 2016 comedy-drama Ventilator, was a box office success and went on to win three awards at the 64th National Film Awards. She went on to produce several Indian regional language films, including Pahuna: The Little Visitors (2018) and Paani (2019), which won the National Film Award for Best Film on Environment Conservation/Preservation at the 66th National Film Awards. Chopra started investing in tech companies in 2018 by investing in a coding education startup called Holberton School and the dating and social media app Bumble. The Bumble app was launched in India with the help of Chopra in October 2018. In 2021, it was reported that she had invested in the US-based rental marketplace Apartment List. At the Startup India Prarambh event 2021, Chopra said that "ideas are the currency of the present" and that she was looking forward to further invest in a mix of beauty and tech startups. The same month, she launched a haircare line called "Anamoly Haircare" which became available exclusively in Target stores in the United States on 1 February 2021 and was planned to be available internationally later that year. In March 2021, Chopra opened her new restaurant Sona in Manhattan, featuring haute-couture Indian cuisine. Television presenting and stage performances In 2007, Chopra was on the judges' panel of the Miss India pageant. She stated, "Miss India will always remain special. That's where it all started for me. And maybe that's where it would've ended if I hadn't won the crown." She also served as a judge at Miss World 2009. She visited Jawan troops in Tenga, in eastern India, for a special episode of the NDTV show Jai Jawan celebrating the 60th anniversary of India's independence. In 2010, she hosted the third season of the reality show Fear Factor: Khatron Ke Khiladi on the Colors channel, taking over from previous host Akshay Kumar. According to contestants, in hosting the series, Chopra had "transformed into quite a whip-wielding dictator", relentlessly pushing the contestants to work. She performed most of her own stunts, adamant to prove that she could rival Akshay Kumar, who had hosted the previous two seasons. The opening ratings of the show topped those of the two previous seasons. The show was praised by critics, and earned her the Indian Telly Award for Most Impactful Debut on Television. In February 2016, Chopra presented the award for Best Film Editing at the 88th Academy Awards. Chopra has participated in a number of world tours and concerts. She took part in a world concert tour, "Temptations 2004", and performed with other Bollywood actors (including Shah Rukh Khan, Saif Ali Khan, Rani Mukerji, Preity Zinta and Arjun Rampal) in 19 stage shows. In 2011, she participated (with Shahid Kapoor and Shah Rukh Khan) in a concert in Durban, South Africa celebrating 150 years of India–South Africa friendship. In 2012, she performed at M. A. Chidambaram Stadium, Chennai in the opening ceremony of the fifth season of cricket's Indian Premier League with Amitabh Bachchan, Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Katy Perry. The same year, she performed at Dubai Festival City's Ahlan Bollywood Concert with other Bollywood stars such as Salman Khan and Sophie Choudry. In 2021, Chopra along with her husband Nick Jonas, announced the nominees for the 93rd Academy Awards. Writing Chopra began writing an opinion column for the Hindustan Times in 2009. She wrote a total of 50 columns for the newspaper. She said after her first year of writing: "I'm a private person and never thought that I could express my feelings. But strangely enough, whenever I sat down to write this column, my inner most thoughts came to the fore." In March 2009, she met several readers who had submitted feedback on her weekly column. She continued to write sporadically for newspapers. In August 2012 she wrote a column published in The Times of India titled "No woman in Mumbai feels safe any longer", discussing the murder of 25-year-old Pallavi Purkayastha, whom she met while working on Don. In the article, Chopra expressed her views about the safety of women in cities. In a July 2014 article published in The Guardian, Chopra criticised female genital mutilation and child marriage. Later that year, Chopra wrote an op-ed for The New York Times titled "What Jane Austen Knew" about the importance of education for girls. She praised and quoted Nobel Peace Prize winners Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi, and described how her desire to help others was triggered when, at 9, she joined her parents while they volunteered their spare time to offer modern health care to the rural poor. In late 2014, Chopra began writing a monthly column, "Pret-a-Priyanka", for Elle. In an article published in January 2015, she expressed her views on diversity and being a global citizen. Released by Penguin Random House, Chopra published her first memoir titled Unfinished on 9 February 2021. In a rave review, Associated Press's Molly Sprayregen termed the book "deeply open and honest account" and wrote "Chopra Jonas' writing is open, engaging, and full of energy. She writes, it seems, to connect. The experience feels intimate, like Chopra Jonas is exchanging stories with a friend over coffee. Her stories are exceedingly personal, and despite being an international movie star, many of them even feel relatable." Unfinished reached The New York Times Best Seller list in the United States. Personal life Chopra has maintained a strong relationship with her family, including her younger brother, Siddharth, and lives in an apartment on the same floor as her family. She was especially close to her father, who died in June 2013; in 2012, she got a tattoo reading "Daddy's lil girl" in his handwriting. Having not come from a film background, she describes herself as a self-made woman. Her mother, a well-established gynaecologist in Bareilly, gave up her practice to support Chopra as she embarked upon a film career. A practising Hindu, Chopra performs a puja every morning at a small shrine consisting of various murtis of Hindu deities in her home, which she even travels with. Although she is known for her media-friendly attitude, Chopra is publicly reticent about her personal life. Chopra started dating American singer and actor, Nick Jonas in May 2018. Jonas proposed to her on 19 July 2018, a day after her birthday in Crete, Greece. Chopra and Jonas became engaged in August 2018 in a Punjabi Roka ceremony in Mumbai. In December 2018, the couple married at Umaid Bhawan Palace, Jodhpur in traditional Hindu and Christian ceremonies. Following the marriage, Chopra legally changed her full name to "Priyanka Chopra Jonas". In January 2022, the couple had their first child, a girl, via surrogacy. Public image Chopra is known in the Indian media and film industry for her professionalism and is popularly referred to by the media and the film industry as "PeeCee", "PC" and "Piggy Chops". She has had a Twitter account since January 2009, and is the tenth most followed Indian on the platform. In 2012, she was declared the most influential Indian on social-media in a survey conducted by Pinstorm and in 2015, Chopra appeared in HuffPost's "100 Most Influential Women on Twitter" list, in which she was ranked first among Indians. As of August 2024, she is one of the most-followed people on Instagram. Remarking upon her role choices, CNN-IBN described Chopra as a powerful modern actress unafraid of experimenting with roles. Analysing Chopra's career, Bollywood Hungama noted her constant growth as a performer despite career fluctuations. The Times of India called her a "game changer" for changing "the age-old demarcation between a hero and heroine". In 2012, film critic Subhash K. Jha labelled her "the best actress in the post-Sridevi generation" and listed her character in Barfi! as being "one of the finest inwardly ravaged characters in Bollywood." Chopra has often featured on Rediff.com's annual listing of "Bollywood's Best Actresses", ranking first in 2009, and was featured in their list of "Top 10 Actresses of 2000–2010". A high-profile and popular celebrity in India, Chopra is described as a sex symbol and a style icon. Her figure, eyes, lips and looks have been cited by the media as her distinctive physical features. Designers Falguni and Shane Peacock wrote, "She is comfortable in her own skin and looks ravishing in whatever she wears, be it a bikini, short or long dress or even a sari." She was named "India's Best-Dressed Woman of the Year" by People India in 2011. She ranks highly on various beauty listings in the world. The UK magazine Eastern Eye ranked her first on their list of "World's Sexiest Asian Women" for a record five times (2006, 2012, 2014, 2015 and 2017). Chopra also topped the Maxim India's Hot 100 list in 2011, 2013, 2016 and 2018. In 2017, Buzznet named her the world's second most beautiful woman after Beyoncé. Chopra was named one of People magazine's Most Beautiful Women in the World in 2017 and 2019. Chopra has featured on power listings, including Verve's most powerful Indian women (2009, 2010, 2013, 2015, and 2016), The Indian Express's most powerful Indians (2016 and 2017), and India Today's 50 most powerful people in India (2017 and 2018). After debuting in Hollywood, Chopra appeared in other lists, including People's Most Intriguing People of the Year (2015), Time's 100 Most Influential People in the World (2016), Forbes' World's 100 Most Powerful Women (2017 and 2018), Variety's 500 most influential business leaders (2017 and 2018), and USA Today's 50 most powerful women in entertainment (2019). The market research firm YouGov named her the world's twelfth and fourteenth most-admired woman in 2018 and 2019, respectively. Chopra is also one of the highest-paid Indian celebrities. She has featured in the Indian edition of "Celebrity 100" every year since its inception in 2012, ranking under top fifteen each year except 2018. Chopra ranked as the highest earning Indian female celebrity in 2016 and 2017 with respective earnings of ₹760 million (US$9.1 million) and ₹680 million (US$8.1 million), peaking at the seventh position in 2017. The global edition of Forbes named her the world's eighth-highest-paid TV actress both years. Chopra is a prominent celebrity endorser for brands and products. She ranked second in the list of brand ambassadors of 2008 (after Shah Rukh Khan) in a survey conducted by TAM AdEx. The following year, she topped their list, becoming the first woman in India to do so. Chopra has represented many brands, including TAG Heuer, Pepsi, Nikon, Nokia, Garnier and Nestlé; she was the first female representative of Hero Honda. In 2016, Chopra became the first Indian woman to represent Pantene as its global brand ambassador. In 2017, Forbes reported that Chopra earned at least $1 million per endorsement deal. In 2020, Chopra was one among several Bollywood actors who were criticised on social media for posting Instagram messages showing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, despite their previous work advertising skin-lightening products which perpetuate colorism. In the past Chopra has expressed regret for promoting such products. Chopra and three other Bollywood actors (Shah Rukh Khan, Kajol and Hrithik Roshan) had their likenesses made into a series of miniature dolls for U.S. toy manufacturer Hasbro and the UK-based Bollywood Legends Corporation. In 2009, Chopra became the first Indian actress to cast a foot impression at the Salvatore Ferragamo Museum in Florence, Italy, and she received custom-designed shoes from the Ferragamo house. Madame Tussauds museum installed four wax sculptures of her in 2019 at four locations, including New York, London, Sydney, and a traveling exhibit between several Asian cities, making her the first Indian actor to have wax statues in four Madame Tussauds museums. In 2013, she became the first Indian model to represent Guess, whose CEO Paul Marciano called her "the young Sophia Loren". Chopra's life, pictures of her family and win at the Miss World in 2000 were depicted in a chapter of Roving Families, Shifting Homes, a book taught at Springdales School. Three unauthorised biographies of her have been published: Indu Prabhu's Priyanka Chopra: Road To Destiny (2016), Aseem Chhabra's Priyanka Chopra: The Incredible Story of a Global Bollywood Star (2018) and Bharathi S. Pradhan's Priyanka Chopra: The Dark Horse (2018). Awards and nominations Chopra has won a National Film Award for Best Actress for Fashion (2008) and five Filmfare Awards: Best Female Debut for Andaaz (2003), Best Performance in a Negative Role for Aitraaz (2004), Best Actress for Fashion (2008), Critics Award for Best Actress for 7 Khoon Maaf (2011), and Best Supporting Actress for Bajirao Mastani (2015). She has also won two People's Choice Awards: "Favourite Actress In A New TV Series", and "Favorite Dramatic TV Actress" for Quantico. She is the first South Asian actress to win a People's Choice Award. In 2016, she was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, by the Government of India for her contribution to arts and was honored as one of the BBC 100 Women in 2022. Books Chopra Jonas, Priyanka (9 February 2021). Unfinished. New York: Penguin Random House. ISBN 978-1-984819-21-5. See also Indians in the New York City metropolitan region List of Priyanka Chopra performances Explanatory notes References External links Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived 15 January 2013) Priyanka Chopra on Instagram Priyanka Chopra at IMDb Priyanka Chopra at Bollywood Hungama

Chatsworth_House

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatsworth_House

Chatsworth House is a stately home in the Derbyshire Dales, 4 miles (6.4 km) north-east of Bakewell and 9 miles (14 km) west of Chesterfield, England. The seat of the Duke of Devonshire, it has belonged to the Cavendish family since 1549. It stands on the east bank of the River Derwent, across from hills between the Derwent and Wye valleys, amid parkland backed by wooded hills that rise to heather moorland. The house holds major collections of paintings, furniture, Old Master drawings, neoclassical sculptures and books. Chosen several times as Britain's favourite country house, it is a Grade I listed property from the 17th century, altered in the 18th and 19th centuries. In 2011–2012 it underwent a £14-million restoration. The owner is the Chatsworth House Trust, an independent charitable foundation formed in 1981, on behalf of the Cavendish family. History 11th–16th centuries The name 'Chatsworth' is a corruption of Chetel's-worth, meaning "the Court of Chetel". In the reign of Edward the Confessor, a man of Norse origin named Chetel held lands jointly with a Saxon named Leotnoth in three townships: Ednesoure to the west of the Derwent, and Langoleie and Chetesuorde to the east. Chetel was deposed after the Norman Conquest, and in the Domesday Book of 1086 the Manor of Chetesuorde is listed as the property of the Crown in the custody of William de Peverel. Chatsworth ceased to be a large estate, until the 15th century when it was acquired by the Leche family who owned property nearby. They enclosed the first park at Chatsworth and built a house on the high ground in what is now the south-eastern part of the garden. In 1549 they sold all their property in the area to Sir William Cavendish, Treasurer of the King's Chamber and the husband of Bess of Hardwick, who had persuaded him to sell his property in Suffolk and settle in her native county. Bess began to build the new house in 1553. She selected a site near the river, which was drained by digging a series of reservoirs, which doubled as fish ponds. Sir William died in 1557, but Bess finished the house in the 1560s and lived there with her fourth husband, George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury. In 1568 Shrewsbury was entrusted with the custody of Mary, Queen of Scots, and brought his prisoner to Chatsworth several times from 1570 onwards. She lodged in the apartment now known as the Queen of Scots rooms, on the top floor above the great hall, which faces onto the inner courtyard. An accomplished needlewoman, Bess joined Mary at Chatsworth for extended periods in 1569, 1570, and 1571, during which time they worked together on the Oxburgh Hangings. Bess died in 1608 and Chatsworth was passed to her eldest son, Henry. The estate was purchased from Henry by his brother William Cavendish, 1st Earl of Devonshire, for £10,000. 17th century Few changes were made at Chatsworth until the mid-17th century. William Cavendish, 3rd Earl of Devonshire, a staunch Royalist, was expelled from the House of Lords in 1642. He left England for the safety of the continent and his estates were sequestered. Chatsworth was occupied by both sides during the Civil War, and the 3rd Earl did not return to the house until The Restoration of the monarchy. He reconstructed the principal rooms in an attempt to make them more comfortable, but the Elizabethan house was outdated and unsafe. The famed political philosopher Thomas Hobbes spent the last four or five years of his life at Chatsworth Hall, then owned by William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire. He had been a friend of the family for nearly 70 years, having taken a job tutoring the 2nd Earl shortly after graduating from St John's College, Cambridge in 1608. Hobbes died at another Cavendish family estate, Hardwick Hall, in December 1679. After his death, many of Hobbes' manuscripts were found at Chatsworth House. William Cavendish, 4th Earl of Devonshire, who became the 1st Duke in 1694 for helping to put William of Orange on the English throne, was an advanced Whig. He was forced to retire to Chatsworth during the reign of King James II. This called for rebuilding the house, which began in 1687. Cavendish aimed initially to reconstruct only the south wing with the State Apartments and so decided to retain the Elizabethan courtyard plan, although its layout was becoming increasingly unfashionable. He enjoyed building and reconstructed the East Front, which included the Painted Hall and Long Gallery, followed by the West Front from 1699 to 1702. The North Front was completed in 1707 just before he died. The 1st Duke also had large parterre gardens designed by George London and Henry Wise, who was later appointed by Queen Anne as Royal Gardener at Kensington Palace. 18th century William Cavendish, 2nd Duke of Devonshire, and William Cavendish, 3rd Duke of Devonshire, made no changes to the house or gardens, but both contributed much to the collection found at Chatsworth at the time. Connoisseurs of the arts, they included in the collection paintings, Old Master drawings and prints, ancient coins and carved Greek and Roman sculptures. Palladian furniture designed by William Kent was commissioned by the 3rd Duke when he had Devonshire House in London rebuilt after a fire in 1733. When Devonshire House was sold and demolished in 1924, the furniture was transferred to Chatsworth. The 4th Duke made great changes to the house and gardens. He decided the approach to the house should be from the west. He had the old stables and offices as well as parts of Edensor village pulled down so they were not visible from the house, and replaced the 1st Duke's formal gardens with a more natural look, designed by Capability Brown, which he helped bring into fashion. In 1748, the 4th Duke married Lady Charlotte Boyle, the sole surviving heiress of Richard Boyle, 3rd Earl of Burlington. Lord Burlington was an accomplished architect in his own right with many works to his name including Chiswick House. With his death, his important collection of architectural drawings and Inigo Jones masque designs, Old Master paintings and William Kent-designed furniture were transferred to the Dukes of Devonshire. This inheritance also brought many estates to the family. In 1774, William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, married Georgiana Spencer famous as a socialite who gathered around her a large circle of literary and political friends. Thomas Gainsborough and Joshua Reynolds would paint her; the Gainsborough painting would be disposed of by the 5th Duke and be recovered much later, after many vicissitudes. The film The Duchess portrayed their life together. Georgiana was the great-great-great-great aunt of Diana, Princess of Wales; their lives, centuries apart, have been compared in tragedy. 19th century The 6th Duke (known as "the Bachelor Duke") was a passionate traveller, builder, gardener and collector, who transformed Chatsworth. In 1811 he inherited the title and eight major estates: Chatsworth and Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, Devonshire House, Burlington House and Chiswick House in London, Bolton Abbey and Londesborough Hall in Yorkshire, and Lismore Castle in Ireland. These covered 200,000 acres (81,000 ha) of land in England and Ireland. The Duke was a collector especially of sculpture and books. When he built the North Wing to the designs of Sir Jeffry Wyatville, it included a purpose-built Sculpture Gallery to house his collection. He took over several rooms in the house to contain the entire libraries he was purchasing at auction. The 6th Duke loved to entertain, and the early 19th century saw a rise in popularity of country-house parties. In addition to a sculpture gallery, the new north wing housed an orangery, a theatre, a Turkish bath, a dairy, a vast new kitchen and numerous servants rooms. In 1830 the Duke increased the guest accommodation by converting suites of rooms into individual guest bedrooms. People invited to stay at Chatsworth spent their days hunting, riding, reading and playing billiards. In the evening formal dinners would take place, followed by music, charades and billiards or conversation in the smoking room for the men. Women would return to their bedroom many times during the day to change their outfits. The guest bedrooms on the east front at Chatsworth are the most complete set from the period to survive with their original furnishings.: 52  There is much eastern influence in the decoration, including hand-painted Chinese wallpapers and fabrics typical of Regency taste, which developed in the reign of George IV (1762–1830). Those who stayed at Chatsworth included Queen Victoria and Charles Dickens. In October 1832, Princess Victoria (later Queen Victoria) and her mother, the Duchess of Kent, visited Chatsworth, where the Princess had her first formal adult dinner at the age of 13, in the new dining room. The 6th Duke had another chance to welcome Victoria in 1843, when the Queen and Prince Albert returned to enjoy an array of illumination in the gardens, in the conservatory and on the fountains, forming a scene of "unparalleled display and grandeur", according to one guest. The Duke spent 47 years transforming the house and gardens. A Latin inscription over the fireplace in the Painted Hall translates, "William Spencer, Duke of Devonshire, inherited this most beautiful house from his father in the year 1811, which had been begun in the year of English liberty 1688, and completed it in the year of his bereavement 1840." The year 1688 was that of the Glorious Revolution, supported by the Whig dynasties including the Cavendishes. The year 1840 brought the death of the Duke's beloved niece Blanche, who was married to his heir, the future 7th Duke. In 1844, the 6th Duke privately printed and published a book called Handbook to Chatsworth and Hardwick, giving a history of the Cavendish family's two main estates. It was praised by Charles Dickens. In 1888, the Los Angeles neighbourhood of Chatsworth, California, was named after the estate. 20th century Social change and taxes in the early 20th century began to affect the Devonshires' lifestyle. When the 8th Duke died in 1908 over £500,000 of death duties became due. This was a small charge compared with that of 42 years later, but the estate was already burdened with debt from the 6th Duke's extravagances, the failure of the 7th Duke's business ventures at Barrow-in-Furness, and the depression in British agriculture apparent since the 1870s. In 1912 the family sold 25 books printed by William Caxton and a collection of 1,347 volumes of plays acquired by the 6th Duke, including four Shakespeare folios and 39 Shakespeare quartos, to the Huntington Library in California. Tens of thousands of acres of land in Somerset, Sussex and Derbyshire were also sold during or just after the First World War. In December 1904, King Charles I of Portugal and Queen Maria Amélia stayed at Chatsworth House during their visit to Britain. It snowed almost constantly while they were there and the King reportedly started a snowball fight, in which the assembled ladies joined enthusiastically, when he met the Marquis of Soveral, the Portuguese Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of St James's. In 1920 the family's London mansion, Devonshire House, which occupied a 3-acre (1.2 ha) site in Piccadilly, was sold to developers and demolished. Much of its contents went to Chatsworth and a much smaller house at 2 Carlton Gardens near The Mall was acquired. The Great Conservatory in the garden at Chatsworth was demolished, as it needed 10 men to run it, huge quantities of coal to heat it and all the plants had died during the war, when no coal had been available for non-essential purposes. To reduce running costs further, there was talk of pulling down the 6th Duke's north wing, which was then seen as having no aesthetic or historical value, but nothing came of it. Chiswick House – the celebrated Palladian villa in the suburbs of West London that the Devonshires inherited when the 4th Duke married Lord Burlington's daughter – was sold in 1929 for £80,000 to Middlesex County Council and Brentford and Chiswick Urban District Council. Nonetheless, life at Chatsworth continued much as before. The household was run by a comptroller and domestic staff were still available, although more so in the countryside than the cities. The staff at Chatsworth at the time consisted of a butler, an under-butler, a groom of the chambers, a valet, three footmen, a housekeeper, the Duchess's maid, 11 housemaids, two sewing women, a cook, two kitchen maids, a vegetable maid, two or three scullery maids, two still-room maids, a dairy maid, six laundry maids and the Duchess's secretary. All these 38 or 39 people lived in the house. Daily staff included the odd man, an upholsterer, a scullery maid, two scrubbing women, a laundry porter, a steam boiler man, a coal man, two porter's lodge attendants, two night firemen, a night porter, two window cleaners, and a team of joiners, plumbers and electricians. The Clerk of Works supervised the maintenance of the house and other properties on the estate. There were also grooms, chauffeurs and gamekeepers. The number of garden staff was somewhere between 80 in the 6th Duke's time and the 20 or so in the early 21st century. There was also a librarian, Francis Thompson, who wrote the first book-length account of Chatsworth since the 6th Duke's handbook. Most of the UK's country houses were put to institutional use in the Second World War. Some of those used as barracks were badly damaged, but the 10th Duke, thinking that schoolgirls would make better tenants than soldiers, arranged for Chatsworth to be occupied by Penrhos College, a girls' public school in Colwyn Bay, Wales. The contents were packed away in 11 days, and in September 1939, 300 girls and their mistresses moved in for a six-year stay. The whole house was used, including the state rooms, which were turned into dormitories. Condensation from the breath of the sleeping girls caused fungus to grow behind some of the pictures. The house was not very comfortable for so many people, with a shortage of hot water, but there were compensations, such as skating on the Canal Pond. The girls grew vegetables in the garden as a contribution to the war effort. In May 1944 Kathleen Kennedy, sister of John F. Kennedy, married William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, elder son of the 10th Duke of Devonshire. However, he was killed in action in Belgium in September 1944 and Kathleen died in a plane crash in 1948. His younger brother Andrew became the 11th Duke in 1950. He was married to Deborah Mitford, one of the Mitford girls, sister to Nancy Mitford, Diana Mitford, Pamela Mitford, Unity Mitford and Jessica Mitford. The modern history of Chatsworth begins in 1950. The family had yet to move back after the war. Although the 10th Duke had transferred his assets to his son during his lifetime in the hope of avoiding death duties, the Duke died a few weeks too early for the lifetime exemption to apply and tax was charged at 80 per cent on the estate. The amount due was £7 million (equivalent to £303 million as of 2023). Some of the family's advisors considered the situation irretrievable and there was a proposal to transfer Chatsworth to the nation as a Victoria and Albert Museum of Northern England. Instead, the Duke decided to retain his family's home if he could. He sold tens of thousands of acres of land, transferred Hardwick Hall to the National Trust in lieu of tax, and sold some major works of art from Chatsworth. The family's Sussex house, Compton Place was lent to a school. The effect of the death duties was mitigated to an extent by the historically low value of art in the post-war years and the increase in land values after 1950, during the post-war agricultural revival, and so on the face of it the losses were much less than 80 per cent in terms of physical assets. In Derbyshire 35,000 acres (14,000 ha) were retained out of 83,000 acres (34,000 ha). The Bolton Abbey estate in Yorkshire and the Lismore Castle estate in Ireland remained in the family. It took 17 years to complete negotiations with the Inland Revenue, interest being due in the meantime. The Chatsworth Estate is now managed by the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, established in 1946. The 10th Duke was pessimistic about the future of houses like Chatsworth and made no plans to move back in after the war. After Penrhos College left in 1945, the only people who slept in the house were two housemaids, but over the winter of 1948–1949 the house was cleaned and tidied for reopening to the public by two Hungarian women, who had been Kathleen Kennedy's cook and housemaid in London, and a team of their compatriots. The house was Grade I listed in 1951 after the passage of the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. In the mid-1950s, the 11th Duke and Duchess began to think about moving in. The pre-war house had relied wholly on a large staff for its comforts, and lacked modern facilities. The building was rewired, the plumbing and heating were overhauled, and six self-contained staff flats created to replace the small staff bedrooms and communal servants' hall. Including those in the staff flats, 17 bathrooms were added to the existing handful. The 6th Duke's cavernous kitchen was abandoned and a new one was created closer to the family dining room. The family rooms were repainted, carpets were brought out of store and curtains were repaired or replaced. The Duke and Duchess and their three children moved across the park from Edensor House in 1959. In 1981, the trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, owners of the house, created a new Chatsworth House Trust. The aim was to preserve the house and its setting for "the benefit of the public". The new trust was granted a 99-year lease of the house, its main contents, its grounds, its precincts and adjacent forestry, a total of 1,822 acres (737 ha). To legalise this, the Chatsworth House Trust pays a token rent of £1 a year. To facilitate the arrangement and build up a sufficient multi-million-pound endowment fund, the trustees sold works of art, mostly old masters' drawings, which had not been on regular display. The Cavendish family is represented on the House Trust's Council of Management, but most of the directors are not family members. The Duke pays a market rent for use of his private apartments in the house. The cost of running the house and grounds is about £4 million a year. Film of Chatsworth in 1945 is held by the Cinema Museum in London. Ref HM0365. 21st century The 11th Duke died in 2004 and was succeeded by his son, the current Duke, Peregrine Cavendish, 12th Duke of Devonshire. The 11th Duke's widow, the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, died on 24 September 2014. Until then she was active in promoting the estate and increasing its visitor income. She made many additions to the gardens, including the maze, the kitchen, the cottage gardens and several commissions of modern sculpture. As Deborah Mitford, she wrote seven books on various aspects of Chatsworth and its massive property. A structural survey in 2004 showed that major renovation was required. A £32 million programme of works was undertaken, including restoration of stonework, statues, paintings, tapestries and water features. The work, the most extensive for 200 years, took ten years and was completed in 2018. According to the Estate website, Chatsworth remains home to the 12th Duke and Duchess. They are involved in the operation through the Charitable Trust. The Devonshire Collection Archives stored at Chatsworth include 450 years of documents about the family and their two main estates. In 2019, the Duke and Duchess visited Sotheby's to view "Treasures From Chatsworth: art and artifacts from Chatsworth House" that would be displayed in New York. During the 2022 European heatwaves, a section of the Great Parterre that formerly occupied Chatsworth's South Lawn was revealed as the grass and soil dried out, showing the patterns of earthworks that had been used to construct it. As the lawn's grass has shorter roots, it dried out faster, creating a contrast that allows the structure to be viewed with the naked eye. Architecture Chatsworth House is built on sloping ground, lower on the north and west sides than on the south and east sides. The original Tudor mansion was built in the 1560s by Bess of Hardwick in a quadrangle layout, about 170 feet (50 m) from north to south and 190 feet (60 m) from east to west, with a large central courtyard. The main entrance was on the west front, which was embellished with four towers or turrets, and the great hall in the medieval tradition was on the east side of the courtyard, where the Painted Hall remains the focus of the house to this day. The south and east fronts were rebuilt to the designs of William Talman and completed by 1696 for William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire. The 1st Duke's Chatsworth was a key building in the development of English Baroque architecture. According to the architectural historian Sir John Summerson, "It inaugurates an artistic revolution which is the counterpart of the political revolution in which the Earl was so prominent a leader." The design of the south front was revolutionary for an English house, with no attics or hipped roof, but instead two main stories supported by a rustic basement. The façade is dramatic and sculptural with ionic pilasters and a heavy entablature and balustrade. The existing heavy and angular stone stairs from the first floor down to the garden are a 19th-century replacement of an elegant curved double staircase. The east front is the quietest of the four on the main block. Like the south front it is unusual in having an even number of bays and no centrepiece. The emphasis is placed on the end bays, each highlighted by double pairs of pilasters, of which the inner pairs project outwards. The west and north fronts may have been the work of Thomas Archer, possibly in collaboration with the Duke himself. The west front has nine wide bays with a central pediment supported by four columns and pilasters to the other bays. Due to the slope of the site, this front is taller than the south front. It is also large, with many other nine-bay three-storey façades little more than half as wide and tall. The west front is very lively with much carved stonework, and the window frames are highlighted with gold leaf, which catches the setting sun. The north front was the last to be built. It presented a challenge, as the north end of the west front projected nine feet (3 m) further than the north end of the east front. The problem was overcome by building a slightly curved façade to distract the eye. The attic windows on this side are the only ones visible on the exterior of the house and are set into the main façade, rather than into a visible roof. Those in the curved section were originally oval, but are now rectangular like those in the end sections. The north front was altered in the 19th century, when William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire, and the architect Jeffry Wyatville, built the North Wing, doubling the size of the house. Most of the wing has only two storeys, as opposed to the three of the main block. It is attached to the north-east corner of the house and around 400 feet (120 m) long. At the end of the North Wing is the North, or Belvedere, Tower. The work was carried out in an Italianate style that blends smoothly with the elaborate finish of the baroque house. The 6th Duke built a gatehouse at this end of the house with three gates. The central, largest gate led to the North Entrance, then the main entrance to the house. This is now the entrance used by visitors. The north gate led to the service courtyard, while the matching south gate led to the original front door in the west front, which was relegated to secondary status in the Duke's time, but is now the family's private entrance again. The façades of the central courtyard were also rebuilt by the 1st Duke. The courtyard was larger than it is now, as there were no corridors on the western side and the northern and southern sides only had enclosed galleries on the first floor, with open galleries below. In the 19th century, new accommodation was built on these three sides on all three levels. The only surviving baroque façade is that on the eastern side, where five bays of the original seven remain, and are largely as built. There are carved trophies by Samuel Watson, a Derbyshire craftsman who did much work at Chatsworth in stone, marble and wood. Interiors The 1st and 6th Dukes both inherited an old house and tried to adapt to the lifestyle of their time without changing the fundamental layout, which in this way is unique, full of irregularities, and the interiors are decorated by a diverse centuries-old collection of different styles. Many of the rooms are recognisable as of one main period, but in nearly every case, they have been altered more often than might be supposed at first glance. State apartments The 1st Duke created a richly appointed Baroque suite of state rooms across the south front when expecting a visit from King William III and Queen Mary II, which never occurred. The State Apartments are approached from the Painted Hall, decorated with murals of scenes from the life of Julius Caesar by Louis Laguerre, and ascend by the cantilevered Great Stairs to an enfilade of rooms that controlled how far a person could progress into the presence of the King and Queen. The Great Chamber is the largest in the State Apartments, followed by the State Drawing Room, the Second Withdrawing Room, the State Bedroom and finally the State Closet, each room being more private and ornate than the last. The Great Chamber has a painted ceiling of a classical scene by Antonio Verrio. The Second Withdrawing Room was renamed the State Music Room when the 6th Duke brought the violin door from Devonshire House in London. It has a convincing trompe-l'œil of a violin and bow "hanging" on a silver knob, painted about 1723 by Jan van der Vaart. About the time Queen Victoria decided that Hampton Court, with state apartments in the same style, was uninhabitable, the 6th Duke wrote that he was tempted to demolish the State Apartments to make way for new bedrooms. However, sensitive to his family heritage, he left the rooms largely untouched, making additions rather than changing the existing spaces of the house. Changes to the main baroque interiors were restricted to details such as stamped leather hangings on the walls of the State Music Room and State Bedroom, and a wider, shallower, but less elegant staircase in the Painted Hall, which was itself later replaced. The contents of the State Apartments were rearranged in 2010 to reflect the way they had looked in the 17th and 18th centuries. 18th-century alterations In the 1760s, William Cavendish, 4th Duke of Devonshire, redirected the approach to Chatsworth. He converted the kitchen in the centre of the north front into an entrance hall, from which guests walked through an open colonnade in the courtyard, through a passage past the cook's bedroom and the back stairs, and into the Painted Hall. He then built a neoclassical service wing for his kitchens that was a forerunner of the 6th Duke's north wing. William Cavendish, 5th Duke of Devonshire, had some of the family's private rooms redecorated and some partition walls moved, but there are few traces of the mid and late 18th century in the public rooms. 19th-century alterations The 6th Duke modified much of Chatsworth to meet 19th-century standards of comfort, suiting a less formal lifestyle than that of the 1st Duke's time. The corridors round the courtyard were enclosed and given a multicoloured marble floor, so that rooms could be easily reached from indoors, and there were more shared living rooms to replace individual guest apartments. The cook's bedroom and the back stairs made way for the Oak Stairs, topped by a glass dome and built at the north end of the Painted Hall to improve internal communications. Along the staircase hang portraits of the first 11 Dukes and some of their family members. The Duke made a library of the long gallery, originally created by the 1st Duke. He was a great lover of books and purchased entire libraries. The Ante-Library in the adjoining room was originally used by the 1st Duke as a dining room and then a billiard room, before the 6th Duke used it for his growing collection of books. This was just one of the rooms where the Duke installed a single-pane window, which he saw as the "greatest ornament of modern decoration". The window in the Ante-Library is the only one preserved. Much of the scientific library of Henry Cavendish (1731–1810) is in this room. The most notable addition by the 6th Duke to Chatsworth was the Wyatville-designed North Wing. Plans for a symmetrical wing to the south were begun, but later abandoned. The entire ground floor of the North Wing was occupied by service rooms, including a kitchen, servants' hall, laundry, butler and housekeeper's rooms. On the first floor, facing west, were two sets of bachelor bedrooms called "California" and "The Birds". The main rooms in the new wing face east and were accessed from the main house through a small library called the Dome Room. The first room beyond is a dining room, with a music gallery in the serving lobby where the musicians played. Next is the sculpture gallery, the largest room in the house, and then the orangery. The Belvedere Tower contains a plunge bath, using marble from the 1st Duke's bathroom, and a ballroom that was later turned into a theatre by the 8th Duke. Above the theatre is the belvedere itself, an open viewing platform below the roof. Private rooms Chatsworth has 126 rooms, with nearly 100 of them closed to visitors. The house is well adapted to allow the family to live privately in their apartments while the house is open to the public. Deborah, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, described the family rooms in detail in her book Chatsworth: The House. She lived at Edensor until her death in 2014; the present (12th) Duke and Duchess live at Chatsworth. The family occupies rooms on the ground and first floors of the south front, all three floors of the west front, and the upper two floors of the north front. Staircases in the north-east corner of the main block and in a turret in the east front enable them to move about without crossing the public route. The main family living rooms are on the first floor of the south front. The family dining room is in the south-east corner and has the same dimensions as the State Dining Room directly above. This has been the usual location of the family dining room; the Bachelor Duke's dining room in the north wing took over that role for an interlude of little over a hundred years. Both Bess of Hardwick's house and the 1st Duke's house had a hierarchy of three dining rooms in this corner, each taller and more lavishly decorated than the one below. A common parlour on the ground floor was used by the gentlemen of the household, and later for informal family meals. Above it was the main family dining room, and at the top the Great Chamber, which was reserved for royalty, although the 6th Duke wrote that to his knowledge, it had never been used. The yellow drawing room is next to the dining room and directly beneath the State Drawing Room. The Dowager Duchess wrote that the house is so solidly built that the crowds passing above are imperceptible. The trio of reception rooms here is completed by the blue drawing room, below the State Music Room. This was created in the 18th century by knocking together the 1st Duke's bedroom and dressing room, and has a door to his private gallery at the upper level of the chapel. It has also served as a billiard room and a school room. Charity events are sometimes held in this part of the house. Both drawing rooms have access to the garden through the South Front's external staircase. Three corridors called the Tapestry Gallery, Burlington Corridor and Book Passage are wrapped round the south, west and north passages at this level and give access to family bedrooms. There is a sitting room in the north-west corner — one of the few rooms in the house with outside views in two directions. There are more family bedrooms on the second floor facing west and north. The Scots and Leicester bedrooms in the east wing are still used when there is a large house party, which is why they are sometimes available as a separately charged optional extra in the tour of the house and sometimes not. This suite now contains the 11th Duke's Exhibition. Visitors bypass the first floor on their way down the West Stairs from the state rooms to the chapel. The private north stairs lead down to more private rooms on the ground floor of the West Front. In the centre is the West Entrance Hall, which is, once again, the family entrance. To the right on entering is a passage room known as the mineral room, which leads through to a study. To the left there is the Leather Room with walls of leather. Its great many books make it one of at least six libraries in the house. The next room is the Duke's Study, which has two windows, many more books and floral decoration painted for the Bachelor Duke by, in his own words, "three bearded artists in blouses imported from Paris". The corner room on the ground floor is the former "little dining room". These rooms are all very high, as the ground level in the west wing is lower than that of the Painted Hall and the ground floor corridors round the courtyard. Steps from the West Entrance Hall lead up to the west corridor. The other family living rooms are in the eastern half of the ground floor of the South Front. They are reached through the Chapel Corridor on the public route or the turret staircase from the dining room. The room in the south-east corner was once the Ducal bathroom, until the Bachelor Duke built his new plunge bath in the North Wing, and is now a pantry where the family china is kept. This connects to the modern kitchen, which is under the library and made out of the steward's room and linen room. Next to the pantry in the south front are offices. Park and landscape The garden attracts about 300,000 visitors a year. It has a complex blend of features from six different centuries, covering 105 acres (42 ha). It is surrounded by a wall 1.75 miles (2.8 km) long. It sits on the eastern side of the valley of the Derwent River and blends into the surrounding park, which covers 1,000 acres (400 ha). The woods on the moors to the east of the valley form a backdrop to the garden. There is a staff of some 20 full-time gardeners. Average rainfall is some 33.7 inches (855 mm) a year, with an annual average of 1,160 hours of sunshine. Most of the main features of the garden were created in five main phases of development. Elizabethan garden The house and garden were first constructed by Sir William Cavendish and Bess of Hardwick in 1555. The Elizabethan garden was much smaller than the garden today. There were terraces to the east of the house where the main lawn is now, ponds and fountains to the south, and fishponds to the west by the river. The main visual remnant of the time is a squat stone tower known as Queen Mary's Bower on account of a legend that Mary, Queen of Scots was allowed to take the air there while a prisoner at Chatsworth. The bower is now outside the garden wall in the park. Some of the retaining walls of the West Garden also date from this era, but they were reconstructed and extended later. 1st Duke's garden (1684–1707) While rebuilding the house, the 1st Duke also created Baroque gardens. It featured numerous parterres cut into the slopes above the house, and many fountains, garden buildings and classical sculptures. The main surviving features of that time are: The Cascade and Cascade House, a set of stone steps over which water flows from fountains at the top. It was built in 1696 and rebuilt more grandly in 1701. In 1703 a grand baroque Temple or Cascade House designed by Thomas Archer was added at the top. Major restoration of both in 1994–1996 took 10,000 man-hours of work. In 2004 the Cascade was voted England's best water feature by a panel of 45 garden experts chosen by Country Life. It has 24 cut steps, each slightly different and with a variety of textures so that each gives a different sound when water runs over and down it. The Canal Pond dug in 1702 is a 314-yard (287 m)-long rectangular lake to the south of the house. The Seahorse Fountain is a sculptural fountain in a circular pond on the lawn between the house and the Canal Pond. Originally it was the centrepiece of the main parterre. The Willow Tree Fountain is an imitation tree that squirts water on the unsuspecting from its branches. The writer Celia Fiennes wrote in her diary: "There... in the middle of ye grove stands a fine willow tree, the leaves, barke and all looks very naturall, ye roote is full of rubbish or great stones to appearance and all on a sudden by ye turning of a sluice it rains from each leafe and from the branches like a shower, it being made of brass and pipes to each leafe, but in appearance is exactly like any willow." The tree has been replaced twice and then restored in 1983. The First Duke's greenhouse is a long, low building with ten arched windows and a temple-like centrepiece. It has been moved from a site overlooking the 1st Duke's bowling green to the northern edge of the main lawn and is now fronted by a rose garden. Flora's Temple is a classical edifice from 1695, moved to its present site at the northern end of the broad walk in 1760. It contains a statue of the goddess Flora by Caius Gabriel Cibber. The West Garden – now the family's private garden with modern planting in a three-section formal structure – is mainly a creation of the 1st Duke's time, but the layout is not original. 4th Duke's garden (1755–64) The 4th Duke commissioned the landscape architect, Lancelot "Capability" Brown to transform the garden in the fashionable naturalistic landscape style of the day. Most of the ponds and parterres were turned into lawns, but as detailed above several features were spared. Many trees were planted, including various American species imported from Philadelphia in 1759. The main aim of the work was to improve integration of the garden and park. Brown's 5.5 acres (2.2 ha) Salisbury Lawns still form the setting of the Cascade. 6th Duke's garden (1826–58) In 1826 a 23-year-old named Joseph Paxton, who had trained at Kew Gardens, was appointed head gardener at Chatsworth. The 6th Duke had inherited Chatsworth 15 years earlier and till then shown little interest in improving the neglected garden, but he soon formed a productive and extravagantly funded partnership with Paxton, who proved to be the most innovative garden designer of his era, and remains the greatest single influence on Chatsworth's garden. Features that survive from that time include: The Rockeries and The Strid: In 1842 Paxton began work on a rockery of a gargantuan scale, piling rocks weighing several tons one on top of another. One was described thus by Lord Desart in the 1860s: "In one place a sort of miniature Matterhorn apparently blocked the path but with the touch of the finger it revolved on a metal axis and made a way to pass." It is now locked in place to comply with health and safety regulations. Another rock is so balanced that it can be swayed with little pressure. Two rocks are named after the Queen and Prince Albert and another after the Duke of Wellington, all of whom visited Chatsworth in the 6th Duke's time. The Wellington Rock, a structure of several piled rocks, is 45 ft (14 m) high. A small waterfall drips over it into a pond. Sometimes in winter the water freezes, creating icicles. The water flows into a pond created by Paxton called 'The Strid', named after a stretch of the River Wharfe on the Devonshires' Bolton Abbey estate, where the river is pressed into a turbulent chasm just a yard wide. Chatsworth's Strid is a placid stretch of water fringed with rocks and luxuriant vegetation and crossed by a rustic bridge. The Arboretum and Pinetum: The 6th Duke's time was one of plant-hunting expeditions, with major new species readily discovered by intrepid botanists, and the Duke among the most generous sponsors. In 1829 he took an additional 8 acres (3.2 ha) of the park into the garden to create a pinetum, and in 1835 Paxton began work on an arboretum planned as a systematic succession of trees in accordance with botanical classification. Chatsworth has some of the oldest UK specimens of species such as Douglas fir and Giant Sequoia. Also in this part of the garden is the Grotto Pond, originally a fishpond, breeding fish for Chatsworth's table. The 6th Duke's mother had the rustic grotto built at the end of the 18th century. The area round the pond is now planted for autumn colour. The Azalea Dell and the Ravine: Rhododendrons and Azaleas grow well at Chatsworth as the soil suits them, and a section of the southern end of the garden is devoted to them. This is the most rugged part of the garden, with steep serpentine paths and a stream running down a valley known as The Ravine. In 1997 a waterfall was created out of old drinking troughs gathered from fields on the estate. There is also a bamboo walk. The Emperor Fountain: In 1843 Tsar Nicholas I of Russia informed the Duke that he was likely to visit Chatsworth the following year. In anticipation of this Imperial visit, the Duke decided to construct the world's tallest fountain, and set Paxton to work to build it. An 8 acres (3.2 ha) lake was dug on the moors 350 ft (110 m) above the house to supply the natural water pressure. The work was finished in just six months, continuing at night by the light of flares, and the resulting water jet is on record as reaching a height of 296 ft (90 m). However, the Tsar died in 1855 and never saw the fountain. Due to a limited supply of water, the fountain usually runs on partial power, reaching half its full height. The water power found a practical use generating Chatsworth's electricity from 1893 to 1936. The house was then connected to the mains, and a new turbine was installed in 1988 that produces about a third of the electricity the house needs. The Conservative Wall is a set of greenhouses that run up the slope from Flora's Temple to the stables against the north wall of the garden. A tall central section is flanked by ten smaller sections used to grow fruit and camellias. Two Camellia reticulata 'Captain Rawes' planted in 1850 survive. Chatsworth's camellias have won many prizes. The name of the building has no political connotations; the Dukes of Devonshire were Whigs and later Liberals. The bust of the 6th Duke on a Poseidon Temple column was erected in the 1840s and situated at the south end of today's Serpentine Hedge. The four classical column drums beneath were a gift from the 6th Duke's half brother, Augustus Clifford, who collected these drums from the site of the Temple of Poseidon, Cape Sounion between 1821 and 1825, during his naval service as the captain of HMS Euryalus. The column is possibly composed by the bottom, 3rd, 4th, and the 6th drum from a single collapsed temple column, while the British Museum preserves the 7th. The inscription on the pedestal erroneously credits the origin of these drums to the Temple of Athena, Cape Sounion, a smaller site located 380 m (1,250 ft) north-west of the Temple of Poseidon. Two significant features from the period have been lost: The Great Conservatory, also known as the "Great Stove", was the largest glasshouse in the world at that time. Paxton and architect Decimus Burton designed this glasshouse, which was begun in 1836 and completed in 1841 at a cost of £33,099. It was 277 ft (84 m) long, 123 ft (37 m) wide and 61 ft (19 m) high. It used eight coal-fired furnaces to send hot water through 7 mi (11 km) of pipes. A carriage drive ran the length of the building between lush tropical vegetation. One W. Adam called it "A mountain of glass... an unexampled structure... like a sea of glass when the waves are settling and smoothing down after a storm." The King of Saxony compared it to "a tropical scene with a glass sky". The Great Conservatory was demolished in 1920, as it had not been heated during World War I to conserve coal. The Victoria regia House or Lily House, built by Paxton in 1849–1850, was devoted to the giant Amazon water lily Victoria amazonica, which flowered in captivity there for the first time. Like the Great Conservatory, the Lily House was unused in World War I and demolished in 1920. Modern garden (1950–present) The 7th–10th Dukes made few changes to the garden, which suffered in the Second World War, but the 11th Duke and his wife were keen gardeners and oversaw a revival. Gardening personality Alan Titchmarsh wrote in 2003, "Chatsworth's greatest strength is that its owners have refused to let the garden rest on its Victorian laurels. It continues to grow and develop, and that is what makes it one of the best and most vibrant gardens in Britain." Many historical features have been immaculately restored, and unusually for a modern country-house garden, many new features have been added, including: The South Lawn limes: Double rows of pleached red-twigged limes on either side of the South Lawn, which were planted in 1952 and removed in 2014 The Serpentine Hedge: A wavy-hedged beech corridor from the Ring Pond to the bust of the 6th Duke. It was planted in 1953. The Maze: planted with 1,209 yews in the centre of the site of the former Great Conservatory in 1962. Two flower gardens occupy the rest of the site. The Display Greenhouse (1970): Modern in style, but unobtrusively sited behind the First Duke's greenhouse. It has three climate zones: tropical, Mediterranean and temperate. Public access is limited but groups may book tours and there are first-come-first-served tours on a few days each season. The Cottage Garden: Inspired by an exhibit at the 1988 Chelsea Flower Show. A front garden of flower beds bordered by box leads to the "kitchen/dining" room with furniture covered with plants. There is a bedroom in the same style on the upper level. The Kitchen Garden: a productive fruit and vegetable garden with decorative features. It was created behind the stables in the early 1990s. Chatsworth's original kitchen garden covered 11.5 acres (5 ha) and was by the river in the park. Modern sculpture includes such pieces as War Horse and Walking Madonna by Dame Elisabeth Frink, and 14 bronze portrait heads by Angela Conner. The Sensory Garden is accessible to the disabled and features many fragrant plants. It was opened in 2004 by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett. Quebec: A 4-acre (1.6 ha) part of the garden to the south and west of the canal pond that was, until 2006, a neglected and dank area covered with Rhododendron ponticum. This is now an extension to the Arboretum walk, with a path along the top of the steep bank. The new walk gives views out into the south park, across the River Derwent and up the hill towards New Piece wood. An 18th-century cascade was uncovered during the clearance. Stables The stable block at Chatsworth is prominent on the rising ground to the north-east of the house. Its entrance gate features four Doric columns with rustic banding, a pediment with a huge carving of the family coat of arms, two life-size stags embellished with real antlers, and a clock tower topped by a cupola. This was designed by James Paine for the 4th Duke and was built in 1758–1767. It is about 190 feet (60 m) square and two storeys tall. There are low towers in the corners and one over the entrance gate. The stables originally had stalls for 80 horses and all necessary equine facilities including a blacksmiths shop. The first floor was taken by granaries and accommodation for the many stable staff. According to the Dowager Duchess's Chatsworth: The House, one room still has "Third Postillion" painted on the door. The 6th Duke added a carriage house behind the stables in the 1830s. The last horses left the stables in 1939, when the building became a store and garage. The grooms' accommodation was turned into flats for Chatsworth employees and pensioners. When the house reopened after the war, "catering" was limited to an outdoor tap, which has since been relabelled "water for dogs". In 1975 a tea bar was set up with an investment of £120. The first attempt at a café opened in 1979. It seated 90 in some old horse stalls in the stables and was unsatisfactory to customers and from a commercial point of view. In 1987 the Duke and Duchess's private chef, a Frenchman named Jean-Pierre Béraud who was also a leading light in the success of the Chatsworth Farm Shop and Chatsworth Foods, took charge. After a failed attempt to gain planning permission for a new building incorporating the old ice house in the park, a 250-seat restaurant was created in the carriage house. The 19th-century coach used by the Dowager Duchess and the late Duke at the Queen's Coronation is on display there. Other facilities include The Cavendish Rooms, which also serves refreshments, a shop, and three rooms for hire. The stables cater for 30,000 people a month in the visitor season. Park, woods and farmyard Chatsworth park of about 1,000 acres (400 ha) is open to free of charge all year round, except for the south-east section, the Old Park, which is used for breeding by herds of red and fallow deer. The stance of the Dukes on wider access rights has changed much. On the 11th Duke's death in 2004, the Ramblers Association praised him for enlightened championing of open access and his apologies for the attitude of the 10th Duke, who had restricted access to much estate land. Even under the 11th Duke, disputes arose: when the definitive rights of way were being compiled in the 1960s and 1970s, the footpath to the Swiss Cottage (an isolated house by a lake in the woods) was contested, and the matter went to the High Court, making Derbyshire one of the last counties to settle its definitive maps. Farm stock also graze in the park, many belonging to tenant farmers or smallholders, who use it for summer grazing. Bess of Hardwick's park was wholly on the east side of the river and only extended as far south as the Emperor Fountain and as far north as the cricket ground. Seven fish ponds were dug to the north-west of the house, where the large flat area is used now for events such as the annual Chatsworth Horse Trials and the Country Fair, typically held near the end of August. The bridge over the river was at the south end of the park and crossed to the old village of Edensor, which was by the river in full sight of the house. Capability Brown did at least as much work in the park as he did in the garden. The open, tree-flecked landscape admired today is man-made. Brown straightened the river and put a network of drainage channels under the grass. The park is fertilised with manure from the estates farms; weeds and scrub are kept under control. Brown filled in most of the fishponds and extended the park to the west of the river. Meanwhile James Paine designed a new bridge to the north of the house, set at an angle of 40 degrees to command the best view of the West Front of the house. Most of the houses in Edensor were demolished and the village was rebuilt out of sight of the house. The hedges between the fields on the west bank of the river were grubbed up to create open parkland and woods were planted on the horizon. These were arranged in triangular clumps, so that a screen of trees could be maintained when each planting had to be felled. Brown's plantings reached their peak in the mid-20th century and are gradually being replaced. The 5th Duke had an elegant red-brick inn built at Edensor to cater to a growing number of well-to-do travellers coming to see Chatsworth. It is now the estate office. In 1823 the Bachelor Duke acquired the Duke of Rutland's land around Baslow to the north of Chatsworth in exchange for land elsewhere. He extended the park about half a mile (800 m) north to its present limits. He had the remaining cottages of Edensor inside the park demolished, apart from the home of one old man who did not wish to move, which still stands in isolation today. The houses in Edensor were rebuilt in picturesque pattern-book styles. In the 1860s the 7th Duke had St Peter's Church, Edensor, enlarged by Sir George Gilbert Scott. The church spire embellishes the views from the house, garden and park. Inside there is a remarkable monument to Bess of Hardwick's sons Henry Cavendish and William, 1st Earl of Devonshire. St Peter's in Edensor is where the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th Dukes and their wives are buried, not in a vault inside the church, but in individual graves marked by simple headstones, in the Cavendish family plot overlooking the churchyard. On the hills of the eastern side of the park is Stand Wood. The Hunting Tower there was built in 1582 by Bess of Hardwick. At the top is a plateau of several square miles of lakes, woods and moorland. There are public paths through the area and Chatsworth offers guided tours with commentary in a 28-seater trailer pulled by a tractor. The area is the water source for the gravity-fed waterworks in the garden. The Swiss Lake feeds the Cascade and the Emperor Lake the Emperor Fountain. The Bachelor Duke had an aqueduct built, over which water tumbles on its way to the cascade. The late Deborah, Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, was a keen advocate of rural life. In 1973 a Chatsworth Farmyard exhibit was opened in the old building yard above the stables at explaining how food was produced. There are milking demonstrations and displays of rare breeds. An adventure playground was added in 1983. A venue for talks and exhibitions called Oak Barn was opened by the television gardener Alan Titchmarsh in 2005. Chatsworth also runs two annual rural-skills weeks, in which demonstrations of agricultural and forestry are given to groups of schoolchildren on the estate farms and woods. In 2001, the ashes of Air Vice Marshal James Edgar Johnson , DL, a Second World War flying ace, were scattered on the Chatsworth estate. There is a bench dedicated to his memory at his favourite fishing spot on the estate; the inscription reads "In Memory of a Fisherman". Estate Chatsworth is the hub of a 35,000-acre (14,000 ha) agricultural estate. This, together with 30,000 acres (12,000 ha) around Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire (mostly moorland) and some land in Eastbourne and Carlisle belongs to The Trustees of Chatsworth Settlement, a family trust established in 1946. The Duke and other members of the family are entitled to the income. The family's 8,000-acre (3,200 ha) Lismore Castle estate in Ireland is held in a separate trust. The estate includes dozens of tenanted farms and over 450 houses and flats. There are five sub-estates scattered across Derbyshire: The Main Estate is a compact block of 12,310 acres (4,982 ha) around the house, including the park and many properties in the villages of Baslow, Pilsley, Edensor, Beeley, and Calton Lees. The West Estate is 6,498 acres (2,630 ha) of scattered high ground, mostly in the Peak District and partly in Staffordshire. Hartington, from which the family takes its secondary title is nearby. The Shottle Estate is 3,519 acres (1,424 ha) in and around Shottle, which is around 15 miles (24 km) south of Chatsworth. This low-lying land is home to most of the dairy farms on the estate and also has some arable farms. The Staveley Estate 3,400 acres (1,400 ha) at Staveley near Chesterfield includes a 355 acres (144 ha) industrial site called Staveley Work, let to various tenants, and some woodlands and arable farms. The Scarcliffe Estate, mostly arable farms, is 9,320 acres (3,770 ha) east of Chesterfield. The Chatsworth Settlement has a range of sources of income in addition to agricultural rents. Several thousand acres, mostly round Chatsworth and on the Staveley estate, are farmed in hand. Several properties can be rented as holiday cottages, including Bess of Hardwick's Hunting Tower in the park. Several quarries produce limestone and other minerals. The 11th Duke and Duchess did not opt for a "theme park" approach to modernising a country estate. They eschewed the traditional aristocratic reluctance to participate in commerce. The Chatsworth Farm Shop is a large enterprise employing over a hundred. A 90-seat restaurant opened at the Farm Shop in 2005. From 1999 to 2003 there was also a shop in the exclusive London district of Belgravia, but it was unsuccessful and closed down. The Settlement runs the four shops and the catering operations at Chatsworth, paying a percentage of turnover to the charitable Chatsworth House Trust in lieu of rent. It also runs the Devonshire Arms Hotel and the Devonshire Fell Hotel & Bistro on the Bolton Abbey estate and owns the Cavendish Hotel at Baslow, on the edge of Chatsworth Park, which is let to a tenant. The old kitchen garden at Barbrook on the edge of the park is let to the Caravan Club; a paddock at the south end of the park where bucks were fattened for Chatsworth's table is a tenanted garden centre. In both cases the Settlement receives a percentage of turnover as rent. There is a line of Chatsworth branded foods endorsed with the Dowager Duchess's signature and available by mail order. She also established Chatsworth Design to exploit intellectual property rights to the Devonshire collections, and a furniture company called Chatsworth Carpenters, but the latter has now been licensed to an American company. In popular culture Chatsworth House has been referenced in literature and used as a location set for films, television and for music videos including: Pride and Prejudice (1813); Maiden Voyage (1943); Barry Lyndon (1975); The Bounty (1984); Interceptor (1989); Pride and Prejudice (1995); Pride & Prejudice (2005); Face to Face; The Duchess (2008); The Wolfman (2009); Rivers with Griff Rhys Jones (2009); Chatsworth (2012); Death Comes to Pemberley (2013); Austenland (2013); Secrets of The Manor House (2014); "Breathless Beauty, Broken Beauty" (2014); The Crown (2016) and Peaky Blinders. Gallery See also Grade I listed buildings in Derbyshire Listed buildings in Chatsworth, Derbyshire Historic houses in England List of historic houses Treasure Houses of Britain Other properties owned by the Dukes of Devonshire, currently or in the past, include: Bolton Abbey Burlington House Chiswick House Compton Place Devonshire House Hardwick Hall Holker Hall Lismore Castle Londesborough Hall Notes References and further reading Chatsworth: A Short History (1951) by Francis Thomson (librarian and keeper of collections at Chatsworth). Country Life Limited. English Country Houses: Baroque (1970) by James Lees-Milne. Country Life / Newnes Books. ISBN 1-85149-043-4 The Estate: A View from Chatsworth (1990) by the Duchess of Devonshire. Macmillan. ISBN 0-333-47170-9 Treasures of Chatsworth: A Private View (1991) by the Duchess of Devonshire. Constable. ISBN 0-09-470940-8 The Garden at Chatsworth (1999) by the Duchess of Devonshire. Frances Lincoln Limited. ISBN 0-7112-1430-1 Chatsworth: The House (2002 ed.) by the Duchess of Devonshire. Frances Lincoln Limited. ISBN 0-7112-1675-4 Chatsworth Cookery Book (2003) by the Duchess of Devonshire. Frances Lincoln Limited. ISBN 0-7112-2257-6 Chatsworth, Arcadia, Now: Seven Scenes from the Life of a House (2021) by John-Paul Stonard. Particular Books. ISBN 024146191X Boschung, Dietrich; von Hesberg, Henner; Linfert, Andreas (1997). Die antiken Skulpturen in Chatsworth sowie in Dunham Massey und Withington Hall. Corpus Signorum Imperii Romani Great Britain. Vol. 3, 8. Mainz: Philipp von Zabern. ISBN 3-8053-1991-6. Raffaele De Giorgi, "Couleur, couleur!". Antonio Verrio: un pittore in Europa tra Seicento e Settecento (Edifir, Firenze 2009). ISBN 9788879704496 External links Chatsworth House: Official website Chatsworth House Trust page from the Charity Commission – includes links to annual reports Photographs of Chatsworth House taken by John Gay

Thomas_Hobbes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hobbes

Thomas Hobbes ( HOBZ; 5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) was an English philosopher. Hobbes is best known for his 1651 book Leviathan, in which he expounds an influential formulation of social contract theory. He is considered to be one of the founders of modern political philosophy. Hobbes was born prematurely due to his mother's fear of the Spanish Armada. His early life, overshadowed by his father's departure following a fight, was taken under the care of his wealthy uncle. Hobbes's academic journey began in Westport, leading him to Oxford University, where he was exposed to classical literature and mathematics. He then graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1608. He became a tutor to the Cavendish family, which connected him to intellectual circles and initiated his extensive travels across Europe. These experiences, including meetings with figures like Galileo, shaped his intellectual development. After returning to England from France in 1637, Hobbes witnessed the destruction and brutality of the English Civil War from 1642 to 1651 between Parliamentarians and Royalists, which heavily influenced his advocacy for governance by an absolute sovereign in Leviathan, as the solution to human conflict and societal breakdown. Aside from social contract theory, Leviathan also popularized ideas such as the state of nature ("war of all against all") and laws of nature. His other major works include the trilogy De Cive (1642), De Corpore (1655), and De Homine (1658) as well as the posthumous work Behemoth (1681). Hobbes contributed to a diverse array of fields, including history, jurisprudence, geometry, optics, theology, classical translations, ethics, as well as philosophy in general, marking him as a polymath. Despite controversies and challenges, including accusations of atheism and contentious debates with contemporaries, Hobbes's work profoundly influenced the understanding of political structure and human nature. Biography Early life Thomas Hobbes was born on 5 April 1588 (Old Style), in Westport, now part of Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England. Having been born prematurely when his mother heard of the coming invasion of the Spanish Armada, Hobbes later reported that "my mother gave birth to twins: myself and fear." Hobbes had a brother, Edmund, about two years older, as well as a sister, Anne. Although Thomas Hobbes's childhood is unknown to a large extent, as is his mother's name, it is known that Hobbes's father, Thomas Sr., was the vicar of both Charlton and Westport. Hobbes's father was uneducated, according to John Aubrey, Hobbes's biographer, and he "disesteemed learning." Thomas Sr. was involved in a fight with the local clergy outside his church, forcing him to leave London. As a result, the family was left in the care of Thomas Sr.'s older brother, Francis, a wealthy glove manufacturer with no family of his own. Education Hobbes was educated at Westport church from age four, went to the Malmesbury school, and then to a private school kept by a young man named Robert Latimer, a graduate of the University of Oxford. Hobbes was a good pupil, and between 1601 and 1602 he went to Magdalen Hall, the predecessor to Hertford College, Oxford, where he was taught scholastic logic and mathematics. The principal, John Wilkinson, was a Puritan and had some influence on Hobbes. Before going up to Oxford, Hobbes translated Euripides' Medea from Greek into Latin verse. At university, Thomas Hobbes appears to have followed his own curriculum as he was little attracted by the scholastic learning. Leaving Oxford, Hobbes completed his B.A. degree by incorporation at St John's College, Cambridge, in 1608. He was recommended by Sir James Hussey, his master at Magdalen, as tutor to William, the son of William Cavendish, Baron of Hardwick (and later Earl of Devonshire), and began a lifelong connection with that family. William Cavendish was elevated to the peerage on his father's death in 1626, holding it for two years before his death in 1628. His son, also William, likewise became the 3rd Earl of Devonshire. Hobbes served as a tutor and secretary to both men. The 1st Earl's younger brother, Charles Cavendish, had two sons who were patrons of Hobbes. The elder son, William Cavendish, later 1st Duke of Newcastle, was a leading supporter of Charles I during the Civil War in which he personally financed an army for the king, having been governor to the Prince of Wales, Charles James, Duke of Cornwall. It was to this William Cavendish that Hobbes dedicated his Elements of Law. Hobbes became a companion to the younger William Cavendish and they both took part in a grand tour of Europe between 1610 and 1615. Hobbes was exposed to European scientific and critical methods during the tour, in contrast to the scholastic philosophy that he had learned in Oxford. In Venice, Hobbes made the acquaintance of Fulgenzio Micanzio, an associate of Paolo Sarpi, a Venetian scholar and statesman. His scholarly efforts at the time were aimed at a careful study of classical Greek and Latin authors, the outcome of which was, in 1628, his edition of Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War, the first translation of that work into English directly from a Greek manuscript. Hobbes professed a deep admiration for Thucydides, praising him as "the most politic historiographer that ever writ," and one scholar has suggested that "Hobbes' reading of Thucydides confirmed, or perhaps crystallized, the broad outlines and many of the details of [Hobbes'] own thought." It has been argued that three of the discourses in the 1620 publication known as Horae Subsecivae: Observations and Discourses also represent the work of Hobbes from this period. Although he did associate with literary figures like Ben Jonson and briefly worked as Francis Bacon's amanuensis, translating several of his Essays into Latin, he did not extend his efforts into philosophy until after 1629. In June 1628, his employer Cavendish, then the Earl of Devonshire, died of the plague, and his widow, the countess Christian, dismissed Hobbes. In Paris (1629–1637) Hobbes soon (in 1629) found work as a tutor to Gervase Clifton, the son of Sir Gervase Clifton, 1st Baronet, mostly spent in Paris, until November 1630. Thereafter, he again found work with the Cavendish family, tutoring William Cavendish, 3rd Earl of Devonshire, the eldest son of his previous pupil. Over the next seven years, as well as tutoring, he expanded his own knowledge of philosophy, awakening in him curiosity over key philosophic debates. He visited Galileo Galilei in Florence while he was under house arrest upon condemnation, in 1636, and was later a regular debater in philosophic groups in Paris, held together by Marin Mersenne. Hobbes's first area of study was an interest in the physical doctrine of motion and physical momentum. Despite his interest in this phenomenon, he disdained experimental work as in physics. He went on to conceive the system of thought to the elaboration of which he would devote his life. His scheme was first to work out, in a separate treatise, a systematic doctrine of body, showing how physical phenomena were universally explicable in terms of motion, at least as motion or mechanical action was then understood. He then singled out Man from the realm of Nature and plants. Then, in another treatise, he showed what specific bodily motions were involved in the production of the peculiar phenomena of sensation, knowledge, affections and passions whereby Man came into relation with Man. Finally, he considered, in his crowning treatise, how Men were moved to enter into society, and argued how this must be regulated if people were not to fall back into "brutishness and misery". Thus he proposed to unite the separate phenomena of Body, Man, and the State. In England (1637–1641) Hobbes came back home from Paris, in 1637, to a country riven with discontent, which disrupted him from the orderly execution of his philosophic plan. However, by the end of the Short Parliament in 1640, he had written a short treatise called The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. It was not published and only circulated as a manuscript among his acquaintances. A pirated version, however, was published about ten years later. Although it seems that much of The Elements of Law was composed before the sitting of the Short Parliament, there are polemical pieces of the work that clearly mark the influences of the rising political crisis. Nevertheless, many (though not all) elements of Hobbes's political thought were unchanged between The Elements of Law and Leviathan, which demonstrates that the events of the English Civil War had little effect on his contractarian methodology. However, the arguments in Leviathan were modified from The Elements of Law when it came to the necessity of consent in creating political obligation: Hobbes wrote in The Elements of Law that Patrimonial kingdoms were not necessarily formed by the consent of the governed, while in Leviathan he argued that they were. This was perhaps a reflection either of Hobbes's thoughts about the engagement controversy or of his reaction to treatises published by Patriarchalists, such as Sir Robert Filmer, between 1640 and 1651. When in November 1640 the Long Parliament succeeded the Short, Hobbes felt that he was in disfavour due to the circulation of his treatise and fled to Paris. He did not return for 11 years. In Paris, he rejoined the coterie around Mersenne and wrote a critique of the Meditations on First Philosophy of Descartes, which was printed as third among the sets of "Objections" appended, with "Replies" from Descartes, in 1641. A different set of remarks on other works by Descartes succeeded only in ending all correspondence between the two. Hobbes also extended his own works in a way, working on the third section, De Cive, which was finished in November 1641. Although it was initially only circulated privately, it was well received, and included lines of argumentation that were repeated a decade later in Leviathan. He then returned to hard work on the first two sections of his work and published little except a short treatise on optics (Tractatus opticus), included in the collection of scientific tracts published by Mersenne as Cogitata physico-mathematica in 1644. He built a good reputation in philosophic circles and in 1645 was chosen with Descartes, Gilles de Roberval and others to referee the controversy between John Pell and Longomontanus over the problem of squaring the circle. Civil War Period (1642–1651) The English Civil War began in 1642, and when the royalist cause began to decline in mid-1644, many royalists came to Paris and were known to Hobbes. This revitalised Hobbes's political interests, and the De Cive was republished and more widely distributed. The printing began in 1646 by Samuel de Sorbiere through the Elsevier press in Amsterdam with a new preface and some new notes in reply to objections. In 1647, Hobbes took up a position as mathematical instructor to the young Charles, Prince of Wales, who had come to Paris from Jersey around July. This engagement lasted until 1648 when Charles went to Holland. The company of the exiled royalists led Hobbes to produce Leviathan, which set forth his theory of civil government in relation to the political crisis resulting from the war. Hobbes compared the State to a monster (leviathan) composed of men, created under pressure of human needs and dissolved by civil strife due to human passions. The work closed with a general "Review and Conclusion", in response to the war, which answered the question: Does a subject have the right to change allegiance when a former sovereign's power to protect is irrevocably lost? During the years of composing Leviathan, Hobbes remained in or near Paris. In 1647, he suffered a near-fatal illness that disabled him for six months. On recovering, he resumed his literary task and completed it by 1650. Meanwhile, a translation of De Cive was being produced; scholars disagree about whether it was Hobbes who translated it. In 1650, a pirated edition of The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic was published. It was divided into two small volumes: Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Policie; and De corpore politico, or the Elements of Law, Moral and Politick. In 1651, the translation of De Cive was published under the title Philosophical Rudiments concerning Government and Society. Also, the printing of the greater work proceeded, and finally appeared in mid-1651, titled Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Common Wealth, Ecclesiastical and Civil. It had a famous title-page engraving depicting a crowned giant above the waist towering above hills overlooking a landscape, holding a sword and a crozier and made up of tiny human figures. The work had immediate impact. Soon, Hobbes was more lauded and decried than any other thinker of his time. The first effect of its publication was to sever his link with the exiled royalists, who might well have killed him. The secularist spirit of his book greatly angered both Anglicans and French Catholics. Hobbes appealed to the revolutionary English government for protection and fled back to London in winter 1651. After his submission to the Council of State, he was allowed to subside into private life in Fetter Lane. Later life In 1658, Hobbes published the final section of his philosophical system, completing the scheme he had planned more than 19 years before. De Homine consisted for the most part of an elaborate theory of vision. The remainder of the treatise dealt partially with some of the topics more fully treated in the Human Nature and the Leviathan. In addition to publishing some controversial writings on mathematics, including disciplines like geometry, Hobbes also continued to produce philosophical works. From the time of the Restoration, he acquired a new prominence; "Hobbism" became a byword for all that respectable society ought to denounce. The young king, Hobbes's former pupil, now Charles II, remembered Hobbes and called him to the court to grant him a pension of £100. The king was important in protecting Hobbes when, in 1666, the House of Commons introduced a bill against atheism and profaneness. That same year, on 17 October 1666, it was ordered that the committee to which the bill was referred "should be empowered to receive information touching such books as tend to atheism, blasphemy and profaneness... in particular... the book of Mr. Hobbes called the Leviathan." Hobbes was terrified at the prospect of being labelled a heretic, and proceeded to burn some of his compromising papers. At the same time, he examined the actual state of the law of heresy. The results of his investigation were first announced in three short Dialogues added as an Appendix to his Latin translation of Leviathan, published in Amsterdam in 1668. In this appendix, Hobbes aimed to show that, since the High Court of Commission had been put down, there remained no court of heresy at all to which he was amenable, and that nothing could be heresy except opposing the Nicene Creed, which, he maintained, Leviathan did not do. The only consequence that came of the bill was that Hobbes could never thereafter publish anything in England on subjects relating to human conduct. The 1668 edition of his works was printed in Amsterdam because he could not obtain the censor's licence for its publication in England. Other writings were not made public until after his death, including Behemoth: the History of the Causes of the Civil Wars of England and of the Counsels and Artifices by which they were carried on from the year 1640 to the year 1662. For some time, Hobbes was not even allowed to respond, whatever his enemies tried. Despite this, his reputation abroad was formidable. Hobbes spent the last four or five years of his life with his patron, William Cavendish, 1st Duke of Devonshire, at the family's Chatsworth House estate. He had been a friend of the family since 1608 when he first tutored an earlier William Cavendish. After Hobbes's death, many of his manuscripts would be found at Chatsworth House. His final works were an autobiography in Latin verse in 1672, and a translation of four books of the Odyssey into "rugged" English rhymes that in 1673 led to a complete translation of both Iliad and Odyssey in 1675. Death In October 1679 Hobbes suffered a bladder disorder, and then a paralytic stroke, from which he died on 4 December 1679, aged 91, at Hardwick Hall, owned by the Cavendish family. His last words were said to have been "A great leap in the dark", uttered in his final conscious moments. His body was interred in St John the Baptist's Church, Ault Hucknall, in Derbyshire. Political theory Hobbes, influenced by contemporary scientific ideas, had intended for his political theory to be a quasi-geometrical system, in which the conclusions followed inevitably from the premises. The main practical conclusion of Hobbes's political theory is that state or society cannot be secure unless at the disposal of an absolute sovereign. From this follows the view that no individual can hold rights of property against the sovereign, and that the sovereign may therefore take the goods of its subjects without their consent. This particular view owes its significance to it being first developed in the 1630s when Charles I had sought to raise revenues without the consent of Parliament, and therefore of his subjects. Hobbes rejected one of the most famous theses of Aristotle's politics, namely that human beings are naturally suited to life in a polis and do not fully realize their natures until they exercise the role of citizen. It is perhaps also important to note that Hobbes extrapolated his mechanistic understanding of nature into the social and political realm, making him a progenitor of the term 'social structure.' Leviathan In Leviathan, Hobbes set out his doctrine of the foundation of states and legitimate governments and creating an objective science of morality. Much of the book is occupied with demonstrating the necessity of a strong central authority to avoid the evil of discord and civil war. Beginning from a mechanistic understanding of human beings and their passions, Hobbes postulates what life would be like without government, a condition which he calls the state of nature. In that state, each person would have a right, or license, to everything in the world. This, Hobbes argues, would lead to a "war of all against all" (bellum omnium contra omnes). The description contains what has been called one of the best-known passages in English philosophy, which describes the natural state humankind would be in, were it not for political community: In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. In such states, people fear death and lack both the things necessary to commodious living, and the hope of being able to obtain them. So, in order to avoid it, people accede to a social contract and establish a civil society. According to Hobbes, society is a population and a sovereign authority, to whom all individuals in that society cede some right for the sake of protection. Power exercised by this authority cannot be resisted, because the protector's sovereign power derives from individuals' surrendering their own sovereign power for protection. The individuals are thereby the authors of all decisions made by the sovereign, "he that complaineth of injury from his sovereign complaineth that whereof he himself is the author, and therefore ought not to accuse any man but himself, no nor himself of injury because to do injury to one's self is impossible". There is no doctrine of separation of powers in Hobbes's discussion. He argues that any division of authority would lead to internal strife, jeopardizing the stability provided by an absolute sovereign. According to Hobbes, the sovereign must control civil, military, judicial and ecclesiastical powers, even the words. Opposition John Bramhall In 1654 a small treatise, Of Liberty and Necessity, directed at Hobbes, was published by Bishop John Bramhall. Bramhall, a strong Arminian, had met and debated with Hobbes and afterwards wrote down his views and sent them privately to be answered in this form by Hobbes. Hobbes duly replied, but not for publication. However, a French acquaintance took a copy of the reply and published it with "an extravagantly laudatory epistle". Bramhall countered in 1655, when he printed everything that had passed between them (under the title of A Defence of the True Liberty of Human Actions from Antecedent or Extrinsic Necessity). In 1656, Hobbes was ready with The Questions Concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance, in which he replied "with astonishing force" to the bishop. As perhaps the first clear exposition of the psychological doctrine of determinism, Hobbes's own two pieces were important in the history of the free will controversy. The bishop returned to the charge in 1658 with Castigations of Mr Hobbes's Animadversions, and also included a bulky appendix entitled The Catching of Leviathan the Great Whale. John Wallis Hobbes opposed the existing academic arrangements, and assailed the system of the original universities in Leviathan. He went on to publish De Corpore, which contained not only tendentious views on mathematics but also an erroneous proof of the squaring of the circle. This all led mathematicians to target him for polemics and sparked John Wallis to become one of his most persistent opponents. From 1655, the publishing date of De Corpore, Hobbes and Wallis continued name-calling and bickering for nearly a quarter of a century, with Hobbes failing to admit his error to the end of his life. After years of debate, the spat over proving the squaring of the circle gained such notoriety that it has become one of the most infamous feuds in mathematical history. Religious views The religious opinions of Hobbes remain controversial as many positions have been attributed to him and range from atheism to orthodox Christianity. In the Elements of Law, Hobbes provided a cosmological argument for the existence of God, saying that God is "the first cause of all causes". Hobbes was accused of atheism by several contemporaries; Bramhall accused him of teachings that could lead to atheism. This was an important accusation, and Hobbes himself wrote, in his answer to Bramhall's The Catching of Leviathan, that "atheism, impiety, and the like are words of the greatest defamation possible". Hobbes always defended himself from such accusations. In more recent times also, much has been made of his religious views by scholars such as Richard Tuck and J. G. A. Pocock, but there is still widespread disagreement about the exact significance of Hobbes's unusual views on religion. As Martinich has pointed out, in Hobbes's time the term "atheist" was often applied to people who believed in God but not in divine providence, or to people who believed in God but also maintained other beliefs that were considered to be inconsistent with such belief or judged incompatible with orthodox Christianity. He says that this "sort of discrepancy has led to many errors in determining who was an atheist in the early modern period". In this extended early modern sense of atheism, Hobbes did take positions that strongly disagreed with church teachings of his time. For example, he argued repeatedly that there are no incorporeal substances, and that all things, including human thoughts, and even God, heaven, and hell are corporeal, matter in motion. He argued that "though Scripture acknowledge spirits, yet doth it nowhere say, that they are incorporeal, meaning thereby without dimensions and quantity". (In this view, Hobbes claimed to be following Tertullian.) Like John Locke, he also stated that true revelation can never disagree with human reason and experience, although he also argued that people should accept revelation and its interpretations for the reason that they should accept the commands of their sovereign, in order to avoid war. While in Venice on tour, Hobbes made the acquaintance of Fulgenzio Micanzio, a close associate of Paolo Sarpi, who had written against the pretensions of the papacy to temporal power in response to the Interdict of Pope Paul V against Venice, which refused to recognise papal prerogatives. James I had invited both men to England in 1612. Micanzio and Sarpi had argued that God willed human nature, and that human nature indicated the autonomy of the state in temporal affairs. When he returned to England in 1615, William Cavendish maintained correspondence with Micanzio and Sarpi, and Hobbes translated the latter's letters from Italian, which were circulated among the Duke's circle. Works 1602. Latin translation of Euripides' Medea (lost). 1620. "A Discourse of Tacitus", "A Discourse of Rome", and "A Discourse of Laws." In The Horae Subsecivae: Observation and Discourses. 1626. "De Mirabilis Pecci, Being the Wonders of the Peak in Darby-shire" (publ. 1636) – a poem on the Seven Wonders of the Peak 1629. Eight Books of the Peloponnese Warre, translation with an Introduction of Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War 1630. A Short Tract on First Principles. Authorship doubtful, as this work is attributed by important critics to Robert Payne. 1637. A Briefe of the Art of Rhetorique Molesworth edition title: The Whole Art of Rhetoric. Authorship probable: While Schuhmann (1998) firmly rejects the attribution of this work to Hobbes, a preponderance of scholarship disagrees with Schuhmann's idiosyncratic assessment. Schuhmann disagrees with historian Quentin Skinner, who would come to agree with Schuhmann. 1639. Tractatus opticus II (also known as Latin Optical Manuscript) 1640. Elements of Law, Natural and Politic Initially circulated only in handwritten copies; without Hobbes's permission, the first printed edition would be in 1650. 1641. Objectiones ad Cartesii Meditationes de Prima Philosophia 3rd series of Objections 1642. Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Tertia de Cive (Latin, 1st limited ed.). 1643. De Motu, Loco et Tempore First edition (1973) with the title: Thomas White's De Mundo Examined 1644. Part of the "Praefatio to Mersenni Ballistica." In F. Marini Mersenni minimi Cogitata physico-mathematica. In quibus tam naturae quàm artis effectus admirandi certissimis demonstrationibus explicantur. 1644. "Opticae, liber septimus" (also known as Tractatus opticus I written in 1640). In Universae geometriae mixtaeque mathematicae synopsis, edited by Marin Mersenne. Molesworth edition (OL V, pp. 215–248) title: "Tractatus Opticus" 1646. A Minute or First Draught of the Optiques (Harley MS 3360) Molesworth published only the dedication to Cavendish and the conclusion in EW VII, pp. 467–471. 1646. Of Liberty and Necessity (publ. 1654) Published without the permission of Hobbes 1647. Elementa Philosophica de Cive Second expanded edition with a new Preface to the Reader 1650. Answer to Sir William Davenant's Preface before Gondibert 1650. Human Nature: or The fundamental Elements of Policie Includes first thirteen chapters of The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic Published without Hobbes's authorisation 1650. The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (pirated ed.) Repackaged to include two parts: "Human Nature, or the Fundamental Elements of Policie," ch. 14–19 of Elements, Part One (1640) "De Corpore Politico", Elements, Part Two (1640) 1651. Philosophicall Rudiments concerning Government and Society – English translation of De Cive 1651. Leviathan, or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiasticall and Civil 1654. Of Libertie and Necessitie, a Treatise 1655. De Corpore (in Latin) 1656. Elements of Philosophy, The First Section, Concerning Body – anonymous English translation of De Corpore 1656. Six Lessons to the Professor of Mathematics 1656. The Questions concerning Liberty, Necessity and Chance – reprint of Of Libertie and Necessitie, a Treatise, with the addition of Bramhall's reply and Hobbes's reply to Bramahall's reply. 1657. Stigmai, or Marks of the Absurd Geometry, Rural Language, Scottish Church Politics, and Barbarisms of John Wallis 1658. Elementorum Philosophiae Sectio Secunda De Homine 1660. Examinatio et emendatio mathematicae hodiernae qualis explicatur in libris Johannis Wallisii 1661. Dialogus physicus, sive De natura aeris 1662. Problematica Physica English translation titled: Seven Philosophical Problems (1682) 1662. Seven Philosophical Problems, and Two Propositions of Geometry – published posthumously 1662. Mr. Hobbes Considered in his Loyalty, Religion, Reputation, and Manners. By way of Letter to Dr. Wallis – English autobiography 1666. De Principis & Ratiocinatione Geometrarum 1666. A Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England (publ. 1681) 1668. Leviathan – Latin translation 1668. An answer to a book published by Dr. Bramhall, late bishop of Derry; called the Catching of the leviathan. Together with an historical narration concerning heresie, and the punishment thereof (publ. 1682) 1671. Three Papers Presented to the Royal Society Against Dr. Wallis. Together with Considerations on Dr. Wallis his Answer to them 1671. Rosetum Geometricum, sive Propositiones Aliquot Frustra antehac tentatae. Cum Censura brevi Doctrinae Wallisianae de Motu 1672. Lux Mathematica. Excussa Collisionibus Johannis Wallisii 1673. English translation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey 1674. Principia et Problemata Aliquot Geometrica Antè Desperata, Nunc breviter Explicata & Demonstrata 1678. Decameron Physiologicum: Or, Ten Dialogues of Natural Philosophy 1679. Thomae Hobbessii Malmesburiensis Vita. Authore seipso – Latin autobiography Translated into English in 1680 Posthumous works 1680. An Historical Narration concerning Heresie, And the Punishment thereof 1681. Behemoth, or The Long Parliament Written in 1668, it was unpublished at the request of the King First pirated edition: 1679 1682. Seven Philosophical Problems (English translation of Problematica Physica, 1662) 1682. A Garden of Geometrical Roses (English translation of Rosetum Geometricum, 1671) 1682. Some Principles and Problems in Geometry (English translation of Principia et Problemata, 1674) 1688. Historia Ecclesiastica Carmine Elegiaco Concinnata Complete editions Molesworth editions Editions compiled by William Molesworth. Posthumous works not included in the Molesworth editions Translations in modern English De Corpore, Part I. Computatio Sive Logica. Edited with an Introductory Essay by L C. Hungerland and G. R. Vick. Translation and Commentary by A. Martinich. New York: Abaris Books, 1981. Thomas White's De mundo Examined, translation by H. W. Jones, Bradford: Bradford University Press, 1976 (the appendixes of the Latin edition (1973) are not enclosed). New critical editions of Hobbes's works Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes, Oxford: Clarendon Press (10 volumes published of 27 planned). Traduction des œuvres latines de Hobbes, under the direction of Yves Charles Zarka, Paris: Vrin (5 volumes published of 17 planned). See also Joseph Butler Conatus § In Hobbes Natural and legal rights § Thomas Hobbes Natural law § Hobbes Hobbesian trap Hobbes's moral and political philosophy Leviathan and the Air-Pump Social physics References Citations Sources "Hinduism" to "Home, Earls of" at Project Gutenberg Attribution: This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Robertson, George Croom; Anonymous texts (1911). "Hobbes, Thomas". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 545–552. Further reading General resources MacDonald, Hugh & Hargreaves, Mary. Thomas Hobbes, a Bibliography, London: The Bibliographical Society, 1952. Hinnant, Charles H. (1980). Thomas Hobbes: A Reference Guide, Boston: G. K. Hall & Co. Garcia, Alfred (1986). Thomas Hobbes: bibliographie internationale de 1620 à 1986 (in French), Caen: Centre de Philosophie politique et juridique Université de Caen. Critical studies Brandt, Frithiof (1928). Thomas Hobbes' Mechanical Conception of Nature, Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard. Jesseph, Douglas M. (1999). Squaring the Circle. The War Between Hobbes and Wallis, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Leijenhorst, Cees (2002). The Mechanisation of Aristotelianism. The Late Aristotelian Setting of Thomas Hobbes' Natural Philosophy, Leiden: Brill. Lemetti, Juhana (2011). Historical Dictionary of Hobbes's Philosophy, Lanham: Scarecrow Press. Macpherson, C. B. (1962). The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism: Hobbes to Locke, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Malcolm, Noel (2002). Aspects of Hobbes, New York: Oxford University Press. MacKay-Pritchard, Noah (2019). "Origins of the State of Nature", London Malcolm, Noel (2007). Reason of State, Propaganda, and the Thirty Years' War: An Unknown Translation by Thomas Hobbes, New York: Oxford University Press. Manent, Pierre (1996). An Intellectual History of Liberalism, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Martinich, A. P. (2003) "Thomas Hobbes" in The Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 281: British Rhetoricians and Logicians, 1500–1660, Second Series, Detroit: Gale, pp. 130–144. Martinich, A. P. (1995). A Hobbes Dictionary, Cambridge: Blackwell. Martinich, A. P. (1997). Thomas Hobbes, New York: St. Martin's Press. Martinich, A. P. (1992). The Two Gods of Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on Religion and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martinich, A. P. (1999). Hobbes: A Biography, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Narveson, Jan; Trenchard, David (2008). "Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1676)". In Hamowy, Ronald (ed.). Hobbes, Thomas (1588–1679). The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage; Cato Institute. pp. 226–227. doi:10.4135/9781412965811.n137. ISBN 978-1-4129-6580-4. LCCN 2008009151. OCLC 750831024. Oakeshott, Michael (1975). Hobbes on Civil Association, Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Parkin, Jon, (2007), Taming the Leviathan: The Reception of the Political and Religious Ideas of Thomas Hobbes in England 1640–1700, [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press] Pettit, Philip (2008). Made with Words. Hobbes on Language, Mind, and Politics, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Robinson, Dave and Groves, Judy (2003). Introducing Political Philosophy, Icon Books. ISBN 978-1-84046-450-4. Ross, George MacDonald (2009). Starting with Hobbes, London: Continuum. Shapin, Steven and Schaffer, Simon (1995). Leviathan and the Air-Pump. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Skinner, Quentin (1996). Reason and Rhetoric in the Philosophy of Hobbes, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Skinner, Quentin (2002). Visions of Politics. Vol. III: Hobbes and Civil Science, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Skinner, Quentin (2008). Hobbes and Republican Liberty, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Skinner, Quentin (2018). From Humanism to Hobbes: Studies in Rhetoric and Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Stauffer, Devin (2018). Hobbes's Kingdom of Light: A Study of the Foundations of Modern Political Philosophy, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Stomp, Gabriella (ed.) (2008). Thomas Hobbes, Aldershot: Ashgate. Strauss, Leo (1936). The Political Philosophy of Hobbes; Its Basis and Its Genesis, Oxford: Clarendon Press. Strauss, Leo (1959). "On the Basis of Hobbes's Political Philosophy" in What Is Political Philosophy?, Glencoe, IL: Free Press, chap. 7. Tönnies, Ferdinand (1925). Hobbes. Leben und Lehre, Stuttgart: Frommann, 3rd ed. Tuck, Richard (1993). Philosophy and Government, 1572–1651, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Vélez, Fabio (2014). La palabra y la espada: a vueltas con Hobbes, Madrid: Maia. Vieira, Monica Brito (2009). The Elements of Representation in Hobbes, Leiden: Brill Publishers. Zagorin, Perez (2009). Hobbes and the Law of Nature, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press. External links Portraits of Thomas Hobbes at the National Portrait Gallery, London Montmorency, James E. G. de (1913). "Thomas Hobbes". In Macdonell, John; Manson, Edward William Donoghue (eds.). Great Jurists of the World. London: John Murray. pp. 195–219. Retrieved 12 March 2019 – via Internet Archive. Works by Thomas Hobbes at Project Gutenberg Works by or about Thomas Hobbes at the Internet Archive "Thomas Hobbes". Retrieved 29 March 2019 – via Online Library of Liberty. Works by Thomas Hobbes at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) Hobbes Texts English translations by George Mac Donald Ross Contains Leviathan, lightly edited for easier reading, earlymoderntexts.com Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes Richard A. Talaska (ed.), The Hardwick Library and Hobbes's Early Intellectual Development Hobbes studies Online edition Thomas Hobbes at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Hobbes's Moral and Political Philosophy at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy Hobbes: Methodology at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy Hobbes: Moral and Political Philosophy at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy A Brief Life of Thomas Hobbes, 1588–1679 by John Aubrey A short biography of Thomas Hobbes, atheisme.free.fr Hobbes biography, Philosophypages.com Thomas Hobbes on In Our Time at the BBC Thomas Hobbes nominated by Steven Pinker for the BBC Radio 4 programme Great Lives.

Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leviathan_(Hobbes_book)

Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly referred to as Leviathan, is a book written by Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) and published in 1651 (revised Latin edition 1668). Its name derives from the biblical Leviathan. The work concerns the structure of society and legitimate government, and is regarded as one of the earliest and most influential examples of social contract theory. Written during the English Civil War (1642–1651), it argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Hobbes wrote that civil war and the brute situation of a state of nature ("the war of all against all") could be avoided only by a strong, undivided government. Content Title The title of Hobbes's treatise alludes to the Leviathan mentioned in the Book of Job. In contrast to the simply informative titles usually given to works of early modern political philosophy, such as John Locke's Two Treatises of Government or Hobbes's own earlier work, The Elements of Law, Hobbes selected a poetic name for this more provocative treatise. Lexicographers in the early modern period supposed that the term "leviathan" was associated with the Hebrew words lavah, meaning "to couple, connect, or join", and thannin, believed to mean "a serpent or dragon". In the Westminster Assembly's annotations on the Bible, the interpreters thought that the creature was named using these root words "because by his bignesse he seemes not one single creature, but a coupling of divers together; or because his scales are closed, or straitly compacted together." Samuel Mintz suggests that these connotations lend themselves to Hobbes's understanding of political force since both "Leviathan and Hobbes's sovereign are unities compacted out of separate individuals; they are omnipotent; they cannot be destroyed or divided; they inspire fear in men; they do not make pacts with men; theirs is the dominion of power" on pain of death. Frontispiece After lengthy discussion with Thomas Hobbes, the Parisian Abraham Bosse created the etching for the book's famous frontispiece in the géometrique style which Bosse himself had refined. It is similar in organisation to the frontispiece of Hobbes' De Cive (1642), created by Jean Matheus. The frontispiece has two main elements. In it, a giant crowned figure is seen emerging from the landscape, clutching a sword and a crosier, beneath a quote from the Book of Job—"Non est potestas Super Terram quae Comparetur ei. Iob. 41 . 24" ("There is no power on earth to be compared to him. Job 41 . 24")—further linking the figure to the monster of the book. (Due to disagreements over the precise location of the chapters and verses when they were divided in the Late Middle Ages, the verse Hobbes quotes is usually given as Job 41:33 in modern Christian translations into English, Job 41:25 in the Masoretic text, Septuagint, and the Luther Bible; it is Job 41:24 in the Vulgate.) The torso and arms of the figure are composed of over three hundred persons, in the style of Giuseppe Arcimboldo; all are facing away from the viewer, with just the giant's head having visible facial features. (A manuscript of Leviathan created for Charles II in 1651 has notable differences – a different main head but significantly the body is also composed of many faces, all looking outwards from the body and with a range of expressions.) The lower portion is a triptych, framed in a wooden border. The centre form contains the title on an ornate curtain. The two sides reflect the sword and crosier of the main figure – earthly power on the left and the powers of the church on the right. Each side element reflects the equivalent power – castle to church, crown to mitre, cannon to excommunication, weapons to logic, and the battlefield to the religious courts. The giant holds the symbols of both sides, reflecting the union of secular, and spiritual in the sovereign, but the construction of the torso also makes the figure the state. Part I: Of Man Hobbes begins his treatise on politics with an account of human nature. He presents an image of man as matter in motion, attempting to show through example how everything about humanity can be explained materialistically, that is, without recourse to an incorporeal, immaterial soul or a faculty for understanding ideas that are external to the human mind. Life is but a motion of limbs. For what is the heart, but a spring; and the nerves, but so many strings; and the joints, but so many wheels, giving motion to the whole body, such as was intended by the Artificer? Hobbes proceeds by defining terms clearly and unsentimentally. Good and evil are nothing more than terms used to denote an individual's appetites and desires, while these appetites and desires are nothing more than the tendency to move toward or away from an object. Hope is nothing more than an appetite for a thing combined with an opinion that it can be had. He suggests that the dominant political theology of the time, Scholasticism, thrives on confused definitions of everyday words, such as incorporeal substance, which for Hobbes is a contradiction in terms. Hobbes describes human psychology without any reference to the summum bonum, or greatest good, as previous thought had done. According to Hobbes, not only is the concept of a summum bonum superfluous, but given the variability of human desires, there could be no such thing. Consequently, any political community that sought to provide the greatest good to its members would find itself driven by competing conceptions of that good with no way to decide among them. The result would be civil war. However, Hobbes states that there is a summum malum, or greatest evil. This is the fear of violent death. A political community can be oriented around this fear. Since there is no summum bonum, the natural state of man is not to be found in a political community that pursues the greatest good. But to be outside of a political community is to be in an anarchic condition. Given human nature, the variability of human desires, and need for scarce resources to fulfill those desires, the state of nature, as Hobbes calls this anarchic condition, must be a war of all against all. Even when two men are not fighting, there is no guarantee that the other will not try to kill him for his property or just out of an aggrieved sense of honour, and so they must constantly be on guard against one another. It is even reasonable to preemptively attack one's neighbour. In such condition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation nor the use of commodities that may be imported by sea, no commodious building, no instruments of moving and removing such things as require much force, no knowledge of the face of the earth, no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and which is worst of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. The desire to avoid the state of nature, as the place where the summum malum of violent death is most likely to occur, forms the polestar of political reasoning. It suggests a number of laws of nature, although Hobbes is quick to point out that they cannot properly speaking be called "laws", since there is no one to enforce them. The first thing that reason suggests is to seek peace, but that where peace cannot be had, to use all of the advantages of war. Hobbes is explicit that in the state of nature nothing can be considered just or unjust, and every man must be considered to have a right to all things. The second law of nature is that one ought to be willing to renounce one's right to all things where others are willing to do the same, to quit the state of nature, and to erect a commonwealth with the authority to command them in all things. Hobbes concludes Part One by articulating an additional seventeen laws of nature that make the performance of the first two possible and by explaining what it would mean for a sovereign to represent the people even when they disagree with the sovereign. Part II: Of Commonwealth The purpose of a commonwealth is given at the start of Part II: THE final cause, end, or design of men (who naturally love liberty, and dominion over others) in the introduction of that restraint upon themselves, in which we see them live in Commonwealths, is the foresight of their own preservation, and of a more contented life thereby; that is to say, of getting themselves out from that miserable condition of war which is necessarily consequent, as hath been shown, to the natural passions of men when there is no visible power to keep them in awe, and tie them by fear of punishment to the performance of their covenants... The commonwealth is instituted when all agree in the following manner: I authorise and give up my right of governing myself to this man, or to this assembly of men, on this condition; that thou give up, thy right to him, and authorise all his actions in like manner. The sovereign has twelve principal rights: Because a successive covenant cannot override a prior one, the subjects cannot (lawfully) change the form of government. Because the covenant forming the commonwealth results from subjects giving to the sovereign the right to act for them, the sovereign cannot possibly breach the covenant; and therefore the subjects can never argue to be freed from the covenant because of the actions of the sovereign. The sovereign exists because the majority has consented to his rule; the minority have agreed to abide by this arrangement and must then assent to the sovereign's actions. Every subject is author of the acts of the sovereign: hence the sovereign cannot injure any of his subjects and cannot be accused of injustice. Following this, the sovereign cannot justly be put to death by the subjects. The purpose of the commonwealth is peace, and the sovereign has the right to do whatever he thinks necessary for the preserving of peace and security and prevention of discord. Therefore, the sovereign may judge what opinions and doctrines are averse, who shall be allowed to speak to multitudes, and who shall examine the doctrines of all books before they are published. To prescribe the rules of civil law and property. To be judge in all cases. To make war and peace as he sees fit and to command the army. To choose counsellors, ministers, magistrates and officers. To reward with riches and honour or to punish with corporal or pecuniary punishment or ignominy. To establish laws about honour and a scale of worth. Hobbes explicitly rejects the idea of separation of powers. In item 6 Hobbes is explicitly in favour of censorship of the press and restrictions on the rights of free speech should they be considered desirable by the sovereign to promote order. Types There are three (monarchy, aristocracy and democracy): The difference of Commonwealths consisted in the difference of the sovereign, or the person representative of all and every one of the multitude. And because the sovereignty is either in one man, or in an assembly of more than one; and into that assembly either every man hath right to enter, or not every one, but certain men distinguished from the rest; it is manifest there can be but three kinds of Commonwealth. For the representative must needs be one man, or more; and if more, then it is the assembly of all, or but of a part. When the representative is one man, then is the Commonwealth a monarchy; when an assembly of all that will come together, then it is a democracy, or popular Commonwealth; when an assembly of a part only, then it is called an aristocracy. And only three; since unlike Aristotle he does not sub-divide them into "good" and "deviant": Other kind of Commonwealth there can be none: for either one, or more, or all, must have the sovereign power (which I have shown to be indivisible) entire. There be other names of government in the histories and books of policy; as tyranny and oligarchy; but they are not the names of other forms of government, but of the same forms misliked. For they that are discontented under monarchy call it tyranny; and they that are displeased with aristocracy call it oligarchy: so also, they which find themselves grieved under a democracy call it anarchy, which signifies want of government; and yet I think no man believes that want of government is any new kind of government: nor by the same reason ought they to believe that the government is of one kind when they like it, and another when they mislike it or are oppressed by the governors. And monarchy is the best, on practical grounds: The difference between these three kinds of Commonwealth consisteth not in the difference of power, but in the difference of convenience or aptitude to produce the peace and security of the people; for which end they were instituted. And to compare monarchy with the other two, we may observe: first, that whosoever beareth the person of the people, or is one of that assembly that bears it, beareth also his own natural person. And though he be careful in his politic person to procure the common interest, yet he is more, or no less, careful to procure the private good of himself, his family, kindred and friends; and for the most part, if the public interest chance to cross the private, he prefers the private: for the passions of men are commonly more potent than their reason. From whence it follows that where the public and private interest are most closely united, there is the public most advanced. Now in monarchy the private interest is the same with the public. The riches, power, and honour of a monarch arise only from the riches, strength, and reputation of his subjects. For no king can be rich, nor glorious, nor secure, whose subjects are either poor, or contemptible, or too weak through want, or dissension, to maintain a war against their enemies; whereas in a democracy, or aristocracy, the public prosperity confers not so much to the private fortune of one that is corrupt, or ambitious, as doth many times a perfidious advice, a treacherous action, or a civil war. Succession The right of succession always lies with the sovereign. Democracies and aristocracies have easy succession; monarchy is harder: The greatest difficulty about the right of succession is in monarchy: and the difficulty ariseth from this, that at first sight, it is not manifest who is to appoint the successor; nor many times who it is whom he hath appointed. For in both these cases, there is required a more exact ratiocination than every man is accustomed to use. Because in general people haven't thought carefully. However, the succession is definitely in the gift of the monarch: As to the question who shall appoint the successor of a monarch that hath the sovereign authority... we are to consider that either he that is in possession has right to dispose of the succession, or else that right is again in the dissolved multitude. ... Therefore it is manifest that by the institution of monarchy, the disposing of the successor is always left to the judgement and will of the present possessor. But, it is not always obvious who the monarch has appointed: And for the question which may arise sometimes, who it is that the monarch in possession hath designed to the succession and inheritance of his power However, the answer is: it is determined by his express words and testament; or by other tacit signs sufficient. And this means: By express words, or testament, when it is declared by him in his lifetime, viva voce, or by writing; as the first emperors of Rome declared who should be their heirs. Note that (perhaps rather radically) this does not have to be any blood relative: For the word heir does not of itself imply the children or nearest kindred of a man; but whomsoever a man shall any way declare he would have to succeed him in his estate. If therefore a monarch declare expressly that such a man shall be his heir, either by word or writing, then is that man immediately after the decease of his predecessor invested in the right of being monarch. However, practically this means: But where testament and express words are wanting, other natural signs of the will are to be followed: whereof the one is custom. And therefore where the custom is that the next of kindred absolutely succeedeth, there also the next of kindred hath right to the succession; for that, if the will of him that was in possession had been otherwise, he might easily have declared the same in his lifetime... Religion In Leviathan, Hobbes explicitly states that the sovereign has authority to assert power over matters of faith and doctrine and that if he does not do so, he invites discord. Hobbes presents his own religious theory but states that he would defer to the will of the sovereign (when that was re-established: again, Leviathan was written during the Civil War) as to whether his theory was acceptable. Hobbes' materialistic presuppositions also led him to hold a view which was considered highly controversial at the time. Hobbes rejected the idea of incorporeal substances and subsequently argued that even God himself was a corporeal substance. Although Hobbes never explicitly stated he was an atheist, many allude to the possibility that he was. Taxation Hobbes also touched upon the sovereign's ability to tax in Leviathan, although he is not as widely cited for his economic theories as he is for his political theories. Hobbes believed that equal justice includes the equal imposition of taxes. The equality of taxes doesn't depend on equality of wealth, but on the equality of the debt that every man owes to the commonwealth for his defence and the maintenance of the rule of law. Hobbes also championed public support for those unable to maintain themselves by labour, which would presumably be funded by taxation. He advocated public encouragement of works of navigation etc. to usefully employ the poor who could work. Part III: Of a Christian Commonwealth In Part III Hobbes seeks to investigate the nature of a Christian commonwealth. This immediately raises the question of which scriptures we should trust, and why. If any person may claim supernatural revelation superior to the civil law, then there would be chaos, and Hobbes' fervent desire is to avoid this. Hobbes thus begins by establishing that we cannot infallibly know another's personal word to be divine revelation: When God speaketh to man, it must be either immediately or by mediation of another man, to whom He had formerly spoken by Himself immediately. How God speaketh to a man immediately may be understood by those well enough to whom He hath so spoken; but how the same should be understood by another is hard, if not impossible, to know. For if a man pretend to me that God hath spoken to him supernaturally, and immediately, and I make doubt of it, I cannot easily perceive what argument he can produce to oblige me to believe it. This is good, but if applied too fervently would lead to all the Bible being rejected. So, Hobbes says, we need a test: and the true test is established by examining the books of scripture, and is: So that it is manifest that the teaching of the religion which God hath established, and the showing of a present miracle, joined together, were the only marks whereby the Scripture would have a true prophet, that is to say, immediate revelation, to be acknowledged; of them being singly sufficient to oblige any other man to regard what he saith. Seeing therefore miracles now cease, we have no sign left whereby to acknowledge the pretended revelations or inspirations of any private man; nor obligation to give ear to any doctrine, farther than it is conformable to the Holy Scriptures, which since the time of our Saviour supply the place and sufficiently recompense the want of all other prophecy "Seeing therefore miracles now cease" means that only the books of the Bible can be trusted. Hobbes then discusses the various books which are accepted by various sects, and the "question much disputed between the diverse sects of Christian religion, from whence the Scriptures derive their authority". To Hobbes, "it is manifest that none can know they are God's word (though all true Christians believe it) but those to whom God Himself hath revealed it supernaturally". And therefore "The question truly stated is: by what authority they are made law?" Unsurprisingly, Hobbes concludes that ultimately there is no way to determine this other than the civil power: He therefore to whom God hath not supernaturally revealed that they are His, nor that those that published them were sent by Him, is not obliged to obey them by any authority but his whose commands have already the force of laws; that is to say, by any other authority than that of the Commonwealth, residing in the sovereign, who only has the legislative power. He discusses the Ten Commandments, and asks "who it was that gave to these written tables the obligatory force of laws. There is no doubt but they were made laws by God Himself: but because a law obliges not, nor is law to any but to them that acknowledge it to be the act of the sovereign, how could the people of Israel, that were forbidden to approach the mountain to hear what God said to Moses, be obliged to obedience to all those laws which Moses propounded to them?" and concludes, as before, that "making of the Scripture law, belonged to the civil sovereign." Finally: "We are to consider now what office in the Church those persons have who, being civil sovereigns, have embraced also the Christian faith?" to which the answer is: "Christian kings are still the supreme pastors of their people, and have power to ordain what pastors they please, to teach the Church, that is, to teach the people committed to their charge." There is an enormous amount of biblical scholarship in this third part. However, once Hobbes' initial argument is accepted (that no-one can know for sure anyone else's divine revelation) his conclusion (the religious power is subordinate to the civil) follows from his logic. The very extensive discussions of the chapter were probably necessary for its time. The need (as Hobbes saw it) for the civil sovereign to be supreme arose partly from the many sects that arose around the civil war, and to quash the Pope of Rome's challenge, to which Hobbes devotes an extensive section. Part IV: Of the Kingdom of Darkness Hobbes named Part IV of his book "Kingdom of Darkness". By this Hobbes does not mean Hell (he did not believe in Hell or Purgatory), but the darkness of ignorance as opposed to the light of true knowledge. Hobbes' interpretation is largely unorthodox and so sees much darkness in what he sees as the misinterpretation of Scripture. This considered, the kingdom of darkness... is nothing else but a confederacy of deceivers that, to obtain dominion over men in this present world, endeavour, by dark and erroneous doctrines, to extinguish in them the light... Hobbes enumerates four causes of this darkness. The first is by extinguishing the light of scripture through misinterpretation. Hobbes sees the main abuse as teaching that the kingdom of God can be found in the church, thus undermining the authority of the civil sovereign. Another general abuse of scripture, in his view, is the turning of consecration into conjuration, or silly ritual. The second cause is the demonology of the heathen poets: in Hobbes's opinion, demons are nothing more than constructs of the brain. Hobbes then goes on to criticize what he sees as many of the practices of Catholicism: "Now for the worship of saints, and images, and relics, and other things at this day practiced in the Church of Rome, I say they are not allowed by the word of God". The third is by mixing with the Scripture diverse relics of the religion, and much of the vain and erroneous philosophy of the Greeks, especially of Aristotle. Hobbes has little time for the various disputing sects of philosophers and objects to what people have taken "From Aristotle's civil philosophy, they have learned to call all manner of Commonwealths but the popular (such as was at that time the state of Athens), tyranny". At the end of this comes an interesting section (darkness is suppressing true knowledge as well as introducing falsehoods), which would appear to bear on the discoveries of Galileo Galilei. "Our own navigations make manifest, and all men learned in human sciences now acknowledge, there are antipodes" (i.e., the Earth is round) "...Nevertheless, men... have been punished for it by authority ecclesiastical. But what reason is there for it? Is it because such opinions are contrary to true religion? That cannot be, if they be true." However, Hobbes is quite happy for the truth to be suppressed if necessary: if "they tend to disorder in government, as countenancing rebellion or sedition? Then let them be silenced, and the teachers punished" – but only by the civil authority. The fourth is by mingling with both these, false or uncertain traditions, and feigned or uncertain history. Hobbes finishes by inquiring who benefits from the errors he diagnoses: Cicero maketh honourable mention of one of the Cassii, a severe judge amongst the Romans, for a custom he had in criminal causes, when the testimony of the witnesses was not sufficient, to ask the accusers, cui bono; that is to say, what profit, honour, or other contentment the accused obtained or expected by the fact. For amongst presumptions, there is none that so evidently declareth the author as doth the benefit of the action. Hobbes concludes that the beneficiaries are the churches and churchmen. Reception The traditional understanding of the reception of Hobbes' work was that it was almost universally rejected, immediately discredited, not seriously read, and resulted in Hobbes being outed as an atheist. However, this was an image created by Hobbes' main intellectual opponents. It is likely that it merited such furious reaction in some circles precisely because it was being read by many and that it was provoking serious debate on a range of contentious issues that it addressed in its day. One early comment on the text came from Brian Duppa, who wrote that "as in the man, so there are strange mixtures in the book; many things said so well that I could embrace him for it, and many things so wildly and unchristianly, that I could scarce have so much charity for him, as to think he was ever Christian". Another came from Alexander Ross, who wrote "I finde him a man of excellent parts, and in this book much gold, and withal much dross; he hath mingled his wine with too much water, and imbittered his pottage with too much Coloquintida". International relations scholar John Mearsheimer's realist theory is largely inspired by Hobbes's work, which argues that states exist in an anarchic world where their primary goal is to survive and become more powerful, in the absence of a higher authority. Critical analysis Anthony Gottlieb points out that Hobbes's political philosophy was affected by the prevalence of sectarian conflict in his time, both in the European wars of religion and in the English Civil Wars. These violent events moved him to consider peace and security the ultimate goals of government, to be achieved at all costs. The British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper sums up the book as follows: "The axiom, fear; the method, logic; the conclusion, despotism." See also Behemoth by Thomas Hobbes Benevolent dictatorship Classical republicanism Constitutional monarchy Enlightened absolutism Hobbes's moral and political philosophy John Locke Scientia potentia est Social physics References Further reading Some recent editions of Leviathan Leviathan. Revised Edition, eds. A.P. Martinich and Brian Battiste. Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview Press, 2010. ISBN 978-1-55481-003-1.[1] Archived 6 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine Leviathan: Or the Matter, Forme, and Power of a Commonwealth Ecclesiasticall and Civill, ed. by Ian Shapiro (Yale University Press; 2010). Leviathan, Critical edition by Noel Malcolm in three volumes: 1. Editorial Introduction; 2 and 3. The English and Latin Texts, Oxford University Press, 2012 (Clarendon Edition of the Works of Thomas Hobbes). Critical studies Bagby, Laurie M. Hobbes's Leviathan : Reader's Guide, New York: Continuum, 2007. Baumrin, Bernard Herbert (ed.) Hobbes's Leviathan – interpretation and criticism Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1969. Cranston, Maurice. "The Leviathan" History Today (Oct 1951) 1#10 pp. 17–21 Harrison, Ross. Hobbes, Locke, and Confusion's Masterpiece: an Examination of Seventeenth-Century Political Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, 2003. Hood, Francis Campbell. The divine politics of Thomas Hobbes – an interpretation of Leviathan, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964. Johnston, David. The rhetoric of Leviathan – Thomas Hobbes and the politics of cultural transformation, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986. Newey, Glen. Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Hobbes and Leviathan, New York: Routledge, 2008. Rogers, Graham Alan John. Leviathan – contemporary responses to the political theory of Thomas Hobbes Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 1995. Schmitt, Carl. The Leviathan in the state theory of Thomas Hobbes – meaning and failure of a political symbol, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008 (earlier: Greenwood Press, 1996). Springborg, Patricia. The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Windolph, Francis Lyman. Leviathan and natural law, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1951. Zagorin, Perez. Hobbes and the Law of Nature, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. External links Reprint from the 1651 edition Leviathan at Project Gutenberg Leviathan public domain audiobook at LibriVox Full text online at oregonstate.edu A reduced version of Leviathan at earlymoderntexts.com Scan of 1651 edition

Abraham_Bosse

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Bosse

Abraham Bosse (c. 1604 – 14 February 1676) was a French artist, mainly as a printmaker in etching, but also in watercolour. Life He was born to Huguenot (Calvinist) parents in Tours, France, where his father had moved from Germany. His father was a tailor, and Bosse's work always depicted clothes in loving detail. He married Catherine Sarrabat at Tours in 1632. He remained a Huguenot, dying before the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but was happy to illustrate religious subjects to Catholic taste. Work Roughly 1600 etchings are attributed to him, with subjects including: daily life, religion, literature, fashion, technology, and science. Most of his output was illustrations for books, but many were also sold separately. His style grows from Dutch and Flemish art, but is given a strongly French flavour. Many of his images give informative detail about middle and upper-class daily life in the period, although they must be treated with care as historical evidence. His combination of very carefully depicted grand interiors with relatively trivial domestic subjects was original and highly influential on French art, and also abroad — William Hogarth's engravings are, among other things, a parody of the style. Most of his images are perhaps best regarded as illustrations rather than art. He was apprenticed in Paris about 1620 to the Antwerp-born engraver Melchior Tavernier, who was also an important publisher. His first etchings date to 1622, and are influenced by Jacques Bellange. Following a meeting in Paris about 1630, he became a follower of Jacques Callot, whose technical innovations in etching he popularised in the famous and much translated Traité des manières de graver en taille-douce [Treatise on Line Engraving] (1645), the first to be published. He took Callot's highly detailed small images to a larger size, and a wider range of subject matter. Unlike Callot, his declared aim, in which he largely succeeded, was to make etchings look like engravings, to which end he sacrificed willingly the freedom of the etched line, whilst certainly exploiting to the full the speed of the technique. Like most etchers, he frequently used engraving on a plate in addition to etching, but produced no pure engravings. Controversy In 1641, he began to attend classes given by the architect Girard Desargues (1591–1661) on perspective and other technical aspects of depiction. Bosse not only adopted these methods but also published a series of works between 1643–1653 explaining and promoting them. In 1648, Cardinal Mazarin established the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture. Bosse was made an honorary member in 1651. However his publicising of Desargues' methods embroiled him in a controversy with Charles Le Brun and his followers, who had different methods, and also a belief that "genius" rather than technical method should be the guide in creating artworks. In 1661 Bosse was forced to withdraw from the Academy; he established his own school as an alternative, but it was suppressed by Le Brun. Major works Etchings & Images Le jardin de la Noblesse françoise — fashion (partly after Jean de St-Igny)(1629) Les Cris de Paris (c. 1630) — street cries Les gardes françoises (1632) Le mariage à la ville, le mariage à la campagne (1633) — bourgeois vs pastoral weddings Les métiers (1635?) — The trades Plates for L'Ariane (1639) Plates for Le Trésor des merveilles de la Maison Royale de Fontainebleau (1642) La manière universelle de M. des Argues Lyonnois pour poser l'essieu & placer les heures & autres choses aux cadrans au Soleil (1643), printed by P. de Hayes, Paris La pratique du trait à preuve de M. des Argues Lyonnois pour la coupe des pierres en Architecture pratiquer la perspective (1643) De la manière de graver à l'eaux-forte et au burin (1645) Traité des manières de graver en taille douce sur l'airin par le moyen des eaux-fortes... (1645) The "Manual of Etching". Manière universelle de M. des Argues pour pratiquer la perspective par petit-pied comme le géométral... (1648) — Manual on perspective Moyen universel de pratiquer la perspective sur les tableaux ou surfaces irrégulières... (1653) The famous frontispiece for Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes (1651) was created with input from Hobbes. Plates for La Pucelle ou la France délivrée (1656) Des ordres des colonnes (1664) — Architecture Traité des pratiques géométrales et de perspective (1665) Later Collections Die Kunst, in Kupfer zu stechen, Ilmer, Osnabrück 1975 (Repr. d. Ausg. Nürnberg 1765) Radier-Büchlein. Handelt von der Etzkunst, nemlich wie man mit Scheidwasser in Kupfer etzen, das Wasser und wie auch den harten und weichen Etzgrund machen solle, Moos, München 1977, ISBN 3-7879-0088-8 (Repr. d. Ausg. Nürnberg 1689) Gallery Notes Bibliography Benezit (2006). "BOSSE, Abraham", vol. 2, pp. 922–923, in Benezit Dictionary of Artists. Paris: Gründ. Dhombres, Jean; Joël Sakharovitch, editors (1994). Desargues en son temps. Paris: Albert Blanchard. ISBN 9782853671880. Guerriaud, M. (2013), "Abraham Bosse et la gravure du doyen". Revue d’Histoire de la Pharmacie, vol. 378/379, pp. 289–301. Harrison, Colin (1996). "Bosse, Abraham", vol. 4, pp. 467–469, in The Dictionary of Art, 34 volumes, edited by Jane Turner. New York: Grove. ISBN 9781884446009. Join-Lambert, S.; J.-P. Manceau (1995). Abraham Bosse, graveur et sçavant. CRDP de la région Centre.. ISBN 2-903769-15-X Join-Lambert, S.; Maxime Préaud, editors (2004). Abraham Bosse, savant graveur. BNF-Musée des Beaux-arts de Tours, diffusion éd. du Seuil. ISBN 2-7177-2283-1. Vuillemin, Jean-Claude (2008). “Abraham Bosse”, vol. 1, pp. 176–179, in Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century French Philosophers, edited by L. Foisneau, 2 vols. London and New York: Thoemmes Continuum. ISBN 9780826418616. External links Dossier on Abraham Bosse by the French ministry of culture. (in French) [1] BNF exhibition feature, with many images & much text in French — click feuilletoirs for image galleries, then choose from menu on left Abraham Bosse (1645) Tracté des manieres de graver en taille douce sur l'airin - digital facsimile from the Linda Hall Library Works by Abraham Bosse at the National Gallery of Art

George_Talbot,_6th_Earl_of_Shrewsbury

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Talbot,_6th_Earl_of_Shrewsbury

George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, 6th Earl of Waterford, 12th Baron Talbot, KG, Earl Marshal (c. 1522/1528 – 18 November 1590) was an English magnate and military commander. He also held the subsidiary titles of 15th Baron Strange of Blackmere and 11th Baron Furnivall. He was best known for his tenure as keeper of Mary, Queen of Scots between 1568 and 1585, his marriage to his second wife Elizabeth Talbot (Bess of Hardwick), as well as his surviving collection of written work. Life and career Talbot was the only son of Francis Talbot, 5th Earl of Shrewsbury and Mary Dacre. In early life he saw active military service, when he took part in the invasion of Scotland under the Protector Somerset. He was sent by his father in October 1557 to the relief of Thomas Percy, 7th Earl of Northumberland pent up in Alnwick Castle. He then remained for some months in service on the border, with five hundred horsemen under his command. In 1560, he inherited the Earldom of Shrewsbury, the Barony of Furnivall and the position of Justice in Eyre, which had been his father's. He also took over his father's position of Chamberlain of the Exchequer. One year later, he was created a Knight of the Garter. Shrewsbury was selected as the keeper of Mary, Queen of Scots, who was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth I in 1568 after she had escaped to England from Scotland following the disastrous Battle of Langside. Shrewsbury received his ward at Tutbury Castle on 2 February 1569, but in June he removed to Wingfield Manor, whereupon a rescue was attempted by Leonard Dacre. The Earl had several houses and castles in the interior of the kingdom, in any of which Mary might be kept with little danger. In September the household was back again at Tutbury, where an additional guard or spy, temporarily joined the family in the person of Henry Hastings, 3rd Earl of Huntingdon. In November took place the Northern Rebellion, with the revolt of the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland, who planned to march on Tutbury. Mary was for the time being moved to Coventry, and did not return until the following January. In May 1570 Shrewsbury conducted her to Chatsworth, where he foiled another cabal aiming for her release. Cecil and Mildmay visited Chatsworth in October, and agreed on Mary's removal to Sheffield Castle (Shrewsbury's principal seat), which took place shortly afterwards. At Sheffield, apart from occasional visits to the baths at Buxton, to Chatsworth, or to the old Hardwick Hall, she remained under Shrewsbury's guardianship for the next fourteen years. During the winter of 1571–72 the earl was in London, the queen during his absence being left in charge of Sir Ralph Sadler. Meanwhile, in 1571, Lord Shrewsbury was appointed Lord High Steward (the premier Great Office of State) for the trial of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk (regarding the Ridolfi plot). Finally, in 1572, Lord Shrewsbury was appointed Earl Marshal, a position that he held (along with the aforementioned position of Justice in Eyre) until his death in 1590. After the conviction of Mary for her role in the Babington Plot, Shrewsbury participated in her trial and was one of the official witnesses to her execution at Fotheringhay Castle on 8 February 1587. Personal life, illness and death Upon the death of his first wife, Gertrude Manners, Shrewsbury was immediately taken by Bess of Hardwick. In early 1568 he married her in a double wedding with their two eldest children from previous marriages. Elizabeth Shrewsbury, "Bess," commemorated her new initials in magnificent style: her house at Hardwick is topped with a balustrade within which the scrolling letters ES appear four times. He sent a servant, Ralph Barber, on a shopping trip to Rouen in 1575. Barber bought wine, vinegar, damask and diaper linen for napkins, silk, canvas, caged live quails, and sugar confitures, which he delivered to the earl in London. Queen Elizabeth had imposed the responsible task of guarding Mary on Shrewsbury, and did not allow him to resign the charge for over 15 years. For this and other reasons (such as disputes over property distribution) his marriage with Bess of Hardwick, while initially successful, became rocky, and began to deteriorate around 1583, as detailed by surviving letters between the two. Slowly but increasingly declining health (rheumatism) caused chronic pain, and money issues that inevitably came about during his time as keeper of the Queen of Scots, made him additionally caustic. Elizabeth attempted to reconcile Shrewsbury and Hardwick between 1586 and 1589; however, while the latter was in support of this, Shrewsbury seems to have remained indignant and spent his final years without her, instead seeking the comfort of Eleanor Britton, one of his servants. George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury died on 18 November 1590, survived by his wife Bess of Hardwick. He was buried in the Shrewsbury chapel at Sheffield Parish Church (now Sheffield Cathedral), where a large monument erected to him can still be seen. Marriages and children He married twice: Firstly to Gertrude Manners, a daughter of Thomas Manners, 1st Earl of Rutland. Their children included: Francis, Lord Talbot, eldest son and heir apparent, who predeceased his father, having married, in 1563, Anne Herbert, a daughter of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke (1501–1570). He was known as "Lord Talbot", a courtesy title, being one of his father's lesser titles. Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury, second but eldest surviving son and heir. Henry Talbot (1554–1596), who married Elizabeth Rayner (1556–1612). Amongst his daughters were Gertrude Talbot, wife of Robert Pierrepont, 1st Earl of Kingston-upon-Hull and Mary Talbot (1594–1676), who married firstly her step-brother Thomas Holcroft (1596 – c. 1626) of Vale Royale, and secondly (in 1628) Sir William Airmine (or Armyne), 1st Baronet (1593–1651) of Osgodby, Lincolnshire. Elizabeth Rayner survived her husband and in 1595 remarried to Thomas Holcroft. Edward Talbot, 8th Earl of Shrewsbury (1552–1616), who succeeded his elder brother in the earldom. Catherine Talbot, who in 1563 married Henry, Lord Herbert, afterwards 2nd Earl of Pembroke. Queen Elizabeth gave her many tokens of friendship. Mary Talbot, who married Sir George Savile, 1st Baronet of Barrowby, Lincolnshire; Grace Talbot, who married her step-brother Henry Cavendish (1550–1616), son and heir of Sir William Cavendish of Chatsworth in Derbyshire by his wife Elizabeth Hardwick. Secondly he married Elizabeth Hardwick (c. 1527 – 1608), (Bess of Hardwick), of Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, widow of Sir William Cavendish of Chatsworth in Derbyshire; without progeny. Letters and papers Shrewsbury left behind much written documentation including letters and papers. Generally, these cover the time between his succession to the earlship in 1560 and his death. Many of Shrewsbury's surviving papers found their way in the College of Arms and were re-united with others in the Lambeth Palace library in 1983 as the "Shrewsbury-Talbot papers". This historical resource was first published in 1791 by Edmund Lodge, and all the letters were more recently summarized in calendar form. Lodge, Edmund, ed., Illustrations of British History, 3 vols., London (1791) Lodge, Edmund, ed., Illustrations of British History, 3 vols., Oxford, (1838) Bill, E. G. W., ed., Calendar of Shrewsbury papers in the Lambeth Palace Library, Derbyshire Record Society (1966) Batho, G. R., ed., Calendar of the Shrewsbury and Talbot manuscripts in the College of Arms, HMC (1971) In addition to these, letters by Talbot to and from his second wife Bess of Hardwick survive in the University of Glasgow's collection and have been digitized by them online. Despite the wealth of surviving written material Shrewsbury's handwriting is notorious among scholars for its illegibility. For example, an 1875 article in the Sheffield Independent Press declared his handwriting "the despair of all transcribers" (a view still held by scholars and paleographers to this day), which is worsened by the non-standard spelling of the time. It is accepted that Shrewsbury suffered from rheumatism ("gout") in his hand; indeed, Shrewsbury himself once referred to his pen-hand as "my evil favoured writing". In fiction George Talbot is a primary character in the historical fiction novels The Captive Queen of Scots by Jean Plaidy and The Other Queen by Philippa Gregory. He is also a recurring character in Friedrich Schiller's play Mary Stuart (as Lord Shrewsbury) and in the tragic opera inspired by it, Gaetano Donizetti's Maria Stuarda (as Giorgo Talbot). == Notes ==

List_of_sovereign_states

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states

The following is a list providing an overview of sovereign states around the world with information on their status and recognition of their sovereignty. The 205 listed states can be divided into three categories based on membership within the United Nations System: 193 UN member states, two UN General Assembly non-member observer states, and ten other states. The sovereignty dispute column indicates states having undisputed sovereignty (188 states, of which there are 187 UN member states and one UN General Assembly non-member observer state), states having disputed sovereignty (15 states, of which there are six UN member states, one UN General Assembly non-member observer state, and eight de facto states), and states having a special political status (two states, both in free association with New Zealand). Compiling a list such as this can be complicated and controversial, as there is no definition that is binding on all the members of the community of nations concerning the criteria for statehood. For more information on the criteria used to determine the contents of this list, please see the criteria for inclusion section below. The list is intended to include entities that have been recognised as having de facto status as sovereign states, and inclusion should not be seen as an endorsement of any specific claim to statehood in legal terms. Criteria for inclusion The dominant customary international law standard of statehood is the declarative theory of statehood, which was codified by the Montevideo Convention of 1933. The Convention defines the state as a person of international law if it "possess[es] the following qualifications: (a) a permanent population; (b) a defined territory; (c) government; and (d) a capacity to enter into relations with the other states" so long as it was not "obtained by force whether this consists in the employment of arms, in threatening diplomatic representations, or in any other effective coercive measure". Debate exists on the degree to which recognition should be included as a criterion of statehood. The declarative theory of statehood argues that statehood is purely objective and recognition of a state by other states is irrelevant. On the other end of the spectrum, the constitutive theory of statehood defines a state as a person under international law only if it is recognised as sovereign by other states. For the purposes of this list, included are all polities that consider themselves sovereign states (through a declaration of independence or some other means) and either: are often regarded as satisfying the declarative theory of statehood, or are recognised as a sovereign state by at least one UN member state In some cases, there is a divergence of opinion over the interpretation of the first point, and whether an entity satisfies it is disputed. Unique political entities which fail to meet the classification of a sovereign state are considered proto-states. On the basis of the above criteria, this list includes the following 205 entities: 203 states recognised by at least one UN member state 1 state that satisfies the declarative theory of statehood and is recognised only by non-UN member states 1 state that satisfies the declarative theory of statehood and is not recognised by any other state The table includes bullets in the right-hand column representing entities that are either not sovereign states or have a close association to another sovereign state. It also includes subnational areas where the sovereignty of the titular state is limited by an international agreement. Taken together, these include: Entities that are in a free association relationship with another state 2 entities controlled by Pakistan which are neither sovereign states, dependent territories, nor part of another state: Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan Dependent territories of another state, as well as areas that exhibit many characteristics of dependent territories according to the dependent territory page Subnational entities created by international agreements List of states UN member states and General Assembly observer states Other states See also Notes References == Bibliography ==

Lists_of_volcanoes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_volcanoes

These lists cover volcanoes by type and by location. Type Active volcano List of extraterrestrial volcanoes List of largest volcanic eruptions List of shield volcanoes List of stratovolcanoes List of crater lakes Location Africa Americas Asia Europe Oceania, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and Antarctica See also Global Volcanism Program of the Smithsonian Institution References External links Global Volcanism Program Current eruptions Volcano World Volcano photos by country (geographic.org)

Nier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nier

Nier is an action role-playing video game developed by Cavia and published in 2010 by Square Enix for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In Japan, the game was released as Nier Replicant for the PlayStation 3 with a younger main character, while an alternative version titled Nier Gestalt with an older main character was released for the Xbox 360; Gestalt was released outside of Japan as Nier for both platforms. A remaster of the Japanese version, Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139... was released for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows in 2021. The game is a spin-off from the Drakengard series, following the fifth ending of the first game, the events of which have left Earth in ruin. Set over one thousand years later, the story follows the unnamed protagonist attempting to find a cure for a terminal illness afflicting the girl Yonah—either his sister or daughter. The gameplay borrows elements from various video game genres, occasionally switching between them and the main role-playing-based gameplay. Beginning production in 2007, the game was directed by Drakengard creator Yoko Taro, who was given a lot of creative freedom with the project. Its storyline drew inspiration from September 11 attacks and the War on Terror, while its gameplay was partly inspired by God of War series. Due to Western feedback, multiple versions of the protagonist were created. The music was composed by Monaca, a music studio led by Keiichi Okabe, and several albums have been released. Nier was released to mixed reception; reviewers praised the story, characters and soundtrack and were mixed in their opinions of how well the disparate gameplay elements were connected. The execution of some gameplay elements was criticized, notably the side quests, and the graphics were regarded as substandard. Despite this, the game acquired acclaim among players over time, becoming a cult classic. The original Nier sold 500,000 copies, while the updated version shipped 1.5 million copies worldwide. A sequel developed by PlatinumGames, titled Nier: Automata, was released in 2017. Gameplay Nier is an action role-playing game in which players take on the role of an unnamed protagonist; the protagonist is a middle-aged man in Nier Gestalt and a teenage boy in Nier Replicant, named by the player. The player directly controls the main character through a third-person perspective to interact with people, objects, and enemies throughout the game. The player can turn the camera around the characters, which allows for a 360° view of the surroundings. The three-dimensional world is divided into areas separated by loading screens, and the player can move freely throughout these areas by walking, running, jumping, and climbing ladders. In some rooms and buildings, the camera swings to the side and the main character is restricted to moving as in a two-dimensional platforming environment, while during certain battles the camera pulls up to simulate a top-down shoot 'em up or other video game genres. While traveling the player is frequently attacked by monsters, which include shadowy figures called Shades, large animals, and robots. Defeating these enemies gives the player experience points that can increase the main character's power, and money that can be used to purchase items. The player's weapons can be customized to have greater damage and abilities using materials that can be purchased, dropped from monsters, or scavenged around the world. Multiple varieties of each weapon type can be acquired. The player can also use magic spells, which require enough energy from a constantly regenerating amount to cast. These spells include projectiles and large shadowy fists, among others; new spells are acquired in the first half of the game by completing specific battles. In addition to the main plotline, Nier includes numerous sidequests, which give the player experience points and money, as well as fishing and farming segments. Synopsis In the mid 21st century, in the midst of a snowstorm in summer amid a ruined city, the protagonist fends off ethereal black monsters to protect the sick young girl Yonah—either his younger sister or daughter, depending on the version. The protagonist uses a magical book to fend off the creatures, but Yonah touches it and is covered in black markings, worsening her condition. The story moves to over a thousand years later, with the current feudal civilization in decline and the black creatures—dubbed Shades—becoming more hostile. The protagonist and Yonah live in a village built within post-industrial ruins, with the protagonist taking odd jobs from the village leaders Devola and Popola to earn money to support the sick Yonah. While rescuing Yonah from a temple after she wanders there looking for a rare flower, the protagonist meets the talking book Grimoire Weiss, which suggests that the two team up to use Weiss's magic and to find a cure for Yonah's disease, identified as the terminal Black Scrawl. In their search, they encounter Kainé, a hot-tempered and foul-mouthed swordswoman; and Emil, a blindfolded boy whose eyes petrify anyone they see. After journeying for a time, the protagonist's village is attacked by a giant Shade. The battle ends with Emil being forced to petrify Kainé to seal the shade, and Yonah being kidnapped by a master Shade dubbed the Shadowlord. The game jumps forward five years, with the situation worsening. The protagonist and Emil successfully find the power necessary to free Kainé and kill the giant Shade, but getting the power transforms Emil into a skeletal being the villagers fear. Under Devola and Popola's guidance, the party seek out parts of a stone key that will unlock a pathway to the Shadowlord. After defeating five Shades and assembling the key, the team goes to defeat the Shadowlord. Devola and Popola then confront the party, revealing themselves to be allied with the Shadowlord in the name of a greater plan. 1300 years prior, humanity faced extinction due to an incurable disease. In an attempt to survive, they separated their souls from their bodies; the current humans are the artificial Replicants who developed their own personalities, while the Shades are human souls—dubbed Gestalts—who are slowly losing their minds through being unable to reunite with their bodies. The Black Scrawl is a side effect of the Gestalts' insanity degrading their Replicant counterparts. The Shadowlord is the prime Gestalt used to stabilise them, and Devola and Popola are androids who oversee the system. The party defeat them, with Emil sacrificing himself in the process. The remaining group then defeats the Shadowlord, revealed to be the Gestalt of the prologue's protagonist, with his actions driven by the wish to save his Yonah by reuniting her Gestalt and Replicant. The Gestalt Yonah dissipates to save her Replicant version's life, and the protagonist kills the Shadowlord after Grimoire Weiss sacrifices himself to weaken his power. If the player enters further playthroughs, events start just after Kainé is freed. Kainé's past is focused on, showing the discrimination she suffered due to her parents' deaths, being born intersex, and later being partially possessed by the rogue Gestalt Tyrann. Through Tyrann, the player can understand the previously-garbled speech of Gestalts. New story sequences show the Gestalt antagonists' motivations and backstory, showing them to be sentient and fighting for their own beliefs and goals. The second ending shows the spirit of the Gestalt protagonist and Yonah reuniting in the afterlife, and reveals that Emil survived; further information confirms that the Shadowlord's death will lead to humanity's extinction as Replicants and Gestalts can no longer be rejoined. In a third or further playthrough, Kainé becomes overwhelmed by Tyrann, going berserk and forcing the protagonist to fight her. The protagonist can either kill her to end her suffering (the third ending), or sacrifice his life for her (the fourth ending). The latter choice erases memory of him from Kainé and Yonah, and deletes all of the player's save data. The updated version of Replicant adds a fifth ending after a new game is begun following the fourth ending, beginning following the defeat of Kainé's Shade nemesis Hook. Three years after the Shadowlord's defeat, Kainé continues having nightmares about losing something precious, and fights increasingly-hostile Shades. Investigating a settlement, she finds its people killed by robots emerging from its central tree, the control unit recording Replicant memories. Kainé, who is talked to by the control unit's AI through twin childlike avatars. Kainé is aided in fighting past machine duplicates of her by Emil, eventually entering the tree's mainframe and battling enemies drawn from her memories, culminating in a battle with a more-powerful Hook helped by the data remains of Grimoire Weiss. Kainé destroys Hook and the AI, restoring the protagonist in his young form; all of the player's save data prior to the fourth ending is consequently restored. Development The concept that would become Nier was first proposed following the release of Drakengard 2 and the reveal of seventh generation consoles. The original concept was for a third entry in the Drakengard series. As the project evolved, the original ideas were reworked and the game eventually became a spin-off from the main series. Despite this, the game's director Yoko Taro continues to think of it as the third Drakengard game. Different reports described its planned platforms. An earlier report stated it was intended as an Xbox 360 exclusive, then expanded onto the PlayStation 3 (PS3). Yoko later stated that the PS3 version was the original one planned due to the lessening importance of the PlayStation 2, which Drakengard 2 had been made for. Including concept planning, the total development time lasted three years, with two years spent actually developing the game. It was initially a small-scale project, but during planning it grew into a full-fledged role-playing game. Development was handled by Cavia with help from Square Enix, who had previously provided development support for the Drakengard games. Square Enix had minimal input on Yoko's vision for the game's atmosphere and story, allowing him high creative control. Nier is intended to be set over 1000 years after the original Drakengard's fifth ending. In this scenario, the game's protagonists Caim and Angelus travel across a dimensional boundary to fight a monstrous beast. After winning the battle and killing the monster, they are shot down by a fighter jet and killed; their introduction of magic to the world leads to magical research that results in the Black Scrawl. According to Yoko, after the dark story of Drakengard, Yoko focused on more positive themes of friendship and combined effort. Much of the game was inspired by the September 11 attacks and the War on Terror. Yoko took from it the idea of a terrible event where both sides believed they were doing the right thing, and wanted to show the player multiple perspectives of the same events. The term "Replicant" was borrowed by Yoko from the 1982 science fiction movie Blade Runner, although Yoko did not cite a particular source for Nier's name, passing it off as a codename that persisted through development. The characters were designed by an artist under the moniker D.K. Two character designs for the protagonist were created for Nier. The developers believed that the Japanese audience would respond more strongly to a younger protagonist, while non-Japanese audiences would prefer an adult protagonist character. Other than changing the protagonists appearance and modifying a few lines of dialogue to fit with him being a father rather than a brother to Yonah, the developers made no changes between the two versions; it was initially believed that the older protagonist was the character's original design. Many characters underwent changes during development, and some needed to be cut. There were originally thirteen Grimoires, with all but three—Weiss, Noir, and Rubrum—being cut. Emil's character was derived from a female character named Halua, while Kainé was originally a far more feminine type who hid her violent nature. Yonah's original Japanese name was derived from the Biblical name Jonah; this could not be taken verbatim into its localized form due to the name being associated with a man, so the name was changed to "Yonah". Yoko was initially shocked at Kainé's design, but warmed to it and had it kept. Kainé's character was made intersex, since the team felt it fit in with many other aspects of her gritty backstory. Kainé's status as intersex caused some "commotion" in western territories, which is something the team did not actively intend. Yoko attributed the original suggestion to female staff members working on the game. The in-game cutscenes were created and directed by Studio Anima. The combat and action elements of Nier were inspired by the God of War series of games, which both Taro and Saito enjoyed. While the games had not been as popular in Japan as in North America, the two felt that the idea of having boss fights with different combat styles than the regular battles was an idea that would appeal to players in both regions. The changing styles, as well as the occasional changes in camera angle and movement, were meant to "accentuate [the] gap between real, modern scenery and the fantasy world" as a tie-in to the game's story. The game was designed to have gameplay that would appeal to non-Japanese players in mind, with producer Saito stating that they wanted to depart from menu-based combat. The game was meant to appeal to older players; it was intended as an action-role playing game (RPG) for an older market than Square Enix's action-RPG series Kingdom Hearts. This influenced the decision to have a main character in his 30s for the international version, as well as more blood and swearing than typical in a Square Enix RPG. The fusion of different gameplay styles was included as a homage to earlier gameplay styles and genres. Music The soundtrack to Nier was composed by a collaboration of the studio MoNACA, directed by Keiichi Okabe and including Kakeru Ishihama and Keigo Hoashi, and Takafumi Nishimura from Cavia. Okabe served as the lead composer and as the director for the project as a whole. Okabe was brought onto the project when the concept for the game was first being devised, and worked intermittently on the soundtrack for the next three years until its release. The music for the game was generally composed entirely separately from the development of the game. The music was designed for different motifs to appear in various arrangements throughout the soundtrack, and also to convey a sense of sadness even during the "thrilling" tracks. Okabe was allowed a great deal of freedom regarding what the music was to sound like; game director Yoko Taro's main request was that he use a lot of vocal works. The soundtrack to Nier is largely composed of melancholy acoustic pieces which heavily feature vocals by vocalist Emi Evans (Emiko Rebecca Evans), a singer from England living in Tokyo. She is the singer for the band freesscape, and had previously worked on video games such as Etrian Odyssey. In addition to singing, Evans was asked to write her own lyrics in futuristic languages. The composers gave her preliminary version of songs and the style they wished the language to be in, such as Gaelic or French, and she invented the words. Evans wrote songs in versions of Gaelic, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, French, English and Japanese, where she tried to imagine what they would sound like after 1000 years of drifting. Square Enix released a soundtrack album of music from the game, titled Nier Gestalt & Replicant Original Soundtrack, on April 21, 2010. The soundtrack album reached number 24 on the Japanese Oricon music charts, and remained on the charts for 11 weeks. As preorder bonuses for Nier Gestalt and Nier Replicant, two mini-albums, Nier Gestalt Mini Album and Nier Replicant Mini Album, were included. An album of arranged music, NieR Gestalt & Replicant 15 Nightmares & Arrange Tracks, was published by Square Enix on December 8, 2010. The arranged album reached number 59 on the Oricon music charts, a position it held for a week. Another album, NieR Tribute Album -echo-, was released on September 14, 2011, and an album of piano arrangements, Piano Collections Nier Gestalt & Replicant, was published on March 21, 2012. Release Nier was officially unveiled in June 2009 at the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2009 for both the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, along with its developer and publisher. The localizations for the game—in English, French, and German—were produced during development so that all of the versions could be released at the same time, and so that Cavia and Square Enix could solicit feedback from North America and Europe on the game so that it would appeal to players outside Japan. Due to its high violence, the game was given a CERO D rating in Japan. In Japan, two versions of the game were released; Nier Gestalt for the 360 which would use the adult lead, and Nier Replicant for the PS3 which used the young lead. In the West, the Gestalt version was released on both platforms under the title Nier. The PS3 version had a Japanese voice cast, while the 360 release used the English dub. Nier released worldwide by Square Enix in April 2010: it released on April 22 in Japan and Australia, April 23 in Europe, and April 27 in North America. A supplementary guidebook, Grimoire Nier: The Complete Guide + Cels, was released on May 28, 2010 by ASCII Media Works. The guidebook included documentation of in-game elements, developer interviews, and novellas detailing both additional character stories and a post-game ending scenario. On May 11, Square Enix released a piece of downloadable content for the game, titled "The World of Recycled Vessel". The small expansion features a series of fifteen battles with the incarnation of Nier other than the one in the specific version of the game. Nier enters the battles in a dream world accessed through a diary in his house. The expansion offers new costumes and weapons for the game. A CD drama, NieR Replicant Drama CD The Lost Words and the Red Sky, was released on April 27, 2011. The CD covers additional stories related to the game's backstory and characters. Remaster An updated version of Replicant titled Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139... was announced in March 2020 as part of the 10th anniversary celebrations for the series and was slated for a worldwide release for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows. It was released on console in Asia on April 22, 2021 in Japan and Asia, and April 23 in the West. The Windows version released worldwide on April 23. The game came in both standard and a limited "White Snow" edition exclusive to the Square Enix online store. Pre-orders came with a digital soundtrack and platform-specific art-based bonuses. An updated version of Grimoire Nier was released in Japan in 2021, and for the first time in English in 2023. Yosuke Saito returned as the producer, Yoko Taro remained as creative director, and the role of game director went to Saki Ito. Development was handled by Toylogic. The combat redesign was supervised by Takahisa Taura of PlatinumGames, who had worked on the game's sequel Nier: Automata. Toylogic was brought on board due to Yoko knowing its founder, Yoichi Take, from their time working together at Cavia. Kazuma Koda, who worked on later Nier projects, contributed promotional artwork. Ito described his work reworking the combat and graphical design as preserving as much as possible while matching his own idealised memories of the game and create something to please fans of Nier: Automata. The characters were redrawn by Akihiko Yoshida, Toshiyuki Itahana, and Kimihiko Fujisaka; all three had contributed to the Drakengard and Nier series, and were brought in at Yoko's request. Yoshida worked on the redesigns of the young protagonist, Kainé, Yonah and Emil; Itahana redesigned Devola and Popola; and Fujisaka reworked the designs for the king of Facade, his queen Fyra, the father protagonist, and designed new character Louise. The game included new story content, content creating a narrative link to its sequel, and story content originally cut from the game. For the remaster, Yoko chose to exclusively use the brother version of the protagonist as he had initially wanted. As the father character had apparently seen mixed responses in the West, Yoko decided to feature the brother in the remaster. The father protagonist was featured as the player character in the "15 Nightmares" content, originally released as DLC dubbed "World of Recycled Vessel". The Mermaid story, featuring new character Louise, was planned for the original game but cut due to budget and reworked into a later novella. Yoko decided to include it given the opportunity, but did not incorporate other novella material as those were original stories rather than cut content. Weapon Stories, a feature from the Drakengard series and Nier: Automata, were also incorporated. The fifth ending, originally a backup plan in case the original save data deletion was dropped and later written into a novella, was included both due to Saito's request for fan service and having the budget to incorporate it. Tying into later developments in the series, elements of the fifth ending featured advanced technology. ver.1.22474487139... features new Japanese voicework to make the game fully voiced, and both new and rearranged music. The score was arranged by Okabe, Hoashi, Ryuichi Takada, Kuniyuki Takahashi, Shotaro Seo, and Oliver Good. Okabe and Hoashi composed the new tracks. Evans returned to perform vocals with Saki Nakae. The chorus work was done by Evans, Nakae, Okabe, Shotaro Seo, Yukino Orita and KOCHO. Most of the English original cast returned, including Laura Bailey (Kaine), Liam O'Brien (Grimoire Weiss), Julie Ann Taylor (Emil), and Eden Riegel (Devola and Popola). The protagonist had two voice actors; Zach Aguilar voiced the younger version, while Ray Chase voiced the older version after the time skip. Reception Initial release Nier Gestalt sold over 12,500 copies in Japan the week of its release, while Replicant sold over 60,000 and was the top-selling video game in Japan that week. Replicant sold over 121,000 copies in Japan by the end of May 2010, and ended the year with over 134,000 copies sold. In 2019, Yoko estimated that Nier had sold around 500,000 copies worldwide. According to Yoko, "we weren't really in the red, but it wasn't exactly a success either". Nier received mixed reviews. Reviewers criticized the graphics, with Ryan Clements of IGN saying that "one of Nier's greatest flaws is its visuals," while GameSpot's Kevin VanOrd bemoaned the "flavorless visuals" and "lifeless environments". Dustin Quillen of 1UP.com said that the game "looks downright primitive", while Adriaan den Ouden of RPGamer, who awarded the game a higher score than most, said that "the environments are bland and poorly rendered". The music and voice acting, however, were praised; Clements said that "both are quite excellent", den Ouden called the soundtrack "absolutely fantastic", Chris Schilling of Eurogamer said that the music was full of "memorable themes", and one of the four reviewers for the Japanese Weekly Famitsu termed it "a cut above". Reviewers were divided in their opinion on the effectiveness of the multiple styles of gameplay presented. Seth Schiesel of The New York Times said that while "there are plenty of games that surpass it in each area," that Nier pulled all of the styles together into a "coherent, compelling whole" instead of feeling "disjointed"; he especially praised a section of the game that is presented entirely through text. Patrick Kolan of IGN Australia, however, said that while the different styles were "interesting" and one of the game's biggest strengths, they suffered from poor execution and cohesion and left the game "with split-personality disorder". Clements said that "the developers' ideas sometimes outshine the actual implementation", while highlighting the gameplay elements as part of what made the game fun. Adriaan den Ouden called out the variety as the best part of the game, likening it to a buffet table, while also acknowledging that none of the sections were "amazing" on their own and could easily be looked upon poorly. The regular combat was reviewed as solid, if not exceptional, and the sidequests were seen as repetitive, with Quillen saying that "the side quests in Nier are about as numerous as they are totally mindless," VanOrd calling them "a series of monotonous events, often connected only by long stretches of nothing," and a Famitsu reviewer saying that they "didn't see much purpose" to them. Clements said that the combat had "a fair amount of satisfaction", though players should "not expect anything too extraordinary", and Kolan termed the combat as "moderately deep". Critics gave a generally positive review to the plot and characters; VanOrd liked most of the characters but thought Nier was bland and the story "soggy", while Schiesel called the story "provocative" and "profound", saying that it "succeeds at fostering an emotional investment in its characters and in its world". Quillen said that the plot "takes some fascinating and truly original turns" and that Nier has "a supporting cast of genuinely interesting folks," and Schilling said that the story made the game "difficult to dislike". The Famitsu reviewer that viewed the game the most favorably said that he was "blown away" by the multiple endings, and that "nothing like it's been done in gaming". In 2015, Jeffrey Matulef of Eurogamer characterized Nier as "the rare game that gets better with age". Despite "poor sales and tepid reviews", he wrote, the game had acquired a cult following, which he attributed to its "sense of wonder" due to its cryptic storytelling, mashup assortment of game mechanics and melancholy mood. Replicant ver.1.22474487139... By June 2021, Replicant ver 1.22474487139... had shipped over one million copies worldwide in both physical and digital sales, noted as being double the estimates for the original version. As of November 2022, Replicant ver 1.22474487139... has shipped 1.5 million copies worldwide. Famitsu lauded the gameplay improvements and visual upgrade, though one reviewer noted the lack of fast travel and another said some players might be thrown off by "quirks" in the design. Electronic Gaming Monthly's Mollie L. Patterson enjoyed the remaster, liking the young version of the protagonist better than the earlier adult version and praising its reworked gameplay and additions. Jason Guisao of Game Informer felt the visual upgrade was inconsistent and disliked the side quest structure, but lauded the overall narrative and improvements to the game's mechanics. GameSpot's Michael Higham was generally positive about the game, praising its narrative, new elements and music while finding its gameplay and world held back by archaic design. Mitchell Saltzmann of IGN negatively noted the repetition in later areas and the side quest design, but praised the graphical and gameplay updates along with the new story content. Julie Muncy of PC Gamer positively noted the improvements to combat and general movement, and praised the story's tone and additions, but highlighted that the original's pacing issues were also retained. Chris Plante of Polygon enjoyed the slow pace of the narrative and the combat, but disliked the archaic design and was uncomfortable with some of Kainé's storyline. Malindy Hetfeld of Eurogamer did not like the game as a whole, but enjoyed its later narrative and noted that the graphical and gameplay improvements had made it playable for modern audiences and series fans. Replicant ver 1.22474487139... won the "Best Score/Music" category at The Game Awards 2021. It also saw nominations at the 2021 NAVGTR awards in "Outstanding Animation, Technical", "Outstanding Game, Franchise Role-playing", "Outstanding Original Dramagic Score, Franchise", and "Outstanding Song, Original or Adapted". Legacy Nier was the last game that Cavia made; the company was absorbed into its parent company, AQ Interactive, in July 2010. Square Enix executive producer Yosuke Saito later commented that "a number of things" related to Nier were in progress, and that an announcement could be due in 2011. The only announcement ended up not being for a new Nier video game, but instead for a live evening concert for Nier's music titled "Nier Night ~ Evening of Madness" which took place on October 28, 2011. In March 2011, there were plans made between Yoko and Takuya Iwasaki, one of the original producers for Drakengard, to develop a port of Nier for the PlayStation Vita at Iwasaki's company Orca. The port would have incorporated material from both versions of the game. When Orca was chosen to help develop Dragon Quest X, the project was shelved. A number of key staff from Nier's development, including director Yoko and Okabe, would later reunite to work on a new entry (Drakengard 3) in the Drakengard series from which Nier was spun off. A sequel titled Nier: Automata, developed by Square Enix and PlatinumGames for the PlayStation 4, was released in Japan on February 23, in North America on March 7 and worldwide on March 10, 2017. The PC version of Nier: Automata was released on March 17, 2017. The Xbox One version was released on June 26, 2018. The Nintendo Switch version was released on October 6, 2022. Yoko, Saito and Okabe returned to their previous roles. Other staff members include Yoshida as lead artist and producer Atsushi Inaba. A mobile game, Nier Reincarnation, produced by Applibot, with Yoshida returning to design the characters, was released on February 18, 2021. Owing to the success of Automata, Nier was reprinted for the PlayStation 3 in PAL territories in April 2017. Notes See also Celestial Alphabet References Further reading Taro, Yoko (2021). "Yoko Taro-hen". Game Creators of Biography (in Japanese). Tokyo: Cycomi. Turcev, Nicolas (2019). The Strange Works of Taro Yoko: From Drakengard to Nier: Automata. Foreword by Yoko Taro. Toulouse: Third Éditions. ISBN 978-23-7784-048-9. External links Official website at the Wayback Machine (archived October 21, 2015)

Nier:_Automata

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nier:_Automata

Nier: Automata is a 2017 action role-playing game developed by PlatinumGames and published by Square Enix. It is a sequel to Nier (2010), itself a spin-off of and sequel to the Drakengard series. Nier: Automata was originally released for the PlayStation 4 and Windows via Steam, and an Xbox One port was published the following year. A Nintendo Switch port was released in 2022. Nier: Automata is set during a proxy war between alien-created Machines and human-crafted androids, focusing on the actions of combat android 2B, scanner android 9S, and rogue prototype A2. The story requires multiple playthroughs, with each playthrough revealing new story elements. The gameplay combines role-playing elements with action-based hack-and-slash combat. It also includes gameplay from other video game genres, with elements varying from shoot 'em up to text adventure. Production began in 2014, with series creator Yoko Taro, producer Yosuke Saito, and lead composer Keiichi Okabe reprising their roles in Nier. Akihiko Yoshida, known for his work in the Final Fantasy series, led character design. The goal was to make a sequel game that would be faithful to Nier while improving the combat system. Because the project was new to PlatinumGames, its staff faced multiple challenges when developing the gameplay and open-world environment. The story, which was written by Yoko, explores themes of finding value in life and the reasons people kill. Nier: Automata was announced at E3 2015; it received stage plays and novels expanding its narrative, and both downloadable content (DLC) and crossovers with other games. The game was localized by 8-4, translators of Nier. Critics praised the game's story, themes, gameplay, and music, but gave criticism for some visual and technical problems. The PC release drew a mixed response due to technical issues that were not officially addressed until 2021. Sales surpassed expectations and as of February 2024, the game had shipped 8 million copies worldwide. Gameplay Nier: Automata is an action role-playing game (ARPG) in which players explore an open world. In addition to standard navigation on foot, the game features scenarios with flying mech battles, as well as a special item that can summon wild animals to ride. Non-playable characters (NPCs) found throughout the world offer quest objectives, and shops in hub locations sell various items, including consumables that recover health. Combat uses a real-time action-based hack and slash system, using both light and heavy attacks and combining them into different combination attacks. The player can also evade incoming attacks, gaining invulnerability or counterattack bonuses based on timing. The player is assisted by a flying "Pod" robot which launches customizable ranged attacks varying from simple gunfire to heavy-hitting hammer attacks. The first protagonist 2B alternates between two weapons, the second protagonist 9S combines light attacks with hacking into enemies, and the final protagonist A2 can sacrifice health to briefly boost her attack power. There are four classes of weapons available; short swords, long swords, bracers, and spears. Attacks with different weapon types can be charged and launched for increased damage. Players earn experience points through combat, increasing their health, defense, and attack power. Character customization is handled through attribute-changing items called chips. Chips can alter the HUD, add new abilities, and grant status buffs to the player characters. The number of chips that can be installed at any one time is limited to the number of slots a character has. Chips can either be purchased at shops or collected from defeated enemies. If the player character dies, they respawn at their previous save point. The player character can then find their original body and either attempt to repair it or retrieve items and experience from it to gain a bonus. If the repair attempt is successful, the body is resurrected as a temporary ally, but if the attempt is unsuccessful, it becomes an enemy the player can fight. With online features enabled, the bodies of other players can also be retrieved or revived where they died. At certain points, the gameplay changes to reflect different video game genres, such as shoot 'em up and text adventure segments; many of these are indicated by a shift from the normal third-person perspective to a top-down or side-scrolling view. Some areas also include platforming elements, requiring the player to jump between platforms or over obstacles. Automata has 26 different endings; five main endings lettered A to E, and 21 additional endings lettered F through Z. These additional endings, which act as game over events, are triggered by performing certain actions, failing to progress the narrative, or losing certain battles. There are four difficulties available to the player which can be changed at any time, with "Easy" giving access to chips which automate functions such as attacking, dodging and pod fire. Synopsis Setting and characters Nier: Automata, which shares the post-apocalyptic setting of Nier, takes place thousands of years after the original game's events. The Nier fictional universe exists in an alternative timeline within the Drakengard series. While carrying over the Drakengard tradition of a dark atmosphere and branching storylines, there is no direct narrative connection between Nier: Automata and the rest of the series. The story is set in 11945 AD, and revolves around a proxy war between the human-made androids and an invading army of alien-made Machines. Though they are prohibited from having emotions and lack true names, each android has a distinct personality. The "YoRHa" android forces are commanded from the Bunker, a reconnaissance base that orbits Earth. Fending off the Machines, the YoRHa forces fight alongside pre-YoRHa Earth androids known as the Resistance. The game's initial protagonist is 2B (short for "YoRHa No. 2 Type B"), a YoRHa combat android whose main traits are her calm and composure. 2B is accompanied by 9S (short for YoRHa No.9 Type S), a male "scanner" reconnaissance android who displays more emotion than other YoRHa units. The game later introduces another player character named A2, an obsolete attack android who often acts alone. The androids are supported by Pod 042 and Pod 153, floating, box-like robots that act as ranged weapons. The game's primary antagonists are Adam and Eve, twin controllers of the Machine Network; and the Red Girls, a construct within the Machine Network. Other characters include the Commander, YoRHa's top officer; the resistance leader Anemone; Pascal, a machine who dislikes conflict and wishes for peace; Devola and Popola, early androids who suffer discrimination from the actions of their model series; and the original Nier character Emil, who has lost his memories in the intervening years after the original game. Plot The story of Nier: Automata is told across multiple playthroughs and alternating character perspectives. The first and second playthroughs follow the respective viewpoints of 2B and 9S during the latest android strikes against the Machines. After opening a route for future missions, they are sent to clear machine threats for Anemone's Resistance forces. During their missions, 2B and 9S discover the Machines are replicating human societies and concepts. The two work with a pacifist machine group led by Pascal, and battle Adam and Eve, physical manifestations of the Machine Network who reveal their creators were destroyed centuries ago. 2B and 9S also encounter A2, a rogue YoRHa android. Adam is killed by 2B after he captures 9S. During his recuperation, 9S discovers a glitch in YoRHa's servers when syncing himself and 2B, and learns humanity was extinct long before the alien invasion. Humanity's last remnant is a Moon-based server holding their genetic remains. YoRHa perpetuates the myth of their survival to give the androids a reason for existing. With Adam dead, Eve goes mad with grief and drives connected Machines into a frenzy. 2B and 9S kill Eve, but 9S becomes infected with Eve's logic virus, forcing 2B to kill him. 9S's consciousness survives within the local Machine Network. The third playthrough begins as YoRHa launches a full-scale invasion. A logic virus attack, which is enabled by the glitch 9S previously discovered, corrupts every YoRHa unit except 2B and the restored 9S. 2B and 9S are separated in the aftermath, and 2B is infected with the logic virus. A2 discovers 2B, who asks her to take her place. An ignorant 9S sees A2 mercy-killing 2B and swears revenge on her. Simultaneously, a tower created by the Machines rises from the land, separating the two before they can fight. A fortnight later, the perspective splits between A2 and 9S. A2, the survivor of a test run for YoRHa, begins empathising with the Machines; she witnesses the destruction of Pascal's village, then the village's "children" committing suicide out of fear when they are attacked again. Pascal begs A2 to either wipe his memory or kill him; A2 can perform either task or leave him. An increasingly unbalanced 9S investigates the tower's resource-gathering platforms, fighting Machine remnants and learning the tower is designed to launch a missile at the Moon server. Devola and Popola sacrifice themselves to open the tower, with 9S and A2 both entering. During these events and their final confrontation, the two learn that YoRHa was designed to lose and perpetuate the myth of humanity, and that the Machine Network are using the war to further their evolution; each side has trapped the other in an eternal cycle of war. A2 further learns that 2B's real designation was "2E", an "executioner" unit assigned to repeatedly kill 9S whenever he discovers the truth about humanity, and that 9S was aware of this. 9S—now insane and infected with the logic virus—challenges A2 to a fight, prompting the player to choose a character. Choosing A2 leads to A2 saving 9S and sacrificing herself to destroy the tower. Choosing 9S leads to both androids killing each other; in his final moments, he is offered the option of joining with the now-peaceful Machine Network, as the tower has changed its function to launch an ark containing their memories. Once both endings are unlocked, Pods 042 and 153 defy their orders to delete YoRHa's data, prompting the player to destroy the credits in a shoot 'em up section. Despite the possibility that 2B, 9S and A2 will repeat events, the Pods have faith they will forge a new future for themselves. The player is then given the option to sacrifice their save data to help other players. Returning characters Emil, Devola and Popola have separate optional story arcs. Devola and Popola were ostracized and programmed to feel endless guilt after their model series caused humanity's extinction in Nier. They stay at the Resistance camp doing the riskier jobs, and aid the YoRHa androids until helping 9S at the tower. Emil lost his memories due to copying himself to fight the aliens. A group of those copies, gone mad from losing their sense of self, act as a secret boss battle. After the current character wins the fight, Emil dies after remembering his now-dead friends. Development After the release of Nier, director Yoko Taro and Square Enix producer Yosuke Saito wanted to create a sequel. Saito spoke to assistant producer Yuki Yokoyama, who was unwilling due to low sales of Nier. After the positive fan reception of Nier, however, both Square Enix and the lead staff who worked on the original game were willing to continue the Nier intellectual property (IP) but wanted to create a better, more-action-oriented gameplay experience. They contacted PlatinumGames, which had developed a reputation for high-quality action games such as Bayonetta (2009) and Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (2013). The two companies agreed to collaborate on the sequel, provided Yoko would be its director and that he would be present to help with production. The latter condition required Yoko to move from Tokyo to Osaka, where PlatinumGames was located. Although Yoko was initially uneasy about the collaboration, he became confident in PlatinumGames due to their excitement to work on a Nier game, and their promise to remain faithful to the original game. Designer Takahisa Taura also joined the team due to his long-time desire to create a Nier sequel. PlatinumGames handled primary development of the game while Square Enix supported the project with additional staff and sound design. Initially, Yoko said they planned to build a FarmVille (2009)-inspired game for mobile platforms or the PlayStation Vita. The team instead shifted development to the PlayStation 4. Saito and Eijiro Nishimura co-produced the project. Development began in 2014, and included six months of pre-production. At first, the relationship between Yoko and PlatinumGames staff was fraught, mainly because Yoko's freelance status led to different daily schedules. To reduce the scheduling conflicts, the team organized a system of "free time" where Yoko would be available to work. The team studied feedback from both fans and critical reviews of Nier, and concluded they would need to improve the gameplay, graphics, and character designs. They also carried over aspects of Nier that were well-received, such as the game's music and complex story. PlatinumGames did most of the development at its offices in Osaka and Tokyo, and was supported by outside staff such as Yoko. Scenario and themes Yoko was the primary scenario writer. This script took the most work of all his games to date, and while the story only experienced minor changes through development, it was delivered nearly five months late. Yoko was supported by sub-writers Yoshiho Akabane from the company Highestar, and Hana Kikuchi, who worked on Nier and Drakengard 3 (2013). When creating Nier: Automata's story, Yoko was hesitant about adding Devola and Popola due to their role in the original game but he later decided to include them. According to Yoko, while the scenario of Nier is "wet" in its emotional content, he wanted Nier: Automata to have a "dry" narrative about confronting prejudice and unfairness in the world. He also wanted to leave more room for the player to interpret the story, feeling he had gone too far when humanizing the antagonists of Nier, and decided to strike a different balance in the sequel. According to Saito, a lot of time and effort went into creating the story and character interactions so they would match those of Nier. As with the original Nier, multiple endings were created, but the conditions for reaching them were not as stringent as the first game. Yoko's desire was to make the game's conclusion happy, which prompted scepticism from other staff members. The happy ending from Yoko's perspective was the fifth and final ending, which he only created after the character motivations logically led him to the concept. The final ending featured a shooting sequence where the player fought their way through the closing credits, which symbolized the characters breaking out of a known system to find the hope of a new future. The team also included the option for player to sacrifice their save data to aid other random players in the closing credit sequence, a mechanic similar to that of the original Nier. This ability for players to help each other was inspired by a Coca-Cola campaign, where drink machines in India were connected via livestream to machines in Pakistan, encouraging the two peoples to overcome their political rivalry. The campaign made a strong impression on Yoko, who adapted the idea into in-game messages of encouragement from players across the world. The team defined the game's central theme as "agaku", a Japanese word meaning "to struggle out of a bad situation". Saito also said the story is about love, which he felt was unusual for a story about robots, which are typically written as non-emotional. Yoko used the androids' and Machines' reverence for the long-extinct humanity to show how people's sense of self and worth is necessarily founded on belief in something else. The negative influence of human history on the factions reflect Yoko's views on people continuing to fight and create boundaries between themselves despite their advancement. A recurring element in Yoko's earlier work is his examination of reasons people kill and the impact of killing on others—this stems from his observation of people coming to enjoy killing enemies in games, which suggested to him something is wrong or missing inside them. Yoko said the narrative's darkness reflects the inherent darkness of reality. The narrative references numerous influential philosophers and thinkers, with Machine characters taking notable names such as supporting character Pascal (Blaise Pascal), boss character Simone (Simone de Beauvoir), and NPC Jean-Paul (Jean-Paul Sartre). Yoko used books by Will Buckingham and Nigel Benson, which explain philosophy and psychology in understandable language, as a reference for the narrative. Art and game design Nier: Automata was Taura's first role-playing game (RPG), with his prior experience focused on action game development. Taura managed the action-combat system and designer Isao Negishi created the RPG elements. According to Negishi and lead programmer Ryo Onishi, creating a game that was faithful to Nier was difficult and required a change from the style of their earlier titles. For the combat system, the team took the systems used in Nier and blended in elements from other titles by PlatinumGames. Taura's main design goal was to improve the combat system over that of the original and weave it into the story. The basic battle system was completed in two months, then expanded and adjusted during development. While designing the game's RPG elements, the staff at PlatinumGames were partially inspired by The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (2015), including the high standard of its sidequests. The sections of Nier: Automata in which the perspective shifts to a side-scrolling perspective were inspired by the Castlevania series, of which Taura was a fan. For the final boss battle in which the player chooses between 9S and A2, the developers considered removing character abilities based on their choice but decided against it. To make Nier: Automata beginner-friendly, the perspective was designed to automatically assume "comfortable" angles during combat. Also to this end, the developers included mechanics that would allow both casual and experienced action gamers to enjoy the game. It was the studio's first attempt at an open world; while its previous titles had used a story-driven linear structure, Nier: Automata has large environments that are linked with seamless transitions. Negishi noted the lower concentration of enemies in the world compared to those of earlier PlatinumGame titles, a necessity due to the game's open nature. By including fewer enemies, the team gave players the opportunity to "enjoy the still beauty of the game's desolate world". The developers based the shooting elements on bullet hell games, and decided combat should include multiple camera perspectives. The plug-in chips are an updated version of the Words used in Nier, and are themed around the premise of androids. The developers also suggested including multiplayer modes but this suggestion was not developed beyond the concept phase. Using feedback about the game's original character designs, Akihiko Yoshida was engaged as main character designer. Saito originally wanted to bring back D.K, the character designer of Nier, but D.K had broken his elbow and was unable to draw, so he recommended Yoshida for the post. The developers thought Yoshida would be too busy to contribute, but he was willing to join the project due to fans of Nier working at his company, CyDesignation. Yoshida joined the company later in the character design process, so Taro gave him a general guideline of sleek designs with black as the dominant color. PlatinumGames staff had difficulty making the character models seem "alive" due to their mechanical nature. Unlike Nier, which has two different protagonist designs for different markets, the team committed to a high-quality JRPG character design that would be consistent across regions. According to staff, Yoshida's art design ensured a consistent aesthetic for the characters. The Commander, Adam, and Eve were designed by Yuya Nagai. Square Enix artist Toshiyuki Itahana redesigned Devola and Popola. Concept art for the game's enemies was handled by Hisayoshi Kijima, while Kazuma Koda, Yasuyuki Kaji, and Shohei Kameoka made the environmental artwork in collaboration with Yoko. The developers worked to build settings that would resemble real-world places players would visit. Music and sound design Composer Keiichi Okabe, who worked on both Nier and Drakengard 3, worked on Nier: Automata as lead composer with other members of his studio band Monaca; Keigo Hoashi, Kuniyuki Takahashi, and Kakeru Ishihama. The score, which was influenced by classical music, recalls elements of Nier such as that game's sense of melancholy. Whereas Nier is built around grasslands and villages, Nier: Automata includes a more mechanical and brutal environment, which is reflected in the musical score. Okabe created a score with a more-open world in mind, composing songs that segue into each other depending on situation and environment. The music was balanced using the digital audio workstation (DAW) Pro Tools. Emi Evans provided vocals for the soundtrack, as she had done for Nier's soundtrack. Shotaro Seo provided additional male vocals. Nami Nakagawa, Evans, and J'Nique Nicole formed a three-part chorus for some of the music, including the game's boss theme. Several songs from the Nier soundtrack were adapted for Nier: Automata. Different versions of the theme song "Weight of the World" were performed by Nicole, Evans and Marina Kawano. The final ending's version had the development team performing the chorus. Masato Shindo was the game's sound designer. Creating an echo effect was difficult due to the scale of the open world; Shindo designed a system that would manage echoes in real time, depending on the player's surroundings. Sound was implemented by Masami Ueda; it was a greater amount of work than he had experienced on previous projects. Ueda's previous encounters and good working relationship with Okabe helped the smooth implementation of the game's sound. The soundtrack album of Nier: Automata was released on March 29, 2017. The first-print copies of the soundtrack include an additional sixteen-track album subtitled Hacking Tracks that contains musical variations for hacking segments. Localization The company 8-4, which had localized Nier, also localized the English-language version of Nier: Automata. According to Yoko, 8-4 changed elements of the script for each region because some of the concepts in the Japanese script are difficult to understand if directly translated. The aim was to create a script that would appeal to players around the world. Because 8-4 had worked with Yoko on Nier and Drakengard 3, they were familiar with his writing style and found it easy to ask for clarification during translation. 8-4's biggest challenge was translating the android dialogue, as it was difficult to balance their purported emotionlessness with their highly emotional relationships and distinct personalities. While 9S was already written to be more emotive in Japanese, 2B had to be rewritten so she appears "droll" rather than emotionless in English. The development team had notes about how to write each character; for example 9S would speak about things at length while 2B would be crisper. The team also made decisions around using regional accents to altering voice types. A cited instance of the latter was changing a character's high-pitched child voice to a more mature one to avoid annoyance to players. The team researched the game's philosophical themes to avoid mistakes in their writing. When the estate of philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre objected to the use of his name in the game, the character Sartre was renamed Jean-Paul in releases outside Japan. Cup of Tea Productions, which had worked on both Nier and Drakengard 3, handled English dubbing. Release In January 2014, after the release of Drakengard 3, Yoko expressed an interest in making a second spin-off from the Drakengard series but did not specify whether it would be related to Nier. In December of that year, he confirmed he was working on a new game but did not reveal more details. Nier: Automata was first announced at Square Enix's press conference at E3 2015 under the provisional title Nier New Project, with staff later confirming it was 10% complete. At the 2015 Paris Games Week trade show, Square Enix announced the game's official title and a provisional release date, and showed a gameplay trailer. Square Enix worked with Japanese rock band Amazarashi, lead singer Hiromu Akita was a fan of Nier, to produce a promotional song called "Inochi ni Fusawashii", which was inspired by the game's world. Yoko supervised the music video for "Inochi ni Fusawashii". Yoko originally wanted to call the game "Nier: Android" but Square Enix rejected that title due to a possible trademark conflict with Google's Android operating system. In trailers, the events surrounding 2B's fate and A2 replacing her in the story were obscured by using A2's early-game model for some footage when she is short-haired in-game. To mitigate competition, the team decided to delay Nier: Automata until late-2016 or early 2017, which also allowed the team more time to refine the game. Yoko appreciated having more time for the team to finish the game. Nier: Automata was released in Japan on February 23, 2017, coming in both standard editions and a Black Box Collector's Edition. The PS4 version was released in North America on March 7; and in Europe, Australia, and New Zealand on March 10. It also had a limited Day One edition, and a version of the Black Box Collector's Edition. The game was notably review-bombed in April 2017 by Chinese players demanding a translation of the game to Chinese. Ports and additional content Nier: Automata was released for Windows personal computers (PCs) through Steam on March 17, 2017. Both Square Enix and PlatinumGames were concerned about potential piracy of the PC version, which was expected to delay its release. In response to unaddressed graphical and performance issues with the port, an unofficial patch was created by fans. An official patch correcting these issues was released in July 2021. Saito stated that the release of a version for Xbox One was being considered, but later said it would not be developed due to low Xbox hardware sales in Japan and the wish to focus on a single console. An Xbox One version was later released worldwide on June 26, 2018; this version was subtitled Become as Gods Edition, with QLOC porting this version to Windows for the Microsoft Store and Xbox Game Pass on March 18, 2021. A Nintendo Switch port was released on October 6, 2022. Saito requested a Switch port to celebrate of the game's fifth anniversary after being impressed by Astral Chain (2019), which Taura directed. The port's developer Virtuos wanted to preserve as much of the game as possible but capped the frame rate at 30 fps and made a racing-based side quest less difficult. Saito was comfortable with the reduced frame rate due to Astral Chain's combat working at that frame rate. Sound compression was a challenge; the team optimized the sound and graphics engine to allow the highest-quality transfer onto the Switch's less-powerful hardware. The game's developers made scene-by-scene comparisons to ensure the final product was as close as possible to the other console versions. At Yoko's request, more costumes and items were included, some themed after the mobile game Nier Reincarnation. The port's subtitle references the game's final ending. A downloadable content (DLC) pack titled 3C3C1D119440927 was released on May 2, 2017; it includes additional costumes and accessories based on Nier, aesthetic hair-customization options, new battle colosseums, and boss fights with Square Enix and PlatinumGames presidents Yosuke Matsuda and Kenichi Sato. The content was unlocked in-game from the chapter-selection screen, and requires data saved from a completed playthrough. The DLC was included in the Xbox One and Nintendo Switch releases, and in the Game of the YoRHa Edition, which was released for the PlayStation 4 and Windows on February 26, 2019. Reception The original PS4 release of Nier: Automata received "generally favorable reviews" on review aggregator Metacritic based on 107 critic reviews. The PC version also received favorable reviews based on 14 reviews. The Xbox One version received "universal acclaim", earning a score of 90 from 30 reviews. The Switch port also garnered favorable reviews, earning a score of 89 based on 35 reviews. Japanese gaming magazine Famitsu gave Nier: Automata a near-perfect score, lauding most aspects of it including the themes and gameplay. Janine Hawkins of Polygon lauded the game's sense of scale and willingness to make players feel small. Nintendo World Report's Melanie Zawodniak, giving the game a perfect score, described it as one of the best games ever made due to its narrative and gameplay design. Mollie Patterson, writing for Electronic Gaming Monthly, praised it as a highly enjoyable experience, both as a player and reviewer. Destructoid's Chris Carter lauded the title as a competent blend of action game and RPG. GamesRadar+'s Sam Prell was enthusiastic about the game's narrative, blend of gameplay genres, and overall quality. Sullivan called Nier: Automata "a crazy, beautiful, and highly entertaining journey full of nutty ideas and awesome gameplay". Miguel Concepcion of GameSpot praised most of the game's elements, referring to its gameplay as "the closest thing there is to a spiritual successor to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance". Matulef called Nier: Automata "the most captivating game I've played in ages" despite rough edges. Thomas Whitehead, writing for Nintendo Life, was positive about its presentation and design but noted some gameplay elements did not work as expected and lack depth. Game Informer reviewer Joe Juba wrote a lot of enjoyable elements in the game's narrative and gameplay are obscured by confusing or obtuse mechanics. PC Gamer's Andy Kelly was positive about the game but criticized the PC port for its graphical and technical issues at release. The story and narrative themes were met with praise, though some reviewers found its pacing and presentation lacking. Both Meghan Sullivan of IGN and Eurogamer's Jeffrey Matulef found it difficult to relate to the android protagonists. Reviewers generally enjoyed the gameplay, but several critics felt that the combat lacked depth compared to previous PlatinumGames titles. The game's visuals were generally praised despite comments regarding occasional poor environment quality or visual spectacle. Recurring complaints arose from technical issues such as graphical pop-in, frame-rate drops, and long loading times. The game's music received unanimous acclaim. The Switch version was named as one of the best third-party ports to the system, despite reviewers noting some expected performance issues and downgraded graphics. Sales Nier: Automata sold over 198,500 copies during its first week of release in Japan, peaking at number one in the charts and significantly exceeding sales of Nier in 2010. In April 2017, Nier: Automata was reported to have sold over 500,000 copies in Japan and Asia, including both physical shipments and downloads. According to the NPD Group report for March 2017, the game reached ninth place in overall sales and sixth place in the PS4 chart. In the United Kingdom, the game debuted at number six in the general software chart. By May 2017, sales of the game's physical and download versions on PS4 and PC had reached 1.5 million copies. The majority of sales during that period came from overseas, and its success came as a surprise compared to the low sales of Nier. By May 2019, Nier: Automata had reached worldwide shipments of four million copies, with an additional 500,000 units selling by March 2020; the latter was attributed to steady sales of the "Game of the YoRHa" edition. Nier: Automata greatly exceeded Square Enix's sales expectations, and made them consider Nier as a franchise. PlatinumGames cited the strong sales, in addition to the positive critical reception, as saving the company and renewing interest in their products after several disappointing game releases. As of November 2022, all versions of Nier: Automata have shipped over seven million copies worldwide. In February 2024, PlatinumGames announced that the game had sold 8 million copies. Accolades Additional media During Nier: Automata's six-month pre-production period, Yoko created a musical stage play called YoRHa, which was performed in 2014. Set in the same universe as Nier: Automata, it acts as a backstory for the characters A2 and Anemone. While the stage play predates the revelation of Nier: Automata, the play's writer Asakusa Kaoru stated it would not exist without Yoko's vision for the world of Nier: Automata. Yoko created the basic scenario while Kaoru wrote the script. For later productions, Yoko revised Asakusa's script to simplify the plot. He described the play as a spin-off of the overall universe. The team worked on additional stage productions including an all-male spin-off, a musical version, and a revised version of the original. Multiple novels based on the in-game universe were written by Yoko and Jun Eishima, a regular collaborator for supplementary material related to the Drakengard series. The Black Box Collector's Edition included a novella retelling the events of Nier from the perspectives of characters Devola and Popola. Long Story Short is a novelization of the game's main events with additional commentary from the characters through monologues. Short Story Long is a compilation of earlier short stories in the Nier continuity, along with new stories related to the characters of Nier: Automata. These two novels were published in North America by Viz Media. YoRHa Boys, which is based on the male spin-off stage play, was written by Eishima and supervised by Yoko; it follows a group of male YoRHa units that are put into an experiment to collect behavioral data. The stage play was adapted into a manga called YoRHa Pearl Harbor Descent Record, which began serialization on Square Enix's Manga UP! online manga service. Megumu Soramichi illustrated the manga and Yoko supervised the story. Square Enix published the first volume of the manga in North America on December 13, 2022. During the fifth anniversary livestream of Nier: Automata, an anime television series based on the game was announced. It is produced by Square Enix and Aniplex, and animated by A-1 Pictures. The series, entitled Ver1.1a, premiered on January 7, 2023. Crossovers In October 2018, 2B was announced as a playable guest character DLC for Bandai Namco's fighting game Soulcalibur VI. Released on December 19, the DLC includes unique weapons and abilities, and an alternative white variation called "2P". Due to the inverted color scheme of 2B when playing as a second player, the name "2P" was adopted as a wordplay on "player two". Yoko Taro suggested the "P" stands for Panasonic. Characters from Nier: Automata were incorporated into a content patch for Shadowbringers. The scenario, which is titled YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse, was outlined by Yoko and given to other writers. The three episodes of YoRHa: Dark Apocalypse are "The Copied Factory", "The Puppets' Bunker", and "The Tower at Paradigm’s Breach". DLC costumes and promotional appearances based on the characters of Nier: Automata have also appeared in third-party games Gravity Rush 2 (2017), Star Ocean: Anamnesis (2018), Phantasy Star Online 2 (2020), Fall Guys (2020), PUBG: Battlegrounds (2022), Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Siege (2022), Naraka: Bladepoint (2023), Goddess of Victory: Nikke (2023), Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising (2023) and Stellar Blade (2024). Notes References Game quotes Further reading Turcev, Nicolas (2019) [2018]. The Strange Works of Taro Yoko: From Drakengard to Nier: Automata. Foreword by Yoko Taro. Toulouse: Third Éditions. ISBN 978-23-7784-048-9. External links Official website

List_of_Asian_countries_by_area

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Asian_countries_by_area

Below is a list of countries in Asia by area. Russia is the largest country in Asia and the world, even after excluding its European portion. The Maldives is the smallest country in Asia. See also List of countries and dependencies by area List of Asian countries by population List of European countries by area Notes == References ==

Mongolia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolia

Mongolia is a landlocked country in East Asia, bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south. It covers an area of 1,564,116 square kilometres (603,909 square miles), with a population of 3.5 million, making it the world's most sparsely populated sovereign state. Mongolia is the world's largest landlocked country that does not border a closed sea, and much of its area is covered by grassy steppe, with mountains to the north and west and the Gobi Desert to the south. Ulaanbaatar, the capital and largest city, is home to roughly half of the country's population. The territory of modern-day Mongolia has been ruled by various nomadic empires, including the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Rouran, the First Turkic Khaganate, the Second Turkic Khaganate, the Uyghur Khaganate and others. In 1206, Genghis Khan founded the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous land empire in history. His grandson Kublai Khan conquered China proper and established the Yuan dynasty. After the collapse of the Yuan, the Mongols retreated to Mongolia and resumed their earlier pattern of factional conflict, except during the era of Dayan Khan and Tumen Zasagt Khan. In the 16th century, Tibetan Buddhism spread to Mongolia, being further led by the Manchu-founded Qing dynasty, which absorbed the country in the 17th century. By the early 20th century, almost one-third of the adult male population were Buddhist monks. After the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Mongolia declared independence, and achieved actual independence from the Republic of China in 1921. Shortly thereafter, the country became a satellite state of the Soviet Union. In 1924, the Mongolian People's Republic was founded as a socialist state. After the anti-communist revolutions of 1989, Mongolia conducted its own peaceful democratic revolution in early 1990. This led to a multi-party system, a new constitution of 1992, and transition to a market economy. Approximately 30% of the population is nomadic or semi-nomadic; horse culture remains integral. Buddhism is the majority religion (51.7%), with the nonreligious being the second-largest group (40.6%). Islam is the third-largest religious identification (3.2%), concentrated among ethnic Kazakhs. The vast majority of citizens are ethnic Mongols, with roughly 5% of the population being Kazakhs, Tuvans, and other ethnic minorities, who are especially concentrated in the western regions. Mongolia is a member of the United Nations, Asia Cooperation Dialogue, G77, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, Non-Aligned Movement and a NATO global partner. Mongolia joined the World Trade Organization in 1997 and seeks to expand its participation in regional economic and trade groups. Etymology The name Mongolia means the "Land of the Mongols" in Latin. The Mongolian word "Mongol" (монгол) is of uncertain etymology, given variously as the name of a mountain or river; as a corruption of the Mongolian Mongkhe-tengri-gal ("Eternal Sky Fire"); or as a derivation from Mugulü, the 4th-century founder of the Rouran Khaganate, first attested as the 'Mungu', (Chinese: 蒙兀, Modern Chinese Měngwù, Middle Chinese Muwngu), a branch of the Shiwei in an 8th-century Tang dynasty list of northern tribes, presumably related to the Liao-era Mungku (Chinese: 蒙古, Modern Chinese Měnggǔ, Middle Chinese MuwngkuX). After the fall of the Liao dynasty in 1125, the Khamag Mongols became a leading tribe on the Mongolian Plateau. However, their wars with the Jurchen-ruled Jin dynasty and the Tatar confederation had weakened them. The last head of the tribe was Yesügei, whose son Temüjin eventually united all the Shiwei tribes as the Mongol Empire (Yekhe Monggol Ulus). In the thirteenth century, the word Mongol grew into an umbrella term for a large group of Mongolic-speaking tribes united under the rule of Genghis Khan. Since the adoption of the new Constitution of Mongolia on 13 February 1992, the official name of the state is "Mongolia" (Mongol Uls). History Prehistory and antiquity The Khoit Tsenkher Cave in Khovd Province shows lively pink, brown, and red ochre paintings (dated to 20,000 years ago) of mammoths, lynx, bactrian camels, and ostriches, earning it the nickname "the Lascaux of Mongolia". The Venus figurines of Mal'ta (21,000 years ago) testify to the level of Upper Paleolithic art in northern Mongolia; Mal'ta is now part of Russia. Neolithic agricultural settlements (c. 5500–3500 BC), such as those at Norovlin, Tamsagbulag, Bayanzag, and Rashaan Khad, predated the introduction of horse-riding nomadism, a pivotal event in the history of Mongolia which became the dominant culture. Horse-riding nomadism has been documented by archeological evidence in Mongolia during the Copper and Bronze Age Afanasevo culture (3500–2500 BC); this Indo-European culture was active to the Khangai Mountains in Central Mongolia. The wheeled vehicles found in the burials of the Afanasevans have been dated to before 2200 BC. Pastoral nomadism and metalworking became more developed with the later Okunev culture (2nd millennium BC), Andronovo culture (2300–1000 BC) and Karasuk culture (1500–300 BC), culminating with the Iron Age Xiongnu Empire in 209 BC. Monuments of the pre-Xiongnu Bronze Age include deer stones, keregsur kurgans, square slab tombs, and rock paintings. Although cultivation of crops has continued since the Neolithic, agriculture has always remained small in scale compared to pastoral nomadism. Agriculture may have first been introduced from the west or arose independently in the region. The population during the Copper Age has been described as mongoloid in the east of what is now Mongolia, and as europoid in the west. Tocharians (Yuezhi) and Scythians inhabited western Mongolia during the Bronze Age. The mummy of a Scythian warrior, which is believed to be about 2,500 years old, was a 30- to 40-year-old man with blond hair; it was found in the Altai, Mongolia. As equine nomadism was introduced into Mongolia, the political center of the Eurasian Steppe also shifted to Mongolia, where it remained until the 18th century CE. The intrusions of northern pastoralists (e.g. the Guifang, Shanrong, and Donghu) into China during the Shang dynasty (1600–1046 BC) and Zhou dynasty (1046–256 BC) presaged the age of nomadic empires. Early states Since the prehistoric times, Mongolia has been inhabited by nomads who, from time to time, formed great confederations that rose to power and prominence. Common institutions were the office of the Khan, the Kurultai (Supreme Council), left and right wings, imperial army (Keshig) and the decimal military system. The first of these empires, the Xiongnu of undetermined ethnicity, were brought together by Modu Shanyu to form a confederation in 209 BC. Soon they emerged as the greatest threat to the Qin dynasty, forcing the latter to construct the Great Wall of China. It was guarded by up to almost 300,000 soldiers during Marshal Meng Tian's tenure, as a means of defense against the destructive Xiongnu raids. The vast Xiongnu empire (209 BC–93 AD) was followed by the Mongolic Xianbei empire (93–234 AD), which also ruled more than the entirety of present-day Mongolia. The Mongolic Rouran Khaganate (330–555), of Xianbei provenance was the first to use "Khagan" as an imperial title. It ruled a massive empire before being defeated by the Göktürks (555–745), an even larger empire. The Göktürks laid siege to Panticapaeum, present-day Kerch, in 576. They were succeeded by the Uyghur Khaganate (745–840) who were defeated by the Kyrgyz. The Mongolic Khitans, descendants of the Xianbei, ruled Mongolia during the Liao dynasty (907–1125), after which the Khamag Mongol (1125–1206) rose to prominence. Lines 3–5 of the memorial inscription of Bilge Khagan (684–737) in central Mongolia summarizes the time of the Khagans: In battles they subdued the nations of all four sides of the world and suppressed them. They made those who had heads bow their heads, and who had knees genuflect them. In the east up to the Kadyrkhan common people, in the west up to the Iron Gate they conquered... These Khagans were wise. These Khagans were great. Their servants were wise and great too. Officials were honest and direct with people. They ruled the nation this way. This way they held sway over them. When they died ambassadors from Bokuli Cholug (Baekje Korea), Tabgach (Tang China), Tibet (Tibetan Empire), Avar (Avar Khaganate), Rome (Byzantine Empire), Kirgiz, Uch-Kurykan, Otuz-Tatars, Khitans, Tatabis came to the funerals. So many people came to mourn over the great Khagans. They were famous Khagans. Mongol empire to early 20th century In the chaos of the late 12th century, a chieftain named Temüjin finally succeeded in uniting the Mongol tribes between Manchuria and the Altai Mountains. In 1206, he took the title Genghis Khan, and waged a series of military campaigns – renowned for their brutality and ferocity – sweeping through much of Asia, and forming the Mongol Empire, the largest contiguous land empire in world history. Under his successors it stretched from present-day Poland in the west to Korea in the east, and from parts of Siberia in the north to the Gulf of Oman and Vietnam in the south, covering some 33,000,000 square kilometres (13,000,000 sq mi), (22% of Earth's total land area) and had a population of over 100 million people (about a quarter of Earth's total population at the time). The emergence of Pax Mongolica also significantly eased trade and commerce across Asia during its height. After Genghis Khan's death, the empire was subdivided into four kingdoms or Khanates. These eventually became quasi-independent after the Toluid Civil War (1260–1264), which broke out in a battle for power following Möngke Khan's death in 1259. One of the khanates, the "Great Khaanate", consisting of the Mongol homeland and most of modern-day China, became known as the Yuan dynasty under Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan. He set up his capital in present-day Beijing. After more than a century of power, the Yuan dynasty was overthrown by the Ming dynasty in 1368, and the Yuan court fled to the north, thus becoming the Northern Yuan dynasty. As the Ming armies pursued the Mongols into their homeland, they successfully sacked and destroyed the Mongol capital Karakorum and other cities. Some of these attacks were repelled by the Mongols under Ayushridar and his general Köke Temür. After the expulsion of the Yuan rulers from China proper, the Mongols continued to rule their homeland, known in historiography as the Northern Yuan dynasty. With the division of the Mongol tribes, it was subsequently also known as "The Forty and the Four" (Döčin dörben) among them. The next centuries were marked by violent power struggles among various factions, notably the Genghisids and the non-Genghisid Oirats, as well as by several Ming invasions (such as the five expeditions led by the Yongle Emperor). In the early 16th century, Dayan Khan and his khatun Mandukhai reunited all Mongol groups under the Genghisids. In the mid-16th century, Altan Khan of the Tümed, a grandson of Dayan Khan – but not a hereditary or legitimate Khan – became powerful. He founded Hohhot in 1557. After he met with the Dalai Lama in 1578, he ordered the introduction of Tibetan Buddhism to Mongolia. (It was the second time this had occurred.) Abtai Khan of the Khalkha converted to Buddhism and founded the Erdene Zuu monastery in 1585. His grandson Zanabazar became the first Jebtsundamba Khutughtu in 1640. Following the leaders, the entire Mongolian population embraced Buddhism. Each family kept scriptures and Buddha statues on an altar at the north side of their yurt. Mongolian nobles donated land, money and herders to the monasteries. As was typical in states with established religions, the top religious institutions, the monasteries, wielded significant temporal power in addition to spiritual power. The last Khagan of Mongols was Ligden Khan in the early 17th century. He came into conflicts with the Manchus over the looting of Chinese cities, and also alienated most Mongol tribes. He died in 1634. By 1636, most of the Inner Mongolian tribes had submitted to the Manchus, who founded the Qing dynasty. The Khalkha eventually submitted to Qing rule in 1691, thus bringing all of today's Mongolia under Manchu rule. After several Dzungar–Qing Wars, the Dzungars (western Mongols or Oirats) were virtually annihilated during the Qing conquest of Dzungaria in 1757 and 1758. Some scholars estimate that about 80% of the 600,000 or more Dzungar were killed by a combination of disease and warfare. Outer Mongolia was given relative autonomy, being administered by the hereditary Genghisid khanates of Tusheet Khan, Setsen Khan, Zasagt Khan and Sain Noyon Khan. The Jebtsundamba Khutuktu of Mongolia had immense de facto authority. The Manchu forbade mass Chinese immigration into the area, which allowed the Mongols to keep their culture. The Oirats who migrated to the Volga steppes in Russia became known as Kalmyks. The main trade route during this period was the Tea Road through Siberia; it had permanent stations located every 25 to 30 kilometres (16 to 19 mi), each of which was staffed by 5–30 chosen families. Until 1911, the Qing dynasty maintained control of Mongolia with a series of alliances and intermarriages, as well as military and economic measures. Ambans, Manchu "high officials", were installed in Khüree, Uliastai, and Khovd, and the country was divided into numerous feudal and ecclesiastical fiefdoms (which also placed people in power with loyalty to the Qing). Over the course of the 19th century, the feudal lords attached more importance to representation and less importance to the responsibilities towards their subjects. The behavior of Mongolia's nobility, together with usurious practices by Chinese traders and the collection of imperial taxes in silver instead of animals, resulted in widespread poverty among the nomads. By 1911 there were 700 large and small monasteries in Outer Mongolia; their 115,000 monks made up 21% of the population. Apart from the Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, there were 13 other reincarnating high lamas, called 'seal-holding saints' (tamgatai khutuktu), in Outer Mongolia. Modern history With the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, Mongolia under the Bogd Khaan declared its independence. But the newly established Republic of China considered Mongolia to be part of its own territory. Yuan Shikai, the President of the Republic of China, considered the new republic to be the successor of the Qing. Bogd Khaan said that both Mongolia and China had been administered by the Manchu during the Qing, and after the fall of the Qing dynasty in 1911, the contract of Mongolian submission to the Manchu had become invalid. The area controlled by the Bogd Khaan was approximately that of the former Outer Mongolia during the Qing period. In 1919, after the October Revolution in Russia, Chinese troops led by warlord Xu Shuzheng occupied Mongolia. Warfare erupted on the northern border. As a result of the Russian Civil War, the White Russian Lieutenant General Baron Ungern led his troops into Mongolia in October 1920, defeating the Chinese forces in Niislel Khüree (now Ulaanbaatar) in early February 1921 with Mongol support. To eliminate the threat posed by Ungern, Bolshevik Russia decided to support the establishment of a communist Mongolian government and army. This Mongolian army took the Mongolian part of Kyakhta from Chinese forces on 18 March 1921, and on 6 July, Russian and Mongolian troops arrived in Khüree. Mongolia declared its independence again on 11 July 1921. As a result, Mongolia was closely aligned with the Soviet Union over the next seven decades. Mongolian People's Republic In 1924, after the Bogd Khaan died of laryngeal cancer or, as some sources claim, at the hands of Russian spies, the country's political system was changed. The Mongolian People's Republic was established. In 1928, Khorloogiin Choibalsan rose to power. The early leaders of the Mongolian People's Republic (1921–1952) included many with Pan-Mongolist ideals. However, changing global politics and increased Soviet pressure led to the decline of Pan-Mongol aspirations in the following period. Khorloogiin Choibalsan instituted collectivization of livestock, began the destruction of the Buddhist monasteries, and carried out Stalinist purges, which resulted in the murders of numerous monks and other leaders. In Mongolia during the 1920s, approximately one-third of the male population were monks. By the beginning of the 20th century, about 750 monasteries were functioning in Mongolia. In 1930, the Soviet Union stopped Buryat migration to the Mongolian People's Republic to prevent Mongolian reunification. All leaders of Mongolia who did not fulfill Stalin's demands to perform Red Terror against Mongolians were executed, including Peljidiin Genden and Anandyn Amar. The Stalinist purges in Mongolia, which began in 1937, killed more than 30,000 people. Under Stalinist influence in the Mongolian People's Republic, an estimated 17,000 monks were killed, official figures show. Choibalsan, who led a dictatorship and organized Stalinist purges in Mongolia between 1937 and 1939, died suspiciously in the Soviet Union in 1952. Comintern leader Bohumír Šmeral said, "People of Mongolia are not important, the land is important. Mongolian land is larger than England, France and Germany". After the Japanese invasion of neighboring Manchuria in 1931, Mongolia was threatened on this front. During the Soviet-Japanese Border War of 1939, the Soviet Union successfully defended Mongolia against Japanese expansionism. Mongolia fought against Japan during the Battles of Khalkhin Gol in 1939 and during the Soviet–Japanese War in August 1945 to liberate Inner Mongolia from Japan and Mengjiang. Cold War The February 1945 Yalta Conference provided for the Soviet Union's participation in the Pacific War. One of the Soviet conditions for its participation, put forward at Yalta, was that after the war Outer Mongolia would retain its independence. The referendum took place on 20 October 1945, with (according to official numbers) 100% of the electorate voting for independence. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, both countries confirmed their mutual recognition on 6 October 1949. However, the Republic of China used its Security Council veto in 1955, to stop the admission of the Mongolian People's Republic to the United Nations on the grounds it recognized all of Mongolia —including Outer Mongolia— as part of China. This was the only time the Republic of China ever used its veto. Hence, and because of the repeated threats to veto by the ROC, Mongolia did not join the UN until 1961 when the Soviet Union agreed to lift its veto on the admission of Mauritania (and any other newly independent African state), in return for the admission of Mongolia. Faced with pressure from nearly all the other African countries, the ROC relented under protest. Mongolia and Mauritania were both admitted to the UN on 27 October 1961. (see China and the United Nations) On 26 January 1952, Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal took power in Mongolia after the death of Choibalsan. Tsedenbal was the leading political figure in Mongolia for more than 30 years. While Tsedenbal was visiting Moscow in August 1984, his severe illness prompted the parliament to announce his retirement and replace him with Jambyn Batmönkh. Post-Cold War The dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 strongly influenced Mongolian politics and youth. Its people undertook the peaceful Democratic Revolution in January 1990 and the introduction of a multi-party system and a market economy. At the same time, the transformation of the former Marxist-Leninist Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party to the current social democratic Mongolian People's Party reshaped the country's political landscape. A new constitution was introduced in 1992, and the term "People's Republic" was dropped from the country's name. The transition to a market economy was often rocky; during the early 1990s the country had to deal with high inflation and food shortages. The first election victories for non-communist parties came in 1993 (presidential elections) and 1996 (parliamentary elections). China has supported Mongolia's application for membership in the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD), Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and granting it observer status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Geography and climate At 1,564,116 km2 (603,909 sq mi), Mongolia is the world's 18th-largest country. It is significantly larger than the next-largest country, Peru. It mostly lies between latitudes 41° and 52°N (a small area is north of 52°), and longitudes 87° and 120°E. As a point of reference the northernmost part of Mongolia is on roughly the same latitude as Berlin (Germany) and Saskatoon (Canada), while the southernmost part is on roughly the same latitude as Rome (Italy) and Chicago (USA). The westernmost part of Mongolia is on roughly the same longitude as Kolkata in India, while the easternmost part is on the same longitude as Qinhuangdao and Hangzhou in China, as well as the western edge of Taiwan. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its westernmost point is only 36.76 kilometres (22.84 mi) from Kazakhstan, nearly making a quadripoint. The geography of Mongolia is varied, with the Gobi Desert to the south and cold, mountainous regions to the north and west. Much of Mongolia consists of the Mongolian-Manchurian grassland, with forested areas accounting for 11.2% of the total land area, a higher percentage than Ireland (10%). The whole of Mongolia is considered to be part of the Mongolian Plateau. The highest point in Mongolia is the Khüiten Peak in the Tavan bogd massif in the far west at 4,374 m (14,350 ft). The basin of the Uvs Lake, shared with Tuva Republic in Russia, is a natural World Heritage Site. Climate Mongolia is known as the "Land of the Eternal Blue Sky" or "Country of Blue Sky" (Mongolian: "Mönkh khökh tengeriin oron") because it has over 250 sunny days a year. Most of the country is hot in the summer and extremely cold in the winter, with January averages dropping as low as −30 °C (−22 °F). A vast front of cold, heavy, shallow air comes in from Siberia in winter and collects in river valleys and low basins causing very cold temperatures while slopes of mountains are much warmer due to the effects of temperature inversion (temperature increases with altitude). In winter the whole of Mongolia comes under the influence of the Siberian Anticyclone. The localities most severely affected by this cold weather are Uvs province (Ulaangom), western Khovsgol (Rinchinlhumbe), eastern Zavkhan (Tosontsengel), northern Bulgan (Hutag) and eastern Dornod province (Khalkhiin Gol). Ulaanbaatar is strongly, but less severely, affected. The cold gets less severe as one goes south, reaching the warmest January temperatures in Omnogovi Province (Dalanzadgad, Khanbogd) and the region of the Altai mountains bordering China. A unique microclimate is the fertile grassland-forest region of central and eastern Arkhangai Province (Tsetserleg) and northern Ovorkhangai Province (Arvaikheer) where January temperatures are on average the same and often higher than the warmest desert regions to the south in addition to being more stable. The Khangai Mountains play a certain role in forming this microclimate. In Tsetserleg, the warmest town in this microclimate, nighttime January temperatures rarely go under −30 °C (−22 °F) while daytime January temperatures often reach 0 °C (32 °F) to 5 °C (41 °F). The country is subject to occasional harsh climatic conditions known as zud. It results in large proportions of the country's livestock dying from starvation or freezing temperatures or both, resulting in economic upheaval for the largely pastoral population. The annual average temperature in Ulaanbaatar is −1.3 °C (29.7 °F), making it the world's coldest capital city. Mongolia is high, cold and windy. It has an extreme continental climate with long, cold winters and short summers, during which most of its annual precipitation falls. The country averages 257 cloudless days a year, and it is usually at the center of a region of high atmospheric pressure. Precipitation is highest in the north (average of 200 to 350 millimeters (8 to 14 in) per year) and lowest in the south, which receives 100 to 200 millimeters (4 to 8 in) annually. The highest annual precipitation of 622.297 mm (24.500 in) occurred in the forests of Bulgan Province near the border with Russia and the lowest of 41.735 mm (1.643 in) occurred in the Gobi Desert (period 1961–1990). The sparsely populated far north of Bulgan Province averages 600 mm (24 in) in annual precipitation which means it receives more precipitation than Beijing (571.8 mm or 22.51 in) or Berlin (571 mm or 22.5 in). Environmental issues Wildlife The name "Gobi" is a Mongol term for a desert steppe, which usually refers to a category of arid rangeland with insufficient vegetation to support marmots but with enough to support camels. Mongols distinguish Gobi from desert proper, although the distinction is not always apparent to outsiders unfamiliar with the Mongolian landscape. Gobi rangelands are fragile and easily destroyed by overgrazing, which results in expansion of the true desert, a stony waste where not even Bactrian camels can survive. The arid conditions in the Gobi are attributed to the rain shadow effect caused by the Himalayas. Before the Himalayas were formed by the collision of the Indo-Australian plate with the Eurasian plate 10 million years ago, Mongolia was a flourishing habitat for major fauna but still somewhat arid and cold due to distance from sources of evaporation. Sea turtle and mollusk fossils have been found in the Gobi, apart from well-known dinosaur fossils. Tadpole shrimps are still found in the Gobi today. The eastern part of Mongolia including the Onon and Kherlen rivers and Lake Buir form part of the Amur river basin draining to the Pacific Ocean. It hosts some unique species like the Eastern brook lamprey, Daurian crayfish (cambaroides dauricus) and Daurian pearl oyster (dahurinaia dahurica) in the Onon/Kherlen rivers as well as Siberian prawn (exopalaemon modestus) in Lake Buir. Mongolia had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 9.36/10, ranking it sixth globally out of 172 countries. Demographics Mongolia's total population as of January 2015 was estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 3,000,251 people, ranking around 121st in the world. But the U.S. Department of State Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs uses the United Nations (UN) estimations instead of the U.S. Census Bureau estimations. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division estimates Mongolia's total population (mid-2007) as 2,629,000 (11% less than the U.S. Census Bureau figure). UN estimates resemble those made by the Mongolian National Statistical Office (2,612,900, end of June 2007). Mongolia's population growth rate is estimated at 1.2% (2007 est.). About 59% of the total population is under age 30, 27% of whom are under 14. This relatively young and growing population has placed strains on Mongolia's economy. The first census in the 20th century was carried out in 1918 and recorded a population of 647,500. Since the end of socialism, Mongolia has experienced a decline of total fertility rate (children per woman) that is steeper than in any other country in the world, according to recent UN estimations: in 1970–1975, fertility was estimated to be 7.33 children per woman, dropping to about 2.1 in 2000–2005. The decline ended and in 2005–2010, the fertility value increased to 2.8 in 2013 and stabilised afterwards at a rate of about 2.5-2.6 children per woman around 2020. The Mongols are moderately homogeneous, Ethnic Mongols account for about 95% of the population and consist of Khalkha and other groups, all distinguished primarily by dialects of the Mongol language. The Khalkha make up 86% of the ethnic Mongol population. The remaining 14% include Oirats, Buryats and others. Turkic peoples (Kazakhs and Tuvans) constitute 4.5% of Mongolia's population, and the rest are Russian, Chinese, Korean and American nationalities. Languages Mongolia's official and national language is Mongolian. A member of the Mongolic language family, the standard dialect is Khalkha Mongol. It coexists with various other, largely mutually intelligible varieties of Mongolic such as Oirat, Buryat, and Khamnigan. Several dialects have been morphing to become more like the central Khalkha dialect in recent years. Most speakers of these dialects are located in the western part of the country, namely Bayan-Ölgii, Uvs, and Khovd. Kazakh, a Turkic language, is the majority language in Bayan-Ölgii, while Tuvan is another Turkic language spoken in Khövsgöl. Mongolian Sign Language is the principal language of the deaf community. Today, Mongolian is mainly written using the Cyrillic alphabet, introduced during the 1940s. Since the 1990 revolution there has been a minor revival of the historic Mongolian script, which is still the official script used by Mongols in neighboring Inner Mongolia. Although Mongolian script has officially been declared the national script, and is taught from the sixth grade onward at schools, it remains mostly confined to ceremonial usage in daily life. In March 2020, the Mongolian government announced plans to use both Cyrillic and the traditional Mongolian script in official documents by 2025. Since 1990, English has quickly supplanted Russian as the most popular foreign language in Mongolia. In the communist era, Russian was a vital language for mobility and professional communication, with a large number of students studying in the Soviet Union as well as a large number of Soviet professionals and soldiers located within Mongolia. Since then, however, Mongolia's education system has reoriented away from the Soviet Union to the West, and English has become the dominant foreign language, aided by liberalized media, international aid agencies, the rise of private education and tutoring, as well as official government policy. In the 2014–2015 academic year, 59% of the overall student population studied English at public secondary schools. In 2023, English was declared the "first foreign language", and to be taught from the third grade. As of the 2014–2015 academic year, the most popular foreign language in specialized language courses were (ordered by popularity), English, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and Korean. Korean in particular has gained popularity as tens of thousands of Mongolians work in South Korea, forming the largest group of Mongolians abroad. Religion According to the 2010 National Census, among Mongolians aged 15 and above, 53% were Buddhists, while 39% were non-religious. Mongolian shamanism has been widely practiced throughout the history of what is now Mongolia, with similar beliefs being common among the nomads of central Asia. They gradually gave way to Tibetan Buddhism, but shamanism has left a mark on Mongolian religious culture, and it continues to be practiced. The Kazakhs of western Mongolia, some Mongols, and other Turkic peoples in the country traditionally adhere to Islam. Throughout much of the 20th century, the communist government repressed religious practices. It targeted the clergy of the Mongolian Buddhist Church, which had been tightly intertwined with the previous feudal government structures (e.g. from 1911 on, the head of the Church had also been the Khan of the country). In the late 1930s, the regime, then led by Khorloogiin Choibalsan, closed almost all of Mongolia's over 700 Buddhist monasteries and killed at least 30,000 people, of whom 18,000 were lamas. The number of Buddhist monks dropped from 100,000 in 1924 to 110 in 1990. The fall of communism in 1991 restored public religious practice. Tibetan Buddhism, which had been the predominant religion prior to the rise of communism, again rose to become the most widely practised religion in Mongolia. The highest-ranking lama of Buddhism in Mongolia, has been vacant since the 9th Jebtsundamba's passing in 2012 and the search for the next Jebtsundamba Khutuktu is being complicated by Beijing's desire to assert control over Tibetan Buddhism. The end of religious repression in the 1990s also allowed for other religions to spread in the country. According to the Christian missionary group Barnabas Fund, the number of Christians grew from just four in 1989 to around 40,000 as of 2008. In May 2013, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) held a cultural program to celebrate twenty years of LDS Church history in Mongolia, with 10,900 members, and 16 church buildings in the country. There are some 1,000 Catholics in Mongolia and, in 2003, a missionary from the Philippines was named Mongolia's first Catholic bishop. In 2017 Seventh-day Adventists reported 2,700 members in six churches up from zero members in 1991. Government and politics Mongolia is a semi-presidential representative democratic republic with a directly elected President. The people also elect the deputies in the national assembly, the State Great Khural. The president appoints the prime minister, and nominates the cabinet on the proposal of the prime minister. The constitution of Mongolia guarantees a number of freedoms, including full freedom of expression and religion. Mongolia amended its constitution most lately in 2019 transferring some powers from the president to the prime minister. On May 31, 2023, Mongolia's parliament approved a constitutional amendment that increased the number of seats from 76 to 126 and changed the electoral system re-introducing proportional party voting. Mongolia has a number of political parties; the largest are the Mongolian People's Party and the Democratic Party. The non-governmental organization Freedom House considers Mongolia to be free. The People's Party – known as the People's Revolutionary Party between 1924 and 2010 – formed the government from 1921 to 1996 (in a one-party system until 1990) and from 2000 to 2004. From 2004 to 2006, it was part of a coalition with the Democrats and two other parties, and after 2006 it was the dominant party in two other coalitions. The party initiated two changes of government from 2004 prior to losing power in the 2012 election. The Democrats were the dominant force in a ruling coalition between 1996 and 2000, and an almost-equal partner with the People's Revolutionary Party in a coalition between 2004 and 2006. An election of deputies to the national assembly on 28 June 2012 resulted in no party having an overall majority; however, as the Democratic Party won the largest number of seats, its leader, Norovyn Altankhuyag, was appointed prime minister on 10 August 2012. In 2014, he was replaced by Chimediin Saikhanbileg. The MPP won a landslide victory in the 2016 elections and the next Prime Minister was MPP's Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh. In June 2020, MPP won a landslide victory in the election. It took 62 seats and the main opposition DP, 11 of the 76 seats. Before the elections the ruling party had redrawn the electoral map in a way that was beneficial for MPP. In January 2021, Prime Minister Ukhnaagiin Khürelsükh resigned after protests over the treatment of a coronavirus patient. On 27 January 2021, Luvsannamsrai Oyun-Erdene of MPP became new prime minister. He represents a younger generation of leaders that had studied abroad. The President of Mongolia is able to veto the laws made by parliament, appoint judges and justice of courts and appoint ambassadors. The parliament can override that veto by a two-thirds majority vote. Mongolia's constitution provides three requirements for taking office as president; the candidate must be a native-born Mongolian, be at least 45 years old, and have resided in Mongolia for five years before taking office. The president must also suspend their party membership. After defeating incumbent Nambaryn Enkhbayar, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, a two-time former prime minister and member of the Democratic Party, was elected as president on 24 May 2009 and inaugurated on 18 June that year. The ruling Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party (2010) (MPRP) nominated Batbold Sukhbaatar as new Prime Minister in October 2009. Elbegdorj was re-elected on 26 June 2013 and was inaugurated on 10 July 2013 for his second term as president. In June 2017, opposition Democratic Party candidate Khaltmaagiin Battulga won the presidential election. He was inaugurated on 10 July 2017. In June 2021, former Prime Minister Ukhnaa Khurelsukh, the candidate of the ruling Mongolian People's Party (MPP), became the country's sixth democratically elected president after winning the presidential election. Mongolia uses a unicameral legislature, the State Great Khural, with 76 seats, which is chaired by the Speaker of the House. Its members are directly elected, every four years, by popular vote. As per 2023 constitutional amendment the parliament increased the number of seats from 76 to 126. Foreign relations Mongolia's foreign relations traditionally focus on its two large neighbors, Russia and China. Mongolia is economically dependent on these countries: China is Mongolia's largest export partner at a 78% share, far above the other top countries (Switzerland at 15%; Singapore 3%). Mongolia receives 36% of imports from China and 29% from Russia. Mongolia is also pursuing a trilateral partnership with China and Russia through the Power of Siberia 2 natural gas pipeline, with a contract to be signed in the "near future" according to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak. Due to China's status as Mongolia's most important trading partner, Mongolia has been trying to stay out of the current U.S.-China confrontation. It has begun seeking positive relations with a wider range of other countries especially in cultural and economic matters, focusing on encouraging foreign direct investment and trade. Mongolia has been pursuing a 'third-neighbor' foreign policy since early 1990s to build deeper relations and partnerships with countries beyond its two surrounding neighbors. Mongolia has been a member of The Forum of Small States (FOSS) since the group's founding in 1992. Then Vice President of the U.S. Joe Biden, visited Mongolia in 2011 supporting Mongolia's third neighbor policy. Embassies Mongolia maintains many diplomatic missions in other countries and has embassies in the following world capitals: Military Mongolia supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and has sent several successive contingents of 103 to 180 troops each to Iraq. About 130 troops were deployed to Afghanistan. 200 Mongolian troops are serving in Sierra Leone on a UN mandate to protect the UN's special court set up there, and in July 2009, Mongolia decided to send a battalion to Chad in support of MINURCAT. From 2005 to 2006, about 40 troops were deployed with the Belgian and Luxembourg contingents in Kosovo. On 21 November 2005, George W. Bush became the first-ever sitting U.S. president to visit Mongolia. In 2004, under Bulgarian chairmanship, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) invited Mongolia as its newest Asian partner. Legal system The judiciary of Mongolia is made of a three-tiered court system: first instance courts in each provincial district and each Ulaanbaatar district; appellate courts for each province and also the Capital Ulaanbaatar; and the court of last resort (for non-constitutional matters) at the Supreme Court of Mongolia. For questions of constitutional law there is a separate constitutional court. A Judicial General Council (JGC) nominates judges which must then be confirmed by the parliament and appointed by the President. Arbitration centres provide alternative dispute resolution options for commercial and other disputes. Administrative divisions Mongolia is divided into 21 provinces (aimags) and subdivided into 330 districts (sums). Ulaanbaatar is administered separately as a capital city (municipality) with provincial status. The aimags are: Major cities As of 2020, 47.6% of the population lives in Ulaanbaatar, further 21.4% lived in Darkhan, Erdenet, the aimag centers and sum centers, and other permanent settlements, and 31.0% in rural areas. Economy Economic activity in Mongolia has long been based on herding and agriculture, although development of extensive mineral deposits of copper, coal, molybdenum, tin, tungsten and gold have emerged as a driver of industrial production. Besides mining (21.8% of GDP) and agriculture (16% of GDP), dominant industries in the composition of GDP are wholesale and retail trade and service, transportation and storage, and real estate activities. Also, Mongolia produces one-fifth of the world's raw cashmere. The informal economy is estimated to be at least one-third the size of the official economy. As of 2022, 78% of Mongolia's exports went to the PRC, and the PRC supplied 36% of Mongolia's imports. The World Bank has stated that Mongolia's development prospects are promising due to an expansion of mining and large public investment, although challenges remain from inflation, weaker external demand from China, and persistent fiscal risks due to sizable contingent liabilities. According to the Asian Development Bank, 27.1% of Mongolia's population lived below the national poverty line in 2022. In the same year, GDP per capita was estimated at $12,100. Mongolia's real GDP grew by 7% in 2023 due to record-high coal production, driven by strong demand from China. Inflation in early 2024 dropped to 7% due to lower global food and fuel prices. Despite a robust increase in import volumes, Mongolia recorded a current account surplus due to the sharp increase in coal exports. Mining sector growth is expected to continue driving GDP growth, although the International Monetary Fund predicts the current account balance will revert to a sizable deficit due to declining coal prices. In 2011, Citigroup analysts determined Mongolia to be one of the "global growth generating" countries, which are countries with the most promising growth prospects for 2010–2050. The Mongolian Stock Exchange, established in 1991 in Ulaanbaatar, is among the world's smallest stock exchanges by market capitalisation. As of 2024, it has 180 companies listed with a total market capitalization of US$3.2 billion. The International Finance Corporation (IFC) currently ranks Mongolia as 81st globally in its ease of doing business scoring. Mineral industry Minerals represent more than 80% of Mongolia's exports, a proportion expected to eventually rise to 95%. Fiscal revenues from mining represented 21% of government income in 2010 and rose to 24% in 2018. About 3,000 mining licences have been issued. Mining continues to rise as a major industry of Mongolia as evidenced by the number of Chinese, Russian and Canadian firms starting mining businesses in Mongolia. In 2009, the Mongolian government negotiated an agreement with Rio Tinto and Ivanhoe Mines to develop the Oyu Tolgoi copper and gold deposit, the biggest foreign-investment project in Mongolia at the time. The mine is now a major producer of copper and gold, with plans to further develop underground production and reach an output of 500,000 tons of copper per year. Mongolian lawmakers have also attempted to finance the development of the Tavan Tolgoi area, the world's largest untapped coal deposit. However, proposed international partnerships failed in 2011 and 2015, with Mongolia further cancelling an international initial public offering in 2020, citing financial and political difficulties. In September 2022, Mongolia built and launched a 233-km direct rail link to China, which is a milestone in Mongolia's plan to become China's leading supplier of high-quality coal from the Tavan Tolgoi mine, which has more than six billion tonnes of coal reserves. Agriculture Infrastructure Communications Postal services are provided by state-owned Mongol Post and 54 other licensed operators. Energy Mongolia imports 98% of its fuel and is building its first ever oil refinery to reduce its foreign energy dependency. Transportation The Trans-Mongolian Railway is the main rail link between Mongolia and its neighbors. It begins at the Trans-Siberian Railway in Russia at the town of Ulan-Ude, crosses into Mongolia, runs through Ulaanbaatar, then passes into China at Erenhot where it joins the Chinese railway system. A separate railroad link connects the eastern city of Choibalsan with the Trans-Siberian Railway. However, that link is closed to passengers after the Mongolian town of Chuluunkhoroot. Mongolia also has a 233 km-long cargo rail link from the Tavan Tolgoi coal mine to Chinese border. Mongolia has a number of domestic airports, with some of them having international status. However, the main international airport is Chinggis Khaan International Airport, located approximately 52 km (32 mi) south of the capital Ulaanbaatar. Direct flight connections exist between Mongolia and South Korea, China, Thailand, Hong Kong, Japan, Russia, Germany, and Turkey. MIAT Mongolian Airlines is Mongolia's national air carrier, operating international flights, while air carriers such as Aero Mongolia and Hunnu Airlines serve domestic and short international routes. Many overland roads in Mongolia are only gravel roads or simple cross-country tracks. There are paved roads from Ulaanbaatar to the Russian and Chinese borders, from Ulaanbaatar east- and westward (the so-called Millennium Road), and from Darkhan to Bulgan. A number of road construction projects are currently underway. Mongolia has 4,800 km (3,000 mi) of paved roads, with 1,800 km (1,100 mi) of that total completed in 2013 alone. Education During the state socialist period, education was one of the areas of significant achievement in Mongolia. Before the People's Republic, literacy rates were below one percent. By 1952, illiteracy was virtually eliminated, in part through the use of seasonal boarding schools for children of nomadic families. Funding to these boarding schools was cut in the 1990s, contributing to slightly increased illiteracy. Primary and secondary education formerly lasted ten years, but was expanded to eleven years. Since the 2008–2009 school year, new first-graders are using the 12-year system, with a full transition to the 12-year system in the 2019–2020 school year. As of 2006, English is taught in all secondary schools across Mongolia, beginning in fourth grade. English has taken over from Russian as the dominant foreign language in Mongolia, particularly in Ulaanbaatar. Mongolian national universities are all spin-offs from the National University of Mongolia and the Mongolian University of Science and Technology. Almost three in five Mongolian youths now enroll in university. There was a six-fold increase in students between 1993 and 2010. Mongolia was ranked 68th in the Global Innovation Index in 2023, down from 53rd in 2019. Health Culture The symbol in the left bar of the national flag is a Buddhist icon called Soyombo. It represents the sun, moon, stars, and heavens per standard cosmological symbology abstracted from that seen in traditional thangka paintings. Visual arts Before the 20th century, most works of the fine arts in Mongolia had a religious function, and therefore Mongolian fine arts were heavily influenced by religious texts. Thangkas were usually painted or made in appliqué technique. Bronze sculptures usually showed Buddhist deities. A number of great works are attributed to the first Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, Zanabazar. In the late 19th century, painters like "Marzan" Sharav turned to more realistic painting styles. Under the Mongolian People's Republic, socialist realism was the dominant painting style, however traditional thangka-like paintings dealing with secular, nationalist themes were also popular, a genre known as "Mongol zurag". Among the first attempts to introduce modernism into the fine arts of Mongolia was the painting Ehiin setgel (Mother's love) created by Tsevegjav in the 1960s. The artist was purged as his work was censored. All forms of fine arts flourished only after perestroika in the late 1980s. Otgonbayar Ershuu is arguably one of the most well-known Mongolian modern artists in the Western world, he was portrayed in the film "ZURAG" by Tobias Wulff. Architecture The traditional Mongolian dwelling is known as a ger. In the past it was known by the Russian term yurt, but this has been changing as the Mongolian term becomes better known in English-speaking countries. According to Mongolian artist and art critic N. Chultem, the ger was the basis for development of traditional Mongolian architecture. In the 16th and 17th centuries, lamaseries were built throughout the country. Many of them started as ger-temples. When they needed to be enlarged to accommodate the growing number of worshippers, the Mongolian architects used structures with 6 and 12 angles with pyramidal roofs to approximate to the round shape of a ger. Further enlargement led to a quadratic shape of the temples. The roofs were made in the shape of marquées. The trellis walls, roof poles and layers of felt were replaced by stone, brick, beams and planks, and became permanent. Chultem distinguished three styles in traditional Mongolian architecture: Mongolian, Tibetan and Chinese as well as combinations of the three. Among the first quadratic temples was Batu-Tsagaan (1654) designed by Zanabazar. An example of the ger-style architecture is the lamasery Dashi-Choiling in Ulaanbaatar. The temple Lavrin (18th century) in the Erdene Zuu lamasery was built in the Tibetan tradition. An example of a temple built in the Chinese tradition is the lamasery Choijing Lamiin Sume (1904), which is a museum today. The quadratic temple Tsogchin in lamasery Gandan in Ulaanbaatar is a combination of the Mongolian and Chinese tradition. The temple of Maitreya (disassembled in 1938) is an example of the Tibeto-Mongolian architecture. Dashi-Choiling monastery has commenced a project to restore the temple and the 25 metres (82 ft) sculpture of Maitreya. Music The music of Mongolia is strongly influenced by nature, nomadism, shamanism, and also Tibetan Buddhism. The traditional music includes a variety of instruments, famously the morin khuur, and also the singing styles like the urtyn duu ("long song"), and throat-singing (khoomei). The "tsam" is danced to keep away evil spirits and it was seen as reminiscent of shamanism. Media Mongolian press began in 1920 with close ties to the Soviet Union under the Mongolian Communist Party, with the establishment of the Unen ("Truth") newspaper similar to the Soviet Pravda. Until reforms in the 1990s, the government had strict control of the media and oversaw all publishing, in which no independent media were allowed. The dissolution of the Soviet Union had a significant impact on Mongolia, where the one-party state grew into a multi-party democracy, and with that, media freedoms came to the forefront. A new law on press freedom, drafted with help from international NGOs on August 28, 1998, and enacted on January 1, 1999, paved the way for media reforms. The Mongolian media currently consists of around 300 print and broadcasting outlets. Since 2006, the media environment has been improving with the government debating a new Freedom of Information Act, and the removal of any affiliation of media outlets with the government. Market reforms have led to an annually increasing number of people working in the media, along with students at journalism schools. In its 2013 World Press Freedom Index report, Reporters Without Borders classified the media environment as 98th out of 179, with 1st being most free. In 2016, Mongolia was ranked 60th out of 180. According to 2014 Asian Development Bank survey, 80% of Mongolians cited television as their main source of information. Mongolian cuisine Sports and festivals The main national festival is Naadam, which has been organized for centuries and takes place over three days in the summer, consisting of three Mongolian traditional sports, archery, cross-country horse-racing, and wrestling, traditionally recognized as the Three Manly Games of Naadam. In modern-day Mongolia, Naadam is held from July 11 to 13 in the honor of the anniversaries of the National Democratic Revolution and foundation of the Great Mongol State. Another very popular activity called Shagaa is the "flicking" of sheep ankle bones at a target several feet away, using a flicking motion of the finger to send the small bone flying at targets and trying to knock the target bones off the platform. At Naadam, this contest is popular among older Mongolians. Horse riding is especially central to Mongolian culture. The long-distance races that are showcased during Naadam festivals are one aspect of this, as is the popularity of trick riding. One example of trick riding is the legend that the Mongolian military hero Damdin Sükhbaatar scattered coins on the ground and then picked them up while riding a horse at full gallop. Mongolian wrestling is the most popular of all Mongol sports. It is the highlight of the Three Manly Games of Naadam. Historians claim that Mongol-style wrestling originated some seven thousand years ago. Hundreds of wrestlers from different cities and aimags around the country take part in the national wrestling competition. Other sports such as basketball, weightlifting, powerlifting, association football, athletics, gymnastics, table tennis, jujutsu, karate, aikido, kickboxing, and mixed martial arts have become popular in Mongolia. More Mongolian table tennis players are competing internationally. Freestyle wrestling has been practised since 1958 in Mongolia. Mongolian freestyle wrestlers have won the first and the most Olympic medals of Mongolia. Naidangiin Tüvshinbayar won Mongolia's first ever Olympic gold medal in the men's 100-kilogram class of judo. Amateur boxing has been practised in Mongolia since 1948. The Mongolian Olympic boxing national team was founded in 1960. The Communist government of Mongolia banned boxing from 1964 to 1967 but the government soon ended the ban. Professional boxing began in Mongolia in the 1990s. Mongolia national basketball team enjoyed some success recently, especially at the East Asian Games. Association football is also played in Mongolia. The Mongolia national football team began playing national games again during the 1990s; but has not yet qualified for a major international tournament. The Mongolia Premier League is the top domestic competition. Several Mongolian women have excelled in pistol shooting: Otryadyn Gündegmaa is a silver medalist of the 2008 Olympic Games, Munkhbayar Dorjsuren is a double world champion and Olympic bronze medal winner (now representing Germany), while Tsogbadrakhyn Mönkhzul is, as of May 2007, ranked third in the world in the 25-metre pistol event. Mongolian sumo wrestler Dolgorsürengiin Dagvadorj won 25 top division tournament championships, placing him fourth on the all-time list. In January 2015, Mönkhbatyn Davaajargal took his 33rd top division championship, giving him the most in the history of sumo. Bandy is the only sport in which Mongolia has finished higher than third place at the Asian Winter Games, which happened in 2011 when the national team captured the silver medal. It led to being chosen as the best Mongolian sports team of 2011. Mongolia won the bronze medal of the B division at the 2017 Bandy World Championship after which the then President of Mongolia, Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj, held a reception for the team. Ulaanbataar holds an annual marathon in June. 2015 was the sixth marathon that has been organized by Ar Mongol. The race starts at Sukhbataar Square and is always open to residents and runners who come especially for this event. Mongolia holds other traditional festivals throughout the year. The Golden Eagle Festival, held annually, draws about 400 eagle hunters on horseback, including the traveler Мөнхбаярт Батсайхан (Mönkhbayart Batsaikhan), to compete with their birds. The Ice Festival and the Thousand Camel Festival are amongst many other traditional Mongolian festivals. See also Index of Mongolia-related articles Outline of Mongolia Notes References Further reading External links Government Official website of the Government Organizations of Mongolia (in English and Russian) Mongolia Government Overview (in Mongolian) Chief of State and Cabinet Members General information Mongolia. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency Mongolia Travel Guide Mongolia at UCB Libraries GovPubs Mongolia profile from the BBC News Mongolia at Britannica.com Kropotkin, Peter Alexeivitch (1911). "Mongolia" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). pp. 711–712. Wikimedia Atlas of Mongolia Wrestling Roots Mongolia, Facts and Culture on CountryReports.org

The_Economist_Democracy_Index

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

The Democracy Index published by the Economist Group is an index measuring the quality of democracy across the world. This quantitative and comparative assessment is centrally concerned with democratic rights and democratic institutions. The methodology for assessing democracy used in this democracy index is according to Economist Intelligence Unit which is part of the Economist Group, a UK-based private company, which publishes the weekly newspaper The Economist. The index is based on 60 indicators grouped into five categories, measuring pluralism, civil liberties, and political culture. In addition to a numeric score and a ranking, the index categorizes each country into one of four regime types: full democracies, flawed democracies, hybrid regimes, and authoritarian regimes. The first Democracy Index report was published in 2006. Reports were published every two years until 2010 and annually thereafter. The index includes 167 countries and territories, of which 166 are sovereign states and 164 are UN member states. Other democracy indices with similar assessments of the state of democracy include V-Dem Democracy indices or Bertelsmann Transformation Index. Methodology As described in the report, the Democracy Index produces a weighted average based on the answers to 60 questions, each one with either two or three permitted answers. Most answers are experts' assessments. Some answers are provided by public-opinion surveys from the respective countries. In the case of countries for which survey results are missing, survey results for similar countries and expert assessments are used in order to fill in gaps. The questions are grouped into five categories: electoral process and pluralism civil liberties functioning of government political participation political culture Each answer is converted to a score, either 0 or 1, or for the three-answer questions, 0, 0.5 or 1. With the exceptions mentioned below, within each category, the scores are added, multiplied by ten, and divided by the total number of questions within the category. There are a few modifying dependencies, which are explained much more precisely than the main rule procedures. In a few cases, an answer yielding zero for one question voids another question; e.g., if the elections for the national legislature and head of government are not considered free (question 1), then the next question, "Are elections... fair?", is not considered, but automatically scored zero. Likewise, there are a few questions considered so important that a low score on them yields a penalty on the total score sum for their respective categories, namely: "Whether national elections are free and fair"; "The security of voters"; "The influence of foreign powers on government"; "The capability of the civil servants to implement policies". The five category indices, which are listed in the report, are then averaged to find the overall score for a given country. Finally, the score, rounded to two decimals, decides the regime-type classification of the country. The report discusses other indices of democracy, as defined, e.g., by Freedom House, and argues for some of the choices made by the team from the Economist Intelligence Unit. In this comparison, a higher emphasis is placed on the public opinion and attitudes, as measured by surveys, but on the other hand, economic living-standards are not weighted as one criterion of democracy (as seemingly some other investigators have done). The report is widely cited in the international press as well as in peer-reviewed academic journals. Definitions Full democracies are nations where civil liberties and fundamental political freedoms are not only respected but also reinforced by a political culture conducive to the thriving of democratic principles. These nations have a valid system of governmental checks and balances, an independent judiciary whose decisions are enforced, governments that function adequately, and diverse and independent media. These nations have only limited problems in democratic functioning. Flawed democracies are nations where elections are fair and free and basic civil liberties are honoured but may have issues (e.g. media freedom infringement and minor suppression of political opposition and critics). These nations can have significant faults in other democratic aspects, including underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance. Hybrid regimes are nations with regular electoral frauds, preventing them from being fair and free democracies. These nations commonly have governments that apply pressure on political opposition, non-independent judiciaries, widespread corruption, harassment and pressure placed on the media, anaemic rule of law, and more pronounced faults than flawed democracies in the realms of underdeveloped political culture, low levels of participation in politics, and issues in the functioning of governance. Authoritarian regimes are nations where political pluralism is nonexistent or severely limited. These nations are often absolute monarchies or dictatorships, may have some conventional institutions of democracy but with meagre significance, infringements and abuses of civil liberties are commonplace, elections (if they take place) are not fair or free (including sham elections), the media is often state-owned or controlled by groups associated with the ruling regime, the judiciary is not independent, and censorship and suppression of governmental criticism are commonplace. By regime type The following table indicates the number of nations and the percentage of world population for each type of regime. Some microstates are not considered in the calculation. List by region The following table lists the average of each country scored by geographic region, as defined by the Economist Democracy Index. The following table lists the number of countries in each of the four democracy classifications. List by country The following table shows each nation's score over the years. The regions are assigned by the Economist Intelligence Unit, and may differ from conventional classifications (for example, Turkey is grouped in Western Europe). Components The following table shows the five parameters that made up the score of each nation in 2023 and the changes that had occurred since 2022. Unincluded countries Below is a list of every UN member state that is currently not included in the Democracy Index. Andorra Antigua and Barbuda Bahamas Barbados Belize Brunei Dominica Grenada Kiribati Liechtenstein Maldives Marshall Islands Micronesia Monaco Nauru Palau Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Samoa São Tomé and Príncipe San Marino Seychelles Solomon Islands Somalia South Sudan Tonga Tuvalu Vanuatu Recent changes In 2016, the United States was downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy; its score, which had been declining for some years, crossed the threshold from 8.05 in 2015 to 7.98 in 2016. The report stated that this was caused by myriad factors dating back to at least the late 1960s which have eroded Americans' trust in governmental institutions. Nigeria was also upgraded from an authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime. The 2017 Democracy Index registered, at the time, the worst year for global democracy since 2010–11. Asia was the region with the largest decline since 2016. Venezuela was downgraded from a hybrid regime to an authoritarian regime. In China, Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), further entrenched his power by writing his contribution to the CCP's ideology, dubbed Xi Jinping Thought, into the party's constitution. Moldova was downgraded from a flawed democracy to a hybrid regime as a result of problematic elections. By contrast, Armenia was re-upgraded from an authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime as a result of constitutional changes that shifted power from the presidency to parliament. In 2017, the Gambia was upgraded again from an authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime after Yahya Jammeh, who was president from 1996 to 2017, was defeated by Adama Barrow, an opposition candidate in the 2016 presidential elections. In 2019, France, Portugal and Chile were upgraded from flawed democracies to full democracies. In fact, this was not a new experience for the former two, which suffered from the eurozone crisis many years before. By contrast, Malta was downgraded from a full democracy to a flawed democracy. Thailand and Albania were upgraded from hybrid regimes to flawed democracies. Algeria was upgraded again from an authoritarian regime to a hybrid regime. In 2020, Taiwan was upgraded from flawed democracy to full democracy following reforms in the judiciary, and soared to 11th position from its previous position at 33. Japan and South Korea were also upgraded again to a full democracy, while France and Portugal were once again relegated to flawed democracies. Hong Kong was downgraded from a flawed democracy to a hybrid regime. Algeria was downgraded again from a hybrid regime to an authoritarian regime. The Economist Intelligence Unit noted that democracy "was dealt a major blow in 2020". Almost 70% of countries covered by the Democracy Index recorded a decline in their overall score, as most of them imposed lockdowns and other restrictions in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to some arresting journalists and citizens accused of spreading COVID-19 misinformation. The global average score fell to its lowest level since the index began in 2006. In 2021, both the global and regional average scores continued downward trends, with the exception of the Central and Eastern Europe region. Spain and Chile were downgraded from full democracies to flawed democracies, while Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, and Tunisia were downgraded from flawed democracies to hybrid regimes. Haiti, Lebanon, and Kyrgyzstan were downgraded from hybrid regimes to authoritarian regimes. In addition, Moldova, Montenegro, and North Macedonia were upgraded from hybrid regimes to flawed democracies, whereas Mauritania was upgraded from authoritarian to hybrid regime. For the first time, two countries displaced North Korea as the lowest-ranked states in the Democracy Index – in Myanmar, the elected government was overthrown in a military coup, and protests were suppressed by the junta, which ultimately resulted in its score going down by 2.02 points; Afghanistan, as a result of the 2021 Taliban offensive and subsequent takeover of government, registered the lowest score of any state ever recorded on the Democracy Index at 0.32. In 2022, the global average score stagnated, with the lifting of COVID-related restrictions being largely canceled out by other negative developments globally. In 2023, the global average score deteriorated further, with most declines occurring in authoritarian and hybrid regimes, with the former becoming more entrenched and the latter struggling to democratize. The threshold for each color has also been changed from greater than the integer to greater than or equal to. Criticism Investment analyst Peter Tasker has criticised the Democracy Index for lacking transparency and accountability beyond the numbers. To generate the index, the Economist Intelligence Unit has a scoring system in which various experts are asked to answer 60 questions and assign each reply a number, with the weighted average deciding the ranking. However, the final report does not indicate what kinds of experts, nor their number, nor whether the experts are employees of the Economist Intelligence Unit or independent scholars, nor the nationalities of the experts. See also Democracy Ranking Corruption Perceptions Index Democracy-Dictatorship Index Democracy promotion Gallagher index Notes == References ==

Norway

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norway

Norway (Bokmål: Norge, Nynorsk: Noreg), officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, situated on the Scandinavian Peninsula with a population of 5.5 million as of 2024. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of Norway. Bouvet Island, located in the Subantarctic, is a dependency, and not a part of the Kingdom; Norway also claims the Antarctic territories of Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land. The capital and largest city in Norway is Oslo. Norway has a total area of 385,207 square kilometres (148,729 sq mi). The country shares a long eastern border with Sweden, and is bordered by Finland and Russia to the northeast. Norway has an extensive coastline facing the Skagerrak strait, the North Atlantic Ocean, and the Barents Sea. Harald V of the House of Glücksburg is the current King of Norway. Jonas Gahr Støre has been Prime Minister of Norway since 2021. As a unitary state with a constitutional monarchy, Norway divides state power between the parliament, the cabinet, and the supreme court, as determined by the 1814 constitution. The unified kingdom of Norway was established in 872 as a merger of petty kingdoms and has existed continuously for 1,151–1,152 years. From 1537 to 1814, Norway was part of Denmark–Norway, and, from 1814 to 1905, it was in a personal union with Sweden. Norway was neutral during the First World War, and in the Second World War until April 1940 when it was invaded and occupied by Nazi Germany until the end of the war. Norway has both administrative and political subdivisions on two levels: counties and municipalities. The Sámi people have a certain amount of self-determination and influence over traditional territories through the Sámi Parliament and the Finnmark Act. Norway maintains close ties with the European Union and the United States. Norway is a founding member of the United Nations, NATO, the European Free Trade Association, the Council of Europe, the Antarctic Treaty, and the Nordic Council; a member of the European Economic Area, the WTO, and the OECD; and a part of the Schengen Area. The Norwegian dialects share mutual intelligibility with Danish and Swedish. Norway maintains the Nordic welfare model with universal health care and a comprehensive social security system, and its values are rooted in egalitarian ideals. The Norwegian state has large ownership positions in key industrial sectors, having extensive reserves of petroleum, natural gas, minerals, lumber, seafood, and fresh water. The petroleum industry accounts for around a quarter of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). On a per-capita basis, Norway is the world's largest producer of oil and natural gas outside of the Middle East. The country has the fourth- and eighth-highest per-capita income in the world on the World Bank's and IMF's list, respectively. It has the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, with a value of US$1.3 trillion. Etymology Norway has two official names: Norge in Bokmål and Noreg in Nynorsk. The English name Norway comes from the Old English word Norþweg mentioned in 880, meaning "northern way" or "way leading to the north", which is how the Anglo-Saxons referred to the coastline of Atlantic Norway. The Anglo-Saxons of Britain also referred to the kingdom of Norway in 880 as Norðmanna land. There is some disagreement about whether the native name of Norway originally had the same etymology as the English form. According to the traditional dominant view, the first component was originally norðr, a cognate of English north, so the full name was Norðr vegr, "the way northwards", referring to the sailing route along the Norwegian coast, and contrasting with suðrvegar "southern way" (from Old Norse suðr) for (Germany), and austrvegr "eastern way" (from austr) for the Baltic. History Prehistory The earliest traces of human occupation in Norway are found along the coast, where the huge ice shelf of the last ice age first melted between 11,000 and 8000 BC. The oldest finds are stone tools dating from 9500 to 6000 BC, discovered in Finnmark (Komsa culture) in the north and Rogaland (Fosna culture) in the southwest. Theories about the two cultures being separate were deemed obsolete in the 1970s. Between 3000 and 2500 BC, new settlers (Corded Ware culture) arrived in eastern Norway. They were Indo-European farmers who grew grain and kept livestock, and gradually replaced the hunting-fishing population of the west coast. Metal Ages From about 1500 BC, bronze was gradually introduced. Burial cairns built close to the sea as far north as Harstad and also inland in the south are characteristic of this period, with rock carving motifs that differ from those of the Stone Age, depicting ships resembling the Hjortspring boat, while large stone burial monuments known as stone ships were also erected. There is little archaeological evidence dating to the early Iron Age (the last 500 years BC). The dead were cremated, and their graves contained few goods. During the first four centuries AD, the people of Norway were in contact with Roman-occupied Gaul; about 70 Roman bronze cauldrons, often used as burial urns, have been found. Contact with countries farther south brought a knowledge of runes; the oldest known Norwegian runic inscription dates from the third century. Viking Age By the time of the first historical records of Scandinavia, about the 8th century, several small political entities existed in Norway. It has been estimated that there were nine petty realms in Western Norway during the early Viking Age. Archaeologist Bergljot Solberg on this basis estimates that there would have been at least 20 in the whole country. In the Viking period, Norwegian Viking explorers discovered Iceland by accident in the ninth century when heading for the Faroe Islands, and eventually came across Vinland, known today as Newfoundland, in Canada. The Vikings from Norway were most active in the northern and western British Isles and eastern North America isles. According to tradition, Harald Fairhair unified them into one in 872 after the Battle of Hafrsfjord in Stavanger, thus becoming the first king of a united Norway. Harald's realm was mainly a South Norwegian coastal state. Fairhair ruled with a strong hand and according to the sagas, many Norwegians left the country to live in Iceland, the Faroe Islands, Greenland, and parts of Britain and Ireland. Haakon I the Good was Norway's first Christian king, in the mid-10th century, though his attempt to introduce the religion was rejected. Norse traditions were replaced slowly by Christian ones in the late 10th and early 11th centuries. This is largely attributed to the missionary kings Olaf I Tryggvasson and Olaf II Haraldsson (St. Olaf). Olaf Tryggvasson conducted raids in England, including attacking London. Arriving back in Norway in 995, Olaf landed in Moster where he built a church which became the first Christian church in Norway. From Moster, Olaf sailed north to Trondheim where he was proclaimed King of Norway by the Eyrathing in 995. One of the most important sources for the history of the 11th century Vikings is the treaty between the Icelanders and Olaf II Haraldsson, king of Norway circa 1015 to 1028. Feudalism never really developed in Norway or Sweden, as it did in the rest of Europe. However, the administration of government took on a very conservative feudal character. The Hanseatic League forced royalty to cede to them greater and greater concessions over foreign trade and the economy, because of the loans the Hansa had made to the royals and the large debt the kings were carrying. The League's monopolistic control over the economy of Norway put pressure on all classes, especially the peasantry, to the degree that no real burgher class existed in Norway. High Middle Ages From the 1040s to 1130, the country was at peace. In 1130, the civil war era broke out on the basis of unclear succession laws, which allowed the king's sons to rule jointly. The Archdiocese of Nidaros was created in 1152 and attempted to control the appointment of kings. The church inevitably had to take sides in the conflicts. The wars ended in 1217 with the appointment of Håkon IV Håkonsson, who introduced clear laws of succession. From 1000 to 1300, the population increased from 150,000 to 400,000, resulting both in more land being cleared and the subdivision of farms. While in the Viking Age farmers owned their own land, by 1300, seventy per cent of the land was owned by the king, the church, or the aristocracy, and about twenty per cent of yields went to these landowners. The 14th century is described as Norway's golden age, with peace and increase in trade, especially with the British Islands, although Germany became increasingly important towards the end of the century. Throughout the High Middle Ages, the king established Norway as a sovereign state with a central administration and local representatives. In 1349, the Black Death spread to Norway and within a year killed a third of the population. Later plagues reduced the population to half the starting point by 1400. Many communities were entirely wiped out, resulting in an abundance of land, allowing farmers to switch to more animal husbandry. The reduction in taxes weakened the king's position, and many aristocrats lost the basis for their surplus. High tithes to church made it increasingly powerful and the archbishop became a member of the Council of State. The Hanseatic League took control over Norwegian trade during the 14th century and established a trading centre in Bergen. In 1380, Olaf Haakonsson inherited both the Norwegian (as Olaf IV) and Danish thrones (as Olaf II), creating a union between the two countries. In 1397, under Margaret I, the Kalmar Union was created between the three Scandinavian countries. She waged war against the Germans, resulting in a trade blockade and higher taxation on Norwegian goods, which led to a rebellion. However, the Norwegian Council of State was too weak to pull out of the union. Margaret pursued a centralising policy which inevitably favoured Denmark because of its greater population. Margaret also granted trade privileges to the Hanseatic merchants of Lübeck in Bergen in return for recognition of her rule, and these hurt the Norwegian economy. The Hanseatic merchants formed a state within a state in Bergen for generations. The "Victual Brothers" launched three devastating pirate raids on the port (the last in 1427). Norway slipped ever more to the background under the Oldenburg dynasty (established 1448). There was one revolt under Knut Alvsson in 1502. Norway took no part in the events which led to Swedish independence from Denmark in the 1520s. Kalmar Union Upon the death of King Haakon V in 1319, Magnus Eriksson, at just three years old, inherited the throne as King Magnus VII. A simultaneous movement to make Magnus King of Sweden proved successful (he was a grandson of King Magnus Ladulås of Sweden), and both the kings of Sweden and of Denmark were elected to the throne by their respective nobles. Thus Sweden and Norway were united under King Magnus VII. In 1349, the Black Death killed between 50% and 60% of Norway's population and led to a period of social and economic decline. Although the death rate was comparable with the rest of Europe, economic recovery took much longer because of the small, scattered population. Even before the plague, the population was only about 500,000. After the plague, many farms lay idle while the population slowly increased. However, the few surviving farms' tenants found their bargaining positions with their landlords greatly strengthened. King Magnus VII ruled Norway until 1350, when his son, Haakon, was placed on the throne as Haakon VI. In 1363, Haakon married Margaret, daughter of King Valdemar IV of Denmark. Upon the death of Haakon in 1379, his 10-year-old son Olaf IV acceded to the throne. As Olaf had already been elected to the throne of Denmark in 1376, Denmark and Norway entered a personal union. Olaf's mother and Haakon's widow, Queen Margaret, managed the foreign affairs of Denmark and Norway during Olaf's minority. Margaret was on the verge of achieving a union of Sweden with Denmark and Norway when Olaf IV suddenly died. Denmark made Margaret temporary ruler on the death of Olaf. On 2 February 1388, Norway followed suit and crowned Margaret. Queen Margaret knew that her power would be more secure if she were able to find a king to rule in her place. She settled on Eric of Pomerania, grandson of her sister. Thus at an all-Scandinavian meeting held at Kalmar, Erik of Pomerania was crowned king of all three Scandinavian countries, bringing the thrones of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden under the control of Queen Margaret when the country entered into the Kalmar Union. Early modern period After Sweden broke out of the Kalmar Union in 1521, Norway tried to follow suit, but the subsequent rebellion was defeated, and Norway remained in a union with Denmark until 1814. This period was by some referred to as the "400-Year Night", since all of the kingdom's intellectual and administrative power was centred in Copenhagen. With the introduction of Protestantism in 1536, the archbishopric in Trondheim was dissolved; Norway lost its independence and effectually became a colony of Denmark. The Church's incomes and possessions were instead redirected to the court in Copenhagen. Norway lost the steady stream of pilgrims to the relics of St. Olav at the Nidaros shrine, and with them, much of the contact with cultural and economic life in the rest of Europe. Eventually restored as a kingdom (albeit in legislative union with Denmark) in 1661, Norway saw its land area decrease in the 17th century with the loss of the provinces Båhuslen, Jemtland, and Herjedalen to Sweden, as the result of a number of disastrous wars with Sweden. In the north, its territory was increased by the acquisition of the northern provinces of Troms and Finnmark, at the expense of Sweden and Russia. The famine of 1695–1696 killed roughly 10% of Norway's population. The harvest failed in Scandinavia at least nine times between 1740 and 1800, with great loss of life. Later modern period After Denmark–Norway was attacked by the United Kingdom at the 1807 Battle of Copenhagen, it entered into an alliance with Napoleon, with the war leading to dire conditions and mass starvation in 1812. As the Danish kingdom was on the losing side in 1814, it was forced by the Treaty of Kiel to cede Norway to Sweden, while the old Norwegian provinces of Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands remained with the Danish crown. Norway took this opportunity to declare independence, adopted a constitution based on American and French models, and elected the Crown Prince of Denmark and Norway, Christian Frederick, as king on 17 May 1814 – celebrated as the Syttende mai (Seventeenth of May) holiday. Norwegian opposition to the decision to link Norway with Sweden caused the Norwegian–Swedish War to break out as Sweden tried to subdue Norway by military means. As Sweden's military was not strong enough to defeat the Norwegian forces outright, and Norway's treasury was not large enough to support a protracted war, and as British and Russian navies blockaded the Norwegian coast, the belligerents were forced to negotiate the Convention of Moss. Christian Frederik abdicated the Norwegian throne and authorised the Parliament of Norway to make the necessary constitutional amendments to allow for the personal union that Norway was forced to accept. On 4 November 1814, the Parliament (Storting) elected Charles XIII of Sweden as king of Norway, thereby establishing the union with Sweden. Under this arrangement, Norway kept its liberal constitution and its own independent institutions, though it shared a monarch and foreign policy with Sweden. Following the recession caused by the Napoleonic Wars, economic development of Norway remained slow until 1830. This period also saw the rise of Norwegian romantic nationalism, as Norwegians sought to define and express a distinct national character. The movement covered all branches of culture, including literature (Henrik Wergeland, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Jørgen Moe), painting (Hans Gude, Adolph Tidemand), music (Edvard Grieg), and even language policy, where attempts to define a native written language for Norway led to today's two official written forms for Norwegian: Bokmål and Nynorsk. King Charles III John came to the throne of Norway and Sweden in 1818 and reigned to 1844. He protected the constitution and liberties of Norway and Sweden during the age of Metternich. As such, he was regarded as a liberal monarch. However, he was ruthless in his use of paid informers, secret police and restrictions on the freedom of the press to put down public movements for reform—especially the Norwegian national independence movement. The Romantic Era that followed the reign of Charles III John brought some significant social and political reforms. In 1854, women won the right to inherit property. In 1863, the last trace of keeping unmarried women in the status of minors was removed. Furthermore, women were eligible for different occupations, particularly the common school teacher. By mid-century, Norway's democracy was limited; voting was limited to officials, property owners, leaseholders and burghers of incorporated towns. Norway remained a conservative society. Life in Norway (especially economic life) was "dominated by the aristocracy of professional men who filled most of the important posts in the central government". There was no strong bourgeois class to demand a breakdown of this aristocratic control. Thus, even while revolution swept over most of the countries of Europe in 1848, Norway was largely unaffected. Marcus Thrane was a Utopian socialist who in 1848 organised a labour society in Drammen. In just a few months, this society had a membership of 500 and was publishing its own newspaper. Within two years, 300 societies had been organised all over Norway, with a total membership of 20,000 drawn from the lower classes of both urban and rural areas. In the end, the revolt was easily crushed; Thrane was captured and jailed. In 1898, all men were granted universal suffrage, followed by all women in 1913. Dissolution of the union and the First World War Christian Michelsen, Prime Minister of Norway from 1905 to 1907, played a central role in the peaceful separation of Norway from Sweden on 7 June 1905. A national referendum confirmed the people's preference for a monarchy over a republic. However, no Norwegian could legitimately claim the throne, since none of Norway's noble families could claim royal descent. The government then offered the throne of Norway to Prince Carl of Denmark, a prince of the Dano-German royal house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and a distant relative of Norway's medieval kings. Following the plebiscite, he was unanimously elected king by the Norwegian Parliament; he took the name Haakon VII. Throughout the First World War, Norway remained neutral; however, diplomatic pressure from the British government meant that it heavily favoured the Allies. During the war, Norway exported fish to both Germany and Britain, until an ultimatum from the British government and anti-German sentiments as a result of German submarines targeting Norwegian merchantmen led to a termination of trade with Germany. 436 Norwegian merchantmen were sunk by the Kaiserliche Marine, with 1,150 Norwegian sailors killed. Second World War Norway once more proclaimed its neutrality during the Second World War, but was invaded by German forces on 9 April 1940. Although Norway was unprepared for the German surprise attack (see: Battle of Drøbak Sound, Norwegian Campaign, and Invasion of Norway), military and naval resistance lasted for two months. Norwegian armed forces in the north launched an offensive against the German forces in the Battles of Narvik, but were forced to surrender on 10 June after losing British support which had been diverted to France during the German invasion of France. King Haakon and the Norwegian government escaped to Rotherhithe in London. Throughout the war they sent radio speeches and supported clandestine military actions against the Germans. On the day of the invasion, the leader of the small National-Socialist party Nasjonal Samling, Vidkun Quisling, tried to seize power, but was forced by the German occupiers to step aside. Real power was wielded by the leader of the German occupation authority, Josef Terboven. Quisling, as minister president, later formed a collaborationist government under German control. Up to 15,000 Norwegians volunteered to fight in German units, including the Waffen-SS. Many Norwegians and persons of Norwegian descent joined the Allied forces as well as the Free Norwegian Forces. In June 1940, a small group had left Norway following their king to Britain. This group included 13 ships, five aircraft, and 500 men from the Royal Norwegian Navy. By the end of the war, the force had grown to 58 ships and 7,500 men in service in the Royal Norwegian Navy, 5 squadrons of aircraft in the newly formed Norwegian Air Force, and land forces including the Norwegian Independent Company 1 and 5 Troop as well as No. 10 Commandos. During German occupation, Norwegians built a resistance movement which incorporated civil disobedience and armed resistance including the destruction of Norsk Hydro's heavy water plant and stockpile of heavy water at Vemork, which crippled the German nuclear programme. More important to the Allied war effort, however, was the role of the Norwegian Merchant Marine, the fourth-largest merchant marine fleet in the world. It was led by the Norwegian shipping company Nortraship under the Allies throughout the war and took part in every war operation from the evacuation of Dunkirk to the Normandy landings. Every December Norway gives a Christmas tree to the United Kingdom as thanks for the British assistance during the war. Svalbard was not occupied by German troops, but Germany secretly established a meteorological station there in 1944. Post–World War II history From 1945 to 1962, the Labour Party held an absolute majority in the parliament. The government, led by prime minister Einar Gerhardsen, embarked on a programme inspired by Keynesian economics, emphasising state financed industrialisation and co-operation between trade unions and employers' organisations. Many measures of state control of the economy imposed during the war were continued, although the rationing of dairy products was lifted in 1949, while price controls and rationing of housing and cars continued until 1960. The wartime alliance with the United Kingdom and the United States continued in the post-war years. Although pursuing the goal of a socialist economy, the Labour Party distanced itself from the Communists, especially after the Communists' seizure of power in Czechoslovakia in 1948, and strengthened its foreign policy and defence policy ties with the US. Norway received Marshall Plan aid from the United States starting in 1947, joined the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) one year later, and became a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. Oil was discovered at the small Balder field in 1967, but production only began in 1999. In 1969, the Phillips Petroleum Company discovered petroleum resources at the Ekofisk field west of Norway. In 1973, the Norwegian government founded the State oil company, Statoil (now Equinor). Oil production did not provide net income until the early 1980s because of the large capital investment required. Around 1975, both the proportion and absolute number of workers in industry peaked. Since then labour-intensive industries and services like factory mass production and shipping have largely been outsourced. Norway was a founding member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Norway was twice invited to join the European Union, but ultimately declined after referendums that failed by narrow margins in 1972 and 1994. In 1981, a Conservative Party government led by Kåre Willoch replaced the Labour Party with a policy of stimulating the stagflated economy with tax cuts, economic liberalisation, deregulation of markets, and measures to curb record-high inflation (13.6% in 1981). Norway's first female prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland of the Labour Party continued many of the reforms, while backing traditional Labour concerns such as social security, high taxes, the industrialisation of nature, and feminism. By the late 1990s, Norway had paid off its foreign debt and had started accumulating a sovereign wealth fund. Since the 1990s, a divisive question in politics has been how much of the income from petroleum production the government should spend, and how much it should save. In 2011, Norway suffered two terrorist attacks by Anders Behring Breivik which struck the government quarter in Oslo and a summer camp of the Labour party's youth movement at Utøya island, resulting in 77 deaths and 319 wounded. Jens Stoltenberg led Norway as prime minister for eight years from 2005 to 2013. The 2013 Norwegian parliamentary election brought a more conservative government to power, with the Conservative Party and the Progress Party winning 43% of the electorate's votes. In the Norwegian parliamentary election 2017 the centre-right government of Prime Minister Erna Solberg won re-election. The 2021 Norwegian parliamentary election saw a big win for the left-wing opposition in an election fought on climate change, inequality, and oil; Labour leader Jonas Gahr Støre was sworn in as prime minister. Geography Norway's core territory comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula; the remote island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard are also included. The Antarctic Peter I Island and the sub-Antarctic Bouvet Island are dependent territories and thus not considered part of the Kingdom. Norway also claims a section of Antarctica known as Queen Maud Land. Norwegian possessions in the North Atlantic, Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Iceland, remained Danish when Norway was passed to Sweden at the Treaty of Kiel. Norway also comprised Bohuslän until 1658, Jämtland and Härjedalen until 1645, Shetland and Orkney until 1468, and the Hebrides and Isle of Man until the Treaty of Perth in 1266. Norway comprises the western and northernmost part of Scandinavia in Northern Europe, between latitudes 57° and 81° N, and longitudes 4° and 32° E. Norway is the northernmost of the Nordic countries and if Svalbard is included also the easternmost. Norway includes the northernmost point on the European mainland. The rugged coastline is broken by huge fjords and thousands of islands. The coastal baseline is 2,532 kilometres (1,573 mi). The coastline of the mainland including fjords stretches 28,953 kilometres (17,991 mi), when islands are included the coastline has been estimated to 100,915 kilometres (62,706 mi). Norway shares a 1,619-kilometre (1,006 mi) land border with Sweden, 727 kilometres (452 mi) with Finland, and 196 kilometres (122 mi) with Russia to the east. To the north, west and south, Norway is bordered by the Barents Sea, the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea, and Skagerrak. The Scandinavian Mountains form much of the border with Sweden. At 385,207 square kilometres (148,729 sq mi) (including Svalbard and Jan Mayen; 323,808 square kilometres (125,023 sq mi) without), much of the country is dominated by mountainous or high terrain, with a great variety of natural features caused by prehistoric glaciers and varied topography. The most noticeable of these are the fjords. Sognefjorden is the world's second deepest fjord, and the world's longest at 204 kilometres (127 mi). The lake Hornindalsvatnet is the deepest lake in Europe. Norway has about 400,000 lakes and 239,057 registered islands. Permafrost can be found all year in the higher mountain areas and in the interior of Finnmark county. Numerous glaciers are found in Norway. The land is mostly made of hard granite and gneiss rock, but slate, sandstone, and limestone are also common, and the lowest elevations contain marine deposits. Climate Because of the Gulf Stream and prevailing westerlies, Norway experiences higher temperatures and more precipitation than expected at such northern latitudes, especially along the coast. The mainland experiences four distinct seasons, with colder winters and less precipitation inland. The northernmost part has a mostly maritime Subarctic climate, while Svalbard has an Arctic tundra climate. The southern and western parts of Norway, fully exposed to Atlantic storm fronts, experience more precipitation and have milder winters than the eastern and far northern parts. Areas to the east of the coastal mountains are in a rain shadow, and have lower rain and snow totals than the west. The lowlands around Oslo have the warmest summers, but also cold weather and snow in wintertime. The sunniest weather is along the south coast, but sometimes even the coast far north can be very sunny – the sunniest month with 430 sun hours was recorded in Tromsø. Because of Norway's high latitude, there are large seasonal variations in daylight. From late May to late July, the sun never completely descends beneath the horizon in areas north of the Arctic Circle, and the rest of the country experiences up to 20 hours of daylight per day. Conversely, from late November to late January, the sun never rises above the horizon in the north, and daylight hours are very short in the rest of the country. Temperature anomalies found in coastal locations are exceptional, with southern Lofoten and Bø Municipality having all monthly means above freezing in spite of being north of the Arctic Circle. The very northernmost coast of Norway would be ice-covered in winter if not for the Gulf Stream. The east of the country has a more continental climate, and the mountain ranges have subarctic and tundra climates. There is also higher rainfall in areas exposed to the Atlantic, especially the western slopes of the mountain ranges and areas close, such as Bergen. The valleys east of the mountain ranges are the driest; some of the valleys are sheltered by mountains in most directions. Saltdal Municipality in Nordland is the driest place with 211 millimetres (8.3 inches) precipitation annually (1991–2020). In southern Norway, Skjåk Municipality in Innlandet county gets 295 millimetres (11.6 inches) precipitation. Finnmarksvidda and some interior valleys of Troms county receive around 400 millimetres (16 inches) annually, and the high Arctic Longyearbyen 217 millimetres (8.5 inches). Parts of southeastern Norway including parts of Mjøsa have a humid continental climate (Köppen Dfb), the southern and western coasts and also the coast north to Bodø have an oceanic climate (Cfb), and the outer coast further north almost to North Cape has a subpolar oceanic climate (Cfc). Further inland in the south and at higher altitudes, and also in much of Northern Norway, the subarctic climate (Dfc) dominates. A small strip of land along the coast east of North Cape (including Vardø) earlier had tundra/alpine/polar climate (ET), but this is mostly gone with the updated 1991–2020 climate normals, making this also subarctic. Large parts of Norway are covered by mountains and high altitude plateaus, and about one third of the land is above the treeline and thus exhibit tundra/alpine/polar climate (ET). Biodiversity Norway has a larger number of different habitats than almost any other European country. There are approximately 60,000 species in Norway and adjacent waters (excluding bacteria and viruses). The Norwegian Shelf large marine ecosystem is considered highly productive. The total number of species include 16,000 species of insects (probably 4,000 more species yet to be described), 20,000 species of algae, 1,800 species of lichen, 1,050 species of mosses, 2,800 species of vascular plants, up to 7,000 species of fungi, 450 species of birds (250 species nesting in Norway), 90 species of mammals, 45 fresh-water species of fish, 150 salt-water species of fish, 1,000 species of fresh-water invertebrates, and 3,500 species of salt-water invertebrates. About 40,000 of these species have been described by science. The red list of 2010 encompasses 4,599 species. Norway contains five terrestrial ecoregions: Sarmatic mixed forests, Scandinavian coastal conifer forests, Scandinavian and Russian taiga, Kola Peninsula tundra, and Scandinavian montane birch forest and grasslands. Seventeen species are listed mainly because they are endangered on a global scale, such as the European beaver, even if the population in Norway is not seen as endangered. The number of threatened and near-threatened species equals to 3,682; it includes 418 fungi species, many of which are closely associated with the small remaining old-growth forests, 36 bird species, and 16 species of mammals. In 2010, 2,398 species were listed as endangered or vulnerable; of these 1,250 were listed as vulnerable (VU), 871 as endangered (EN), and 276 species as critically endangered (CR), among which were the grey wolf, the Arctic fox, and the pool frog. The largest predator in Norwegian waters is the sperm whale, and the largest fish is the basking shark. The largest predator on land is the polar bear, while the brown bear is the largest predator on the Norwegian mainland. The largest land animal on the mainland is the elk (American English: moose). Environment Attractive and dramatic scenery and landscape are found throughout Norway. The west coast of southern Norway and the coast of northern Norway present some of the most visually impressive coastal sceneries in the world. National Geographic has listed the Norwegian fjords as the world's top tourist attraction. The country is also home to the natural phenomena of the Midnight sun (during summer), as well as the Aurora borealis known also as the Northern lights. The 2016 Environmental Performance Index from Yale University, Columbia University and the World Economic Forum put Norway in seventeenth place, immediately below Croatia and Switzerland. The index is based on environmental risks to human health, habitat loss, and changes in CO2 emissions. The index notes over-exploitation of fisheries, but not Norway's whaling or oil exports. Norway had a 2019 Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 6.98/10, ranking it 60th globally out of 172 countries. Politics and government Norway is considered to be one of the most developed democracies and states of justice in the world. Since 2010, Norway has been classified as the world's most democratic country by the Democracy Index. According to the Constitution of Norway, which was adopted on 17 May 1814 and was inspired by the United States Declaration of Independence and French Revolution, Norway is a unitary constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary system of government, wherein the King of Norway is the head of state and the prime minister is the head of government. Power is separated among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government, as defined by the Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document. The monarch officially retains executive power. But following the introduction of a parliamentary system of government, the duties of the monarch became strictly representative and ceremonial. The Monarch is commander-in-chief of the Norwegian Armed Forces, and serves as chief diplomatic official abroad and as a symbol of unity. Harald V of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg ascended to the Norwegian throne in 1991, the first since the 14th century who has been born in the country. Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway, is the heir to the throne. In practice, the Prime Minister exercises the executive powers. Constitutionally, legislative power is vested with both the government and the Parliament of Norway, but the latter is the supreme legislature and a unicameral body. Norway is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy. The Parliament can pass a law by simple majority of the 169 representatives, of which 150 are elected directly from 19 constituencies, and an additional 19 seats ("levelling seats") are allocated on a nationwide basis to make the representation in parliament correspond better with the popular vote for the political parties. A 4% election threshold is required for a party to gain levelling seats in Parliament. The Parliament of Norway, called the Storting, ratifies national treaties developed by the executive branch. It can impeach members of the government if their acts are declared unconstitutional. If an indicted suspect is impeached, Parliament has the power to remove the person from office. The position of prime minister is allocated to the member of Parliament who can obtain the confidence of a majority in Parliament, usually the current leader of the largest political party or, more effectively, through a coalition of parties; Norway has often been ruled by minority governments. The prime minister nominates the cabinet, traditionally drawn from members of the same political party or parties in the Storting, making up the government. The PM organises the executive government and exercises its power as vested by the Constitution. Norway has a state church, the Lutheran Church of Norway, which has gradually been granted more internal autonomy in day-to-day affairs, but which still has a special constitutional status. Formerly, the PM had to have more than half the members of cabinet be members of the Church of Norway; this rule was removed in 2012. The issue of separation of church and state in Norway has been increasingly controversial. A part of this is the evolution of the public school subject Christianity, a required subject since 1739. Even the state's loss in a battle at the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg in 2007 did not settle the matter. As of 1 January 2017, the Church of Norway is a separate legal entity, and no longer a branch of the civil service. Through the Council of State, a privy council presided over by the monarch, the prime minister and the cabinet meet at the Royal Palace and formally consult the Monarch. All government bills need formal approval by the monarch before and after introduction to Parliament. The Council approves all of the monarch's actions as head of state. Members of the Storting are directly elected from party-list proportional representation in nineteen plural-member constituencies in a national multi-party system. Historically, both the Norwegian Labour Party and Conservative Party have played leading political roles. In the early 21st century, the Labour Party has been in power since the 2005 election, in a Red–Green Coalition with the Socialist Left Party and the Centre Party. Since 2005, both the Conservative Party and the Progress Party have won numerous seats in the Parliament. In national elections in September 2013, two political parties, Høyre and Fremskrittspartiet, were elected on promises of tax cuts, more spending on infrastructure and education, better services and stricter rules on immigration, formed a government. Erna Solberg became prime minister, the second female prime minister after Gro Harlem Brundtland and the first conservative prime minister since Jan P. Syse. Solberg said her win was "a historic election victory for the right-wing parties". Her centre-right government won re-election in the 2017 Norwegian parliamentary election. Norway's new centre-left cabinet under Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, the leader the Labour Party, took office on 14 October 2021. Administrative divisions Norway, a unitary state, is divided into fifteen first-level administrative counties (fylke). The counties are administered through directly elected county councils who elect the County Mayor. Additionally, the King and government are represented in every county by a County Governor (Norwegian: statsforvalteren). The counties are then sub-divided into 357 second-level municipalities (Norwegian: kommuner), which in turn are administered by directly elected municipal council, headed by a mayor and a small executive cabinet. The capital of Oslo is considered both a county and a municipality. Norway has two integral overseas territories out of mainland: Jan Mayen and Svalbard, the only developed island in the archipelago of the same name, located far to the north of the Norwegian mainland. There are 108 settlements that have town/city status in Norway (the Norwegian word by is used to represent these places and that word can be translated as either town or city in English). Cities/towns in Norway were historically designated by the King and used to have special rules and privileges under the law. This was changed in the late 20th century, so now towns/cities have no special rights and a municipality can designate an urban settlement as a city/town. Towns and cities in Norway do not have to be large. Some cities have over a million residents such as Oslo, while others are much smaller such as Honningsvåg with about 2,200 residents. Usually, there is only one town within a municipality, but there are some municipalities that have more than one town within it (such as Larvik Municipality which has the town of Larvik and the town of Stavern. Dependencies of Norway There are three Antarctic and Subantarctic dependencies: Bouvet Island, Peter I Island, and Queen Maud Land. On most maps, there was an unclaimed area between Queen Maud Land and the South Pole until 12 June 2015 when Norway formally annexed that area. Largest populated areas Judicial system and law enforcement Norway uses a civil law system where laws are created and amended in Parliament and the system regulated through the Courts of justice of Norway. It consists of the Supreme Court of 20 permanent judges and a Chief Justice, appellate courts, city and district courts, and conciliation councils. The judiciary is independent of executive and legislative branches. While the Prime Minister nominates Supreme Court Justices for office, their nomination must be approved by Parliament and formally confirmed by the Monarch. Usually, judges attached to regular courts are formally appointed by the Monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister. The Courts' formal mission is to regulate the Norwegian judicial system, interpret the Constitution, and implement the legislation adopted by Parliament. In its judicial reviews, it monitors the legislative and executive branches to ensure that they comply with provisions of enacted legislation. The law is enforced in Norway by the Norwegian Police Service. It is a Unified National Police Service made up of 27 Police Districts and several specialist agencies, such as Norwegian National Authority for the Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime, known as Økokrim; and the National Criminal Investigation Service, known as Kripos, each headed by a chief of police. The Police Service is headed by the National Police Directorate, which reports to the Ministry of Justice and the Police. The Police Directorate is headed by a National Police Commissioner. The only exception is the Norwegian Police Security Agency, whose head answers directly to the Ministry of Justice and the Police. Norway abolished the death penalty for regular criminal acts in 1902 and for high treason in war and war-crimes in 1979. Norwegian prisons are humane, rather than tough, with emphasis on rehabilitation. At 20%, Norway's re-conviction rate is among the lowest in the world. Reporters Without Borders, in its 2023 World Press Freedom Index, ranked Norway in first place out of 180 countries. In general, the legal and institutional framework in Norway is characterised by a high degree of transparency, accountability and integrity, and the perception and the occurrence of corruption are very low. Human rights Norway has been considered a progressive country, which has adopted legislation and policies to support women's rights, minority rights, and LGBT rights. As early as 1884, 171 of the leading figures, among them five Prime Ministers, co-founded the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights. They successfully campaigned for women's right to education, women's suffrage, the right to work, and other gender equality policies. From the 1970s, gender equality also came high on the state agenda, with the establishment of a public body to promote gender equality, which evolved into the Gender Equality and Anti-Discrimination Ombud. Civil society organisations also continue to play an important role; women's rights organisations are today organised in the Norwegian Women's Lobby umbrella organisation. In 1990, the Norwegian constitution was amended to grant absolute primogeniture to the Norwegian throne, meaning that the eldest child, regardless of gender, takes precedence in the line of succession. As it was not retroactive, the current successor to the throne is the eldest son of the King, rather than his eldest child. The Sámi people have for centuries been the subject of discrimination and abuse by the dominant cultures in Scandinavia and Russia, those countries claiming possession of Sámi lands. Norway has been greatly criticised by the international community for the politics of Norwegianization of and discrimination against the indigenous population of the country. Nevertheless, Norway was, in 1990, the first country to recognise ILO-convention 169 on indigenous people recommended by the UN. Norway was the first country in the world to enact an anti-discrimination law protecting the rights of gay men and lesbians. In 1993, Norway became the second country to legalise civil union partnerships for same-sex couples, and on 1 January 2009, Norway became the sixth country to legalise same-sex marriage. As a promoter of human rights, Norway has held the annual Oslo Freedom Forum conference, a gathering described by The Economist as "on its way to becoming a human-rights equivalent of the Davos economic forum". Foreign relations Norway maintains embassies in 82 countries. 60 countries maintain an embassy in Norway, all of them in the capital, Oslo. Norway is a founding member of the United Nations (UN), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Council of Europe and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Norway issued applications for accession to the European Union (EU) and its predecessors in 1962, 1967 and 1992, respectively. While Denmark, Sweden and Finland obtained membership, the Norwegian electorate rejected the treaties of accession in referendums in 1972 and 1994. After the 1994 referendum, Norway maintained its membership in the European Economic Area (EEA), granting the country access to the internal market of the Union, on the condition that Norway implements the Union's pieces of legislation which are deemed relevant. Successive Norwegian governments have, since 1994, requested participation in parts of the EU's co-operation that go beyond the provisions of the EEA agreement. Non-voting participation by Norway has been granted in, for instance, the Union's Common Security and Defence Policy, the Schengen Agreement, and the European Defence Agency, as well as 19 separate programmes. Norway participated in the 1990s brokering of the Oslo Accords, an unsuccessful attempt to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Military The Norwegian Armed Forces numbers about 25,000 personnel, including civilian employees. According to 2009 mobilisation plans, full mobilisation produces approximately 83,000 combatant personnel. Norway has conscription (including 6–12 months of training); in 2013, the country became the first in Europe and NATO to draft women as well as men. However, due to less need for conscripts after the Cold War, few people have to serve if they are not motivated. The Armed Forces are subordinate to the Norwegian Ministry of Defence. The Commander-in-Chief is King Harald V. The military of Norway is divided into the Norwegian Army, the Royal Norwegian Navy, the Royal Norwegian Air Force, the Norwegian Cyber Defence Force and the Home Guard. The country was one of the founding nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) on 4 April 1949. Norway contributed in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan. Additionally, Norway has contributed in several missions in contexts of the United Nations, NATO, and the Common Security and Defence Policy of the European Union. Economy Norwegians enjoy the second-highest GDP per capita among European countries (after Luxembourg), and the sixth-highest GDP (PPP) per capita in the world. Norway ranks as the second-wealthiest country in monetary value, with the largest capital reserve per capita of any nation. According to the CIA World Factbook, Norway is a net external creditor of debt. Norway reclaimed first place in the world in the UNDP Human Development Index (HDI) in 2009. The standard of living in Norway is among the highest in the world. Foreign Policy magazine ranks Norway last in its Failed States Index for 2009 and 2023, judging Norway to be the world's most well-functioning and stable country. The OECD ranks Norway fourth in the 2013 equalised Better Life Index and third in intergenerational earnings elasticity according to a 2010 study. The Norwegian economy is an example of a mixed economy; a prosperous capitalist welfare state, it features a combination of free market activity and large state ownership in certain key sectors, influenced by both liberal governments from the late 19th century and later by social democratic governments in the postwar era. Public healthcare in Norway is free (after an annual charge of around 2000 kroner for those over 16), and parents have 46 weeks paid parental leave. The state income derived from natural resources includes a significant contribution from petroleum production. As of 2016, Norway has an unemployment rate of 4.8%, with 68% of the population aged 15–74 employed. People in the labour force are either employed or looking for work. As of 2013, 9.5% of the population aged 18–66 receive a disability pension and 30% of the labour force are employed by the government, the highest in the OECD. The hourly productivity levels, as well as average hourly wages in Norway, are among the highest in the world. The egalitarian values of Norwegian society have kept the wage difference between the lowest paid worker and the CEO of most companies as much less than in comparable western economies. This is also evident in Norway's low Gini coefficient. The state has large ownership positions in key industrial sectors, such as the strategic petroleum sector (Equinor), hydroelectric energy production (Statkraft), aluminium production (Norsk Hydro), the largest Norwegian bank (DNB), and telecommunication provider (Telenor). Through these big companies, the government controls approximately 30% of the stock values at the Oslo Stock Exchange. When non-listed companies are included, the state has even higher share in ownership (mainly from direct oil licence ownership). Norway is a major shipping nation and has the world's sixth largest merchant fleet, with 1,412 Norwegian-owned merchant vessels. By referendums in 1972 and 1994, Norwegians rejected proposals to join the European Union (EU). However, Norway, together with Iceland and Liechtenstein, participates in the European Union's single market through the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement. The EEA Treaty between the European Union countries and the EFTA countries—transposed into Norwegian law via "EØS-loven"—describes the procedures for implementing European Union rules in Norway and the other EFTA countries. Norway is a highly integrated member of most sectors of the EU internal market. Some sectors, such as agriculture, oil and fish, are not wholly covered by the EEA Treaty. Norway has also acceded to the Schengen Agreement and several other intergovernmental agreements among the EU member states. The country is richly endowed with natural resources including petroleum, hydropower, fish, forests, and minerals. Large reserves of petroleum and natural gas were discovered in the 1960s, which led to an economic boom. Norway has obtained one of the highest standards of living in the world in part by having a large amount of natural resources compared to the size of the population. In 2011, 28% of state revenues were generated from the petroleum industry. Norway was the first country to ban deforestation, with a view to preventing its rain forests from vanishing. The country declared its intention at the UN Climate Summit in 2014 alongside Great Britain and Germany. Resources Oil industry Export revenues from oil and gas have risen to over 40% of total exports and constitute almost 20% of the GDP. Norway is the fifth-largest oil exporter and third-largest gas exporter in the world, but it is not a member of OPEC. In 1995, the Norwegian government established the sovereign wealth fund ("Government Pension Fund – Global") to be funded with oil revenues. The government controls its petroleum resources through a combination of state ownership in major operators in the oil fields (with approximately 62% ownership in Equinor in 2007) and the fully state-owned Petoro, which has a market value of about twice Equinor, and SDFI. Finally, the government controls licensing of exploration and production of fields. The fund invests in developed financial markets outside Norway. Spending from the fund is constrained by the budgetary rule (Handlingsregelen), which limits spending over time to no more than the real value yield of the fund, lowered in 2017 to 3% of the fund's total value. Between 1966 and 2013, Norwegian companies drilled 5,085 oil wells, mostly in the North Sea. Oil fields not yet in the production phase include: Wisting Central—calculated size in 2013 at 65–156 million barrels of oil and 10 to 40 billion cubic feet (0.28 to 1.13 billion cubic metres), (utvinnbar) of gas. and the Castberg Oil Field (Castberg-feltet)—calculated size at 540 million barrels of oil, and 2 to 7 billion cubic feet (57 to 198 million cubic metres) (utvinnbar) of gas. Both oil fields are located in the Barents Sea. Norway is also the world's second-largest exporter of fish (in value, after China). Fish from fish farms and catch constitutes the second largest (behind oil/natural gas) export product measured in value. Norway is the world's largest producer of salmon, followed by Chile. Hydroelectric plants generate roughly 98–99% of Norway's electric power, more than any other country in the world. Norway contains significant mineral resources, and in 2013, its mineral production was valued at US$1.5 billion (Norwegian Geological Survey data). The most valuable minerals are calcium carbonate (limestone), building stone, nepheline syenite, olivine, iron, titanium, and nickel. In 2017, the Government Pension Fund controlled assets surpassed a value of US$1 trillion (equal to US$190,000 per capita), about 250% of Norway's 2017 GDP. It is the largest sovereign wealth fund in the world. Other nations with economies based on natural resources, such as Russia, are trying to learn from Norway by establishing similar funds. The investment choices of the Norwegian fund are directed by ethical guidelines; for example, the fund is not allowed to invest in companies that produce parts for nuclear weapons. Norway's highly transparent investment scheme is lauded by the international community. Transport Due to the low population density, narrow shape and long coastlines of Norway, its public transport is less developed than in many European countries, especially outside the major cities. The country has long-standing water transport traditions, but the Norwegian Ministry of Transport and Communications has in recent years implemented rail, road, and air transport through numerous subsidiaries to develop the country's infrastructure. Under discussion is development of a new high-speed rail system between the nation's largest cities. Norway's main railway network consists of 4,114 kilometres (2,556 mi) of standard gauge lines, of which 242 kilometres (150 mi) is double track and 64 kilometres (40 mi) high-speed rail (210 km/h) while 62% is electrified at 15 kV  16.7 Hz AC. The railways transported 56,827,000 passengers, 2,956 million passenger-kilometres, and 24,783,000 tonnes of cargo for 3,414 million tonne-kilometres. The entire network is owned by Bane NOR. Domestic passenger trains are operated by various companies, including Vy, SJ, Go-Ahead and Flytoget, while freight trains are operated by CargoNet and OnRail. Investment in new infrastructure and maintenance is financed through the state budget, and subsidies are provided for passenger train operations. NSB operates long-haul trains, including night trains, regional services and four commuter train systems, around Oslo, Trondheim, Bergen and Stavanger. Norway has approximately 92,946 kilometres (57,754 mi) of road network, of which 72,033 kilometres (44,759 mi) are paved and 664 kilometres (413 mi) are motorway. The four tiers of road routes are national, county, municipal and private, with national and primary county roads numbered en route. The most important national routes are part of the European route scheme. The two most prominent are the European route E6 going north–south through the entire country, and the E39, which follows the West Coast. National and county roads are managed by the Norwegian Public Roads Administration. Norway has the world's largest registered stock of plug-in electric vehicles per capita. In March 2014, Norway became the first country where over 1 in every 100 passenger cars on the roads is a plug-in electric. The plug-in electric segment market share of new car sales is also the highest in the world. According to a report by Dagens Næringsliv in June 2016, the country would like to ban sales of gasoline and diesel powered vehicles as early as 2025. Of the 98 airports in Norway, 52 are public, and 46 are operated by the state-owned Avinor. Seven airports have more than one million passengers annually. A total of 41,089,675 passengers passed through Norwegian airports in 2007, of whom 13,397,458 were international. The central gateway to Norway by air is Oslo Airport, Gardermoen. Located about 35 kilometres (22 mi) northeast of Oslo, it is hub for the two major Norwegian airlines: Scandinavian Airlines and Norwegian Air Shuttle, and for regional aircraft from Western Norway. There are departures to most European countries and some intercontinental destinations. A direct high-speed train connects to Oslo Central Station every 10 minutes for a 20 min ride. Research Internationally recognised Norwegian scientists include the mathematicians Niels Henrik Abel and Sophus Lie. Caspar Wessel was the first to describe vectors and complex numbers in the complex plane. Ernst S. Selmer's advanced research lead to the modernisation of crypto-algorithms. Thoralf Skolem made revolutionary contributions to mathematical logic. Øystein Ore and Ludwig Sylow made important contributions in group theory. Atle Selberg was one of the most significant mathematicians of the 20th century, for which he was awarded a Fields Medal, Wolf Prize and Abel Prize. Other scientists include the physicists Ægidius Elling, Ivar Giaever, Carl Anton Bjerknes, Christopher Hansteen, William Zachariasen and Kristian Birkeland, the neuroscientists May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser, and the chemists Lars Onsager, Odd Hassel, Peter Waage, Erik Rotheim, and Cato Maximilian Guldberg. Mineralogist Victor Goldschmidt is considered to be one of two founders of modern geochemistry. The meteorologists Vilhelm Bjerknes and Ragnar Fjørtoft played a central role in the history of numerical weather prediction. Web pioneer Håkon Wium Lie developed Cascading Style Sheets. Pål Spilling participated in the development of the Internet Protocol and brought the Internet to Europe. Computer scientists Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard are considered to be the fathers of the tremendously influential Simula and object-oriented programming, for which they were awarded a Turing Award. In the 20th century, Norwegian academics have been pioneering in many social sciences, including criminology, sociology and peace and conflict studies. Prominent academics include Arne Næss, a philosopher and founder of deep ecology; Johan Galtung, the founder of peace studies; Nils Christie and Thomas Mathiesen, criminologists; Fredrik Barth, a social anthropologist; Vilhelm Aubert, Harriet Holter and Erik Grønseth, sociologists; Tove Stang Dahl, a pioneer of women's law; Stein Rokkan, a political scientist; and Ragnar Frisch, Trygve Haavelmo, and Finn E. Kydland, economists. The Kingdom of Norway has produced thirteen Nobel laureates. Norway was ranked 21st in the Global Innovation Index in 2024. Tourism In 2008, Norway ranked 17th in the World Economic Forum's Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report. Tourism in Norway contributed to 4.2% of the gross domestic product as reported in 2016. Every one in fifteen people throughout the country work in the tourism industry. Tourism is seasonal in Norway, with more than half of total tourists visiting between the months of May and August. The main attractions of Norway are the varied landscapes that extend across the Arctic Circle. It is famous for its coastline and its mountains, ski resorts, lakes and woods. Popular tourist destinations in Norway include Oslo, Ålesund, Bergen, Stavanger, Trondheim, Kristiansand, Arendal, Tromsø, Fredrikstad, and Tønsberg. Much of the nature of Norway remains unspoiled, and thus attracts numerous hikers and skiers. The fjords, mountains and waterfalls in Western Norway and Northern Norway attract several hundred thousand foreign tourists each year. In the cities, cultural idiosyncrasies such as the Holmenkollen ski jump in Oslo and Saga Oseberg in Tønsberg attract many visitors, as do landmarks such as Bryggen in Bergen, Vigeland installation in Frogner Park in Oslo, Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, Fredrikstad Fortress (Gamlebyen) in Fredrikstad, and the ruin park of Tønsberg Fortress in Tønsberg. Demographics Population Norway's population was 5,384,576 people in the third quarter of 2020. Norwegians are an ethnic North Germanic people. The total fertility rate (TFR) in 2018 was estimated at 1.56 children born per woman, below the replacement rate of 2.1, it remains considerably below the high of 4.69 children born per woman in 1877. In 2018 the median age of the Norwegian population was 39.3 years. The Sámi people are indigenous to the Far North and have traditionally inhabited central and northern parts of Norway and Sweden, as well as areas in northern Finland and in Russia on the Kola Peninsula. Another national minority are the Kven people, descendants of Finnish-speaking people who migrated to northern Norway from the 18th up to the 20th century. From the 19th century up to the 1970s, the Norwegian government tried to assimilate both the Sámi and the Kven, encouraging them to adopt the majority language, culture and religion. Because of this "Norwegianization process", many families of Sámi or Kven ancestry now identify as ethnic Norwegian. The national minorities of Norway are Kvens, Jews, Forest Finns, and Romani people. In 2017, the population of Norway ranked first on the World Happiness Report. Migration Particularly in the 19th century, when economic conditions were difficult in Norway, tens of thousands of people migrated to the United States and Canada, where they could work and buy land in frontier areas. Many went to the Midwest and Pacific Northwest. In 2006, according to the US Census Bureau, almost 4.7 million persons identified as Norwegian Americans, which was larger than the population of ethnic Norwegians in Norway itself. In the 2011 Canadian census, 452,705 Canadian citizens identified as having Norwegian ancestry. In 2024, approximately 931,081 individuals (16.8% of the population) of the population of Norway were immigrants. Of these, 386,559 (41.5%) had a Western background (Europe, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), while 544,521 (58.5%) had a non-Western background (Asia, Africa, South and Central America). 221,459 invidiuals (4% of the population) were children of immigrants, born in Norway. The largest groups of immigrants have come from Poland, Lithuania, Sweden and Syria, as well as Ukraine since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Immigrants have settled in all Norwegian municipalities. In 2013, the cities with the highest share of immigrants were Oslo (32%) and Drammen (27%). According to Reuters, Oslo is the "fastest growing city in Europe because of increased immigration". In recent years, immigration has accounted for most of Norway's population growth. Religion Church of Norway Separation of church and state happened significantly later in Norway than in most of Europe, and remains incomplete. In 2012, the Norwegian parliament voted to grant the Church of Norway greater autonomy, a decision which was confirmed in a constitutional amendment on 21 May 2012. Until 2012 parliamentary officials were required to be members of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Norway, and at least half of all government ministers had to be a member of the state church. As state church, the Church of Norway's clergy were viewed as state employees, and the central and regional church administrations were part of the state administration. Members of the Royal family are required to be members of the Lutheran church. On 1 January 2017, Norway made the church independent of the state, but retained the Church's status as the "people's church". Most Norwegians are registered at baptism as members of the Church of Norway. Many remain in the church to participate in the community and practices such as baptism, confirmation, marriage, and burial rites. About 70.6% of Norwegians were members of the Church of Norway in 2017. In 2017, about 53.6% of all newborns were baptised and about 57.9% of all 15-year-olds were confirmed in the church. Religious affiliation According to the 2010 Eurobarometer Poll, 22% of Norwegian citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", 44% responded that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 29% responded that "they don't believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force". Five per cent gave no response. In the early 1990s, studies estimated that between 4.7% and 5.3% of Norwegians attended church on a weekly basis. This figure has dropped to about 2%. In 2010, 10% of the population was religiously unaffiliated, while another 9% were members of religious communities outside the Church of Norway. Other Christian denominations total about 4.9% of the population, the largest of which is the Roman Catholic Church, with 83,000 members, according to 2009 government statistics. The Aftenposten (Evening Post) in October 2012 reported there were about 115,234 registered Roman Catholics in Norway; the reporter estimated that the total number of people with a Roman Catholic background may be 170,000–200,000 or higher. Others include Pentecostals (39,600), the Evangelical Lutheran Free Church of Norway (19,600), the United Methodist Church in Norway (11,000), Baptists (9,900), Eastern Orthodox (9,900), Brunstad Christian Church (6,800), Seventh-day Adventists (5,100), Assyrians and Chaldeans, and others. The Swedish, Finnish and Icelandic Lutheran congregations in Norway have about 27,500 members in total. Other Christian denominations comprise less than 1% each, including 4,000 members in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and 12,000 Jehovah's Witnesses. Among non-Christian religions, Islam is the largest, with 166,861 registered members (2018), and probably fewer than 200,000 in total. Other religions comprise less than 1% each, including 819 adherents of Judaism. Indian immigrants introduced Hinduism to Norway, which in 2011 has slightly more than 5,900 adherents, or 1% of non-Lutheran Norwegians. Sikhism has approximately 3,000 adherents, with most living in Oslo, which has two gurdwaras. Drammen also has a sizeable population of Sikhs; the largest gurdwara in north Europe was built in Lier. There are eleven Buddhist organisations, grouped under the Buddhistforbundet organisation, with slightly over 14,000 members, which make up 0.2% of the population. The Baháʼí Faith religion has slightly more than 1,000 adherents. Around 1.7% (84,500) of Norwegians belong to the secular Norwegian Humanist Association. From 2006 to 2011, the fastest-growing religious communities in Norway were Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Oriental Orthodox Christianity, which grew in membership by 80%; however, their share of the total population remains small, at 0.2%. It is associated with the immigration from Eritrea and Ethiopia, and to a lesser extent from Central and Eastern European and Middle Eastern countries. Other fast-growing religions were Roman Catholicism (78.7%), Hinduism (59.6%), Islam (48.1%), and Buddhism (46.7%). Indigenous religions As in other Scandinavian countries, the ancient Norse followed a form of Germanic paganism known as Norse paganism. By the end of the 11th century, when Norway had been Christianised, the indigenous Norse religion and practices were prohibited. Remnants of the native religion and beliefs of Norway survive today in the form of names, referential names of cities and locations, the days of the week, and everyday language. Modern interest in the old ways has led to a revival of pagan religious practices in the form of Åsatru. The Norwegian Åsatrufellesskapet Bifrost formed in 1996; in 2011, the fellowship had about 300 members. Foreningen Forn Sed was formed in 1999 and has been recognised by the Norwegian government. The Sámi minority retained their shamanistic religion well into the 18th century, when most converted to Christianity under the influence of Dano-Norwegian Lutheran missionaries. Today there is a renewed appreciation for the Sámi traditional way of life, which has led to a revival of Noaidevuohta. Some Norwegian and Sámi celebrities are reported to visit shamans for guidance. Health Norway was awarded first place according to the UN's Human Development Index (HDI) for 2013. From the 1900s, improvements in public health occurred as a result of development in several areas such as social and living conditions, changes in disease and medical outbreaks, establishment of the health care system, and emphasis on public health matters. Vaccination and increased treatment opportunities with antibiotics resulted in great improvements within the Norwegian population. Improved hygiene and better nutrition were factors that contributed to improved health. The disease pattern in Norway changed from communicable diseases to non-communicable diseases and chronic diseases as cardiovascular disease. Inequalities and social differences are still present in public health in Norway. In 2013 the infant mortality rate was 2.5 per 1,000 live births among children under the age of one. For girls it was 2.7 and for boys 2.3, which is the lowest infant mortality rate for boys ever recorded in Norway. Education Higher education in Norway is offered by a range of seven universities, five specialised colleges, 25 university colleges as well as a range of private colleges. Education follows the Bologna Process involving Bachelor (3 years), Master (2 years) and PhD (3 years) degrees. Acceptance is offered after finishing upper secondary school with general study competence. Public education is virtually free for citizens from EU/EEA and Switzerland, but other nationalities need to pay tuition fees. Higher education has historically been free for everyone regardless of nationality, but tuition fees for all students from outside EU/EEA and Switzerland was implemented in 2023. The academic year has two semesters, from August to December and from January to June. The ultimate responsibility for the education lies with the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research. Languages Norwegian in its two forms, Bokmål and Nynorsk, is the main national official language of all of Norway. Sámi, a group which includes three separate languages, is recognised as a minority language on the national level and is a co-official language alongside Norwegian in the Sámi administrative linguistic area (Forvaltningsområdet for samisk språk) in Northern Norway. Kven is a minority language and is a co-official language alongside Norwegian in one municipality, also in Northern Norway. Norwegian Norwegian is a North Germanic language descended from Old Norse. It is the main national language of Norway and is spoken throughout the country. Norwegian is spoken natively by over 5 million people mainly in Norway, but is generally understood throughout Scandinavia and to a lesser degree other Nordic countries. It has two official written forms, Bokmål and Nynorsk. Both are used in public administration, schools, churches, and media. Bokmål is the written language used by a majority of about 85%. Around 95% of the population speak Norwegian as their first or native language, although many speak dialects that may differ significantly from the written languages. Norwegian dialects are mutually intelligible, although listeners with limited exposure to dialects other than their own may struggle with certain phrases and pronunciations. Norwegian is closely related to and generally mutually intelligible with its neighbour Scandinavian languages; Danish and Swedish, and the three main Scandinavian languages thus form both a dialect continuum and a larger language community with about 25 million speakers. All three languages are commonly employed in communication among inhabitants of the Scandinavian countries. As a result of the co-operation within the Nordic Council, inhabitants of all Nordic countries always have the right to communicate with Norwegian authorities in Danish or Swedish as equal alternatives to Norwegian. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the Norwegian language was subject to strong political and cultural controversies. This led to the development of Nynorsk in the 19th century and to the formation of alternative spelling standards in the 20th century. Sámi and Kven Several Uralic Sámi languages, which are related but not generally mutually intelligible, are traditionally spoken by the Sámi people primarily in Northern Norway and to much lesser extent in some parts of Central Norway. Around 15,000 people have officially registered as Sámi in the Sámi census (Samemanntallet), but the number of people of recent Sámi heritage is often estimated at 50,000 people. The number of people who have some knowledge of Northern Sámi, including as a second language, is estimated at 25,000 people, but only a minority are native speakers. The other Sámi languages are heavily endangered and spoken by at most a few hundred people. Most people of Sámi heritage are today native speakers of Norwegian as a result of past assimilation policies. Speakers have a right to be educated and to receive communication from the government in their own language in a special forvaltningsområde (administrative area) for Sámi languages. The Kven minority historically spoke the Uralic Kven language (considered a separate language in Norway, but generally perceived as a Finnish dialect in Finland). Today the majority of ethnic Kven have little or no knowledge of the language. As Norway has ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (ECRML) the Kven language together with Romani and Scandoromani language has become officially recognised minority languages. Other languages Some supporters have also advocated making Norwegian Sign Language an official language. The primary foreign language taught in Norwegian schools is English, and the majority of the population, especially those born after World War II, is fairly fluent in English. German, French and Spanish are also commonly taught as second or, more often, third languages. Russian, Japanese, Italian, Latin, and rarely Chinese (Mandarin) are offered in some schools, mostly in the cities. Traditionally, English, German and French were considered the main foreign languages in Norway. These languages, for instance, were used on Norwegian passports until the 1990s, and university students have a general right to use these languages when submitting their theses. 90% of Norwegians are fluent in English. Culture The Norwegian farm culture continues to play a role in contemporary Norwegian culture. In the 19th century, it inspired a strong romantic nationalistic movement, which is still visible in the Norwegian language and media. Norwegian culture expanded with nationalist efforts to achieve an independent identity in the areas of literature, art and music. This continues today in the performing arts and as a result of government support for exhibitions, cultural projects and artwork. Cinema Norwegian cinema has received international recognition. The documentary film Kon-Tiki (1950) won an Academy Award. Another notable film is The Pinchcliffe Grand Prix, an animated feature film directed by Ivo Caprino. The film was released in 1975 and is the most widely seen Norwegian film of all time. Nils Gaup's Pathfinder (1987), the story of the Sámi, was nominated for an Oscar. Berit Nesheim's The Other Side of Sunday was nominated for an Oscar in 1997. Since the 1990s, the film industry has expanded, producing up to 20 feature films each year. Particular successes were Kristin Lavransdatter, based on a novel by a Nobel Prize winner; The Telegraphist and Gurin with the Foxtail. Knut Erik Jensen was among the more successful new directors, together with Erik Skjoldbjærg, who is remembered for Insomnia. Elling and the 2012 adaption of Kon-Tiki was nominated for an Oscar for the best foreign language film. The TV-series Skam created by Julie Andem received a cult following and international recognition, with many countries making their own adaptations. Norwegian directors such as Joachim Rønning, Anja Breien, Espen Sandberg, Liv Ullmann and Morten Tyldum have made internationally successful movies such as The Imitation Game, Passengers, Pirates of the Caribbean: Salazar's Revenge and Maleficent: Mistress of Evil, as well as the TV series Jack Ryan and Marco Polo. Composers include Thomas Bergersen, who composed for Avatar, The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and Narnia. Egil Monn-Iversen has been one of the most influential modern composers in Norway, having composed scores to over 100 Norwegian movies and TV series. Norway has been used as filming location for Hollywood and other international productions, including Star Wars The Empire Strikes Back (1980). Among the thousands of movies filmed in Norway include Die Another Day, No Time to Die, The Golden Compass, Spies Like Us, Mission: Impossible – Fallout and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One, Black Widow, Tenet, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and Heroes of Telemark, as well as the TV series Lilyhammer and Vikings. Music The classical music of the romantic composers Edvard Grieg, Rikard Nordraak and Johan Svendsen is internationally known, as is the modern music of Arne Nordheim. Norway's classical performers include Leif Ove Andsnes, a pianist; Truls Mørk, an outstanding cellist; and the Wagnerian soprano Kirsten Flagstad. The jazz scene is thriving. Jan Garbarek, Terje Rypdal, Mari Boine, Arild Andersen and Bugge Wesseltoft are internationally recognised while Paal Nilssen-Love, Supersilent, Jaga Jazzist and Wibutee are becoming world-class artists. Norway has a strong folk music tradition which remains popular. Among the most prominent folk musicians are Hardanger fiddlers Andrea Een, Olav Jørgen Hegge and Annbjørg Lien, and the vocalists Agnes Buen Garnås, Kirsten Bråten Berg and Odd Nordstoga. Norwegian black metal, a form of rock music in Norway, has been an influence in world music since the late 20th century. Since the 1990s, Norway's export of black metal has been developed by such bands as Emperor, Darkthrone, Gorgoroth, Mayhem, Burzum and Immortal. Bands such as Enslaved, Kvelertak, Dimmu Borgir and Satyricon have evolved the genre while still garnering worldwide fans. Ylvis rose to international stardom with the song What Does the Fox Say?, which received over 1 billion views on YouTube. A-ha's most popular song and music video Take On Me has over 1.3 billion views. Bergen-based pop-singer named Aurora gained international recognition starting in the 2010s. Other notable female solo artists from Norway include Susanne Sundfør, Sigrid, Astrid S, Adelén, Julie Bergan, Maria Mena, Tone Damli, Margaret Berger, Lene Marlin, Christel Alsos, Maria Arredondo, Marion Raven and Marit Larsen (both former members of the defunct pop-rock band M2M), Lene Nystrøm (vocalist of the Danish eurodance group Aqua) and Anni-Frid Lyngstad (vocalist of the Swedish pop group ABBA). Norwegian songwriters and producers for international artists include Stargate, Espen Lind, Lene Marlin and Ina Wroldsen. Norway has been a constant competitor in the Eurovision Song Contest, participating 62 times. Since its first participation in 1960, Norway has won the competition three times: Bobbysocks's win in 1985, Secret Garden's win in 1995 and Alexander Rybak's win in 2009. Alexander Rybak's win in 2009 with his song Fairytale was a major win in Eurovision's history as it scored the biggest margin of victory ever. The song was an international hit, peaking at number one in several countries. Norway enjoys many music festivals throughout the year, all over the country. Norway is the host of one of the world's biggest extreme sport festivals with music, Ekstremsportveko—a festival held annually in Voss. Oslo is the host of many festivals, such as Øyafestivalen and by:Larm. Oslo used to have a summer parade similar to the German Love Parade. In 1992, the city of Oslo wanted to adopt the French music festival Fête de la Musique. Fredrik Carl Størmer established the festival. From its first year, "Musikkens Dag" gathered thousands of people and artists in the streets of Oslo. "Musikkens Dag" is now renamed Musikkfest Oslo. Literature The history of Norwegian literature starts with the pagan Eddaic poems and skaldic verse of the ninth and tenth centuries, with poets such as Bragi Boddason and Eyvindr skáldaspillir. The arrival of Christianity around the year 1000 brought Norway into contact with European medieval learning, hagiography and history writing. Merged with native oral tradition and Icelandic influence, this influenced the literature written in the late 12th and early 13th centuries. Major works of that period include Historia Norwegiæ, Þiðrekssaga and Konungs skuggsjá. Little Norwegian literature came out of the period of the Scandinavian Union and the subsequent Dano-Norwegian union (1387–1814), with some notable exceptions such as Petter Dass and Ludvig Holberg. During the union with Denmark, the government imposed using only written Danish, which decreased the writing of Norwegian literature. Two major events precipitated a major resurgence in Norwegian literature: in 1811 a Norwegian university was established in Christiania, and in 1814 the Norwegians created their first Constitution. Authors were inspired and became recognised first in Scandinavia, and then worldwide; among them were Henrik Wergeland, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, Jørgen Moe and Camilla Collett. By the late 19th century, in the Golden Age of Norwegian literature, the so-called "Great Four" emerged: Henrik Ibsen, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson, Alexander Kielland, and Jonas Lie. Bjørnson's "peasant novels", such as Ein glad gut (A Happy Boy) and Synnøve Solbakken, are typical of the Norwegian romantic nationalism of their day. Kielland's novels and short stories are mostly naturalistic. Although an important contributor to early romantic nationalism, (especially Peer Gynt), Henrik Ibsen is better known for his pioneering realistic dramas such as The Wild Duck and A Doll's House. In the 20th century, three Norwegian novelists were awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature: Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson in 1903, Knut Hamsun for the book Markens grøde ("Growth of the Soil") in 1920, and Sigrid Undset (known for Kristin Lavransdatter) in 1928. Architecture With expansive forests, Norway has long had a tradition of building in wood. Many of today's most interesting new buildings are made of wood, reflecting the strong appeal that this material continues to hold for Norwegian designers and builders. With Norway's conversion to Christianity, churches were built. Stonework architecture was introduced from Europe for the most important structures, beginning with the construction of Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim. In the early Middle Ages, wooden stave churches were constructed throughout Norway. Some of them have survived; they represent Norway's most unusual contribution to architectural history. Urnes Stave Church in inner Sognefjord is on UNESCO's World Heritage List. Another notable example of wooden architecture is the buildings at Bryggen Wharf in Bergen, also on the list for World Cultural Heritage sites, consisting of a row of tall, narrow wooden structures along the quayside. In the 17th century, under the Danish monarchy, cities and villages such as Kongsberg and Røros were established. The city Kongsberg had a church built in the Baroque style. Traditional wooden buildings that were constructed in Røros have survived. After Norway's union with Denmark was dissolved in 1814, Oslo became the capital. The architect Christian H. Grosch designed the earliest parts of the University of Oslo, the Oslo Stock Exchange, and many other buildings and churches constructed in that early national period. At the beginning of the 20th century, the city of Ålesund was rebuilt in the Art Nouveau style, influenced by styles of France. The 1930s, when functionalism dominated, became a strong period for Norwegian architecture. It is only since the late 20th century that Norwegian architects have achieved international renown. One of the most striking modern buildings in Norway is the Sámi Parliament in Kárášjohka, designed by Stein Halvorson and Christian Sundby. Its debating chamber, in timber, is an abstract version of a lavvo, the traditional tent used by the nomadic Sámi people. Art For an extended period, the Norwegian art scene was dominated by artwork from Germany and Holland as well as by the influence of Copenhagen. It was in the 19th century that a truly Norwegian era began, first with portraits, later with impressive landscapes. Johan Christian Dahl, originally from the Dresden school, eventually returned to paint the landscapes of western Norway, defining Norwegian painting for the first time." Norway's newly found independence from Denmark encouraged painters to develop their Norwegian identity, especially with landscape painting by artists such as Kitty Kielland, a female painter who studied under Hans Gude, and Harriet Backer, another pioneer among female artists, influenced by impressionism. Frits Thaulow, an impressionist, was influenced by the art scene in Paris as was Christian Krohg, a realist painter, famous for his paintings of prostitutes. Of particular note is Edvard Munch, a symbolist/expressionist painter who became world-famous for The Scream which is said to represent the anxiety of modern man. Other notable works from Munch includes The Sick Child, Madonna and Puberty. Other artists of note include Harald Sohlberg, a neo-romantic painter remembered for his paintings of Røros, and Odd Nerdrum, a figurative painter who maintains that his work is not art, but kitsch. Cuisine Norway's culinary traditions show the influence of long seafaring and farming traditions, with salmon (fresh and cured), herring (pickled or marinated), trout, codfish, and other seafood, balanced by cheeses (such as brunost, Jarlsberg cheese, and gamalost), dairy products, and breads (predominantly dark/darker). Lefse is a Norwegian potato flatbread, usually topped with large amounts of butter and sugar, most commonly eaten around Christmas. Traditional Norwegian dishes include lutefisk, smalahove, pinnekjøtt, raspeball, and fårikål. A Norwegian speciality is rakefisk, which is fermented trout, consumed with thin flatbread and sour cream. The most popular pastry is vaffel. Sports Sports are a central part of Norwegian culture, and popular sports include cross-country skiing, ski jumping, mountaineering, hiking, association football, handball, biathlon, speed skating, and, to a lesser degree, ice hockey. Norway is known internationally for its role in the development of modern winter sports, particularly skiing. From the 19th century Norway also became a premier mountaineering destination, with books such as William Cecil Slingsby's Norway, the Northern Playground contributing to the country's popularity among early mountain climbers. Association football is the most popular sport in Norway in terms of active membership. In 2014–2015 polling, football ranked far behind biathlon and cross-country skiing in terms of popularity as spectator sports. Ice hockey is the biggest indoor sport. The women's handball national team has won several titles, including two Summer Olympics championships (2008, 2012), three World Championships (1999, 2011, 2015), and six European Championship (1998, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014). In association football, the women's national team has won the FIFA Women's World Cup in 1995 and the Olympic Football Tournament in 2000. The women's team also has two UEFA European Women's Championship titles (1987, 1993). The men's national football team has participated three times in the FIFA World Cup (1938, 1994, and 1998), and once in the European Championship (2000). The highest FIFA ranking Norway has achieved is second, a position it has held twice, in 1993 and in 1995. Norwegian players in the National Football League include Halvor Hagen, Bill Irgens, Leif Olve Dolonen Larsen, Mike Mock, and Jan Stenerud. Bandy is a traditional sport in Norway and the country is one of the four founders of Federation of International Bandy. In terms of licensed athletes, it is the second biggest winter sport in the world. As of January 2018, the men's national team has captured one silver and one bronze, while the women's national team has managed five bronzes at the World Championships. Norway first participated at the Olympic Games in 1900, and has sent athletes to compete in every Games since then, except for the sparsely attended 1904 Games and the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow when they participated in the American-led boycott. Norway leads the overall medal tables at the Winter Olympic Games by a considerable margin. Norway has hosted the Games on two occasions: 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer It also hosted the 2016 Winter Youth Olympics in Lillehammer, making Norway the first country to host both Winter regular and Youth Olympics. Norway featured a women's national team in beach volleyball that competed at the 2018–2020 CEV Beach Volleyball Continental Cup. Chess has gained huge popularity in Norway. Magnus Carlsen, a Norwegian, was the world chess champion between 2013 and 2023. See also Outline of Norway Notes References Citations Sources External links regjeringen.no Archived 24 September 2022 at the Wayback Machine, official Norwegian government website Norway.no, Norway's official portal Norway at Curlie Statistics Norway Archived 26 February 2011 at the Wayback Machine State of the Environment Norway Norway Archived 11 January 2021 at the Wayback Machine. The World Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency. Norway Archived 2 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine entry at Britannica.com Gosse, Edmund William (1884). "Norway" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. XVII (9th ed.). pp. 575–592. Gosse, Edmund William; and four others (1911). "Norway" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). pp. 799–818. Hammer, Simon Christian (1922). "Norway" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 31 (12th ed.). Norway from UCB Libraries GovPubs Norway profile Archived 29 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine from the BBC News Norway.info Archived 26 March 2021 at the Wayback Machine, official foreign portal of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs Wikimedia Atlas of Norway Geographic data related to Norway at OpenStreetMap Official facts about Norway Archived 19 April 2014 at the Wayback Machine VisitNorway.com, official travel guide to Norway. National Anthem of Norway on YouTube Key Development Forecasts for Norway Archived 12 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine from International Futures World Bank Summary Trade Statistics Norway

Ben_Darwin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Darwin

Ben Darwin (born 17 October 1976) is a former Australian rugby union footballer. A graduate of the Australian Institute of Sport scholarship program , he played 28 times for the Wallabies, Australia's national team, from 2001 to 2003. During this time, Darwin played games against the British and Irish Lions and was part of the Wallabies' 2003 Rugby World Cup team. His usual position was tighthead prop, although on occasion he played on the loosehead side. Wallabies career Darwin made his international debut for Australia in June 2001, coming off the bench against the touring Lions in Brisbane. He also played in the 2001 Tri Nations Series later that year, and was capped against Spain, England, France and Wales. He played in the 2002 Tri Nations Series, as well as being capped another four times during the end of year tour. He played 11 times for Australia in 2003, and was included in the 2003 World Cup squad. It was during the Wallabies' World Cup semi-final win against the All Blacks that Darwin sustained a neck injury that forced him to retire from rugby. Post playing career After retirement, Darwin made the switch from player to coach, starting at club rugby level with Sydney's Northern Suburbs where he was appointed head coach in 2005. In 2006, Darwin was involved with the start up of the Super 14 club, the Western Force, as the Forwards Coach until mid-2006. In 2007, Darwin was selected to be a part of the commentary team covering the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France for the Australian television network, Channel 10. While he France, Darwin was also in training for his first Iron Man triathlon, which he completed in Port Macquarie in April 2008. He finished his second Iron Man, again at Port Macquarie, the following year. At the beginning of June 2008, Darwin moved to Tokyo where he served as the Forwards Coach for the Japanese Top League Rugby team, the NTT Shining Arcs, a team owned by Japanese telecommunications giant NTT. Darwin was integral to the club's promotion from the 2nd Division Top East competition to Top League at the end of the 09/10 season. At the beginning of 2010, Darwin married a writer/journalist from Melbourne. Shortly after, Darwin and his wife returned to Australia in order for Darwin to take up the Scrum Coach/Video Analyst position for the Melbourne Rebels Super Rugby franchise team. Darwin writes regular columns on rugby matters for www.rugbyzone.com. Ben began Gain Line Analytics in 2013 and works with leading sporting clubs, national teams and corporate clients. Career Timeline 2005: Head Coach at Northern Suburbs, Sydney Australia 2006: Forwards Coach at Western Force, Perth, Australia 2008–10: Forwards Coach and Video Analyst at NTT Shining Arcs, Tokyo, Japan. 2010–12: Scrum Coach and Video Analyst/Head of IT at Melbourne Rebels, Melbourne, Australia. 2012–13: Forwards Coach for Suntory Sungoliath, Tokyo, Japan. 2013-:Co Founded Gain Line Analytics with Simon Strachan former senior interior designer with Holden Australia. References External links Ben Darwin on sporting-heroes.net Injury Forces Ben Darwin to retire from rugby Sport and spinal injury – a conversation with Ben Darwin on The Sports Factor, ABC Radio National broadcast 7 September 2007 (audio and transcript)

Australian_Institute_of_Sport

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Institute_of_Sport

The Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) is a high performance sports training institution in Australia. The institute's 66-hectare (163-acre) headquarters were opened in 1981 and are situated in the northern suburb of Bruce, Canberra. The AIS is a division of the Australian Sports Commission (ASC), part of the Australian Government under the Department of Health and Aged Care. History Two reports were the basis for developing the AIS: The Role, Scope and Development of Recreation in Australia (1973) by John Bloomfield and Report of the Australian Sports Institute Study Group (1975) (group chaired by Allan Coles). The need for the AIS was compounded in 1976 when the Australian Olympic team failed to win a gold medal at the Montreal Olympics, which was regarded as a national embarrassment for Australia. The institute's well-funded programs (and more generally the generous funding for elite sporting programs by Australian and State Governments) have been regarded as a major reason for Australia's recent success in international sporting competitions. In 2011, Minister for Sport Mark Arbib announced the AIS would take responsibility for the strategic direction of high performance sport in Australia. In November 2012, the ASC released "Australia's Winning Edge 2012–2022", a high performance sport plan, which highlighted a new role for the AIS particularly in terms of developing coaches and talent identification but not directly managing national sports organisations elite athlete programs as it had done since 1981. Timeline A brief overview of the history of the AIS follows. Institute The AIS employs a number of staff who primarily work in Sports Science and Sports Medicine, which includes disciplines such as sports nutrition, performance analysis, skill acquisition, physiology, recovery, biomechanics, athlete career education, strength and conditioning, psychology, physical therapies, talent identification, and applied performance research. There are a number of sculptures located throughout the Bruce Campus, such as 'Acrobats', 'Gymnast', 'Pole Vaulter' and 'Soccer Players' by John Robinson and the 'Swimmer' by Guy Boyd. After the Sydney 2000 Olympics, two of the three sculptures - ' Gymnast' and 'Wheelchair Basketballer' - that were located on the Sydney Tower Eye prior to the Olympics were installed at the AIS. The AIS Arena is a 5,200 capacity indoor stadium which has been used for sports such as basketball, gymnastics and volleyball as well as music concerts. Directly adjacent to, but not strictly part of the institute is the 25,000 capacity outdoor Canberra Stadium which has hosted matches of all the major forms of football played in Australia. In 2005, 2009, and 2010 the institute won awards at the prestigious Canberra and Capital Region Tourism Awards. These awards were given in recognition of the daily public tours that are available. Each tour, which takes in several different buildings of the institute as well as the arena and the Sportex zone, is led by an athlete currently training there. Logo Shortly after its inception in 1981, the AIS held a competition for a symbol that would depict the AIS aim of "achieving supremacy in sport". Over 500 designs were submitted. The winner was Rose-Marie Derrico, a design student from Bendigo, Victoria. Her design showed an athlete with hands clasped above the head in recognition of victory. The colours of the logo were red, white and blue, which are the same colours as the Australian flag. On 3 February 2014, the AIS launched a new logo in line with its new direction as outlined in its Winning Edge program that was launched in 2012. Landor Associates designed the new brand and logo. The gold in the brand representing Australia's pursuit of gold. National Training Centres From 2014, as a result of Australia's Winning Edge 2012-2023 strategy, the AIS no longer directly offered scholarships to athletes. As a result of the strategy, many national sporting organisations are utilizing the AIS facilities and services on an ongoing or regular basis. Several national sports organisations have located their national centres for excellence at the AIS. These include: Basketball Australia Centre for Excellence, Netball Australia Centre for Excellence Football Federation of Australia Centre of Excellence, Rowing Australia National Training Centre, Volleyball Australia Centre of Excellence and Swimming Australia National Training Centre. The AIS does continue to support other athletes in other sports however they are self funded and not under the National Training Centre banner. Former sports programs Up until 2013, the AIS offered scholarships to athletes across 36 programs in 26 different sports: Artistic gymnastics, athletes with disabilities - swimming, athletics and winter sports, basketball, netball, rowing, football (men & women), tennis, swimming, track and field, volleyball (men) and water polo (women) administered from Canberra Diving, squash, softball and cricket (men & women) administered from Brisbane Sailing and slalom canoeing administered from Sydney Hockey administered from Perth Sprint canoeing, triathlon and BMX administered from the Gold Coast Road cycling, track cycling and beach volleyball administered from Adelaide Australian rules football, rugby union and rugby league are camps based programs Winter sports (in partnership with the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia) administered from Melbourne Sports that previously had an AIS program but were discontinued prior to 2013 included: weightlifting, water polo (men), volleyball (women), wrestling, shooting, archery, boxing (1997 - 2010) and golf. . The head coach for the AIS boxing program from 1997 to 2010 was Bodo Andreass. Notable athletes Many prominent Australian athletes have taken up AIS scholarships. In 2001, the AIS established the Best of the Best Award to recognise highly performed AIS athletes. As of 2011, the following athletes have been recognised - Alisa Camplin, Robert De Castella, John Eales, Simon Fairweather, Neil Fuller, Bridgette Gusterson, Rechelle Hawkes, Shane Kelly, Luc Longley, Michelle Martin, Glenn McGrath, Michael Klim, Michael Milton, Clint Robinson, Louise Sauvage, Kate Slatter, Zali Steggall, Mark Viduka, Vicki Wilson, Todd Woodbridge, Lauren Jackson, Chantelle Newbery, Petria Thomas, Kerry Saxby-Junna, Jamie Dwyer, Anna Meares, Malcolm Page, Ricky Ponting, Oenone Wood and Matthew Cowdrey. In August 2013, Stuart O'Grady was indefinitely suspended from the 'Best of the Best' due to his admission to doping in 1998. The Australian Institute of Sport Alumni highlights the many prominent Australian athletes that the AIS has assisted. Athlete of the Year Since 1984, the AIS has named an Athlete of the Year. For the first twenty years, the award was predominately made to one athlete only. In 2004 a male and female athlete were awarded with the accolade; and the awarding has varied over the ensuing years. Notable coaches AIS was established to provide high level coaching to Australian athletes. Since its establishment in 1981, the AIS has employed highly credentialed Australian and international coaches. Original coaches were - Bill Sweetenham and Dennis Pursley (swimming), Wilma Shakespear in netball, Adrian Hurley and Patrick Hunt (basketball), Peter Lloyd and Kazuyu Honda (gymnastics), Jimmy Shoulder (football), Ray Ruffels and Helen Gourlay (tennis), Kelvin Giles, Gary Knoke and Merv Kemp (track and field), and Lyn Jones (weightlifting). Other notable AIS coaches - Charlie Walsh (cycling), Barry Dancer and Richard Charlesworth(hockey), Terry Gathercole (swimming), Marty Clarke (basketball). Sports medicine and sport science AIS established sports medicine and sports science services and research programs when established in 1981. Dr Dick Telford was its first Co-ordinator of Sports Science and Medicine. Other notable staff have included: Dr Peter Fricker, Professor Allan Hahn, Professor Louise Burke, Dr Bruce Mason and Keith Lyons. The current Chief Medical Officer of the AIS is David Hughes. The AIS Sports Medicine department in 2020 released guidelines on the management of COVID-19 in athletes and a template for return to sport in Australia after the Coronavirus lockdown. These guidelines were used by the Australian government National Cabinet and the various Australian state governments to recommend stages for recommencing sport after the vast majority closed down in late March to early May 2020. Generally the doctors working at the AIS have been sports medicine specialists qualified through the Australasian College of Sport and Exercise Physicians. In March 2022 the AIS released the National High Performance Sport Research Agenda, designed to prioritise resources in areas of critical importance to Australia's high performance sport system. In July 2022 the AIS awarded grants to six Australian research teams, aimed at optimising the performance of alite athletes, coaches and support staff. The document "Recommendations for conducting AIS-supported research in high performance sport" was also released in 2022. The National Sport Research Agenda was released in December 2022. Olympic Winter Institute of Australia The AIS and the Australian Olympic Committee formed the Australian Institute of Winter Sports after the 1998 Winter Olympics. The organisation was renamed to the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia on 1 July 2001. It provides training in alpine skiing, freestyle skiing (including aerial and mogul), snowboarding, short track speed skating and figure skating. It is also a partner with the AIS in skeleton (toboganning). Elite Athlete Education Network The Elite Athlete Education Network (EAEN), formerly known as the Elite Athlete Friendly Universities (EAFU) network, is a network of universities and other education providers who are committed to supporting elite student athletes in partnership with the Australian Institute of Sport. The guiding principles which underpin the network include: Appointing a dedicated staff contact to support elite student athletes during their studies. This contact is responsible for advising student athletes in regard to academic planning, as well as supporting flexible arrangements to fulfil academic requirements. Tailoring or developing flexible study options to support the needs of elite student athletes. Basketball program The AIS Men's Basketball Program played in the South East Australian Basketball League (SEABL) between 1982 and 2010. The team was coached by Patrick Hunt from 1982 to 1992, then Gordie McLeod (1993–97), Frank Arsego (1998–2002), and Marty Clarke (2003–10). They made the playoffs just six times, but behind coach Arsego and future NBA player Andrew Bogut, the AIS won the 2002 East Conference championship. They went on to lose 98–93 to the Hobart Chargers in the 2002 National Championship game. Following the 2010 season, the program had a change of direction and withdrew from the SEABL. In 2014, after Basketball Australia assumed responsibility of the AIS basketball program, the team returned to the SEABL under a new moniker, the Basketball Australia Centre of Excellence (BA CoE). The AIS women's team originally played in the WNBL from 1983 to 2012, before being resurrected in 2014 alongside the men's team, thus entering the SEABL for the first time. Both teams were ineligible for the playoffs between 2014 and 2017 due to not playing full seasons. With a change to playing full seasons in 2018, both teams became eligible for the playoffs for the first time. Following the demise of the SEABL, both BA Centre of Excellence teams played in the inaugural NBL1 season in 2019. In 2020 and 2021, both BA Centre of Excellence teams competed in the Waratah League. The men's team were crowned co-champions of the 2021 season. In 2022, both BA Centre of Excellence teams were entered into the NBL1 as part of a Wildcard conference playing against the top teams from all five NBL1 State Conferences. In 2023, both BA Centre of Excellence teams played in the NBL1 East. References Bibliography Daly, John, Quest for Excellence : the Australian Institute of Sport, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1991 Australian Sports Commission, Excellence : the Australian Institute of Sport. 2nd ed. Canberra, Australian Sports Commission, 2002. Bloomfield, John, Australia's sporting success : the inside story, UNSW Press, Sydney, 2003 Ferguson, Jim, More than sunshine and vegemite : success the Australian way, Halstead Press, Sydney, 2007 External links Official website Australian Institute of Sport Annual Report 1981–1988 Australian Sports Commission Annual Reports include AIS activities since 1988. Sports funding: federal balancing act – detailed summary of Australian Government funding and policies related to sport

Hot_Rock_%26_Alternative_Songs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Rock_%26_Alternative_Songs

Hot Rock & Alternative Songs (formerly known as Rock Songs and Hot Rock Songs) is a record chart published by Billboard magazine. From its debut on June 20, 2009, through October 13, 2012, the chart ranked the airplay of songs across alternative, mainstream rock, and triple A radio stations in the United States. Beginning with the chart dated October 20, 2012, the chart has followed the methodology of the Billboard Hot 100 by incorporating digital download sales, streaming data, and radio airplay of rock songs over all formats. From that time until mid-2020, only the performance of core rock songs, including those with an "alternative bent", were tabulated and ranked for the chart. With the chart dated June 13, 2020, Billboard revamped the chart to permit a broader selection of songs considered alternative "hybrids" with other genres and renamed it to Hot Rock & Alternative Songs. Number ones The first number-one track on the chart was Green Day's "Know Your Enemy". Since its introduction, 70 songs have reached the number-one position on chart. Imagine Dragons have had the most with five, combining for a total of 104 weeks at the summit. Panic! at the Disco's "High Hopes" spent a record 65 non-consecutive weeks atop the chart, and along with their song "Hey Look Ma, I Made It", the band claimed the number-one spot on the chart for the entirety of 2019. Statistics By artist Songs by total number of weeks at number one References Notes Footnotes External links Billboard website

High_Hopes_(Panic!_at_the_Disco_song)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Hopes_(Panic!_at_the_Disco_song)

"High Hopes" is a song by American pop rock solo project Panic! at the Disco. Their song was released through Fueled by Ramen and DCD2 Records on May 23, 2018, as the second single from the band's sixth studio album, Pray for the Wicked (2018). Their song was written and produced by Jake Sinclair and Jonas Jeberg, and co-written by Brendon Urie, Jenny Owen Youngs, Lauren Pritchard, Sam Hollander, William Lobban-Bean, Taylor Parks, and Ilsey Juber, with additional production by Jonny Coffer. It was serviced to alternative radio on July 31, 2018, and impacted hot adult contemporary radio on August 27, 2018, and US pop radio the following day. "High Hopes" peaked at number four on the US Billboard Hot 100, becoming the band's highest-charting song on the chart, surpassing their 2006 breakout single "I Write Sins Not Tragedies". It topped the charts in Poland and reached the top ten and top twenty in several countries, becoming their highest-charting single worldwide. It holds the record for most weeks spent at number one on the US Hot Rock Songs chart, at 65 weeks. It also became the act's first single to top one of Billboard's Dance/Electronic charts, reaching number-one on its Dance/Mix Show Airplay list in February 2019. Background "High Hopes" was written and produced by Jake Sinclair and Jonas Jeberg, and co-written by Brendon Urie, Jenny Owen Youngs, Lauren Pritchard, Sam Hollander, William Lobban-Bean, Taylor Parks, and Ilsey Juber; with additional production by Jonny Coffer. Jeberg, Parks, Juber, and Lobban-Bean began writing the song at a BMI writing camp in Aspen, Colorado in 2015. When the four of them had arrived an hour early, they decided to go into a hot tub together outside. Jeberg has said of the song's conception: "I was sitting in the hot tub, singing bass notes. We didn't have any instruments because we were in the hot tub. I was singing bass notes and directing chords in that way, and we were brainstorming different lyrics." Eventually they set up a portable recording studio and began recording a demo version with a beat, horns and vocals. Initially, the song's hook was conceived as a rap song, and they began sending it to different artists who all declined. In 2016, Panic! at the Disco's management company said the band wanted to record the song for their next studio album. In early 2018, lead singer Brendon Urie co-wrote the verses for "High Hopes," before Sinclair and Jeberg (later, Coffer) were brought in to finish the production. Composition Sheet music for the song shows the key of F major with a tempo of 80–84 beats per minute. During their live performances, it is sung in the key of E-flat major. Urie's vocals span from the low note D3 to the high note of D5. Music video The audio track was uploaded to Panic! at the Disco's official YouTube channel on the same day of its release on May 23, 2018. An official music video for the song was uploaded on August 27, 2018. As of April 13, 2023, the music video has 724 million views. The video features lead vocalist Brendon Urie walking through Los Angeles as people bump into him. Eventually, he sizes up a skyscraper with a glass exterior. Determined, he presses a foot to the glass, flips horizontally, and begins walking up the outside of the wall. People flock to the base of the building, recording Urie and watching with awe. He waves to the people below and inside the building, and finally gets to the roof as the crowd below applauds. Once on the roof, he joins the rest of the band as the sun sets, and continues to sing the final chorus of the song. Live performances To promote the album, the band performed the song at the 2018 MTV Video Music Awards and their concert on The Today Show. Critical reception Paste magazine described it as having "a blaring brass section" and "crisp vocals." Rolling Stone described it as "upbeat" and having "punchy horns." Commercial performance "High Hopes" peaked at number four on the Billboard Hot 100, making it Panic! at the Disco's highest-charting song, exceeding the peak of "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", which reached number seven 12 years prior. In August 2019, the song became one of the few songs to spend a full year on the chart when it logged its 52nd week on the chart. Also in the United States, it reached number one on the Radio Songs airplay chart, marking their first leader there. Worldwide, the song has charted highly, reaching number seven in Australia and number twelve in the United Kingdom, also becoming their highest-charting song in those countries. Also, "High Hopes" is the fourth song to top the Pop Songs, Adult Pop Songs and Alternative Songs charts simultaneously since the Adult Pop Songs chart began in Billboard in March 1996, the Pop Songs chart began in October 1992 and the Alternative Songs chart began in September 1988. Also, with 14 weeks on top of Radio Songs, "High Hopes" tied Alicia Keys' "No One" and Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me" for fifth longest-leading number one on the Radio Songs chart, which began in 1990. With 15 weeks on top of Adult Pop Songs, "High Hopes" became the longest-leading No. 1 on the Adult Pop Songs chart of the 2010s, which began in Billboard's pages in March 1996. "High Hopes" also has the distinction of being the first Panic! at the Disco song to register on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart, where it peaked at number eight. In June 2019, "High Hopes" broke the record for most weeks at No. 1 on Billboard's Hot Rock Songs chart, logging 34 consecutive weeks at the top. On the chart dated January 18, 2020, "High Hopes" set a new record on Billboard's Hot Rock Songs chart, logging its 52nd week at the top – an entire year. It went on to spend a total of 65 weeks atop the chart, eventually dethroned by Twenty One Pilots' "Level of Concern", another release from Fueled by Ramen label, on April 25, 2020. It was ranked number-one on the 2019 Year-End Rock Songs chart. In late 2023, for the 35th anniversary of Alternative Airplay, Billboard ranked "High Hopes" as the ninth most successful song in the chart's history. Use in media and politics When the song first came out, NBC and NBCSN used it to promote their coverage of the 2018 Stanley Cup Finals which had the band's hometown team, the Vegas Golden Knights, in the finals against the Washington Capitals. The band later performed the song before Game 5, the final game of the series, which resulted in a 4–2 victory for the Capitals, who claimed their first Stanley Cup in franchise history over the Knights, winning the series 4–1. Later on that year, CBS Sports used "High Hopes" to promote their featured SEC Game of the Week. In 2023, CBS included the song in a six-minute long video tribute to the SEC on CBS that they posted on social media, as the network's contract with the conference expired following the 2023 SEC Championship Game. The tribute video, which also included Hall of Fame by The Script and A Sky Full of Stars by Coldplay, later aired during CBS's pregame show. In 2019, Rede Globo used "High Hopes" as the background music in advertisements for its streaming service Globoplay to advertise its offerings and programs. The song was also used in the trailer for the 2019 animated film Klaus. The song was the campaign anthem of 2020 Democratic Party presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg and was played at most of his rallies and speeches. A special dance to the song was created by staff and volunteers of the Buttigieg campaign. It was also used by candidates Amy Klobuchar, Cory Booker and Julian Castro in the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries. The song was featured and remixed in the heavily panned YouTube Rewind 2018: Everyone Controls Rewind. It was used in the soundtrack for the NHL 19 video game, as well as the trailers for films such as the 2021 animated film The Mitchells vs. the Machines and the 2019 animated Christmas film Klaus. The song was used at a Trump re-election rally in June 2020, to which Urie tweeted "Dear Trump Campaign, Fuck you. You’re not invited. Stop playing my song. No thanks, Brendon Urie, Panic! At The Disco & company," which was accompanied by a cease and desist order and a voter registration link encouraging fans to vote against Trump in November. The song is used as the walk on song for 2022 UK Open champion, Danny Noppert. Awards and nominations Track listing Digital download – White Panda remix "High Hopes" (White Panda remix) – 2:56 Digital download – Don Diablo remix "High Hopes" (Don Diablo remix) – 3:05 Digital download – live version "High Hopes" (live) – 3:22 Charts Certifications == References ==

Panic!_at_the_Disco

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic!_at_the_Disco

Panic! at the Disco was an American pop rock band from Las Vegas, Nevada, formed in 2004 by childhood friends Ryan Ross, Spencer Smith, Brent Wilson, and Brendon Urie. Following several lineup changes, Panic! at the Disco operated as the solo project of frontman Urie from 2015 until its discontinuation in 2023. The band recorded their first demos while they were in high school. Shortly after, they recorded and released their debut studio album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (2005). Popularized by the second single, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", the album was certified triple platinum in the US. In 2006, founding bassist Brent Wilson was fired from the band during an extensive world tour and subsequently replaced by Jon Walker. The band's second album, Pretty. Odd. (2008), was preceded by the single "Nine in the Afternoon". The album marked a significant departure from the sound of the band's debut. Ross and Walker, who favored the band's new direction, departed because Urie and Smith wanted to make further changes to the band's style. Ross and Walker subsequently formed a new band, the Young Veins, leaving Urie and Smith as the sole remaining members of Panic! at the Disco. Continuing as a duo, Urie and Smith released a new single, "New Perspective", for the movie Jennifer's Body, and recruited bassist Dallon Weekes and guitarist Ian Crawford as touring musicians for live performances. Weekes was later inducted into the band's lineup as a full-time member in 2010. The band's third studio album, Vices & Virtues (2011), was recorded solely by Urie and Smith in 2010, produced by John Feldmann and Butch Walker. Crawford departed once the tour cycle for Vices & Virtues ended in 2012. As a three-piece, Urie, Smith, and Weekes recorded and released the band's fourth studio album, Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!, in 2013. Prior to the release of the album, Smith unofficially left the band due to health- and drug-related issues, leaving Urie and Weekes as the remaining members. The duo recruited guitarist Kenneth Harris and drummer Dan Pawlovich as touring musicians for live performances. In 2015, Smith officially left the band after not performing live with them since his departure in 2013. Shortly thereafter, Weekes reverted to being a touring musician once again, resulting in Panic! becoming Urie's solo project. In April 2015, "Hallelujah" was released as the first single from Panic! at the Disco's fifth studio album, Death of a Bachelor (2016). In December 2017, Weekes officially announced his departure from the band, with Nicole Row replacing him in the touring lineup. In March 2018, Panic! at the Disco released "Say Amen (Saturday Night)", the lead single from its sixth studio album, Pray for the Wicked (2018), which was released in June. Panic! at the Disco's seventh and final studio album, Viva Las Vengeance, was released on August 19, 2022. On January 24, 2023, Urie officially announced that Panic! at the Disco would disband following the conclusion of the Viva Las Vengeance Tour on March 10 of that year. History 2004–2005: Formation as rock band and early years Panic! at the Disco was formed in 2004 in the suburban area of Summerlin, Las Vegas, by childhood friends Ryan Ross, who sang and played guitar, and Spencer Smith, who played drums. They both attended Bishop Gorman High School, and they began playing music together in ninth grade. They invited friend Brent Wilson from nearby Palo Verde High School to join on bass, and Wilson invited classmate Brendon Urie to try out on guitar. The quartet soon began rehearsing in Smith's grandmother's living room. Ross initially was the lead singer for the group, but after hearing Urie sing back-up during rehearsals, the group decided to make him the lead. Initially, Panic! at the Disco was a Blink-182 cover band. The band, which aimed to feature a lighter and more accessible sound when in comparison to Las Vegas' heavier music scene, signed a recording contract without having performed a live show. Urie began working at Tropical Smoothie Cafe in Summerlin to afford rent for the band's new practice space. Urie has stated that he sang for tips during his time working, thus indicating he had some prestige as a singer. The four left their educations behind to concentrate on music; Ross had a falling-out with his father when he dropped out of college, and when Urie dropped out of high school, his parents kicked him out of the house. Ross and Urie sent a demo to Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz via a LiveJournal account. Wentz, who was in Los Angeles at the time with the rest of Fall Out Boy working on the band's major-label debut, From Under the Cork Tree, drove to Las Vegas to meet with the young, unsigned band. Upon hearing "two to three" songs during band practice, Wentz was impressed and immediately wanted the band to sign to his Fueled by Ramen imprint label Decaydance Records, which made the band the first on the new label. Around December 2004, the group signed to the label. As news broke that Wentz had signed Panic! (who had yet to perform a single live show), fans on the Internet began to bash the group. "Almost right away we knew what was going to happen," Ross explained in a 2006 interview. "We had two songs online and people were already making assumptions on what kind of band we were and what we were going to sound like." Meanwhile, Wentz began to hype the band wherever possible: from wearing "Pete! at the Disco" T-shirts onstage to mentioning the group in interviews. Wentz gave a quick shout-out to the band during a press junket on the day before the 2005 MTV Video Music Awards: "I've got a couple of bands coming out soon on Decaydance, one being this band called Panic! at the Disco," Wentz said. "Their record is going to be your next favorite record. It's called A Fever You Can't Sweat Out – get it before your little brother does." At the time of the band's signing, all of the band members were still in high school (with the exception of Ross, who was forced to quit UNLV). Urie graduated in May 2005, and Wilson and Smith finished school online as the band left for College Park, Maryland, to record their debut record. 2005–2007: A Fever You Can't Sweat Out The band relocated to College Park, Maryland, to record its debut album from June to September 2005. Although they only had shells of songs when they arrived, the rest of the album shaped up fast through the marathon session. "We didn't have a day off in the five-and-a-half weeks we were there, 12 or 14 hours a day," Ross said in a 2005 interview. "We were making things up in our heads that weren't there, and on top of the stress of trying to finish the record, we were living in a one-bedroom apartment with four people on bunk beds," recalled Ross. "Everyone got on everybody's nerves. Someone would write a new part for a song and someone else would say they didn't like it just because you ate their cereal that morning." The album is split into two halves: the first half is mostly electronic dance punk, while the second half features Vaudevillian piano, strings, and accordion. The band grew tired of writing only with drum machines and keyboards and, inspired by film scores (specifically the works of Danny Elfman and Jon Brion) decided to write a completely different half. "By the end of that, we were completely exhausted," said Ross of the studio sessions. After its completion, "we had two weeks to come home and learn how to be a band," Ross said. The group played its first live show during the summer of 2005 at local Las Vegas music venue The Alley on West Charleston. Afterwards, the band toured nationally on the Nintendo Fusion Tour with mentors Fall Out Boy, as well as Motion City Soundtrack, the Starting Line, and Boys Night Out for the rest of 2005. The band's debut album, A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, was released September 27, 2005. Sales began relatively slow. It debuted at No. 112 on the Billboard 200 album chart, No. 6 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart, and No. 1 on the Billboard Top Heatseekers chart, with nearly 10,000 albums sold in the first week of release. Within a span of four months, Panic! would release the video for its first single, "I Write Sins Not Tragedies", rocket up the Billboard Hot 100 as sales of Fever passed the 500,000 mark. At the end of March 2006, the band announced a headlining tour. By August, the group's debut record was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and the music video for "I Write Sins Not Tragedies" won Video of the Year at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards. "Some aspects of the fame are annoying, but at the end of the day it's something we're most grateful for. It's certainly opened the door to a whole new batch of opportunities," Ross said of the band's newfound fame and instant success. On May 17, 2006, Panic! at the Disco announced that original bassist Brent Wilson had left the band, "posting a statement that was both diplomatic and entirely inscrutable […] yet [failing] to mention any reason why Wilson is leaving Panic," according to MTV News. He was replaced in the band by Jon Walker. In June, Wilson asserted to MTV News that he was kicked out of the band via a phone call. "It was done as a phone call and the only person who spoke was Spencer. Apparently, Brendon and Ryan were on the speakerphone too, but they didn't say a word. They never even said they were sorry," explained Wilson. Smith wrote a lengthy e-mail back to James Montgomery of MTV News, stating, in part, "We made the decision based on Brent's lack of responsibility and the fact that he wasn't progressing musically with the band," and revealed that Wilson did not write nor play any bass present on Fever. Instead, Urie recorded these parts. Wilson demanded a cut in royalties, and threatened to take his former band to court. In 2006, the band supported the Academy Is... on the band's worldwide Ambitious Ones and Smoking Guns Tour from January to May. Beginning in June, the group headlined its first unnamed national tour, that would last until August. During the group's performance at the 2006 Reading Festival in August, the band was greeted by excessive bottling, one of which hit Urie in the face that knocked him unconscious. Despite this, the band continued with its set after Urie recovered. The band's second headlining tour, dubbed the Nothing Rhymes with Circus Tour, began in November. In roughly one year, Panic! at the Disco went from being the opening act on a five-band bill to the headliners on a massive arena tour. The Nothing Rhymes with Circus Tour feature the band's first highly theatrical live shows, which featured every song with dance numbers, skits, and tricks performed by a six-member troupe, as the band donned intricate costumes, loosely re-enacting moments from the songs. Kelefa Sanneh of The New York Times noted the sudden success and circus-inspired tour of the young band in a concert review: "There's something charming about watching a band trying to navigate sudden success, aided by a contortionist, a ribbon dancer and all the rest of it." MTV News favorably likened its theme and wardrobe to "Janet Jackson's audience-dividing, hypersexual The Velvet Rope Tour." The group, fresh off the major success of A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, took a break after non-stop touring, and the group members began formulating ideas for their next album together during the winter of 2006. 2007–2009: Pretty. Odd. In March 2007, after a short period of development regarding the ideas of the album, the band arrived at a cabin in the rural mountains of Mount Charleston, Nevada and began the writing process for the new album, Cricket & Clover. After recording the new tracks and performing them live over the summer, the band returned to its native Las Vegas as well as the group's old rehearsal studio, where the band members wrote their debut record. Songs such as "Scarlet" and "It's True Love" have had lyrics found. One track from Cricket & Clover, "Nearly Witches", was later featured on Vices & Virtues in 2011. The band grew uninterested in the songs previously written and by August scrapped the entire new album (which Ross later revealed was "three-quarters" done) and started over. "We wanted to approach these songs in the most basic form," Ross said. "We wrote them all on one acoustic guitar and with someone singing. I think that we kind of skipped that part of songwriting on the first record, and this time we're sort of paying attention to that. […] We've written a bunch of songs since we've been home [Las Vegas]. I think it's the most fun and the happiest we've been since we started." With simplicity the new focus and the old album shelved, the group settled in and began recording what would become Pretty. Odd. In October, the band entered the Studio at the Palms at the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas to begin recording the album. In January 2008, the band unveiled a new logo and dropped the exclamation point from the group's name, becoming Panic at the Disco. Released on March 21, 2008, Pretty. Odd. was described by the band as "more organic and mellower" than A Fever You Can't Sweat Out, as well as unintentionally and coincidentally similar to music of the Beatles, in both songwriting and scope. The record debuted at number two on the US Billboard 200 chart, with first-day sales of 54,000, and first-week sales of 139,000 copies in the United States. Those figures marked the band's biggest sales week to that date, beating a previous record held by A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (which sold 45,000 during the winter of 2006). The record also debuted at Current Alternative Albums chart and No. 2 on the Digital Albums chart, the latter of which accounted for 26 percent of the disc's overall sales. The album charted high in various other countries and was eventually certified gold in the United Kingdom, however, Pretty. Odd. received relatively disappointing sales in the face of its predecessor. Pretty. Odd. was, however, critically acclaimed in contrast to Fever: Barry Walters of Spin called Panic's debut album "embarrassing" while regarding the new record as "[daring] to be optimistically beautiful at a time when sadness and ugliness might have won them easier credibility." The band announced plans to headline the 2008 Honda Civic Tour in January 2008, which took up the majority of early touring for the album. Motion City Soundtrack, the Hush Sound and Phantom Planet opened for the tour, which performed across North America from April 10 to July 14, 2008 . Throughout October and November 2008, the band toured with Dashboard Confessional and the Cab on the Rock Band Live Tour promoting the video game Rock Band 2. As expected and predicted by several music publications, the band adopted a very different style for the touring in support of Pretty. Odd., in contrast to the dark, circus-themed elements of the band's previous stage shows. Each show contained "woodsy set pieces, projections of flora and fauna, and mic stands wrapped in lights and flowers," and each band member dressed in a vest. While reflecting on the theatrical nature of A Fever You Can't Sweat Out touring, Urie commented: "We did it and it was a lot of fun when we did it, but this time around I think we wanted to get back to a more intimate, personal setting, and scale it down a little bit." Ryan Ross explained that: "It's more about connecting with the audience and seeing what's gonna happen every night. It's not as scripted out and pre-planned. It makes it more exciting for us, and less monotonous every night." A live album, ...Live in Chicago, based on live recordings from Chicago during the Honda Civic Tour, was released December 2, 2008. An accompanying DVD contains photos from the tour, each music video from the album as well as behind-the-scenes footage of the videos and the tour, the short film Panic! at the Disco In: American Valley, and the documentary feature based on the tour, All in a Day's. Pretty. Odd.'s touring was also defined by a larger effort to remain environmentally conscious. On the tour, the band worked with two non-profit eco organizations: Reverb, which facilitates environmentally friendly touring; and Global Inheritance, which seeks to inspire more eco-activism. In a 2008 interview, Ross revealed that the band began traveling on a biodiesel bus, re-using plastics, and recycling more backstage. The band went as far as to print tour booklets on recycled paper, with soy ink, and organize an "eco-contest", in which profits from the tour went straight to environmental organizations. 2009–2015: Lineup change, Vices & Virtues and Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! In spring 2009, the band began recording material for its third studio album. However, on July 6, 2009, Ryan Ross and Jon Walker announced via the band's official website that the two were leaving the band. In an interview following the split, Ross explained that he first brought the idea to Smith in late June 2009 over lunch: "Spencer and I had lunch and caught up for a while, and then the big question came up, like, 'Well, what do you want to do?' and I said, 'Well, I think it might be best if we kind of do our own thing for a while,' and he said, 'I'm glad you said that, because I was going to say the same thing,'" Ross recalled. "And there was really no argument, which is really the best way that could've worked out." Ross said the split was largely due to creative differences between him and Urie. Urie wanted the band to explore a more polished pop sound, while Ross – and, by extension, Walker – was interested in making retro-inspired rock. Walker and Ross went on to form The Young Veins, which only released one album, Take a Vacation!. The news asserted that both tour plans with Blink-182 in August 2009 and new album production "will continue as previously announced." The following day, Alternative Press broke the news that "New Perspective", the first song recorded without Ross and Walker, would debut the following month on radio and as a part of the soundtrack to the film Jennifer's Body. On July 10, 2009, Alternative Press also reported that the band had regained the exclamation point, becoming, once again, Panic! at the Disco. "New Perspective" was released on July 28, 2009. Former guitarist of pop rock band the Cab, Ian Crawford and Dallon Weekes, frontman of indie rock band the Brobecks, filled in for Ross and Walker on tour during the Blink-182 Summer Tour in August 2009. The band re-entered the studio in early 2010 and spent much of the year recording the group's third studio album. During this time, touring bassist Dallon Weekes joined the band's official lineup along with Urie and Smith, making the band a three-piece. Although Weekes did not perform on the upcoming album, he was responsible for the conceptualization of the album's cover art and was also featured on the album cover, masked and standing in the background behind Smith and Urie. On January 18, 2011, the band revealed that an album titled Vices & Virtues would officially be released on March 22, 2011. The album was produced by Butch Walker and John Feldmann. The record's first single, "The Ballad of Mona Lisa", was released digitally on February 1, 2011, with the music video being released February 8, 2011. Vices & Virtues was officially released on March 22, 2011, to relatively positive critical reviews. The band began touring in support of the album, christened the Vices & Virtues Tour, in earnest beginning in February 2011. The tour has sported the same electric, over-the-top theatricality the band was known for during the Fever era. "I really miss wearing costumes and makeup," Urie told Spin. "I love throwing a big production. I've recently been reading about Tesla coils and I'm trying to figure out how I can get one that sits on the stage and shoots sparks without hurting anybody." The group was scheduled to play the Australian Soundwave Revolution festival in September/October but the festival was canceled. The band performed at the Counter-Revolution mini-festival, the festival that took its place. On May 12, 2011, the band collaborated with indie pop band Fun. and the two groups embarked on an American tour, releasing a single together titled "C'mon". Panic! at the Disco contributed a new song, "Mercenary", to the soundtrack for the video game Batman: Arkham City. After the Vices & Virtues tour cycle, Urie, Smith, and Weekes began writing and preparing for a fourth album. During the recording of the album, touring guitarist Ian Crawford, who joined the band in 2009 after the departure of Ryan Ross and Jon Walker, left the band citing his desire to make "real, genuine" music. On July 15, 2013, the album was announced as Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die!, with a scheduled release date of October 8, 2013. The first single, "Miss Jackson", was released on July 15, 2013, along with its music video to promote the album. Panic! at the Disco opened for Fall Out Boy on the Save Rock And Roll Arena Tour. Shortly before the band began its first tour in support of the album, Smith wrote an open letter to fans regarding his abuse of alcohol and prescription medications since the recording of Pretty. Odd. Although Smith joined the band for the first handful of dates, he left the tour to "continue fighting addiction." Urie posted on the band's official website on August 7, 2013, that "It's become evident that Spencer still needs more time to take care of himself. I can't expect him to be fighting addiction one minute and be fully immersed in a national tour the next. With that said, the tour will continue without Spencer while he is away getting the help he needs." With Spencer's leave of absence, Dan Pawlovich of the band Valencia filled in on tour. In an interview with Pure Fresh on September 23, 2014, Urie stated that he had already thought about ideas on the fifth studio album; however, he was not sure if it would be a Panic! at the Disco album, or a solo album. Urie also stated there were no plans for Smith to return to the band. 2015–2021: Transition to solo project, Death of a Bachelor and Pray for the Wicked On April 2, 2015, Smith announced that he had officially left the band. That same month, Urie revealed in an interview with Kerrang! that he was working on new material for the band's fifth studio album. On April 20, 2015, Urie released "Hallelujah" as a single without any previous formal announcements. It debuted on the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 40, the band's second highest ever after "I Write Sins Not Tragedies". The band performed at the KROQ Weenie Roast on May 16, 2015. On September 1, 2015, another song from the fifth studio album, "Death of a Bachelor", premiered on an Apple Music broadcast hosted by Pete Wentz. The second single, "Victorious" was released at the end of the month. On October 22, 2015, through the band's official Facebook page, Urie announced the new album as Death of a Bachelor with a scheduled release date of January 15, 2016. It is the first album written and composed by Urie with a team of writers, as the status of Weekes was announced to have changed from an official member to that of a touring musician once again. Weekes' status was rumored during the promotion of Death of a Bachelor that he was no longer an official member. The third single "Emperor's New Clothes" was released on the same day, along with the official music video. "LA Devotee" was released November 26 as a promotional single. On December 31, 2015, the band released "Don't Threaten Me with a Good Time". The band co-headlined the Weezer & Panic! at the Disco Summer Tour 2016 with Weezer from June to August 2016. The band released a cover of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" in August 2016, on the Suicide Squad soundtrack album. On September 22, 2016, the band released the music video for "LA Devotee". With the release came the announcement of the Death of a Bachelor Tour in 2017. MisterWives and Saint Motel were announced as the opening acts. In a December 2016 interview, Urie said that he hoped to make a music video for every song on the album Death of a Bachelor. On December 15, 2017, the band released their fourth live album All My Friends We're Glorious: Death of a Bachelor Tour Live. It was released as a limited-edition double-vinyl and digital download. Five days later, the band released a non-album Christmas song titled "Feels Like Christmas". On December 27, bassist Dallon Weekes officially announced his departure from Panic! at the Disco after over eight years of performing in the band, subsequently shifting his focus as the frontman of the band I Dont Know How But They Found Me. On March 19, 2018, the band played a surprise show in Cleveland, Ohio with new touring bassist, Nicole Row. On March 21, 2018, the band released two new songs "Say Amen (Saturday Night)" and "(Fuck A) Silver Lining". At the same time, the band also announced the Pray for the Wicked Tour and a new album called Pray for the Wicked. On June 7, 2018, the band performed at the fountains at the Bellagio prior to game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The performance is said to have had sentimental value to the band as they took to the stage in their hometown. The band also performed as a headliner at the Reading and Leeds Festival 2018 which lasted over the weekend from August 24 to 26, 2018. On August 27, 2018, the band dropped the music video for the single "High Hopes". In fall of 2018, High Hopes became the highest placing single from the band, becoming number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100. On September 22, 2018, the band announced that longtime touring guitarist Kenneth Harris would be dismissed following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct involving underage fans. Harris' replacement was announced to be former Sparks the Rescue guitarist Mike Naran on October 6, 2018. The band's version of the song "Into the Unknown" is featured on the soundtrack to the 2019 film Frozen II and in the end credits. The song appears in the film as performed by Idina Menzel. 2022–2023: Viva Las Vengeance and disbandment In May 2019, Urie revealed in an interview with Billboard that he began working on ideas for another Panic! at the Disco album, saying "I thought I would take a little more time off and I'm already starting music. Not with anything planned in mind, but just working on some ideas. I can't help myself so I don't think it'll be too long before another Panic! record." On May 14, 2022, the band set up a website called "Shut Up and Go to Bed" to tease new music. On May 29, it was announced that Panic would be returning with a new single called "Viva Las Vengeance" on June 1, alongside hints of future material. With the release of the music video, it was announced that Panic's seventh album would also be titled Viva Las Vengeance with a release date of August 19, and future tour dates in fall 2022. On July 20, 2022, the second single "Middle Of A Breakup" was released. On August 5, 2022, the third single "Local God" was released. On August 16, 2022, the fourth single "Don't Let the Light Go Out" was released. On the same day as the album release, a music video for the song "Sad Clown" was released. On November 15, 2022, it was announced that the Chicago show from the Viva Las Vengeance Tour would be streamed as a digital concert on December 7 and 8, 2022, under the name Everybody Needs a Place to Go: An Evening with Panic! at the Disco. On October 28, 2022, the band re-released their 2016 song "House of Memories" along with its slowed-down and sped-up versions, after the song went viral on TikTok. On January 24, 2023, Urie revealed that he and his wife were expecting a child together, and that he would be discontinuing Panic! at the Disco in order to focus on his family, following the conclusion of the Viva Las Vengeance Tour on March 10 in Manchester, England. Musical style and influences Panic! at the Disco has been described as pop rock, pop, baroque pop, electropop, alternative rock, emo pop, pop-punk, dance-punk, emo, dance-pop, and synth-pop. Urie has cited bands/artists such as Frank Sinatra, Queen, David Bowie, Tom DeLonge, Weezer, Green Day, and My Chemical Romance as his biggest influences. Band members Former members Ryan Ross – guitar, keyboards, vocals (2004–2009) Spencer Smith – drums, percussion (2004–2015) Brent Wilson – bass (2004–2006) Brendon Urie – lead vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass (2004–2023), drums, percussion (2015–2023) Jon Walker – bass, keyboards, guitar, backing vocals (2006–2009) Dallon Weekes – bass, keyboards, guitar, vocals (2010–2015; touring 2009–2010, 2015–2017) Former touring musicians Timeline Discography A Fever You Can't Sweat Out (2005) Pretty. Odd. (2008) Vices & Virtues (2011) Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! (2013) Death of a Bachelor (2016) Pray for the Wicked (2018) Viva Las Vengeance (2022) Tours Headlining 2005 Tour (2005) Nintendo Fusion Tour (2005) Nothing Rhymes with Circus Tour (2006) Pretty. Odd. Tour (2008–2009) Vices & Virtues Tour (2011–2012) 2013 Tour (2013) Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! Tour (2014) The Gospel Tour (2014) Death of a Bachelor Tour (2017) Pray for the Wicked Tour (2018–2019) Viva Las Vengeance Tour (2022–2023) Co-headlining Nintendo Fusion Tour (with Fall Out Boy, The Starting Line, Motion City Soundtrack and Boys Night Out) (2005) Honda Civic Tour (with Motion City Soundtrack, Death Cab for Cutie, Phantom Planet and The Hush Sound) (2008) Rock Band Live Tour (with Dashboard Confessional) (2008) Summer Tour 2016 (with Weezer) (2016) Opening Act Take Cover Tour (for Acceptance and The Receiving End of Sirens) (2005) Ambitious Ones and Smoking Guns Tour (for The Academy Is...) (2006) Truckstops & Statelines Tour (for The Academy Is...) (2006) Blink-182 in Concert (Blink-182) (2009) Save Rock and Roll Tour (for Fall Out Boy) (2013) Awards and nominations American Music Awards Billboard Music Awards GLSEN Annual Respect Awards Grammy Awards iHeartRadio Music Awards MTV Europe Music Awards MTV Video Music Awards Teen Choice Awards Tony Awards Other awards See also Nevada portal Notes References External links Official website Panic! at the Disco at AllMusic

Calculus

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus

Calculus is the mathematical study of continuous change, in the same way that geometry is the study of shape, and algebra is the study of generalizations of arithmetic operations. Originally called infinitesimal calculus or "the calculus of infinitesimals", it has two major branches, differential calculus and integral calculus. The former concerns instantaneous rates of change, and the slopes of curves, while the latter concerns accumulation of quantities, and areas under or between curves. These two branches are related to each other by the fundamental theorem of calculus. They make use of the fundamental notions of convergence of infinite sequences and infinite series to a well-defined limit. Infinitesimal calculus was developed independently in the late 17th century by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Later work, including codifying the idea of limits, put these developments on a more solid conceptual footing. Today, calculus has widespread uses in science, engineering, and social science. Etymology In mathematics education, calculus is an abbreviation of both infinitesimal calculus and integral calculus, which denotes courses of elementary mathematical analysis. In Latin, the word calculus means “small pebble”, (the diminutive of calx, meaning "stone"), a meaning which still persists in medicine. Because such pebbles were used for counting out distances, tallying votes, and doing abacus arithmetic, the word came to be the Latin word for calculation. In this sense, it was used in English at least as early as 1672, several years before the publications of Leibniz and Newton, who wrote their mathematical texts in Latin. In addition to differential calculus and integral calculus, the term is also used for naming specific methods of computation or theories that imply some sort of computation. Examples of this usage include propositional calculus, Ricci calculus, calculus of variations, lambda calculus, sequent calculus, and process calculus. Furthermore, the term "calculus" has variously been applied in ethics and philosophy, for such systems as Bentham's felicific calculus, and the ethical calculus. History Modern calculus was developed in 17th-century Europe by Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (independently of each other, first publishing around the same time) but elements of it first appeared in ancient Egypt and later Greece, then in China and the Middle East, and still later again in medieval Europe and India. Ancient precursors Egypt Calculations of volume and area, one goal of integral calculus, can be found in the Egyptian Moscow papyrus (c. 1820 BC), but the formulae are simple instructions, with no indication as to how they were obtained. Greece Laying the foundations for integral calculus and foreshadowing the concept of the limit, ancient Greek mathematician Eudoxus of Cnidus (c. 390 – 337 BC) developed the method of exhaustion to prove the formulas for cone and pyramid volumes. During the Hellenistic period, this method was further developed by Archimedes (c. 287 – c. 212 BC), who combined it with a concept of the indivisibles—a precursor to infinitesimals—allowing him to solve several problems now treated by integral calculus. In The Method of Mechanical Theorems he describes, for example, calculating the center of gravity of a solid hemisphere, the center of gravity of a frustum of a circular paraboloid, and the area of a region bounded by a parabola and one of its secant lines. China The method of exhaustion was later discovered independently in China by Liu Hui in the 3rd century AD to find the area of a circle. In the 5th century AD, Zu Gengzhi, son of Zu Chongzhi, established a method that would later be called Cavalieri's principle to find the volume of a sphere. Medieval Middle East In the Middle East, Hasan Ibn al-Haytham, Latinized as Alhazen (c. 965 – c. 1040 AD) derived a formula for the sum of fourth powers. He used the results to carry out what would now be called an integration of this function, where the formulae for the sums of integral squares and fourth powers allowed him to calculate the volume of a paraboloid. India Bhāskara II (c.1114–1185) was acquainted with some ideas of differential calculus and suggested that the "differential coefficient" vanishes at an extremum value of the function. In his astronomical work, he gave a procedure that looked like a precursor to infinitesimal methods. Namely, if x ≈ y {\displaystyle x\approx y} then sin ⁡ ( y ) − sin ⁡ ( x ) ≈ ( y − x ) cos ⁡ ( y ) . {\displaystyle \sin(y)-\sin(x)\approx (y-x)\cos(y).} This can be interpreted as the discovery that cosine is the derivative of sine. In the 14th century, Indian mathematicians gave a non-rigorous method, resembling differentiation, applicable to some trigonometric functions. Madhava of Sangamagrama and the Kerala School of Astronomy and Mathematics stated components of calculus, but according to Victor J. Katz they were not able to "combine many differing ideas under the two unifying themes of the derivative and the integral, show the connection between the two, and turn calculus into the great problem-solving tool we have today". Modern Johannes Kepler's work Stereometria Doliorum (1615) formed the basis of integral calculus. Kepler developed a method to calculate the area of an ellipse by adding up the lengths of many radii drawn from a focus of the ellipse. Significant work was a treatise, the origin being Kepler's methods, written by Bonaventura Cavalieri, who argued that volumes and areas should be computed as the sums of the volumes and areas of infinitesimally thin cross-sections. The ideas were similar to Archimedes' in The Method, but this treatise is believed to have been lost in the 13th century and was only rediscovered in the early 20th century, and so would have been unknown to Cavalieri. Cavalieri's work was not well respected since his methods could lead to erroneous results, and the infinitesimal quantities he introduced were disreputable at first. The formal study of calculus brought together Cavalieri's infinitesimals with the calculus of finite differences developed in Europe at around the same time. Pierre de Fermat, claiming that he borrowed from Diophantus, introduced the concept of adequality, which represented equality up to an infinitesimal error term. The combination was achieved by John Wallis, Isaac Barrow, and James Gregory, the latter two proving predecessors to the second fundamental theorem of calculus around 1670. The product rule and chain rule, the notions of higher derivatives and Taylor series, and of analytic functions were used by Isaac Newton in an idiosyncratic notation which he applied to solve problems of mathematical physics. In his works, Newton rephrased his ideas to suit the mathematical idiom of the time, replacing calculations with infinitesimals by equivalent geometrical arguments which were considered beyond reproach. He used the methods of calculus to solve the problem of planetary motion, the shape of the surface of a rotating fluid, the oblateness of the earth, the motion of a weight sliding on a cycloid, and many other problems discussed in his Principia Mathematica (1687). In other work, he developed series expansions for functions, including fractional and irrational powers, and it was clear that he understood the principles of the Taylor series. He did not publish all these discoveries, and at this time infinitesimal methods were still considered disreputable. These ideas were arranged into a true calculus of infinitesimals by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who was originally accused of plagiarism by Newton. He is now regarded as an independent inventor of and contributor to calculus. His contribution was to provide a clear set of rules for working with infinitesimal quantities, allowing the computation of second and higher derivatives, and providing the product rule and chain rule, in their differential and integral forms. Unlike Newton, Leibniz put painstaking effort into his choices of notation. Today, Leibniz and Newton are usually both given credit for independently inventing and developing calculus. Newton was the first to apply calculus to general physics. Leibniz developed much of the notation used in calculus today.: 51–52  The basic insights that both Newton and Leibniz provided were the laws of differentiation and integration, emphasizing that differentiation and integration are inverse processes, second and higher derivatives, and the notion of an approximating polynomial series. When Newton and Leibniz first published their results, there was great controversy over which mathematician (and therefore which country) deserved credit. Newton derived his results first (later to be published in his Method of Fluxions), but Leibniz published his "Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimis" first. Newton claimed Leibniz stole ideas from his unpublished notes, which Newton had shared with a few members of the Royal Society. This controversy divided English-speaking mathematicians from continental European mathematicians for many years, to the detriment of English mathematics. A careful examination of the papers of Leibniz and Newton shows that they arrived at their results independently, with Leibniz starting first with integration and Newton with differentiation. It is Leibniz, however, who gave the new discipline its name. Newton called his calculus "the science of fluxions", a term that endured in English schools into the 19th century.: 100  The first complete treatise on calculus to be written in English and use the Leibniz notation was not published until 1815. Since the time of Leibniz and Newton, many mathematicians have contributed to the continuing development of calculus. One of the first and most complete works on both infinitesimal and integral calculus was written in 1748 by Maria Gaetana Agnesi. Foundations In calculus, foundations refers to the rigorous development of the subject from axioms and definitions. In early calculus, the use of infinitesimal quantities was thought unrigorous and was fiercely criticized by several authors, most notably Michel Rolle and Bishop Berkeley. Berkeley famously described infinitesimals as the ghosts of departed quantities in his book The Analyst in 1734. Working out a rigorous foundation for calculus occupied mathematicians for much of the century following Newton and Leibniz, and is still to some extent an active area of research today. Several mathematicians, including Maclaurin, tried to prove the soundness of using infinitesimals, but it would not be until 150 years later when, due to the work of Cauchy and Weierstrass, a way was finally found to avoid mere "notions" of infinitely small quantities. The foundations of differential and integral calculus had been laid. In Cauchy's Cours d'Analyse, we find a broad range of foundational approaches, including a definition of continuity in terms of infinitesimals, and a (somewhat imprecise) prototype of an (ε, δ)-definition of limit in the definition of differentiation. In his work, Weierstrass formalized the concept of limit and eliminated infinitesimals (although his definition can validate nilsquare infinitesimals). Following the work of Weierstrass, it eventually became common to base calculus on limits instead of infinitesimal quantities, though the subject is still occasionally called "infinitesimal calculus". Bernhard Riemann used these ideas to give a precise definition of the integral. It was also during this period that the ideas of calculus were generalized to the complex plane with the development of complex analysis. In modern mathematics, the foundations of calculus are included in the field of real analysis, which contains full definitions and proofs of the theorems of calculus. The reach of calculus has also been greatly extended. Henri Lebesgue invented measure theory, based on earlier developments by Émile Borel, and used it to define integrals of all but the most pathological functions. Laurent Schwartz introduced distributions, which can be used to take the derivative of any function whatsoever. Limits are not the only rigorous approach to the foundation of calculus. Another way is to use Abraham Robinson's non-standard analysis. Robinson's approach, developed in the 1960s, uses technical machinery from mathematical logic to augment the real number system with infinitesimal and infinite numbers, as in the original Newton-Leibniz conception. The resulting numbers are called hyperreal numbers, and they can be used to give a Leibniz-like development of the usual rules of calculus. There is also smooth infinitesimal analysis, which differs from non-standard analysis in that it mandates neglecting higher-power infinitesimals during derivations. Based on the ideas of F. W. Lawvere and employing the methods of category theory, smooth infinitesimal analysis views all functions as being continuous and incapable of being expressed in terms of discrete entities. One aspect of this formulation is that the law of excluded middle does not hold. The law of excluded middle is also rejected in constructive mathematics, a branch of mathematics that insists that proofs of the existence of a number, function, or other mathematical object should give a construction of the object. Reformulations of calculus in a constructive framework are generally part of the subject of constructive analysis. Significance While many of the ideas of calculus had been developed earlier in Greece, China, India, Iraq, Persia, and Japan, the use of calculus began in Europe, during the 17th century, when Newton and Leibniz built on the work of earlier mathematicians to introduce its basic principles. The Hungarian polymath John von Neumann wrote of this work, The calculus was the first achievement of modern mathematics and it is difficult to overestimate its importance. I think it defines more unequivocally than anything else the inception of modern mathematics, and the system of mathematical analysis, which is its logical development, still constitutes the greatest technical advance in exact thinking. Applications of differential calculus include computations involving velocity and acceleration, the slope of a curve, and optimization.: 341–453  Applications of integral calculus include computations involving area, volume, arc length, center of mass, work, and pressure.: 685–700  More advanced applications include power series and Fourier series. Calculus is also used to gain a more precise understanding of the nature of space, time, and motion. For centuries, mathematicians and philosophers wrestled with paradoxes involving division by zero or sums of infinitely many numbers. These questions arise in the study of motion and area. The ancient Greek philosopher Zeno of Elea gave several famous examples of such paradoxes. Calculus provides tools, especially the limit and the infinite series, that resolve the paradoxes. Principles Limits and infinitesimals Calculus is usually developed by working with very small quantities. Historically, the first method of doing so was by infinitesimals. These are objects which can be treated like real numbers but which are, in some sense, "infinitely small". For example, an infinitesimal number could be greater than 0, but less than any number in the sequence 1, 1/2, 1/3, ... and thus less than any positive real number. From this point of view, calculus is a collection of techniques for manipulating infinitesimals. The symbols d x {\displaystyle dx} and d y {\displaystyle dy} were taken to be infinitesimal, and the derivative d y / d x {\displaystyle dy/dx} was their ratio. The infinitesimal approach fell out of favor in the 19th century because it was difficult to make the notion of an infinitesimal precise. In the late 19th century, infinitesimals were replaced within academia by the epsilon, delta approach to limits. Limits describe the behavior of a function at a certain input in terms of its values at nearby inputs. They capture small-scale behavior using the intrinsic structure of the real number system (as a metric space with the least-upper-bound property). In this treatment, calculus is a collection of techniques for manipulating certain limits. Infinitesimals get replaced by sequences of smaller and smaller numbers, and the infinitely small behavior of a function is found by taking the limiting behavior for these sequences. Limits were thought to provide a more rigorous foundation for calculus, and for this reason, they became the standard approach during the 20th century. However, the infinitesimal concept was revived in the 20th century with the introduction of non-standard analysis and smooth infinitesimal analysis, which provided solid foundations for the manipulation of infinitesimals. Differential calculus Differential calculus is the study of the definition, properties, and applications of the derivative of a function. The process of finding the derivative is called differentiation. Given a function and a point in the domain, the derivative at that point is a way of encoding the small-scale behavior of the function near that point. By finding the derivative of a function at every point in its domain, it is possible to produce a new function, called the derivative function or just the derivative of the original function. In formal terms, the derivative is a linear operator which takes a function as its input and produces a second function as its output. This is more abstract than many of the processes studied in elementary algebra, where functions usually input a number and output another number. For example, if the doubling function is given the input three, then it outputs six, and if the squaring function is given the input three, then it outputs nine. The derivative, however, can take the squaring function as an input. This means that the derivative takes all the information of the squaring function—such as that two is sent to four, three is sent to nine, four is sent to sixteen, and so on—and uses this information to produce another function. The function produced by differentiating the squaring function turns out to be the doubling function.: 32  In more explicit terms the "doubling function" may be denoted by g(x) = 2x and the "squaring function" by f(x) = x2. The "derivative" now takes the function f(x), defined by the expression "x2", as an input, that is all the information—such as that two is sent to four, three is sent to nine, four is sent to sixteen, and so on—and uses this information to output another function, the function g(x) = 2x, as will turn out. In Lagrange's notation, the symbol for a derivative is an apostrophe-like mark called a prime. Thus, the derivative of a function called f is denoted by f′, pronounced "f prime" or "f dash". For instance, if f(x) = x2 is the squaring function, then f′(x) = 2x is its derivative (the doubling function g from above). If the input of the function represents time, then the derivative represents change concerning time. For example, if f is a function that takes time as input and gives the position of a ball at that time as output, then the derivative of f is how the position is changing in time, that is, it is the velocity of the ball.: 18–20  If a function is linear (that is if the graph of the function is a straight line), then the function can be written as y = mx + b, where x is the independent variable, y is the dependent variable, b is the y-intercept, and: m = rise run = change in y change in x = Δ y Δ x . {\displaystyle m={\frac {\text{rise}}{\text{run}}}={\frac {{\text{change in }}y}{{\text{change in }}x}}={\frac {\Delta y}{\Delta x}}.} This gives an exact value for the slope of a straight line.: 6  If the graph of the function is not a straight line, however, then the change in y divided by the change in x varies. Derivatives give an exact meaning to the notion of change in output concerning change in input. To be concrete, let f be a function, and fix a point a in the domain of f. (a, f(a)) is a point on the graph of the function. If h is a number close to zero, then a + h is a number close to a. Therefore, (a + h, f(a + h)) is close to (a, f(a)). The slope between these two points is m = f ( a + h ) − f ( a ) ( a + h ) − a = f ( a + h ) − f ( a ) h . {\displaystyle m={\frac {f(a+h)-f(a)}{(a+h)-a}}={\frac {f(a+h)-f(a)}{h}}.} This expression is called a difference quotient. A line through two points on a curve is called a secant line, so m is the slope of the secant line between (a, f(a)) and (a + h, f(a + h)). The second line is only an approximation to the behavior of the function at the point a because it does not account for what happens between a and a + h. It is not possible to discover the behavior at a by setting h to zero because this would require dividing by zero, which is undefined. The derivative is defined by taking the limit as h tends to zero, meaning that it considers the behavior of f for all small values of h and extracts a consistent value for the case when h equals zero: lim h → 0 f ( a + h ) − f ( a ) h . {\displaystyle \lim _{h\to 0}{f(a+h)-f(a) \over {h}}.} Geometrically, the derivative is the slope of the tangent line to the graph of f at a. The tangent line is a limit of secant lines just as the derivative is a limit of difference quotients. For this reason, the derivative is sometimes called the slope of the function f.: 61–63  Here is a particular example, the derivative of the squaring function at the input 3. Let f(x) = x2 be the squaring function. f ′ ( 3 ) = lim h → 0 ( 3 + h ) 2 − 3 2 h = lim h → 0 9 + 6 h + h 2 − 9 h = lim h → 0 6 h + h 2 h = lim h → 0 ( 6 + h ) = 6 {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}f'(3)&=\lim _{h\to 0}{(3+h)^{2}-3^{2} \over {h}}\\&=\lim _{h\to 0}{9+6h+h^{2}-9 \over {h}}\\&=\lim _{h\to 0}{6h+h^{2} \over {h}}\\&=\lim _{h\to 0}(6+h)\\&=6\end{aligned}}} The slope of the tangent line to the squaring function at the point (3, 9) is 6, that is to say, it is going up six times as fast as it is going to the right. The limit process just described can be performed for any point in the domain of the squaring function. This defines the derivative function of the squaring function or just the derivative of the squaring function for short. A computation similar to the one above shows that the derivative of the squaring function is the doubling function.: 63 Leibniz notation A common notation, introduced by Leibniz, for the derivative in the example above is y = x 2 d y d x = 2 x . {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}y&=x^{2}\\{\frac {dy}{dx}}&=2x.\end{aligned}}} In an approach based on limits, the symbol ⁠dy/ dx⁠ is to be interpreted not as the quotient of two numbers but as a shorthand for the limit computed above.: 74  Leibniz, however, did intend it to represent the quotient of two infinitesimally small numbers, dy being the infinitesimally small change in y caused by an infinitesimally small change dx applied to x. We can also think of ⁠d/ dx⁠ as a differentiation operator, which takes a function as an input and gives another function, the derivative, as the output. For example: d d x ( x 2 ) = 2 x . {\displaystyle {\frac {d}{dx}}(x^{2})=2x.} In this usage, the dx in the denominator is read as "with respect to x".: 79  Another example of correct notation could be: g ( t ) = t 2 + 2 t + 4 d d t g ( t ) = 2 t + 2 {\displaystyle {\begin{aligned}g(t)&=t^{2}+2t+4\\{d \over dt}g(t)&=2t+2\end{aligned}}} Even when calculus is developed using limits rather than infinitesimals, it is common to manipulate symbols like dx and dy as if they were real numbers; although it is possible to avoid such manipulations, they are sometimes notationally convenient in expressing operations such as the total derivative. Integral calculus Integral calculus is the study of the definitions, properties, and applications of two related concepts, the indefinite integral and the definite integral. The process of finding the value of an integral is called integration.: 508  The indefinite integral, also known as the antiderivative, is the inverse operation to the derivative.: 163–165  F is an indefinite integral of f when f is a derivative of F. (This use of lower- and upper-case letters for a function and its indefinite integral is common in calculus.) The definite integral inputs a function and outputs a number, which gives the algebraic sum of areas between the graph of the input and the x-axis. The technical definition of the definite integral involves the limit of a sum of areas of rectangles, called a Riemann sum.: 282  A motivating example is the distance traveled in a given time.: 153  If the speed is constant, only multiplication is needed: D i s t a n c e = S p e e d ⋅ T i m e {\displaystyle \mathrm {Distance} =\mathrm {Speed} \cdot \mathrm {Time} } But if the speed changes, a more powerful method of finding the distance is necessary. One such method is to approximate the distance traveled by breaking up the time into many short intervals of time, then multiplying the time elapsed in each interval by one of the speeds in that interval, and then taking the sum (a Riemann sum) of the approximate distance traveled in each interval. The basic idea is that if only a short time elapses, then the speed will stay more or less the same. However, a Riemann sum only gives an approximation of the distance traveled. We must take the limit of all such Riemann sums to find the exact distance traveled. When velocity is constant, the total distance traveled over the given time interval can be computed by multiplying velocity and time. For example, traveling a steady 50 mph for 3 hours results in a total distance of 150 miles. Plotting the velocity as a function of time yields a rectangle with a height equal to the velocity and a width equal to the time elapsed. Therefore, the product of velocity and time also calculates the rectangular area under the (constant) velocity curve.: 535  This connection between the area under a curve and the distance traveled can be extended to any irregularly shaped region exhibiting a fluctuating velocity over a given period. If f(x) represents speed as it varies over time, the distance traveled between the times represented by a and b is the area of the region between f(x) and the x-axis, between x = a and x = b. To approximate that area, an intuitive method would be to divide up the distance between a and b into several equal segments, the length of each segment represented by the symbol Δx. For each small segment, we can choose one value of the function f(x). Call that value h. Then the area of the rectangle with base Δx and height h gives the distance (time Δx multiplied by speed h) traveled in that segment. Associated with each segment is the average value of the function above it, f(x) = h. The sum of all such rectangles gives an approximation of the area between the axis and the curve, which is an approximation of the total distance traveled. A smaller value for Δx will give more rectangles and in most cases a better approximation, but for an exact answer, we need to take a limit as Δx approaches zero.: 512–522  The symbol of integration is ∫ {\displaystyle \int } , an elongated S chosen to suggest summation.: 529  The definite integral is written as: ∫ a b f ( x ) d x . {\displaystyle \int _{a}^{b}f(x)\,dx.} and is read "the integral from a to b of f-of-x with respect to x." The Leibniz notation dx is intended to suggest dividing the area under the curve into an infinite number of rectangles so that their width Δx becomes the infinitesimally small dx.: 44  The indefinite integral, or antiderivative, is written: ∫ f ( x ) d x . {\displaystyle \int f(x)\,dx.} Functions differing by only a constant have the same derivative, and it can be shown that the antiderivative of a given function is a family of functions differing only by a constant.: 326  Since the derivative of the function y = x2 + C, where C is any constant, is y′ = 2x, the antiderivative of the latter is given by: ∫ 2 x d x = x 2 + C . {\displaystyle \int 2x\,dx=x^{2}+C.} The unspecified constant C present in the indefinite integral or antiderivative is known as the constant of integration.: 135 Fundamental theorem The fundamental theorem of calculus states that differentiation and integration are inverse operations.: 290  More precisely, it relates the values of antiderivatives to definite integrals. Because it is usually easier to compute an antiderivative than to apply the definition of a definite integral, the fundamental theorem of calculus provides a practical way of computing definite integrals. It can also be interpreted as a precise statement of the fact that differentiation is the inverse of integration. The fundamental theorem of calculus states: If a function f is continuous on the interval [a, b] and if F is a function whose derivative is f on the interval (a, b), then ∫ a b f ( x ) d x = F ( b ) − F ( a ) . {\displaystyle \int _{a}^{b}f(x)\,dx=F(b)-F(a).} Furthermore, for every x in the interval (a, b), d d x ∫ a x f ( t ) d t = f ( x ) . {\displaystyle {\frac {d}{dx}}\int _{a}^{x}f(t)\,dt=f(x).} This realization, made by both Newton and Leibniz, was key to the proliferation of analytic results after their work became known. (The extent to which Newton and Leibniz were influenced by immediate predecessors, and particularly what Leibniz may have learned from the work of Isaac Barrow, is difficult to determine because of the priority dispute between them.) The fundamental theorem provides an algebraic method of computing many definite integrals—without performing limit processes—by finding formulae for antiderivatives. It is also a prototype solution of a differential equation. Differential equations relate an unknown function to its derivatives and are ubiquitous in the sciences.: 351–352 Applications Calculus is used in every branch of the physical sciences,: 1  actuarial science, computer science, statistics, engineering, economics, business, medicine, demography, and in other fields wherever a problem can be mathematically modeled and an optimal solution is desired. It allows one to go from (non-constant) rates of change to the total change or vice versa, and many times in studying a problem we know one and are trying to find the other. Calculus can be used in conjunction with other mathematical disciplines. For example, it can be used with linear algebra to find the "best fit" linear approximation for a set of points in a domain. Or, it can be used in probability theory to determine the expectation value of a continuous random variable given a probability density function.: 37  In analytic geometry, the study of graphs of functions, calculus is used to find high points and low points (maxima and minima), slope, concavity and inflection points. Calculus is also used to find approximate solutions to equations; in practice, it is the standard way to solve differential equations and do root finding in most applications. Examples are methods such as Newton's method, fixed point iteration, and linear approximation. For instance, spacecraft use a variation of the Euler method to approximate curved courses within zero gravity environments. Physics makes particular use of calculus; all concepts in classical mechanics and electromagnetism are related through calculus. The mass of an object of known density, the moment of inertia of objects, and the potential energies due to gravitational and electromagnetic forces can all be found by the use of calculus. An example of the use of calculus in mechanics is Newton's second law of motion, which states that the derivative of an object's momentum concerning time equals the net force upon it. Alternatively, Newton's second law can be expressed by saying that the net force equals the object's mass times its acceleration, which is the time derivative of velocity and thus the second time derivative of spatial position. Starting from knowing how an object is accelerating, we use calculus to derive its path. Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism and Einstein's theory of general relativity are also expressed in the language of differential calculus.: 52–55  Chemistry also uses calculus in determining reaction rates: 599  and in studying radioactive decay.: 814  In biology, population dynamics starts with reproduction and death rates to model population changes.: 631  Green's theorem, which gives the relationship between a line integral around a simple closed curve C and a double integral over the plane region D bounded by C, is applied in an instrument known as a planimeter, which is used to calculate the area of a flat surface on a drawing. For example, it can be used to calculate the amount of area taken up by an irregularly shaped flower bed or swimming pool when designing the layout of a piece of property. In the realm of medicine, calculus can be used to find the optimal branching angle of a blood vessel to maximize flow. Calculus can be applied to understand how quickly a drug is eliminated from a body or how quickly a cancerous tumor grows. In economics, calculus allows for the determination of maximal profit by providing a way to easily calculate both marginal cost and marginal revenue.: 387 See also Glossary of calculus List of calculus topics List of derivatives and integrals in alternative calculi List of differentiation identities Publications in calculus Table of integrals References Further reading External links "Calculus", Encyclopedia of Mathematics, EMS Press, 2001 [1994] Weisstein, Eric W. "Calculus". MathWorld. Topics on Calculus at PlanetMath. Calculus Made Easy (1914) by Silvanus P. Thompson Full text in PDF Calculus on In Our Time at the BBC Calculus.org: The Calculus page at University of California, Davis – contains resources and links to other sites Earliest Known Uses of Some of the Words of Mathematics: Calculus & Analysis The Role of Calculus in College Mathematics Archived 26 July 2021 at the Wayback Machine from ERICDigests.org OpenCourseWare Calculus from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Infinitesimal Calculus – an article on its historical development, in Encyclopedia of Mathematics, ed. Michiel Hazewinkel. Daniel Kleitman, MIT. "Calculus for Beginners and Artists". Calculus training materials at imomath.com (in English and Arabic) The Excursion of Calculus, 1772

Lords_of_Montpellier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Montpellier

The Lordship of Montpellier was a feudal jurisdiction in Languedoc with its centre in the city of Montpellier, that existed between 986 and 1344. Formation Ricuin II, the bishop of Mauguio gave these lands in fief to a knight named Guiu I. He was succeeded by his son William I (985-1025) who received more lands around the city and died without descendants. The inheritance fell to his nephew William II, son of Trudgarda (William's sister) and Bernard. Much younger than its neighbours in the region such as Nîmes, Narbonne, Béziers or Carcassonne, most of which were created in Roman times, the Lordship of Montpellier was only created in the 11th century. Situated between Spain and Italy, close to the Via Domitia and the port of Lattes, the city quickly experienced significant economic and cultural development, attracting gilders, goldsmiths, drapers and money changers. It thus became a centre of trade between northern Europe, Spain and the Mediterranean basin. List of lords of Montpellier House of Montpellier William I of Montpellier 26 November 986–1019 William II of Montpellier 1019–1025, his nephew William III of Montpellier 1025–1058, his son William IV of Montpellier 1058–1068, his son William V of Montpellier 1090–1121, his son William VI of Montpellier 1121–1149, his son William VII of Montpellier 1149–c. 1172, his son William VIII of Montpellier c. 1172–1202, his son William IX of Montpellier 1202–1204, his son Marie of Montpellier 1204–1213, his sister, married to Peter II of Aragon, King of Aragon, Count of Roussillon and Cerdagne House of Aragon James I of Aragon 1213–1276, their son James II of Majorca 1276–1311, his second surviving son Sancho of Majorca 1311–1324, his son James III of Majorca 1324–1344, his nephew French royal domain In 1344 James III sold the Lordship of Montpellier to King Philip VI of France: Montpellier became a possession of the crown of France. References Lewis, Archibald. The Guillems of Montpellier: A Sociological Appraisal, 1971.

William_I_of_Montpellier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_I_of_Montpellier

William I (or in Occitan: Guilhem I) was the founder of a dynasty which bears his name, the Guilhems, Lords of Montpellier. He received his fief (a manor) of Monspestularius (Montpellier) on 26 November 985 from Bernard, Count of Mauguio, with the permission of Ricuin, Bishop of Maguelone. Without descendants after his death, his nephew Guilhem II of Montpellier succeeded him. References See also Montpellier

William_II_of_Montpellier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_II_of_Montpellier

William II (or in Occitan: Guilhem II) was the second Lord of Montpellier.

William_III_of_Montpellier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_III_of_Montpellier

William III (or in Occitan: Guilhem III) was the Lord of Montpellier from 1025 until his death in 1058. He was the son of William II and husband of Beliardis. His son and successor was William IV. He is the last of the "shadowy" lords of Montpellier, none of whose charters are conserved in the family cartulary, the Liber instrumentorum memorialium. == Notes ==

William_V_of_Montpellier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_V_of_Montpellier

William V (or Guilhem V; died 1121) was the Lord of Montpellier from 1068 until his death. He was the son of William IV. Soon after his father's death, his mother, Ermengarde, quit Montpellier to marry the Lord of Anduze. William IV had confided the tutelage of his son to the child's grandmother, Beliarde, and to his nearest relatives: William Arnold, Raymond Stephen, and William Aymoin. After a short conflict with the bishop of Maguelonne, William V rendered homage to the bishop on 10 December 1090 and was recognised as lord of Montpellier. At the call of Pope Urban II, William took up the cross of the First Crusade in the army of Raymond IV of Toulouse. He served notably at the capture of the small Syrian village of Ma'arrat al-Numan in 1098. After the fall of Jerusalem in 1099, William remained in the Holy Land for a while. He remained at the side of Godfrey de Bouillon and accompanied him to the siege of Antioch in December 1097. He did not return to Montpellier until 1103, bringing with him a relic of Saint Cleopas. When William returned, he found that the Aimoin brothers to whom he had confided the administration of the lordship in his absence had usurped many seigniorial rights and that he was obligated to recognise much of their newfound authority, which diminished his own, in order to retain his position. William participated in the army of Raymond Berengar III of Barcelona which captured Majorca from the Moors in 1114. The rest of his reign was marked by the important acquisition of nearby territories, which greatly recouped his power: Montarnaud, Cournonsec, Montferrier, Frontignan, Aumelas, Montbazin, Popian. By his marriage to Ermensenda, daughter of Peter, Count of Mauguio, he had six children: William VI William of Aumelas Bernard, Lord of Villeneuve Guillelme, married Raymon Bernard, Count of Mauguio Ermeniarde Adelaide. Upon his death, he was succeeded by his son William as Lord of Montpellier. Sources Riley-Smith, Jonathan (1998). The First Crusaders, 1095-1131. Cambridge University Press. pp. 158, 226, 266. ISBN 978-0-521-64603-1. Runciman, Steven, A History of the Crusades, Volume One: The First Crusade and the Foundation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Cambridge University Press, London, 1951, pp. 160, 259 == Notes ==

William_IV_of_Montpellier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_IV_of_Montpellier

William IV (or Guillem IV) was the Lord of Montpellier from 1058 until his death in 1068. He was the son of William III and Beliardis. He was married to Ermengarde, daughter of Raymond I, Count of Melgueil. He is the first of his dynasty with charters preserved in the family cartulary, the Liber instrumentorum memorialium. They record agreements concerning some local castles in 1059. He was succeeded by his son, William V. == Notes ==

William_VI_of_Montpellier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_VI_of_Montpellier

William VI or Guillem VI (died 1161) was the eldest son of William V and his wife Ermessende, daughter of Count Peter I of Melgueil. William succeeded his father in the lordship of Montpellier in 1121, while still a minor, under his mother's guardianship. He suppressed a revolt of the bourgeoisie in 1143 and participated in several military campaigns of the Reconquista in Spain (1134, 1146–47). He also increased the public character of the lordship in Montpellier and supported the growth of its trade. Power sharing At the beginning of William's reign, secular authority in Montpellier was shared between the Guillem dynasty, the hereditary viguiers of the town, and the Bishop of Montpellier. In 1139 William confirmed the vicarage to the heirs of the old viguier Bernard Guillem, and the surviving document shows that the viguier's power has increased since 1103 and was probably at its height. William did secure the reaffirmation of his seigneurial rights at Castelnau (1132, 1138) and Lattes (1140). In 1139 William possessed several censives in the suburb of Villa Nova. A cens (plural censives) was a right to tax land, although earlier it had probably been a right to tax persons. By the twelfth-century it could be applied to the lands owing taxes. In 1140 a dispute arose between William VI and the bishop over jurisdiction in Montpellieret. The bishop alleged that William was extending the walls and fortifications of the town to encompass some of the episcopal section of Montpellieret and was forcing vassals of the church of Montpellier to contribute to the local defence fund: "William had built a fortification [vallam] to wall his city in the tenancy of the bishop [and had made] the men of Montpellier, and other men of [the cathedral of] the Blessed Peter, [contribute to] the collection of the commune [communitas] of Montpellier." This may show that control of the walls and fortifications was already in the hands of the bourgeoisie, as it certainly was by 1196. It is probable that William was the first lord of Montpellier to oversee the extension of the walls to include territory judicially under the control of all three leading figures in the town. William's feudal rights included the fealty and homage of several castellanies in the region around Montpellier. He procured general oaths of loyalty from the castellans of these in 1130 and again in 1147. He purchased the castle of Pouget in 1129, and bestowed it on his brother, William of Aumelas, and purchased that of Santeragues in 1147–48. Among the castles which William controlled (some more than others) were Montferrier, Pignan, Coronsec, Frontignan, Valmale and Saint-Pons-de-Mauchiens. Town administration William inherited the services of two scribes who had worked for his father since at least 1103. One named William, who described himself as a "scribe of Lord William of Montpellier" (scriba domini Guillelmi Montispessulani), operated as late as 1139. Another, Girbertus, officially became scribe in 1113 and continued to serve down to 1125. William VI also hired his own scribe, Petrus Angelus, between the years 1128 and 1136. Early in William's reign documents start to sharply distinguish knights and other noblemen from burgesses in the witness lists, either by surnames or by title of occupation. In 1139 William instituted an administrative change: he began using a notary (notarius) named Durantus instead of a mere scribe (scriba). He served for the remainder of William's reign. In 1146, William, in preparation for his journey into Spain, handed the government of the town over to his mother, stipulating that should she die it would pass to three burgesses, Olricus Adalguerius, Guillelmus Letericus and Atbrandus, to govern "with the counsel of the other witnesses of this testament." These three burgesses reappear as witnesses to William's last will, indicating their closeness to the ruling clan. In 1149 William purchased the jus naufragii (the right to salvage shipwrecks) from the Count of Melgueil for 3,000 sous melgoriens. The sou minted at Melgueil was the standard currency of the region, and William was vigilant to insist that the counts of Melgueil not debase it, to detriment of Montpellier's commerce. In 1128, in concluding a war with his son-in-law, Count Bernard IV of Melgueil, William extorted a promise that the coinage would not be debased. William himself controlled the mint, however, and in 1130 he had to agree not issue any coinage on his own authority, but only with the approval of the count. These agreements were confirmed in 1132, 1135 and 1145–46. Revolt of 1141–43 In 1141–42 the viguier Aimon, at the head of the bourgeoisie, led a revolt against William and expelled him from the town. Alfonso Jordan, the Count of Toulouse, "attempted to fish in troubled waters", receiving a strong rebuke from Pope Anacletus II, with whom William VI had a close relationship bordering on an outright alliance. Despite papal support for William, the bishop refused to intervene against the viguier, but with Genoese and Aragonese backing he succeeded in taking back the town after a lengthy siege in 1143, to which Genoa contributed four galleys. The Chronique Romane highlights the role of Raymond Berengar IV of Barcelona and the siege-induced famine in the surrender of the town: In the year one thousand, one hundred and forty-one, the men of Montpellier ejected lord William of Montpellier from the city, and the lord went to Lattes, and the battle endured two years. The count of Barcelona returned to him [William] the city through a siege. And at that time ten beans were worth one denarius. (En lan de M et C et XLI, giteron los homes de Montpellier en Guillem de Montpellier de la vila, et anet sen a Latas, e duret la batalla II ans: el coms de Barsalona rendet li la villa per assetge: et adones valian X favas 1 d.) Immediately William set about to destroy the power of the viguier. He razed their castle within the town walls and revoked their judicial privileges and their separate court. With Aragonese assistance he initiated new construction on his family's castle in the north of the town. This phase of improvement was not ended until 1152. These moves, and probable the conciliation of the disaffected bourgeoisie, were successful in removing the hereditary viguiers, the Aimons, from a place of influence. In the aftermath, the process by which the lords of Montpellier "took on a public character, become something more than mere feudal lords," was accelerated. A letter to his Genoese allies dated 1143 begins "William of Montpellier and his burgesses". The coinciding interests of the merchant class and their feudal lords, whose revenues increasingly depended on taxes on commerce, sped up the process by which the lords became representative of the town. Reconquista In 1134 William VI was with King Alfonso VII of León and Castile when he besieged and took Zaragoza. There he paid homage to and became a vassal of Alfonso. The submission of García Ramírez, the king of Navarre, as well as "many other nobles from Gascony and France had become his vassals" was the justification for Alfonso's coronation as Emperor of Spain in 1135. Among the vassals from Languedoc only William of Montpellier is singled out by name in the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, the contemporary account of Alfonso's reign: All of the nobles from Gascony and from the area up to the Rhone River, including William of Montpellier, came to Alfonso in a spirit of mutual accord. They received silver, gold, horses and many different precious gifts from him. They all became his vassals, and they were obedient to him in all things. . . He presented them with arms and other items. Hence the boundaries of the kingdom of Alfonso, ruler of León, extended from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, near where the city of our holy patron Santiago is located, all the way to the Rhone River. In 1146 Alfonso sent Arnaldo, the bishop of Astorga, as his envoy to the courts of Barcelona and Montpellier, requesting them to come in August 1147 for the siege of Almería "for the redemption of their souls". According to the Chronica, "they received his invitation with joy [and] promised to be present alongside of the Genoese [who were providing the fleet]." After participating in the capture of Almería, William also took part in another joint military venture: the reconquest of Tortosa. William and the count of Barcelona were among the soldiers awaiting the arrival of the Genoese fleet at the mouth of the Ebro on 12 July 1148. According to the Genoese account, the Ystoria captionis Almarie et Turtuose of Cafarus, the lords of Barcelona and Montpellier camped atop "Mount Magnara", one of two hills overlooking Tortosa, while the other foreign troops, mostly English, French and Flemish knights who had participated in the siege of Lisbon the year before, camped on the hill called "Romelinus". After the conquest of Tortosa, one of William's younger sons was made co-lord of the city. Marriage and alliance with Aragon William VI's wife was named Sibylla, of Catalan origin. (According to documents adduced at the annulment of the marriage of Marie of Montpellier, her great-granddaughter, she was the daughter of Boniface del Vasto and therefore the sister of Manfred I of Saluzzo, but this cannot be confirmed.) The marriage was less an alliance between William and a minor aristocratic family from Catalonia than a tightening of ties with the House of Barcelona, soon to rule a complex of territories north and south of the Pyrenees. The support the count of Toulouse gave to the rebels of 1141–43 was part of the larger rivalry between Toulouse and Aragon (Barcelona) for power in Occitania, a conflict in which the lords of Montpellier gradually built up an alliance with the Aragonese, even though their overlords, the counts of Melgueil, with whom they were related, were Toulousain partisans. William VI and Sibylla had five sons and all except Bernard William, who died before 1172, played a prominent role in Occitan politics. The eldest, William VII, succeeded his father; Raymond William became a monk and later a bishop; another William, who became co-lord of Tortosa after its conquest, married Ermessende of Castries, joined the Templars in 1157, vowed to go on crusade to the Holy Land for a year, and there died; and Gui Guerrejat later served regent for his nephews, the sons of William VII. William VI and Sibylla also had three daughters: Guillelme (or Guillemette), who married first Bernard IV of Melgueil and later Viscount Bernard Ato V; Alais (or Azalais), who married Eble III of Ventadorn; and Ermessende, who married Raymond Stephen of Servian. Guillemette's first marriage was part of an agreement (convenientia) of 1120 between her father and husband by which the former gained control of the Melgorian mint when Bernard mortgaged it to him for 7,000 sous. Notes == External links ==

William_VII_of_Montpellier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_VII_of_Montpellier

William VII of Montpellier (c. 1131 — c. 1172), the eldest son of William VI and of his wife Sibylle, was as 12th century Lord of Montpellier. Aged around 15, he inherited the lordship of Montpellier from his father in 1146 under the tutelage of his grandmother, Ermessende of Melgueil. His father had retired to a monastery leaving him the lordship. The wealth of the estate was derived from Mediterranean trade at the port of Maguelone. Montpellier joined in a coalition aligned against the Count of Toulouse. In 1156 he married Matilda of Burgundy, daughter of Hugh II, Duke of Burgundy. He fell ill in 1171 and made his will on St Michael's day (29 September 1171), appointing his brother Gui Guerrejat and John of Montlaur, bishop of Maguelonne, as joint guardians of his 4 young sons. He probably died in September 1172. He and Matilda had nine children: Sibylle, who married Rayomond Gaucelm of Lunel William VIII of Montpellier another William, who died between 1171 and 1180 Gui, named Gui Burgundion after his mother and to distinguish him from his uncle Gui Guerrejat. He married Azalais of Conas and had a daughter, Burgundione. He founded the order of the Holy Ghost Raymond, who became a Cistercian monk at Grandselve, then bishop of Lodève, then (by 1192) bishop of Agde Guillemette, who married Raymond of Anduze, son of Bernard V of Anduze Azalais or Adelaide Marie Clémence, who was for some time a nun, but in 1199 married Rostaing of Sabran, constable of the count of Toulouse == References ==

William_VIII_of_Montpellier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_VIII_of_Montpellier

William VIII (in Occitan: Guilhem; died 1202) was Lord of Montpellier, the son of William VII and Matilda of Burgundy. William VIII married Eudokia Komnene, grand-niece of the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos. They had one daughter, Marie of Montpellier. Lacking a male heir, William separated from Eudokia, sending her to a monastery in Ariane. William then married Agnes of Castile and sired eight more children: William IX of Montpellier Aymard, d. 1199 Bernat William, married Jussiana d’Entença, daughter of Ponç Hug d’Entença Tortoseta (Thomas) Bergunyo, a priest Gui, a priest Agnes, married in 1203 Raymond Roger Trencavel, viscount of Carcassonne, Béziers, Albi and Razès. Adalaïs. The Pope ruled William's marriage to Agnes as illegitimate and Marie was given the throne. William VIII was a patron of troubadours. Arnaut de Mareuil came to his court after fleeing from the entourage of Azalais of Toulouse, and at least one of Arnaut's poems is addressed to him. == References ==

William_IX_of_Montpellier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_IX_of_Montpellier

William IX (Occitan Guilhem or Guillem) was the lord of Montpellier from 1202 until 1204. He was the last lord of the Guilhem lineage. William IX was the eldest son of William VIII of Montpellier. His mother, Agnes (Spanish Inés), was related to the kings of Aragon. She was William VIII's second wife, married in 1187 after he left his first wife, Eudokia Komnene, who was the mother of his daughter and heiress, Mary. William VIII struggled to get the church, the townspeople and neighbouring lords to recognise the legitimacy of his second marriage and his son. William IX had five full brothers and two full sisters. William IX succeeded his father in 1202 in accordance with the latter's final will and testament (dated that same year) and in contravention of the marriage treaty with Eudokia. William's government included many features, such as a Council of Fifteen, that were new in Montpellier. These had been created by his father in an effort to get the townspeople to accept his chosen heir. In 1204, Mary married the divorced King Peter II of Aragon, who thus obtained a claim on Montpellier. The townspeople rebelled against William's government and drove him and the Council from the town. They invited Peter and Mary to take over the lordship. After he was exiled from Montpellier, William IX held the castle of Paulhan until his death. Both Peter II's divorce case and the case of William IX's legitimacy were litigated in Rome in 1212–13. Pope Innocent III decided in favour of Peter, legitimising his marriage to Mary and their children, in January 1213. He decided against William, rejecting his father's marriage to Agnes as adulterous and declaring him illegitimate, in April 1213. == Notes ==

Marie_of_Montpellier

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_of_Montpellier

Marie of Montpellier (adapted from Occitan: Maria de Montpelhièr) (1182 – 21 April 1213) was Lady of Montpellier and by her three marriages Viscountess of Marseille, Countess of Comminges and Queen of Aragon. She was the daughter of William VIII, Lord of Montpellier, by his wife Eudokia Komnene, a niece of Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos. Life Since her birth, Marie was the legitimate heiress of the Lordship of Montpellier, because a clause of the marriage contract of her parents established that the firstborn child, boy or girl, would succeed in Montpellier on William VIII's death. In April 1187, William VIII repudiated Eudokia Komnene and married a certain Agnes, a relative of the Kings of Aragon. They had eight children, six sons and two daughters. Although Eudokia entered in a convent in Aniane as a Benedictine nun, William VIII's second marriage was declared invalid and all the children born from this union declared illegitimate, so Marie remained as the undisputed heiress of Montpellier. Marie married Viscount Raymond Geoffrey II of Marseille, also named Barral, in 1192 or shortly before, but was widowed at the end of that year. Her second marriage, in December 1197, was to Count Bernard IV of Comminges, and at the insistence of her father, Marie renounced her rights over Montpellier in favor of her eldest half-brother William (IX), son of Agnes. From her marriage with Bernard IV, Marie had two daughters, Mathilde (by marriage Viscountess de la Barthe) and Petronille (by marriage Countess of Astarac). The marriage was, however, notoriously polygamous (Bernard IV had two other living wives) and was finally annulled (some say on Marie's insistence, some say on that of King Peter II of Aragon) in 1201. Marie was once more heir to Montpellier with this annulment, but her father never recognized her and openly acknowledged his son William IX as his heir. William VIII died in 1202. Marie's half-brother William IX had taken control of the city, but she asserted her right to it. On 15 June 1204 Marie married Peter II of Aragon, and thanks to a revolt against William IX, she was recognized as Lady of Montpellier. From her marriage with Peter II, Marie gave birth to two children: Infanta Sancha (born in 1205, died aged one) and Infante James, the future King James I the Conqueror (born on 1 February 1208). Peter II immediately attempted to divorce her, hoping both to marry Maria of Montferrat, Queen of Jerusalem, and to claim Montpellier for himself. Marie's last years were spent in combating these political and matrimonial maneuvers. Pope Innocent III finally decided in her favor, refusing to permit the divorce. Marie died in Rome (21 April 1213) on her way back to Aragon, and Peter II a few months later (14 September 1213) at the Battle of Muret. Marie and Peter II's only surviving child, King James I, inherited Aragon and Montpellier. References Sources Graham-Leigh, Elaine (2005). The Southern French Nobility and the Albigensian Crusade Hardcover. The Boydell Press. Guillaume de Puylaurens, Chronique 1145-1275 ed. and tr. Jean Duvernoy (Paris: CNRS, 1976) pp. 62–3. Bibliography J. M. Lacarra, L. Gonzalez Anton, 'Les testaments de la reine Marie de Montpellier' in Annales du Midi vol. 90 (1978) pp. 105–120. Nique, Christian (2013), Les deux visages de Marie de Montpellier (1182-1213) (PDF) (in French), Montpellier: Académie des Sciences et Lettres de Montpellier M. Switten, 'Marie de Montpellier: la femme et le pouvoir en Occitanie au douzième siècle' in Actes du Premier Congrès International de l'Association d'Etudes Occitanes ed. P. T. Ricketts (London: Westfield College, 1987) pp. 485–491. Varzos, Konstantinos (1984). Η Γενεαλογία των Κομνηνών [The Genealogy of the Komnenoi] (PDF) (in Greek). Vol. B. Thessaloniki: Centre for Byzantine Studies, University of Thessaloniki. pp. 346–359. OCLC 834784665.

James_I_of_Aragon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_I_of_Aragon

James I the Conqueror (Catalan/Valencian: Jaume I or Jaume el Conqueridor; Aragonese: Chaime I o Conqueridor; Spanish: Jaime I de Aragón or Jaime I el Conquistador; 2 February 1208 – 27 July 1276) was King of Aragon, Count of Barcelona, and Lord of Montpellier from 1213 to 1276; King of Majorca from 1231 to 1276; and King of Valencia from 1238 to 1276. His long reign of 62 years is not only the longest of any Iberian monarch, but one of the longest monarchical reigns in history, ahead of Hirohito but remaining behind Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, and Ferdinand III of Naples and Sicily. King James I saw the expansion of the Crown of Aragon in three directions: Languedoc to the north, the Balearic Islands to the southeast, and Valencia to the south. By a treaty with Louis IX of France, he achieved the renunciation of any possible claim of French suzerainty over the County of Barcelona and the other Catalan counties, while he renounced northward expansion and taking back the once Catalan territories in Occitania and vassal counties loyal to the County of Barcelona, lands that were lost by his father Peter II of Aragon in the Battle of Muret during the Albigensian Crusade and annexed by the Kingdom of France, and then decided to turn south. His great part in the Reconquista was similar in Mediterranean Spain to that of his contemporary Ferdinand III of Castile in Andalusia. One of the main reasons for this formal renunciation of most of the once Catalan territories in Languedoc and Occitania, and any expansion into them is the fact that he was raised by the Knights Templar Crusaders, who had defeated his father fighting for the Pope alongside the French, so it was effectively forbidden for him to try to maintain the traditional influence of the Count of Barcelona that previously existed in Occitania and Languedoc. As a legislator and organiser, he occupies a high place among the European kings. King James I compiled the Llibre del Consolat de Mar, which governed maritime trade and helped establish Aragonese supremacy in the western Mediterranean. He was an important figure in the development of the Catalan language, sponsoring Catalan literature and writing a quasi-autobiographical chronicle of his reign: the Llibre dels fets. Early life and reign until majority James was born at Montpellier as the only son of Peter II of Aragon and Marie of Montpellier. As a child, James was made a pawn in the power politics of Provence, where his father was engaged in struggles helping the Cathar heretics of Albi against the Albigensian Crusade led by Simon IV de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, who were trying to exterminate them. Peter endeavoured to placate the northern Crusaders by arranging a marriage between his two-year-old son James and Simon's daughter. He entrusted the boy to be educated in Montfort's care in 1211, but was soon forced to take up arms against him, dying at the Battle of Muret on 12 September 1213. Montfort would willingly have used James as a means of extending his own power had not the Aragonese appealed to Pope Innocent III, who insisted that Montfort surrender him. James was handed over to the papal legate Peter of Benevento at Carcassonne in May or June 1214. James was then sent to Monzón, where he was entrusted to the care of Guillem de Montredó, the head of the Knights Templar in Aragon and Provence; the regency meanwhile fell to his great-uncle Sancho, Count of Roussillon, and his son, the king's cousin, Nuño. The kingdom was given over to confusion until, in 1217, the Templars and some of the more loyal nobles brought the young king to Zaragoza. In 1221, he was married to Eleanor, daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile. The next six years of his reign were full of rebellions on the part of the nobles. By the Peace of Alcalá of 31 March 1227, the nobles and the king came to terms. Acquisition of Urgell In 1228, James faced the sternest opposition yet from a vassal. Guerau IV de Cabrera occupied the County of Urgell in opposition to Aurembiax, the heiress of Ermengol VIII, who had died without sons in 1208. Although Aurembiax's mother, Elvira, had made herself a protégée of James's father, upon her death in 1220 Guerau occupied the county and displaced Aurembiax, claiming that a woman could not inherit. James intervened on behalf of Aurembiax, to whom he owed protection. He bought Guerau off and allowed Aurembiax to reclaim her territory, which she did at Lleida, probably also becoming one of James' earliest mistresses. She surrendered Lleida to James and agreed to hold Urgell in fief for him. On her death in 1231, James exchanged the Balearic Islands for Urgell with her widower, Peter of Portugal. Relations with France and Navarre From 1230 to 1232, James negotiated with Sancho VII of Navarre, who desired his help against his nephew and closest living male relative, Theobald IV of Champagne. James and Sancho negotiated a treaty whereby James would inherit Navarre on the old Sancho's death, but when this occurred in 1234, the Navarrese nobles elevated Theobald to the throne instead, and James disputed it. Pope Gregory IX was required to intervene. In the end, James accepted Theobald's succession. James endeavoured to form a state straddling the Pyrenees in order to counterbalance the power of France north of the river Loire. As with the much earlier Visigothic attempt, this policy was victim to physical, cultural, and political obstacles. As in the case of Navarre, he declined to launch into perilous adventures. By the Treaty of Corbeil, signed in May 1258, he ended his conflict with Louis IX of France, securing the renunciation of any historical French claims to sovereignty over Catalonia, including the County of Barcelona. Reconquest After his false start at uniting Aragon with the Kingdom of Navarre through a scheme of mutual adoption, James turned to the south and the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea. On 5 September 1229, the troops from Aragon, consisting of 155 ships, 1,500 horsemen and 15,000 soldiers, set sail from Tarragona, Salou, and Cambrils, in southern Catalonia, to conquer Majorca from Abu Yahya, the semi-independent Almohad governor of the island. Although a group of Aragonese knights took part in the campaign because of their obligations to the king, the conquest of Majorca was mainly a Catalan undertaking, and Catalans would later make up the majority of Majorca's settlers. James conquered Majorca on 31 December 1229, and Menorca (1232) and Ibiza (1235) were later acquired during the reconquest. Valencia capitulated to Aragonese rule on 28 September 1238, following an extensive campaign that included the Siege of Burriana and the decisive Battle of the Puig, where the Aragonese commander, Bernat Guillem I d'Entença, who was also the king's cousin, died from wounds received in action. Chroniclers say James used gunpowder in the siege of Museros castle. During his remaining two decades after Corbeil, James warred with the Moors in Murcia, on behalf of his son-in-law Alfonso X of Castile. On 26 March 1244, the two monarchs signed the Treaty of Almizra to establish their zones of expansion into Andalusia so as to prevent squabbling between them. Specifically, it defined the borders of the newly created Kingdom of Valencia. James signed it on that date, but Alfonso did not affirm it until much later. According to the treaty, all lands south of a line from Biar to Villajoyosa through Busot were reserved for Castile. Crusade of 1269 Abaqa, the "Khan of Tartary" (actually the Ilkhan), corresponded with James in early 1267, inviting him to join forces with the Mongols and go on crusade. James sent an ambassador to Abaqa in the person of Jayme Alaric de Perpignan, who returned with a Mongol embassy in 1269. Pope Clement IV tried to dissuade James from crusading, regarding his moral character as sub-par, and Alfonso X did the same. Nonetheless, James, who was then campaigning in Murcia, made peace with Muhammad I, the Sultan of Granada, and set about collecting funds for a crusade. After organising the government for his absence and assembling a fleet at Barcelona in September 1269, he was ready to sail east. The troubadour Olivier lo Templier composed a song praising the voyage and hoping for its success. A storm, however, drove him off course, and he landed at Aigues-Mortes. According to the continuator of William of Tyre, he returned via Montpellier por l'amor de sa dame Berenguiere ("for the love of his lady Berengaria") and abandoned any further effort at a crusade. James's sons Pedro Fernández and Fernán Sánchez, who had been given command of part of the fleet, did continue on their way to Acre, where they arrived in December. They found that Baibars, the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, had broken his truce with the Kingdom of Jerusalem and was making a demonstration of his military power in front of Acre. During the demonstration, Egyptian troops hidden in the bushes ambushed a returning Frankish force that had been in Galilee. James's sons, initially eager for a fight, changed their minds after this spectacle and returned home via Sicily, where Fernán Sánchez was knighted by Charles of Anjou. Patronage of art, learning, and literature James built and consecrated the Cathedral of Lleida, which was constructed in a style transitional between Romanesque and Gothic with little influence from Moorish styles. James was a patron of the University of Montpellier, which owed much of its development to his impetus. He also founded a studium at Valencia in 1245 and received privileges for it from Pope Innocent IV, but it did not develop as splendidly. In 1263, James presided over a debate in Barcelona between the Jewish rabbi Nahmanides and Pablo Christiani, a prominent converso. James was the first great sponsor and patron of vernacular Catalan literature. Indeed, he may himself be called "the first of the Catalan prose writers." James wrote or dictated at various stages a chronicle of his own life in Catalan, Llibre dels fets, the first autobiography by a Christian king. As well as being a fine example of autobiography, the "Book of Deeds" expresses concepts of the power and purpose of monarchy, examples of loyalty and treachery in the feudal order, and medieval military tactics. More controversially, some historians have looked at these writings as a source of Catalan identity, separate from that of Occitania and Rome. James also wrote the Libre de la Saviesa or "Book of Wisdom." The book contains proverbs from various authors, reaching from the time of King Solomon to nearly his own time with Albertus Magnus. It even contains maxims from the medieval Arab philosophers and from the Apophthegmata Philosophorum of Honein ben Ishak, which was probably translated at Barcelona during his reign. A Hebrew translator by the name of Jehuda was employed at James's court during this period. Though James was himself a prose writer and sponsored mostly prose works, he had an appreciation of verse. In consequence of the Albigensian Crusade, many troubadours were forced to flee southern France and many found refuge in Aragon. Notwithstanding his early patronage of poetry, by the influence of his confessor Ramon de Penyafort, James brought the Inquisition into his realm in 1233 to prevent any vernacular translation of the Bible. Succession The favour James showed his illegitimate offspring led to protest from the nobles, and to conflicts between his legitimate and illegitimate sons. When one of the latter, Fernán Sánchez, who had behaved with gross ingratitude and treason toward his father, was slain by the legitimate son Peter, the old king recorded his grim satisfaction. In his will, James divided his states between his sons by Yolanda of Hungary: the aforementioned Peter received the Hispanic possessions on the mainland and James received the Kingdom of Majorca, which included the Balearic Islands, the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya, and the Lordship of Montpellier. The division inevitably produced fratricidal conflicts. In 1276, the king fell very ill at Alzira and resigned his crown, intending to retire to the monastery of Poblet, but he died at Valencia on 27 July. His mummified body was later exhumed in 1856, when the monastery was under repair. A photograph of the king was taken. The photograph of the head of the mummy clearly shows the wound in the left eyebrow that the king himself explained in a passage from his Llibre dels fets (Book of Deeds): As I was coming with the men, I happened to turn my head towards the town in order to look at the Saracens, who had come out in great force, when a cross-bowman shot at me, and hit me beside the sun-hood, and the shot struck me on the head, the bolt lighting near the forehead. It was God's will it did not pass through the head, but the point of the arrow went half through it. In anger I struck the arrow so with my hand that I broke it: the blood came out down my face; I wiped it off with a mantle of "sendal" I had, and went away laughing, that the army might not take alarm. Marriages and children James first married, in 1221, Eleanor, daughter of Alfonso VIII of Castile and Eleanor of England. Though he later had the marriage annulled, his one son by her was declared legitimate: Alfonso (1229–1260), married Constance of Béarn, Viscountess of Marsan In 1235, James remarried to Yolanda, daughter of Andrew II of Hungary by his second wife Yolande de Courtenay. They had numerous children: Yolanda, also known as Violant, (1236–1301), married Alfonso X of Castile Constance (1239–1269), married Manuel of Castile, son of Ferdinand III Peter III (1240–1285), successor in Aragon, Catalonia, and Valencia James II (1243–1311), successor in Balearics and Languedoc Ferdinand (1245–1250) Sancha (1246–before 1275), died in the Holy Land. Isabella (1248–1271), married Philip III of France Maria (1248–1267), nun Sancho (1250–1275), Archbishop of Toledo Eleanor (born 1251, died young) James married thirdly Teresa Gil de Vidaure, but only by a private document, and left her when (as he claimed) she developed leprosy. James (c. 1255–1285), lord of Xèrica Peter (1259–1318), lord of Ayerbe The children in the third marriage were recognised in his last will as being in the line of succession to the throne, should the senior lines fail. James also had several lovers, both during and after his marriages, and fathered several illegitimate sons. By Blanca d'Antillón: Fernán Sánchez (or Fernando Sánchez) (1240–1275), Baron of Castro By Berenguela Fernández: Pedro Fernández, Baron of Híjar By Elvira Sarroca: Jaume Sarroca (born 1248), Bishop of Huesca from 1273 to 1290 References Sources Burns, Robert Ignatius (1973). Islam Under the Crusaders: Colonial Survival in the Thirteenth-Century Kingdom of Valencia. Princeton University Press. Chaytor, H. J. A History of Aragon and Catalonia. London: Methuen, 1933. Linehan, Peter (2011). Spain, 1157–1300: A Particle Inheritance. Wiley-Blackwell. Nicholson, Helen J. (2004). The Crusades. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0313326851. James I of Aragon. Previté-Orton, Charles William (1952). The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History. Vol. II The Twelfth Century to the Renaissance. Cambridge at the University Press. The book of deeds of James I of Aragon. A translation of the medieval Catalan Libre dels fets. Trans. Damian Smith and Helen Buffery (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003) (Crusade Texts in Translation, 10.) Pp. xvii + 405 incl. 5 maps. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "James I. of Aragon" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. External links libro.uca.edu Full online book – The Chronicle of James I of Aragon The Worlds of Alfonso the Learned and James the Conqueror – Robert I. Burns, S.J., ed. The Crusader Kingdom of Valencia – Robert Ignatius Burns, S.J. Medieval Sourcebook: e-text of James's grant of trade privileges to Barcelona, 1232, freeing the city from tolls and imposts with his realms The Barcelona Maritime Code of 1258 Quia super limitibus Cathalonie et Aragonum 1243, original document in which James I of Aragon officially writes down the border delimitations between Catalonia and Aragon with all the pertinent lords as witnesses.

James_II_of_Majorca

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_II_of_Majorca

James II (Catalan: Jaume) (31 May 1243 – 29 May 1311) was King of Majorca and Lord of Montpellier from 1276 until his death. He was the second son of James I of Aragon and his wife, Violant, daughter of Andrew II of Hungary. In 1279, by the Treaty of Perpignan, he became a vassal of the Crown of Aragon. Biography James inherited from his father a realm including three of the Balearic Islands (Majorca, Ibiza, and Formentera), the counties of Roussillon and Cerdanya, the dominion of Montpellier, the barony of Aumelàs, and the viscounty of Carladès. He also gained tribute from the fourth Balearic island, Menorca, which remained under Muslim control throughout his life. He ruled as a vassal of his brother Peter III of Aragon, a subordinate status which he sought to escape. In 1276, his former seneschal, Ramon Llull persuaded James to fund a language school for Franciscan missionaries at Miramar. France and Aragon contested for control of Sicily. James held rights over borderlands that were indefensible and, in anticipation of an invasion, reached an agreement with king Philip III of France (the widower of his sister, Isabella). This strained relations between Aragon and Majorca. Peter of Aragon seized Perpignan, and although James was able to escape, Peter sent two of James' sons to Barcelona. With this, James sided with the French. His nephew Alfonso III of Aragon annexed the Balearic Islands to Aragon in the conquest, but they were returned by the Treaty of Anagni in 1295. Following this reversion, James made an effort to improve the viability of the kingdom on the domestic front. He devoted himself to running his kingdom by reforming urbanism, establishing agricultural policy, emphasising defense, and reforming the economy. He implemented a vast policy of agricultural colonisation with the creation of rural centres; increase royal rents; favoured the creation of a consulate in the Kingdom of Granada; created a new monetary system for the kingdom; promoted the creation of textile industries; proceeded to increase the power of the crown over that of the nobility and the Church; and ordered the construction of several palaces and castles, including the palace at Perpignan, the Palace of Almudaina, the Cathedral of Santa María at Palma de Mallorca, known today as La Seu, and, finally, Bellver Castle. The opening of criminal proceedings against the Knights Templar and their later suppression would allow the seizure of the tithes of the Templars on the islands. Although a vassal of Aragon, in 1302 James began to create his own consulates along the North African coast. Family James wed Esclaramunda of Foix in 1275 through a marriage arranged by his own initiative and not that of his father's. Esclaramunda was a daughter of Roger IV of Foix. They had six children including: James, who became a Franciscan friar before his father's death. Sancho, James II's successor Sancha, who married Robert of Naples. Elizabeth, wife of Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena. Ferdinand, father of James III. Philip, regent of Majorca during James III's minority He also had an illegitimate daughter: Saura, who married Berengeur de Villaragut. They had a daughter, Violante of Vilaragut. == References ==

Sancho_of_Majorca

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sancho_of_Majorca

Sancho (Catalan: Sanç; 1274 – 4 September 1324), called the Pacific or the Peaceful, was King of Majorca, Count of Roussillon and Cerdanya, and Lord of Montpellier from 1311 to his death. His 13-year-long reign was markedly undisturbed by turmoil, which earned him his epithets, and is thus often contrasted to the troublesome reigns of his father, James II, and nephew, James III, his predecessor and successor respectively. Youth Sancho was one of five children and the second son of James II and Esclaramunda of Foix. He was born in Pina, Mallorca around 1274. His father ruled the Kingdom of Majorca and adjacent fiefs under the suzerainty of his brother and afterwards nephews, the kings of Aragon. James's attempts to free himself of this vassalage led to his deposition by his nephew, King Alfonso III of Aragon, in 1286. Sancho, his mother and his elder brother, James, were taken captives by their cousin. The Queen was released but the brothers were kept in close confinement for several years, sometimes in irons. The Treaty of Anagni in 1295 secured their release by King James II of Aragon as well as the return of the Balearic islands to their father. Following the release, the princes were sent to the French royal court in Paris for education. Sancho's family was noted for its religious zeal. When in 1299 his elder brother, James, renounced his right to the throne to become a Franciscan, Sancho became heir apparent to his father's dominions. He was officially recognized as such in 1302 despite his poor health, for the alternative was his younger brother Ferdinand, with whom their father was at odds. Personal life A proxy marriage with Maria, daughter of King Charles II of Naples, took place in September 1304, only three months after Sancho's sister Sancha married Maria's brother Robert. Sancho and Maria married in person five years later. The unions were part of a large-scale effort to achieve peace between the House of Barcelona, which ruled the kingdoms of Aragon, Majorca and Sicily, and the Capetian House of Anjou, which ruled the Kingdom of Naples. Sancho's union with Maria was suggested by his cousin James II of Aragon, who was already married to Maria's sister Blanche. Yet another sister-in-law of Sancho, Eleanor, married his cousin (James II of Aragon's brother) Frederick III of Sicily. Sancho was of delicate constitution and prone to asthma, prompting him to spend much of his time enjoying fresh air in the uplands. He thus established his residence in Valldemossa; the Valldemossa Charterhouse was later built on the site of Sancho's palace. The King also loved sports; he introduced partridges to the islands and passed severe anti-poaching laws. Pious but nevertheless notoriously lecherous, Sancho had three mistresses and at least four illegitimate daughters and an illegitimate son who entered a religious order. Reign Sancho became king upon James II's death on 29 May 1311. In his early reign, Sancho struggled to continue his father's policy of stabilising the kingdom, but the major city of the realm, Palma de Mallorca, fought for autonomy. The relations with Aragon were for the most part cordial throughout his reign. He was quick to answer James II of Aragon's call to Corts and assist him in the conquest of Sardinia. At the Corts, he swore fealty to his cousin in full view of the assembled legislators, which assured James so much that he absolved Sancho from obligations to attend his future Corts. Sancho extorted money from the realm's Jewish population in order to build a powerful navy that would rival that of the maritime republics of Genoa and Venice, but his grandiose plans came to nothing. The King's attitude towards his Jewish subjects changed throughout his reign. He was infuriated in 1315 by the scandalous conversion of two German Christians to Judaism on the island, and responded by severely fining the Jews and confiscating all their property, including the synagogue. He also deprived them of all "privileges, liberties and immunities" granted by himself and his predecessors. He later allowed Jews to build a new synagogue, for which they had no resources, and in 1323 rewarded them financially for helping the royal treasury and for helping the construction of the Cathedral of Perpignan. Succession issues and death King Sancho's marriage was childless, which proved problematic in terms of succession. James II of Aragon claimed that the crown should revert to him if Sancho were to die leaving no legitimate issue, but Sancho himself was eager to prevent that. The elder of his two brothers, Ferdinand, had predeceased him; the younger, Philip, had also chosen an ecclesiastical career. Ferdinand, however, had left two sons, James and Ferdinand, and in 1322 Sancho devised a will detailing the line of succession: should Sancho have no legitimate children, the crown was to pass to James, then to the younger Ferdinand, and only if both boys were to die childless to the King of Aragon. He then proceeded to prepare the realm for his underage nephew's accession by establishing a regency council consisting of six people, three from the Kingdom of Majorca and three from the counties of Roussillon and Cerdagne. War almost broke out with the enraged King of Aragon, but Sancho had the support of King Charles IV of France. In the summer of 1324, the asthmatic Sancho sought to escape the heat of his kingdom by spending the season in Formiguères. The precaution was futile, however. He died of an asthma attack on 4 September 1324. His nephew, James III, succeeded him. The arrival of Sancho's funeral procession on 11 September caused a tumult in Perpignan, with the townspeople attacking the nobles who accompanied his corpse and seizing the King's remains. The remains are now interred in the newly built Cathedral of Perpignan, which Sancho himself had chosen for his burial. Family tree == References ==

James_III_of_Majorca

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_III_of_Majorca

James III ((1315-04-05)5 April 1315 – (1349-10-25)25 October 1349), known as James the Rash (or the Unfortunate), was King of Majorca from 1324 to 1344. He was the son of Ferdinand of Majorca and Isabella of Sabran. Life James was born in Catania, Sicily. Margaret of Villehardouin, James's maternal grandmother, fought to reclaim the Principality of Achaea from the Angevins of the Kingdom of Naples. However, Isabella died shortly after giving birth, and James was subsequently declared the Prince of Achaea, with his father assuming guardianship over him. In an attempt to gain control of the principality, Ferdinand launched an invasion of the Morea but met his demise in the Battle of Manolada in 1316. Despite this setback, starting from 1331, the feudal lords of Achaea gradually acknowledged James's rights. By 1333, this recognition became complete, even though the Angevin heirs of Philip I of Taranto persisted in pressing their claim. Upon the death of his uncle Sancho in 1324, James inherited the Kingdom of Majorca. His uncle Philip acted as regent for the kingdom until 1329. In a bid to cultivate amicable relations with the Crown of Aragon, James tied the knot with Constance, the daughter of Alfonso IV of Aragon. Even though the kings of Majorca traditionally swore an oath of fealty to the kings of Aragon, James contended that no king could exercise authority over another king. He supported the University of Montpellier, which was situated within his continental domains, and the legal scholars from that institution championed his royal prerogatives. On 9 May 1337, James introduced the Leges palatinae, an intricate legal code governing his court and the first of its kind. To accompany this, he commissioned a finely crafted illuminated manuscript in an Italian style, which he managed to preserve even after losing his throne. He transported it to the Roman curia and eventually sold it to Philip VI of France. In 1342, James declined to pledge the oath of fealty to his cousin Peter IV of Aragon. Nevertheless, he received support from the scholars of the University of Montpellier and from Aragonese troubadour, Thomàs Périz de Fozes, who penned a poem in defense of James. This disagreement led to a brief conflict during which Peter managed to expel James from Majorca, subsequently reannexing the Balearic Islands to the Crown of Aragon. Tragically, James died on 25 October 1349 at the Battle of Llucmajor while attempting to recapture the island. Issue James and his first wife, Constance of Aragon, had two children: James IV of Majorca (c. 1336–(1375-01-20)20 January 1375). Married Joanna I of Naples. Isabella of Majorca (c. 1337–c. 1406). Married John II of Montferrat. James and his second wife, Violante of Vilaragut, had one child: Esclaramunda of Majorca (unknown). Died shortly after her birth. References == Bibliography ==

It%27s_Always_Sunny_in_Philadelphia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It%27s_Always_Sunny_in_Philadelphia

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia is an American sitcom created by Rob McElhenney and developed with Glenn Howerton for FX. It premiered on August 4, 2005, and was moved to FXX beginning with the ninth season in 2013. It stars Charlie Day, Howerton, McElhenney, Kaitlin Olson, and Danny DeVito. The series follows the exploits of a group of narcissistic and sociopathic friends who run the Irish dive bar Paddy's Pub in South Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but spend most of their free time drinking, scheming, arguing among themselves, and plotting elaborate cons against others, and at times each other, for personal benefit, financial gain, revenge, or simply due to boredom or inebriation. The series has run for more seasons than any other American live-action sitcom, surpassing The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet's 14 seasons. In December 2020, the series was renewed for a total of four additional seasons, bringing it to 18 seasons. The sixteenth season premiered on June 7, 2023. The show has received critical acclaim, with many lauding the cast performances and dark humor. It has amassed a large cult following. Synopsis The series follows a group of misfit, narcissistic sociopaths, referred to as "The Gang", who run a meager, unsuccessful Irish bar called Paddy's Pub in the neighborhood of South Philadelphia. The Gang originally consisted of janitor Charlie Kelly (Charlie Day), bouncer Mac (Rob McElhenney), and bartender Dennis Reynolds (Glenn Howerton), the three of whom own Paddy's Pub, in addition to Dennis' twin sister Dee Reynolds (Kaitlin Olson), a struggling actress who works as a waitress there. In the second season, they are joined by Frank Reynolds (Danny DeVito), an eccentric millionaire and the neglectful father of the Reynolds twins, who takes over most of the ownership of the bar. He soon becomes the financial catalyst for the Gang, often funding many of the Gang's over-complicated plots, while simultaneously succumbing to the brazen depravity of the group. Each member of The Gang exhibits unethical behavior and anti-social traits such as extreme selfishness, pathological dishonesty, narcissism, physical and emotional aggression, excessive drinking and substance abuse, unregulated emotions, cruelty, greed, misogyny, manipulative tendencies, predatory behavior, jealousy, sociopathy, apathy toward suffering, emotional detachment, frequent abuse of the legal system, exploitation, discrimination against disability, race, and appearance, rudeness and contempt to others, and absolutely no regard for the people around them, while also displaying acute codependency, stupidity, negligence, and a surprising lack of awareness of basic social norms. The comedy of the show emerges from these extreme character traits resulting in conflicts that lead The Gang into absurd, dark, and painfully embarrassing situations, typically ending with them getting their comeuppance, but never learning their lesson. This allows the show to mine a variety of socio-political and economic issues for satire and dark humor while keeping the characters in a state of relative stasis conducive to the long-running sitcom format. Episodes usually find The Gang hatching elaborate schemes and regularly conspiring, against both outsiders and one another, for personal gain, revenge, or simply schadenfreude. They habitually inflict physical and psychological pain on anyone who crosses their path, even each other, yet always return to the status quo at Paddy's Pub because they have alienated the rest of society and have only each other's company in the end. The Gang has no sense of shame when attempting to get what they want and often engages in activities that others would find humiliating, disgusting, or shocking. Some of these situations include pretending to be disabled, becoming addicted to crack cocaine in order to qualify for welfare, attempted cannibalism, kidnapping, waterboarding, blackface, blackmail, stalking, grave robbing, hiding naked inside a couch to eavesdrop on people, tricking a man into giving his daughter a lap dance, foraging naked in the sewers for rings and coins, impersonating police officers to extort civilians, creating a cult, secretly feeding someone their dead pet, plugging their open wounds with trash, setting an apartment full of people on fire and nailing the exit shut, taking out life insurance on a suicidal person, and lying about having AIDS in order to get priority access to water park rides. In an angry summation of their circumstances during one such escapade, Dennis laments The Gang's dynamic: We immediately escalate everything to a ten... somebody comes in with some preposterous plan or idea, then all of a sudden everyone's on the gas, nobody's on the brakes, nobody's thinking, everyone's just talking over each other with one idiotic idea after another! Until, finally, we find ourselves in a situation where we've broken into somebody's house – and the homeowner is home! With rare exceptions, Paddy's Pub generates limited revenue. Most stay away from the establishment due to the numerous stabbings that have taken place. The few regular customers have been known to serve themselves. The Gang has been known to close Paddy's for extended periods without warning. When the bar is open, they shirk their respective jobs' responsibilities and choose to drink instead. Paddy's is only able to stay in business because of Frank's financial backing, government bailouts and tax fraud. Cast and characters The show features a core cast of five characters (The Gang) and a recurring cast of colorful side characters, including the Waitress, Cricket, the McPoyles, the Ponderosas, the Lawyer and various family members like Mrs. Kelly, Mrs. Mac and Uncle Jack Kelly, who cross paths and interact with the Gang in increasingly unhinged ways as the show progresses. Main Charlie Day as Charlie Kelly, co-owner and janitor of Paddy's Pub. He is a childhood friend of Mac, and high school friend of Dennis and Dee. He lives in squalor with Frank in a run-down, vermin-infested apartment, and has deep-seated psychological problems, partly due to substance abuse from huffing paint and glue, and partly due to his complicated family background possibly involving child abuse. He has an extensive history of pica and regularly eats various items not meant for human consumption, such as cat food, stickers, paint, and bleach. Due to his general lack of intelligence and his illiteracy, he is arguably the simplest member of The Gang. Despite this, Charlie is a naturally gifted musician, a self-proclaimed expert in "bird law" and possibly the only competent worker at Paddy's with his knack for unorthodox maintenance practices ("Charlie Work"). He also has an unhealthy obsession with "The Waitress", a recurring character who finds his interest in her creepy. Glenn Howerton as Dennis Reynolds, co-owner and the main bartender of Paddy's Pub, in addition to being Dee's twin brother and Frank's son. Originally the most intelligent and normal-seeming of the three co-owners, Dennis is slowly revealed to be the most narcissistic and psychopathic of The Gang. Dennis is extremely superficial, selfish, vain and abrasive. His predatory nature is often depicted through numerous attempts to seduce various women; which, when successful, result in him gaslighting and emotionally abusing them in order to win over their favor before inevitably dumping them once he has had sex with them ("The D.E.N.N.I.S. System"). It is strongly hinted at times that Dennis may secretly be a serial killer, though this remains ambiguous as a running gag. In season 10, he is diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, though he frequently denies this and believes himself to be completely rational, and is convinced that he is in complete control of everything and everyone around him, going as far as to label himself a 'golden god'. In the season 12 finale, Dennis reveals to the rest of the gang that he has an infant son, and moves to North Dakota to raise him. He returns to Philadelphia in season 13, supposedly supporting his family from a distance. Rob McElhenney as Ronald "Mac" McDonald, co-owner and self-proclaimed bouncer of Paddy's Pub. He is Charlie's childhood friend and Dennis's high school friend. The son of a convicted felon who has been in prison for much of Mac's life, he frequently attempts to demonstrate his toughness and refers to himself as the "sheriff of Paddy's". Deeply insecure, Mac constantly seeks the approval of those around him, especially his father, his apathetic and emotionally absent mother, and Dennis, his roommate. He suffers from extreme bouts of body dysmorphia, and has been depicted at various weights throughout the course of the series: prior to the beginning of Season 7, he gained 60 pounds (27 kg) and was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, and when he finally returned to a healthy weight in the following season, he admitted he misses being fat, as he believed he had come across as "scary" to people. In Season 13, he is noticeably fit and physically stronger, though it is quickly revealed his motives for attaining his shape was strictly due to his intense desire for acceptance from the rest of the Gang. He often brags about his hand-to-hand combat skills, but typically flees from physical confrontation and is usually depicted as the most cowardly of the gang. Mac is a Roman Catholic, though he often espouses strong Christian fundamentalist opinions, despite his seemingly incompatible behavior, such as casual sex with numerous women, including Dennis's and Dee's mother. Though it is frequently insinuated Mac harbors homosexual feelings, he maintained an adamant denial of any such proclivity, much to the gang's annoyance, until he comes out in season 12. Later episodes reveal that Mac is sexually attracted to his best friend, Dennis. Kaitlin Olson as Deandra "Sweet Dee" Reynolds, waitress and sometimes bartender at Paddy's Pub, as well as Dennis's twin sister and Frank's daughter. Though initially depicted as The Gang's 'voice of reason' in the debut season, she gradually loses any sense of moral fortitude that she once had, and is frequently shown to be just as prejudiced and depraved as her male friends by the end of season 1, arguably becoming the most petty member of the group, often plotting against others whom she deems more successful than herself in a vain effort to boost her own image. Dee wore a back brace in high school, leaving her with the nickname "The Aluminum Monster", and she is frequently referred to by the gang as a bird. Dee lives alone in an apartment. Though often the butt of the gang's jokes, she frequently involves herself in their schemes, perhaps due to her constant need for approval and attention from her peers. She does not hold any ownership stake in the bar – perhaps due to the gang's various prejudices against her, but also in part to her desire to become a professional actress/comedian (an ambition she consistently fails to achieve due to her debilitating stage fright and her general lack of any apparent talent). In multiple episodes, it is referenced that Dee set her college roommate on fire, and she is often portrayed as the most physically violent of the group. Despite expressing outward disgust at her brother's more predatory behavior, later episodes reveal Dee not to be above such behavior herself. Danny DeVito as Frank Reynolds, legal father of Dennis and Dee Reynolds, and the majority owner of Paddy's Pub soon after his introduction in season 2 onward. Frank is a millionaire and often funds and enables The Gang's worst schemes and impulses, just to feel a sense of youthfulness and energy. He was once a successful businessman with a long history of illegal operations and dealings with sordid characters, but chooses to abandon that life and redeem himself after leaving his "whore wife", Barbara Reynolds. It is revealed at the end of season 2 that Dennis and Dee are products of an affair and not actually his biological children. He has since embraced his "feral" nature and describes himself as "fringe class". Despite his substantial financial resources, he chooses to share a decrepit studio apartment with Charlie, where they sleep together on a pullout couch and have a surprisingly affectionate pseudo-father/son relationship. The two have similar interests, such as playing the inexplicable game of Night Crawlers and foraging naked in sewers for valuables. He always arms himself with at least one loaded handgun and does not hesitate to brandish or even discharge one when provoked, and often snorts cocaine as part of his daily routine. Production Charlie Day, Glenn Howerton, and Rob McElhenney first met each other while auditioning for Tuck Everlasting and other projects in New York City and, later, in Los Angeles—they were going up for similar parts, moved to Los Angeles around the same time and even had the same manager Nick Frenkel. Day and Howerton, notably, got to know each other on a car ride back from testing for That '80s Show in late 2001, when Howerton was cast as Corey Howard and Day did not get the part of his best friend. While living in New York, Day had been making comedic home movies with his friends from the Williamstown Theatre Festival—Jimmi Simpson, Nate Mooney, David Hornsby and Logan Marshall-Green, (many of whom would later go on to be involved with Sunny)—which inspired McElhenney and Howerton to want to make short films of their own with him. McElhenney, in particular, had been writing screenplays between jobs and since none of them were picked up, decided to shoot them himself with Howerton, Day and other actor friends. The decision to make their own short films was further influenced by the release of the affordable Panasonic DVX100A digital camera as well as the accessible, low-budget look of The Office (UK) and Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia grew out of an idea for a short film conceived late one night by McElhenney "where a friend came over to another friend's house to get sugar, and the friend tells him he has cancer, and all the guy can think about is getting his sugar and getting out of there". He wrote the scene down before taking it to Howerton the next day to flesh it out and work on making it comedic. Day was soon roped in and the first script was written, featuring three struggling actors in LA named Charlie, Glenn and Mac, and the ensuing awkwardness around Charlie's cancer diagnosis. The home movies were shot and reshot multiple times, initially with Hornsby playing the Mac character and McElhenney behind the camera as director. It was via this process that McElhenney, Day and Howerton learned the basics of shooting, editing and other aspects of film-making. The three then developed a second "episode" of their home movie series, this time focused on the humor from Mac's sense of shame around his relationship with Carmen, a transgender woman. At this point, it became clear that the home movies had potential as a television series, instead of the short films they were envisioned as originally. Both parts would eventually end up in the episode "Charlie Has Cancer". The home movie was titled It's Always Sunny on TV after the a-ha song "The Sun Always Shines on T.V.". Howerton had been listening to the album Hunting High and Low (1985) while stretching at a Crunch gym in West Hollywood. This was then developed into a pilot called It's Always Sunny on TV and was shot on a digital camcorder and filmed in the actors' own apartments. They expanded the central cast to four people living in Los Angeles, "a group of best friends who care so little for each other", Howerton said. It was believed the pilot was shot with a budget of just $200, but Day would later comment, "We shot it for nothing... I don't know where this $200 came from... We were a bunch of kids with cameras running around shooting each other and [the] next thing you know, we're eleven years in and we're still doing the show." This pilot was shopped by the actors around various studios, their pitch being simply showing the DVD of the pilot to executives. After viewing the pilot, FX Network ordered the first season. The show was budgeted at $450,000 an episode, less than a third of a network standard, using Panasonic's DVX100 MiniDV prosumer video camera. The original concept had "the gang" being out-of-work actors with the theme song being a cha-cha version of "Hooray for Hollywood"; however there were too many shows at the time with a similar premise. "The network came to us and said, 'We don't want a show about actors,' and we said, 'Fine, let's put it somewhere else,'" McElhenney explained. "I'm from Philly, let's put it in Philly, and we'll make it about a bar, because that's a job where you can have lots of free time and still have income that could explain how these people can sustain themselves." The title was later changed to reflect that, in the unaired pilot, the gang had been rewritten as bar owners in Philadelphia, instead of actors in LA. Prior to Kaitlin Olson joining the show, the character Sweet Dee was going to be played by Jordan Reid, who at the time was the girlfriend of McElhenney. The part was recast after they broke up. After the first season, FX executives were worried about the show's low ratings and demanded that changes be made to the cast. "So, John Landgraf, who's the president of FX, he called me in for a meeting and was like, 'Hey, no one's watching the show, but we love it,'" McElhenney recalled. "'We wanna keep it on, but we don't have any money for marketing, and we need to add somebody with some panache that we can hopefully parlay into some public relations story, just so we can get people talking.'" FX began suggesting actors such as Danny DeVito that could boost the show's profile. "It's not that we were reticent to the idea of adding Danny to the show," Howerton recalled, "It's that we were reticent to add a name to the show. You know, because we kinda liked that we were no-names and it was this weird, small thing, you know." Initially, McElhenney refused, saying "No, I just don't think we wanna do that, and they were like, 'Oh OK, well, you know... the show's over.'" Realizing they needed to change the trajectory of the show to please the network, McElhenney, Howerton, and Day became open to adding a new cast member who was familiar to the public. However, McElhenney, Howerton, and Day were hesitant at first since they thought they would "ruin the show", but during an interview, Day commented on how they got lucky with DeVito in the end: "We didn’t know what Danny would be like as a person. It turned out he was as great an actor as he was a person. As I said, we got lucky with Danny." DeVito joined the cast in the first episode of the second season, playing the father of Dennis and Dee. The show is shot in both Philadelphia and Los Angeles. The exterior of Paddy's Pub is located at the Starkman Building on 544 Mateo Street in Los Angeles. On April 1, 2016, the series was renewed for a thirteenth and fourteenth season, which matched The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet with the most seasons for a live-action sitcom in American television history. In January 2023, McElhenney confirmed that filming for the sixteenth season had begun. In May 2024, DeVito said that the seventeenth season would begin filming in September 2024. Episodes Broadcast and syndication The first season ran for seven episodes with the finale airing September 15, 2005. According to McElhenney, word of mouth on the show was good enough for FX to renew it for a second season, which ran from June 29 to August 17, 2006. Reruns of edited first-season episodes began airing on FX's then-parent network, Fox, in June 2006, for a planned three-episode run—"The Gang Finds a Dead Guy," "Gun Fever" (which was renamed "Gun Control") and "Charlie Gets Molested" were shown. The show was not aired on broadcast television again until 2011, when FX began offering it for syndication. The third season ran from September 13 to November 15, 2007. On March 5, 2008, FX renewed It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia for a fourth season. On July 15, 2008, it was reported that FX had ordered 39 additional episodes of the series, produced as seasons five through seven of the show. All five main cast members were secured for the entire scheduled run. The fifth season ran from September 17 to December 10, 2009. On May 31, 2010, Comedy Central began airing reruns. WGN America also began broadcasting the show as part of its fall 2011 schedule. The sixth season ran from September 16 to December 9, 2010, comprising 12 episodes, plus the Christmas special. The seventh season ran from September 15 to December 15, 2011, comprising 13 episodes. On August 6, 2011, FX announced it had picked up the show for an additional two seasons (the eighth and ninth) running through 2013. On March 28, 2013, FX renewed the show for a tenth season, and announced that it would move to FX's new sister network, FXX. In April 2017, Kaitlin Olson announced that It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia would go on an extended hiatus. In an interview with TV Guide, she said, "We ended up pushing our next season a year because we were all busy with separate projects this year. So at the end of this coming shooting season of The Mick, I'll step right into Sunny after that." On October 2, 2017, the show premiered on Vice on TV. The series is available for streaming on Hulu except for the episodes "America's Next Top Paddy's Billboard Model Contest", "Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth", "The Gang Recycles Their Trash", "The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 6" and "Dee Day", due to scenes involving blackface. The same episodes are missing from Netflix in the UK, Disney+ in Australia, Canada, Scandinavia, and Spain, and Latin America. Music The show uses recurring orchestral production music selections. "We had a music supervisor called Ray Espinola and we said, 'Give us everything you have in a sort of Leave It to Beaver with a big band-swing kind of feel,' and the majority of the songs are from what he sent over," Charlie Day explained. "When you set it against what these characters were doing—which often times can be perceived as quite despicable, or wrong—it really disarmed the audience. It just became our go-to library of songs." The theme song is called "Temptation Sensation" by German composer Heinz Kiessling. Kiessling's work ("On Your Bike" and "Blue Blood") can also be heard during various scene transitions throughout the show, along with other composers and pieces such as Werner Tautz ("Off Broadway"), Joe Brook ("Moonbeam Kiss"), and Karl Grell ("Honey Bunch"). Many of the tracks heard in the series are from Cafe Romantique, an album of easy listening production music collected by Extreme Music, the production music library unit of Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Independent record label Fervor Records has also contributed music to the show. Songs from The Jack Gray Orchestra's album Easy Listening Symph-O-Nette ("Take A Letter Miss Jones," "Golly Gee Whiz," and "Not a Care in the World") and the John Costello III release Giants of Jazz ("Birdcage," "Cotton Club" and "Quintessential") are heard in several episodes. The soundtrack, featuring most of the music heard on the show, was released in 2010. Soundtrack track listing Reception and legacy Critical reviews and commentary It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia has received critical acclaim for its humor and the performances of the cast. Emily Nussbaum of The New Yorker praised the show, calling it "not merely the best sitcom on television but one of the most arresting and ambitious current TV series, period." Gillian Flynn of Entertainment Weekly reviewed the first season negatively, commenting, "[I]t is smug enough to think it's breaking ground, but not smart enough to know it isn't." Brian Lowry of Variety gave the first season a positive review, saying it was "invariably clever and occasionally a laugh-out-loud riot, all while lampooning taboo topics." However, later seasons of the show have received favorable ratings on review aggregator Metacritic, receiving 70/100, 78/100 and 85/100 for seasons 4, 5 and 6 respectively. The show has become a cult hit with viewers and is often compared in style to Seinfeld—particularly due to the self-centered nature of its main characters. The Philadelphia Inquirer reviewer Jonathan Storm wrote, "It's like Seinfeld on crack," a quote that became widely used to describe the series, to the point that FX attached the tagline, "It's Seinfeld on crack." In 2014, Entertainment Weekly listed the show at number 7 in the "26 Best Cult TV Shows Ever," with the comment that "it's a great underdog story ... If it sounds too dark for you, consider that there's an episode about making mittens for kittens, and it's adorable." In 2016, a New York Times study of the 50 TV shows with the most Facebook likes found that Sunny was "more popular in college towns (and most popular in Philadelphia)." In 2015, Rolling Stone rated the top 20 greatest and funniest It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia episodes, stating "for 10 seasons, the series had mined comic gold from the execrable behavior of the owners of Paddy's Pub." They claimed the two-part season 4 episode, "Mac and Charlie Die" is the sitcom's greatest episode yet. In 2019, the BBC called the show "the best US sitcom." They praised the show's unique outlook and ability to range from nihilistic humor to genuine heartfelt moments. According to Matt Fowler of IGN, the series "broke new ground" due to its sociopathic depiction of "The Gang". It was also ranked 63rd in IGN's list of the top 100 TV shows of all time. Awards Other media The Nightman Cometh live In September 2009, the cast took their show live. The "Gang" performed the musical The Nightman Cometh in New York City, Boston, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. Mary Elizabeth Ellis and Artemis Pebdani also appeared in the performance as The Waitress and Artemis. Actress Rhea Perlman (wife of Danny DeVito) assumed the role of Gladys. Creator Rob McElhenney said that Live Nation originally approached the cast about doing the show at 30 cities, but in the end the cast settled on six. Co-developer Glenn Howerton described the show as "essentially an expanded version of the actual episode of "The Nightman Cometh," which was the final episode for season four. There are some added moments, added scenes, added songs, and extended versions of songs that already existed." The performance featured two new songs, and the actors were given more opportunity to improvise thanks to the longer running time. An episode from season five was also previewed before the show. The Los Angeles performance, filmed at The Troubadour, was included as a bonus feature on the season four DVD box set. Russian adaptation A Russian adaptation of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia premiered in Russia on the television channel TNT on May 12, 2014. This version is titled В Москве всегда солнечно (V Moskve vsegda solnechno, It's Always Sunny in Moscow) and like the original, centers around four friends, who own a bar called "Philadelphia" in Moscow. Book A book based upon It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was released on January 6, 2015, titled The Gang Writes a Self-Help Book: The 7 Secrets of Awakening the Highly Effective Four-Hour Giant, Today. Podcast On November 9, 2021, Howerton, Day, and McElhenney started The Always Sunny Podcast, an episode-by-episode rewatch podcast, with Megan Ganz as producer. Occasional guest stars include Kaitlin Olson, David Hornsby, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Michael Naughton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Cormac Bluestone and Danny DeVito. Notes References External links Official website It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia at IMDb

Danny_DeVito

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_DeVito

Daniel Michael DeVito Jr. (born November 17, 1944) is an American actor and filmmaker. He gained prominence for his portrayal of the taxi dispatcher Louie De Palma in the television series Taxi (1978–1983), which won him a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award. He plays Frank Reynolds on the FXX sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (2005–present). He is known for his film roles in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), Terms of Endearment (1983), Head Office (1985), Ruthless People (1986), Throw Momma from the Train (1987), Twins (1988), The War of the Roses (1989), Batman Returns (1992), Jack the Bear (1993), Junior (1994), Matilda (1996), L.A. Confidential (1997), The Big Kahuna (1999), Big Fish (2003), Deck the Halls (2006), When in Rome (2010), Wiener-Dog (2016), and Jumanji: The Next Level (2019). He has voiced roles in such films as Hercules (1997), The Lorax (2012), and Smallfoot (2018). DeVito and Michael Shamberg founded Jersey Films. Soon afterwards, Stacey Sher became an equal partner. The production company is known for films such as Pulp Fiction (1994), Garden State (2004), and Freedom Writers (2007). DeVito also owned Jersey Television, which produced the Comedy Central series Reno 911! DeVito and wife Rhea Perlman starred together in his 1996 film Matilda, based on Roald Dahl's children's novel. DeVito was also one of the producers nominated for an Academy Award for Best Picture for Erin Brockovich (2000). From 2012 to 2013 he played Willie Clark in the West End revival of Neil Simon's The Sunshine Boys. He made his Broadway debut as Gregory Solomon in the revival of Arthur Miller's The Price (2017), earning a Tony Award nomination for his performance. He returned to Broadway in the Theresa Rebeck play I Need That (2023). Early life and education DeVito was born at Raleigh Fitkin-Paul Morgan Memorial Hospital in Neptune Township, New Jersey, the son of Daniel DeVito Sr., a small business owner, and Julia DeVito (née Moccello). He grew up in a family of five, with his parents and two older sisters. He is of Italo-Albanian descent; his family is originally from San Fele, Basilicata, as well as from the Arbëresh Albanian community of Calabria. He was raised in Asbury Park, New Jersey. He lived a few miles away from the original Jersey Mike's location and would eat there frequently, which would inspire him to become the sub shop's first celebrity spokesman in a line of commercials that began to air in September 2022. DeVito was raised as a Catholic. When he was 14, he persuaded his father to send him to boarding school to "keep him out of trouble", and graduated from Oratory Preparatory School in Summit, New Jersey, in 1962. While working as a beautician at his sister's salon, his search for a professional makeup instructor led him to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, where he graduated in 1966. In his early theater days, he performed with the Colonnades Theater Lab at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, Connecticut. Along with his future wife Rhea Perlman, he appeared in plays produced by the Westbeth Playwrights Feminist Collective. Career Acting DeVito started his career acting off-Broadway in the plays Shoot Anything With Hair That Moves and The Man with the Flower in His Mouth both in 1969. DeVito played Martini in the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest directed by Milos Forman, reprising his role from the 1971 off-Broadway play of the same title. He had his feature film debut in the drama Dreams of Glass (1970). Early film roles include Lady Liberty (1971), Hurry Up, or I'll Be 30 (1973), and Deadly Hero (1975). In 1977, DeVito played the role of John "John John the Apple" DeAppoliso in the Starsky & Hutch episode "The Collector". DeVito gained fame in 1978 playing Louie De Palma, the short but domineering dispatcher for the fictional Sunshine Cab Company, on the hit TV show Taxi. For his performance he received a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film. After his breakthrough on the sitcom Taxi, DeVito devoted more effort to a growing successful film career. He took a supporting role as Vernon Dalhart in the James L. Brooks directed comedy-drama Terms of Endearment (1983) acting alongside Shirley MacLaine, Debra Winger, and Jack Nicholson. The film earned critical acclaim as well as the Academy Award for Best Picture. The following year he acted in the crime comedy Johnny Dangerously (1984) and took the role as the comic rogue Ralph in the romantic adventure Romancing the Stone (1984), starring Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner; and its sequel, The Jewel of the Nile (1985). In 1986, DeVito starred in Ruthless People with Bette Midler and Judge Reinhold, and also voiced the character Grundle King in My Little Pony: The Movie. In 1987 he acted in director Barry Levinson's Tin Men (1987), as a rival salesman to Richard Dreyfuss' character. In 1990, he and Rhea Perlman played the couple Vic & Paula, commenting on the state of the environment in The Earth Day Special. The following year he acted in Other People's Money (1991) with Gregory Peck. In 1991 and 1992, DeVito voiced Herb Powell in The Simpsons episodes "Brother, Can You Spare Two Dimes?" and "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?". In 1992 he portrayed the villain Oswald Cobblepot / The Penguin in director Tim Burton's Batman Returns (1992) acting opposite Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer and Christopher Walken. That same year he directed and produced the biographical drama film Hoffa (1992) starring Jack Nicholson. He also acted in the film portraying Bobby Ciaro. DeVito also acted opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the comedies Twins (1988) and Junior (1994). In 1995, DeVito appeared in the gangster comedy Get Shorty. In 1996, he took supporting roles as Swackhammer in the Looney Tunes live-action / animated sports comedy Space Jam and reunited with Tim Burton's science fiction comedy Mars Attacks! starring Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Martin Short, and Natalie Portman. In 1997, he played Deck Shifflet in the legal thriller The Rainmaker starring Matt Damon and Claire Danes as well as Sid Hudgens, editor of a sleazy tabloid called Hush-Hush, who gets tips ahead of time of celebrity arrests in the neo-noir thriller L.A. Confidential with Russell Crowe, Guy Pearce, and Kevin Spacey, the latter of which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. That same year he also voiced Phil in the Walt Disney Animated film Hercules (1997). Leonard Klady of Variety praised the voice performances writing, "As in Aladdin, the melding of character animation with the screen personae of the actors voicing the roles provides forceful and amusing entertainment, particularly in DeVito's turn as a physical trainer and the acid wit James Woods brings to his villainous role." He starred in Living Out Loud (1988) alongside Helen Hunt and Queen Latifah, reunited with Kevin Spacey in The Big Kahuna (1999), and hosted the last Saturday Night Live episode before the year 2000. In 1999, he produced and co-starred in the biographical drama film Man on the Moon, a film about the unusual life of his former Taxi co-star Andy Kaufman, played in the film by Jim Carrey. He also played Dr. Hornicker in the Sofia Coppola directed The Virgin Suicides (1999) starring Kirsten Dunst. He continued to take roles in comedy films such as Drowning Mona (2000), Screwed (2000), What's the Worst That Could Happen? (2001), Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002), Anything Else (2003), and Be Cool (2005). He also acted in the drama films Heist (2001) and Big Fish (2004). He earned a 2004 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series nomination for his role of a stripper in the NBC sitcom Friends, In 2006, he joined the cast of the FX / FXX sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as Frank Reynolds. DeVito stars opposite Glenn Howerton, Rob McElhenney, Kaitlin Olson, and Charlie Day. The character of Frank Reynolds is introduced at the beginning of Season 2. He received a nomination for the Satellite Award for Best Actor – Musical or Comedy Series. DeVito said of the show "I loved it. It was fucking outrageous just the way they are. I immediately said, ‘Yeah, this is an amazing show." Also in 2006 he starred opposite Matthew Broderick in the Christmas comedy film Deck the Halls. DeVito has an interest in documentaries. In 2006 he began a partnership with Morgan Freeman's company ClickStar, for whom he hosts the documentary channel Jersey Docs. He was also interviewed in the documentary Revenge of the Electric Car, discussing his interest in and ownership of electric vehicles. DeVito has directed eight short films between 1973 and 2016, five of which were released across 2010 and 2011. These are The Sound Sleeper (1973), Minestrone (1975), Oh Those Lips (2010), Evil Eye (2010), Poison Tongue (2011), Skin Deep (2011), Nest of Vipers (2011) and Curmudgeons (2016). In 2011, DeVito received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television. In 2012, he voiced the title character in the animated version of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax. He appeared in the Angry Birds Friends "Champions for Earth" tournament advertisement in September 2015. Following the Japanese release of the Nintendo 3DS game Detective Pikachu, dedicated Pokémon fans submitted a 40,000-signature petition requesting that DeVito be the English voice actor for the title character. However, he declined to audition for the role, commenting that he was unfamiliar with the franchise. In April 2012, DeVito made his West End acting debut in a revival of the Neil Simon play The Sunshine Boys as Willie Clark, alongside Richard Griffiths. It previewed at the Savoy Theatre in London from April 27, 2012, opened on May 17, and played a limited 12-week season until July 28. DeVito played a fictional version of himself in the music video of One Direction's song "Steal My Girl" (2014). He also appeared in the short film Curmudgeons, which he also produced and directed. In 2013, he would voice Herb for a third time in the episode "The Changing of the Guardian". DeVito made his Broadway debut in a Roundabout Theatre Company revival of the Arthur Miller play The Price as Gregory Solomon. He acted opposite Mark Ruffalo, and Tony Shalhoub. Marilyn Stasio of Variety praised DeVito's performance writing, "DeVito, who holds the audience in the palm of his hand, tends to favor the comic side, making an extended meal out of an egg-eating visual gag. But he also draws on down-to-earth Jewish wisdom to keep family hostilities from boiling over and spoiling the financial negotiations". He went on to be nominated for a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play. The production began preview performances at the American Airlines Theatre on February 16, 2017, and opened on March 16 for a limited run-through on May 7. In 2018 he had a guest starring role in the Netflix comedy series The Kominsky Method acting opposite Michael Douglas and Alan Arkin. He also voiced Dorgle in the Warner Bros. animated film Smallfoot (2018). The following year in 2019 he reunited with Tim Burton playing Max Medici in the live action Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures Dumbo, a remake of the 1941 animated film. He acted alongside Colin Farrell, Michael Keaton and Eva Green. He also played Eddie Gilpin in the action comedy film Jumanji: The Next Level starring Dwayne Johnson, Kevin Hart, Jack Black and Karen Gillan. The film was a box office and critical success. In 2020 he voiced Bob, a stray dog in The One and Only Ivan. In 2021 he played Charlie Goldman the biographical HBO drama film The Survivor. That same year DeVito wrote a 12-page story centered on the Penguin and Catwoman for the anthology comic Gotham City Villains. In 2023 he acted in the Disney horror comedy Haunted Mansion, Chris Pine's directorial film debut Poolman, and the Illumination animated film Migration. Also in 2023 he returned to Broadway in the Theresa Rebeck play I Need That. Directing DeVito made his directorial debut in 1984 with The Ratings Game. In 1986, he directed and starred in the black comedy "The Wedding Ring", a season 2 episode of Steven Spielberg's anthology series Amazing Stories, where his character acquires an engagement ring for his wife (played by DeVito's real-life wife, actress Rhea Perlman). When the ring is slipped on his wife's finger, she is possessed by the ring's former owner, a murderous black widow. In 1987 he made his feature-directing debut with the dark comedy Throw Momma from the Train, in which he starred with Billy Crystal and Anne Ramsey. For his performance he earned a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy nomination. DeVito reunited with Jewel of the Nile co-stars Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in 1989 when he directed and starred alongside them in The War of the Roses. In 1996 he directed Matilda (1996), a film adaptation of Roald Dahl's 1988 classic children's novel of the same name. Critic Roger Ebert of The Chicago Sun-Times wrote, "There is never a moment (except toward the happy ending) that we sense DeVito is anything other than quite serious about this material. He goes with Dahl's macabre vision." He also served as the Narrator and played the villainous used-car dealer father Harry Wormwood opposite his wife Rhea Perlman. The following year, he was in talks to direct the crime drama The Little Things with Robert De Niro at that time set to star, and The Crowded Room with Leonardo DiCaprio. Both projects were eventually realized in the 2020s, but without DeVito's involvement. In 1998, he committed to star in and direct both the sci-fi film Barthe for TriStar, about an alien who falls in love, and a remake of The Man Who Came to Dinner for DreamWorks. In 1999, DeVito was attached to star, direct and produce Jason Keller's spec script Sugar's Sweet Science of Bruising for New Line Cinema. For the next two years, DeVito was attached to film Michael Petroni's Revelations, a "supernatural religious thriller" that was to have starred George Clooney. The project was delayed due to rewrites however, and DeVito instead resurfaced with Death to Smoochy (2002) and Duplex (2003), which he made back-to-back. Before the release of the latter, he agreed to direct a remake of 1942's I Married a Witch for Tom Cruise and Columbia Pictures, announcing to Variety that he hoped to begin production by the end of the year. Instead of I Married a Witch, he sought to make Trump vs. Wynn as his next directorial project after receiving an offer from HBO. Written by Rick Cleveland, the script chronicles business tycoons Donald Trump and Steve Wynn's competition to build a casino in Atlantic City. DeVito was expected to direct, produce, and star in an unspecified role, but he dropped out after meeting with both figures, who protested the film's production. He directed the pilot episode for a proposed 2005 Imagine TV sitcom Queen B, which was not picked up by the network for series. In 2009, it was reported that DeVito would direct and produce the biopic Crazy Eddie, based on the life of consumer electronics king Eddie Antar, from a script by Peter Steinfeld. However the film could not be made due to a life rights deal that was made with Antar. Instead, he pivoted to making the apocalyptic horror thriller St. Sebastian, which completed post-production in 2012 but to this day has not been released. DeVito also worked on the independently financed Honeymoon with Dad, a comedy which never went into production. DeVito has written a film adaptation of, and been, since 2008, attached to direct The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle with Morgan Freeman, Pierce Brosnan and Saoirse Ronan starring. The production was halted when Freeman was seriously injured in a car accident two weeks before filming was scheduled to commence. DeVito returned to the subject in February 2013, saying he was looking for another young actress to star in the title role and scouting movie locations in Ireland. Production was expected to restart in July 2014. The release date is still classified as "TBD" without any new information as to whether it will be shot. Producing DeVito founded Jersey Films in 1991, producing films like Pulp Fiction (1994), Get Shorty (1995), Erin Brockovich (2000) (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture), Gattaca (1997), and Garden State (2004). DeVito also produced the Comedy Central series Reno 911!, the film spin-off Reno 911!: Miami, and the revival on Quibi. In 2019, his company Jersey Films optioned the screen rights to make a film of Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation, by Dan Fagin. Personal life DeVito stands 4 feet 10 inches (1.47 metres) tall. His short stature is the result of multiple epiphyseal dysplasia (Fairbank's disease), a rare genetic disorder that affects bone growth. On January 17, 1971, DeVito met Rhea Perlman when she went to see a friend in the single performance of the play The Shrinking Bride, which featured DeVito. They moved in together two weeks later and married on January 28, 1982. They have three children: Lucy Chet DeVito (born March 11, 1983), Grace Fan DeVito (born March 1985), and Jacob Daniel DeVito (born October 1987). Perlman and DeVito have acted alongside each other several times, including in the television show Taxi and the feature film Matilda (where they played Matilda's parents). They separated in October 2012, after 30 years of marriage and over 40 years together, then reconciled in March 2013. They separated for a second time in March 2017, but remained on amicable terms and Perlman stated they had no intent of filing for divorce. In 2019, Perlman told interviewer Andy Cohen that she and DeVito have become closer friends after their separation than they were in their final years as a couple. DeVito and Perlman resided in a 14,579-square-foot (1,354 m2) house in Beverly Hills, California, that they purchased in 1994, until selling it for US$24 million in April 2015. They also own a bungalow near Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, and a multi-residence compound on Broad Beach in Malibu. They also frequented a home they owned in Interlaken, New Jersey, to get away from Los Angeles. DeVito has mentioned being a big fan of singer Mike Patton's various musical projects, being introduced to his work though his son Jacob in 2005. DeVito collaborated with Patton on a music video and has attended several of his concerts, with Perlman contributing an introductory voiceover to an album by Mr. Bungle, one of Patton's bands. In 2016, DeVito also included music from Patton's band Faith No More on It's Always Sunny in Philidalphia. Acting credits and accolades DeVito has an extensive film career, dating back to the early 1970s. Selected work: References External links Danny DeVito on Twitter Danny DeVito at IMDb Danny DeVito at the Internet Broadway Database Danny DeVito at the Internet Off-Broadway Database Danny DeVito at Emmys.com Danny DeVito at The Interviews: An Oral History of Television Danny DeVito on Charlie Rose Danny DeVito's Guest DJ Set on KCRW Danny DeVito interviewed by KVUE's Roy Faires in 1971 about "Throw Momma From The Train" from Texas Archive of the Moving Image

List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Danny_DeVito

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_awards_and_nominations_received_by_Danny_DeVito

Danny DeVito has a large and varied body of work as an actor, producer and director in stage, television and film. He has received a Primetime Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for an Academy Award, a Producers Guild Awards, two Screen Actors Guild Awards and Tony Award. In 2011 he was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, at 6909 Hollywood Blvd., for his contributions to television. Major associations Academy Awards BAFTA Awards Emmy Awards Golden Globe Awards Screen Actors Guild Award Tony Awards Miscellaneous awards American Comedy Award 1987 - Funniest Lead Actor in a Motion Picture - Ruthless People - nominee 1988 - Funniest Lead Actor in a Motion Picture - Throw Momma from the Train - nominee Broadway.com Audience Award 2024 - Favorite Leading Actor in a Play - I Need That - nominee 2024 - Favorite Funny Performance - I Need That - nominee Golden Berlin Award 1990 - Golden Berlin Bear - The War of the Roses - nominee Golden Raspberry Award 1982 - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor - Going Ape! - nominee 1991 - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director - Hoffa - nominee 1992 - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor - Batman Returns - nominee 2007 - Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor - Deck the Halls - nominee MTV Movie Award 1992 - MTV Movie Award for Best Villain - Batman Returns - nominee Online Film & Television Award 1997 - Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror Picture - Gattaca - nominee 1997 - Best Comedy/Musical Picture - Wag the Dog - nominee 1997 - Best Voice-Over Performance - Hercules - nominee 2000 - Best Picture - Erin Brokovich - nominee Producers Guild of America Award 2000 - Best Theatrical Motion Picture - Erin Brokovich - nominee Satellite Award 1996 - Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy - Matilda - nominee 1997 - Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Motion Picture - Drama - The Rainmaker - nominee 2008 - Best Actor in a Television Series - Musical or Comedy - It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia - nominee Saturn Award 1992 - Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor - Batman Returns - nominee Tribeca Film Festival 2016 - Tribeca Film Festival Award for Best Narrative Short - Curmudgeons - nominee TV Land Award 2004 - TV Land Award for Bossiest Boss - Taxi - winner 2004 - TV Land Medallion Award - Taxi - winner Other awards Honorary awards == References ==

Epcot

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epcot

Epcot, stylized in all uppercase as EPCOT, is a theme park at the Walt Disney World resort in Bay Lake, Florida. It is owned and operated by The Walt Disney Company through its Disney Experiences division. The park opened on October 1, 1982, as EPCOT Center, the second of four theme parks built at the resort. Often referred to as a "permanent world's fair", Epcot is dedicated to the celebration of human achievement, particularly technological innovation and international culture and is known for its iconic landmark Spaceship Earth, a geodesic sphere. During early development of the Florida property, Walt Disney wanted to build an experimental planned community showcasing modern innovation, known as "EPCOT", an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. After Disney's death in 1966, the company felt his grand vision was impractical. However, it laid the groundwork for EPCOT Center, a theme park that retained the core spirit of Disney's vision. The park was divided into two distinct areas, Future World reprises the idea of showcasing modern innovation through educational entertainment attractions inside avant-garde pavilions, while World Showcase highlights the diversity of human cultures from various nations. From the late 2010s to the early 2020s, the park underwent a major overhaul, adding new attractions and Future World was restructured into three areas: World Celebration, World Discovery and World Nature. The park spans 305 acres (123 hectares), more than twice the size of Magic Kingdom. In 2023, the park attracted 11.98 million guests, making it the eighth-most visited theme park in the world. History 1960s: Experimental concept The genesis for Epcot was originally conceived as a utopian city of the future by Walt Disney in the 1960s. The concept was an acronym for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, often interchanging "city" and "community." In Walt Disney's words in 1966: "EPCOT will take its cue from the new ideas and new technologies that are now emerging from the creative centers of American industry. It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed but will always be introducing and testing, and demonstrating new materials and new systems. And EPCOT will always be a showcase to the world of the ingenuity and imagination of American free enterprise." Walt Disney's original vision, sometimes called Progress City, would have been home to twenty thousand residents and would be a living laboratory showcasing cutting-edge technology and urban planning. It was to have been built in the shape of a circle with an urban city center in the center with community buildings, schools, and recreational complexes. It would be surrounded by rings of residential areas and industrial areas, all connected by monorail and PeopleMover lines. Automobile traffic would be kept underground, leaving pedestrians safe above ground. This radial plan concept is strongly influenced by British planner Ebenezer Howard and his Garden Cities of To-morrow. Disney went as far as petitioning the Florida State Legislature for the creation of the Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID), with the authority of a governmental body over the Walt Disney World land. The RCID was established in 1967. However, Walt Disney was not able to obtain funding and permission to start work on his Florida property until he agreed to first build the Magic Kingdom theme park. He died in 1966, nearly five years before Magic Kingdom opened. 1970s: Concept evolves into park After Walt Disney's death, the company decided that it did not want to be in the business of running a city without Walt's guidance. The original plans for the park showed indecision over the park's purpose. Some Imagineers wanted it to represent the cutting edge of emerging technologies, while others wanted it to showcase international cultures and customs. At one point, a model of the futuristic park was pushed together against a model of a World's Fair international theme, and the two were combined. The park was originally named EPCOT Center to reflect the ideals and values of the city. It was constructed for an estimated $800 million to $1.4 billion and took three years to build, at the time the largest construction project on Earth. The park spans 305 acres (123 hectares), more than twice the size of Magic Kingdom. The parking lot serving the park is 141 acres (57 ha) (including bus area) and can accommodate 11,211 vehicles. The park opened on October 1, 1982, in a ceremony with Disney chairman and CEO Card Walker and Florida Governor Bob Graham. 1980s: Opening and operation As part of the opening-day ceremony, dancers and band members performed "We've Just Begun to Dream". The Sherman Brothers wrote a song especially for the occasion entitled "The World Showcase March". During the finale, doves and many sets of balloons were released. Performing groups representing countries from all over the world performed in World Showcase. Water was gathered from major rivers across the globe and emptied into the park's Fountain of Nations with ceremonial containers to mark the opening. The theme park opened on October 1, 1982. On opening day, Future World featured six pavilions: Spaceship Earth, CommuniCore, Journey Into Imagination, The Land, Universe of Energy, and World of Motion. World Showcase featured nine pavilions: Mexico Pavilion, China Pavilion, Germany Pavilion, Italy Pavilion, The American Adventure Pavilion, Japan Pavilion, France Pavilion, United Kingdom Pavilion, and Canada Pavilion. During the 1980s, several additional pavilions opened: Horizons in 1983, Morocco Pavilion in 1984, The Living Seas in 1986, Norway Pavilion in 1988, and Wonders of Life in 1989. 1990s–2000s: Change in vision Despite its initial success, Epcot was constantly faced with the challenges of evolving with worldwide progress, an issue that caused the park to lose relevance and become outdated in the 1990s. To maintain attendance levels, Disney introduced seasonal events such as the International Flower & Garden Festival and the International Food & Wine Festival in 1994 and 1995, respectively. In the mid-1990s, Disney also began to gradually phase out the park's edutainment attractions in favor of more modern and thrilling attractions. As a result, many of the attractions within the Future World pavilions, were either overhauled or replaced entirely. The Land pavilion saw its attractions replaced under new sponsor Nestlé between late 1993 and January 1995, and Spaceship Earth was updated with music by Edo Guidotti and narration from Jeremy Irons in 1994. Universe of Energy was reconfigured as Ellen's Energy Adventure in 1996. Journey Into Imagination closed in 1998 and was replaced with Journey into YOUR Imagination the following year, World of Motion was replaced with Test Track, and Horizons was demolished in 1999 and replaced with Mission: Space in 2003. In 2000, Walt Disney World held the Millennium Celebration with the central focus of the event at Epcot, and a 25-story "magic wand" structure was built next to Spaceship Earth. Millennium Village was closed on January 1, 2001, and was turned into the World Showplace festival center, which is frequently used for Epcot festivals. Journey into YOUR Imagination closed in 2001 due to strong negative reception and was replaced with Journey into Imagination with Figment in 2002. The Living Seas was closed in 2005, and rethemed with the introduction of characters from Finding Nemo, as The Seas with Nemo & Friends. That same year, Soarin', a flight simulator ride originally developed for Disney's California Adventure, was added to The Land (replacing Food Rocks) following its massive popularity in California. The Wonders of Life pavilion closed in 2007, with the pavilion being occasionally used for the park's annual festivals until permanent closure. The Mexico pavilion's El Rio del Tiempo attraction closed on January 2, and Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros opened in its space a few months later. After the "magic wand" structure was removed from Spaceship Earth, the attraction's fourth version, narrated by Judi Dench, soft-opened on December 8. Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure opened at EPCOT in 2009. 2010s–present: Transformation and redesign Test Track was refurbished into new version presented by Chevrolet in 2012, and Kim Possible World Showcase Adventure was rethemed to Agent P's World Showcase Adventure the same year. The Norway pavilion's Maelstrom attraction closed in 2014 and replaced two years later by Frozen Ever After. Soarin' was also temporarily closed while a new film was added to the attraction. In November 2016, Disney revealed that Epcot would be receiving “a major transformation” that would help transition the park into being “more Disney, timeless, relevant, family-friendly”. In 2017, Mission: SPACE was divided into a new green/Earth mission, and the original orange/Mars mission. In July 2017, Disney formally announced that Epcot would undergo a multi-year, redesign and expansion plan that would introduce Guardians of the Galaxy and Ratatouille attractions to Future World and World Showcase, respectively, as well as maintaining the original vision and spirit for the park. As part of the announcement, Ellen's Energy Adventure closed the following month, and the pavilion's show building was reused for Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, while the EPCOT 35 Legacy Showcase exhibition opened in the Odyssey Pavilion. That same year, the park reported the first drop in overall attendance ranking among the four Walt Disney World Resort parks, dropping from second to third place, the first in its history. On August 25, 2019, at the 2019 D23 Expo, Disney expanded on the plans for the improvements to Epcot. One of the most significant changes announced was the creation of four distinct "neighborhoods"; the subdivision of Future World into three areas (World Celebration, World Discovery, and World Nature) and World Showcase. Journey of Water—Inspired by Moana, a walkthrough attraction, was also announced. At the same expo, Disney also announced that Pinar Toprak would be composing a new musical anthem for the park. Toprak's EPCOT anthem was eventually used in various nighttime shows, such as Harmonious and Luminous, as well as featured in ambient music within the entrance plaza and throughout World Celebration. Disney began to stylize the name as "EPCOT" as an homage to both the park's original name and Walt Disney's original concept, although the name is no longer an acronym. On October 1, 2019, it was announced that a new nighttime fireworks show, Epcot Forever, and The EPCOT Experience Center, a preview space for the park's expansion project, would replace IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth and EPCOT 35 Legacy Showcase. In late 2019, EPCOT installed new directory signage in Seabase Alpha, restoring the former Living Seas logo, as the pavilion was renamed to The Seas Pavilion. That Agent P's World Showcase Adventure closed on February 23, 2020; it was slated to be replaced with DuckTales World Showcase Adventure, which did not open until 2022. The park was closed from March 16 to July 15, 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida. Modified operations were established, including a pause on concerts and fireworks, in order to promote sufficient physical distancing. Spaceship Earth: Our Shared Story, the attraction's fifth update, the Wondrous China film, the PLAY! pavilion in World Discovery, and the United Kingdom pavilion's Cherry Tree Lane expansion were indefinitely delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the CommuniCore Hall exhibit space and the CommuniCore Plaza festival stage was built instead of a three-level festival pavilion. On September 29, 2021, the nighttime fireworks show Harmonious replaced Epcot Forever as part of the resort's 50th anniversary celebration. The show ended its run on March 31, 2023, in preparation for Luminous: The Symphony of Us which debuted later that year; Epcot Forever returned during the interim period. Remy's Ratatouille Adventure (duplicated from Disneyland Paris) opened in the France pavilion on October 1 as part of the same celebrations. The EPCOT Experience Center closed in 2022, and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, part of the Wonders of Xandar Pavilion, opened on May 27. Journey of Water opened in World Nature opened on October 16, 2023, and World Celebration Gardens, divided into five sections (Inspiration Gardens, CommuniCore Gardens, Connections Gardens, Creations Gardens, and Dreamers Point) opened on December 5 of that year. CommuniCore Hall and Plaza, named after the former Future World pavilion, opened to the general public on June 10, 2024. Test Track closed for refurbishment on June 17 to make way for the attraction's third iteration. At D23 2024, it was announced that this lounge will take the place of the former Siemens lounge attached to Spaceship Earth and will open in 2025. Park layout and attractions Epcot is divided into four main themed areas, known as "neighborhoods": World Celebration, World Discovery, World Nature and World Showcase. The park consists of a variety of avant-garde pavilions that explore innovative aspects and applications including technology and science, with each pavilion featuring self-contained attractions and distinct architecture in its design. Currently, the park features ten major pavilions: Galaxy, Imagination, Journey, Land, Motion, Odyssey, Seas, Space, Spaceship Earth, and World Showcase, which itself has eleven individual nation pavilions. World Celebration, Discovery, and Nature were originally grouped as one area called Future World, which debuted with six pavilions: Spaceship Earth, CommuniCore, Imagination!, The Land, Universe of Energy, and World of Motion. The Horizons pavilion opened the following year, and The Living Seas and Wonders of Life pavilions were added in 1986 and 1989, respectively, bringing the lineup to nine. CommuniCore, World of Motion, Horizons, Wonders of Life, Universe of Energy, and Innoventions closed in 1994, 1996, 1999, 2007, 2017, and 2019, respectively. The Fountain of Nations, a large circular musical fountain which debuted with the park, was removed in 2019 as well. Each pavilion was initially sponsored by a corporation which helped fund its construction and maintenance in return for the corporation's logos and some marketing elements appearing throughout the pavilion. Additionally, each pavilion of Future World featured a unique circular logo designed by Norm Inouye (except for the Wonders of Life logo due to its later introduction), which was featured on park signage and throughout the attractions themselves. The pavilion logos were gradually phased out in the early 2000s, as the pavilions instead were identified by name and recognized by the main attraction(s) housed inside. Several homages remained scattered throughout the park, including merchandising. However, in 2019, the circular pavilion logos were revived as part of Epcot's transformation, with both classic logos reprised and refreshed and newer logos introduced. World Celebration World Celebration serves as the park's main entrance and a central hub that honors global human interaction and connection, including communication, imagination, creativity, and the visual and culinary arts. The neighborhood features four major pavilions—Spaceship Earth, Imagination, Odyssey, and CommuniCore—as well as additional attractions, shops, and restaurants. Guests enter through the main entrance and walk underneath Spaceship Earth, an eighteen-story-tall geodesic sphere structure and the anchor pavilion, which also houses an eponymous dark ride attraction that depicts the history of communication. Directly behind Spaceship Earth are the World Celebration Gardens and Dreamers Point, featuring lush interactive gardens, lighting fixtures and Walt the Dreamer, a bronze statue commemorating Walt Disney. The Imagination! pavilion celebrates the concept of imagination and features Journey into Imagination with Figment, a dark ride starring Figment that explores the senses. CommuniCore Hall and Plaza is a multi-use pavilion used for exhibitions, gallery space, a mixology bar, a demonstration kitchen, and music performances, as well as meet-and-greets with Disney characters. The Odyssey Pavilion is an exhibition space during the park's annual festivals. World Celebration is also home to Creations Shop, the park's main gift shop; Connections Eatery & Cafe, a quick-service restaurant and Starbucks themed to global food history; and Club Cool, an Coca-Cola- themed attraction and shop featuring complimentary samples of Coca-Cola soft drinks from around the world. World Discovery World Discovery centers on space, science, technology and intergalactic exploration. Lying on the east side of World Celebration, the Discovery neighborhood currently features three major pavilions in clockwise layout: Galaxy, Space, and Motion. The Galaxy Pavilion, also known as the Wonders of Xandar Pavilion, houses Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, an enclosed spinning roller coaster based on the superhero team of the same name. The building originally opened as the Universe of Energy Pavilion. The Space Pavilion houses Mission: Space is a centrifugal motion simulator thrill ride that replicates a space flight experience to Mars and a low orbit tour over the surface of Earth. Next to it is Space 220, a themed restaurant simulating dining aboard a space station located 220 miles above Earth. The building is located on the original plot site of the Horizons Pavilion. The Motion Pavilion houses Test Track is a high-speed slot car ride inspired by the automobile testing procedures that Chevrolet uses to evaluate concept cars. The Motion Pavilion was one of the original pavilions of Epcot and has always housed an attraction sponsored by General Motors. In between the Galaxy and Space pavilions, is one standing but unused pavilion that once housed the Wonders of Life attraction. World Nature World Nature focuses on understanding and preserving the beauty, awe and balance of the natural world. Located on the west side of World Celebration, the Nature neighborhood features three major pavilions in counterclockwise layout—Seas, Water, and Land—inspired by human interaction with the Earth, specifically ocean exploration, hydrology, agriculture, horticulture, ecology, and travel. Based on ocean exploration and inspired by the Finding Nemo series, The Seas pavilion features the sixth-largest aquarium in the world with marine life exhibits; an Omnimover attraction inspired by Finding Nemo; and Turtle Talk with Crush, an interactive show hosted by Crush from Finding Nemo. Connected to the building is the Coral Reef Restaurant, a themed seafood restaurant that provides views into the aquarium. Nearby is the Journey of Water pavilion, an outdoor walkthrough water attraction depicting the Earth's water cycle, inspired by Moana. Finally, the Land pavilion features three attractions; Soarin' Around the World, an attraction that simulates a hang gliding flight over various regions of the world; Living with the Land, a narrated boat tour through Audio-Animatronics scenes, a greenhouse and hydroponics lab; and Awesome Planet, a short documentary film presented in the pavilion's Harvest Theater about the Earth's biomes and the perils of climate change. World Showcase World Showcase is the park's largest neighborhood, dedicated to representing the culture, history, cuisine, architecture, and traditions of 11 nations from across four continents—North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. Each nation pavilion features attractions, shops, restaurants, and landscaping that celebrate or portray authentic settings from each country—several pavilions also contain recreations inspired by existing buildings and landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower, Itsukushima Shrine, Hampton Court Palace, Château Laurier, Gol Stave Church, St Mark's Campanile, and the Kutubiyya Mosque. The nation pavilions surround the World Showcase Lagoon, a man-made lake located in the center of World Showcase with a perimeter of 1.2 miles (1.9 km), which is the site of the park's nighttime fireworks display, Luminous: The Symphony of Us. In counter-clockwise order, the 11 pavilions are: The American Adventure is the host pavilion of World Showcase, sharing its name with its marquee attraction in Liberty Theatre: a titular stage show detailing American history and hosted by Audio-Animatronics versions of Benjamin Franklin and Mark Twain. The pavilion also includes the American Heritage Gallery, where the "Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief's Tribute to America's Warriors" exhibit will be hosted starting June 9, 2024. On the shores of the lagoon is the America Gardens Theatre, an outdoor amphitheater that hosts the park's festival concerts. The France Pavilion hosts Impressions de France in Palais du Cinéma, an 18-minute Cinerama-style film depicting the culture of France, and along with Beauty and the Beast: Sing-Along. Tucked behind the lagoon-facing portion of the pavilion is Remy's Ratatouille Adventure, a 3D dark ride inspired by Pixar’s Ratatouille. The Canada and China Pavilions each host Circle-Vision 360° films—Canada Far and Wide and Reflections of China—that depict the diverse cultures and countrysides of their respective countries. Two dark boat rides reside within the Norway and Mexico Pavilions—Frozen Ever After and Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros, respectively—inspired by Frozen and The Three Caballeros. A secondary park gate is located between the France and United Kingdom pavilions of World Showcase and is known as the International Gateway. The International Gateway is directly accessible to guests arriving from the Disney Skyliner and from watercraft transport, and by walkways from the nearby Epcot Area Resorts and Disney's Hollywood Studios. Of the 11 pavilions, only Morocco and Norway were not present at the park's opening, as they were added in 1984 and 1988 respectively. Each pavilion contains themed architecture, landscapes, streetscapes, attractions, shops and restaurants representing the respective country's culture and cuisine. In an effort to maintain the authenticity of the represented countries, the pavilions are primarily staffed by citizens of the respective countries as part of the Cultural Representative Program through Q1 visa agreements. Some pavilions also contain themed rides, shows, and live entertainment representative of the respective country. The Morocco pavilion was directly sponsored by the Moroccan government until 2020, when Disney took ownership of the pavilion. The remaining pavilions are primarily sponsored by private companies with affiliations to the represented countries. Originally, the showcase was to include partnerships with the governments of the different countries. According to Disney's 1975 Annual Report, the Showcase would: ...offer participating countries a permanent installation for such features as themed restaurants and shops, product exhibits, industrial displays, cultural presentations, a trade center, and even special facilities for business meetings. Major sponsorships for each participating nation will be asked to provide the capital to cover the cost of designing, developing and constructing its attraction and/or ride and all exhibits, as well as the Pavilion itself. It will also have the responsibility for funding the housing for its employees in the International Village. Its land lease will cover the cost of maintaining the attraction for a minimum of ten years. The Disney organization will be responsible for area development, including the construction of transportation systems and utilities. We will also build and operate the internal people moving system, the Courtyard of Nations and central theater facility. Proposed pavilions and unused locations There are currently seven undeveloped spots for countries around the World Showcase in between the locations of the current countries. Two sites are located on either side of the United Kingdom, one between France and Morocco, one between Morocco and Japan, one between Italy and Germany, and two between Germany and China. In 1982, Disney announced three pavilions were "coming soon": Israel, Spain and Equatorial Africa, blending elements of the cultures of countries such as Kenya and Zaire. A model of the Equatorial Africa pavilions was also shown on the opening day telecast. However, the pavilions were never built. Instead, a small African themed refreshment shop known as the "Outpost" currently resides in the area between China and Germany, where the Equatorial Africa pavilion was to be located. More than 50 nations, among them, Brazil, Chile, India, Indonesia, Israel, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Sweden and five African countries (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Namibia, and South Africa), took part in the Millennium Village, a project that took place in Epcot during Millennium Celebration from 1999 to 2001. The Millennium Village was located inside a temporary structure built behind the United Kingdom pavilions that remains in use as World ShowPlace. Alcohol policy Unlike Magic Kingdom, which up until 2012 did not serve alcohol, most stores and restaurants at Epcot, especially in the World Showcase, serve and sell a variety of alcoholic beverages including specialty drinks, craft beers, wines, and spirits reflective of the respective countries. The park also hosts the Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, an annual event featuring food and drink samplings from all over the world, along with live entertainment and special exhibits. Annual events Epcot hosts a number of special events during the year: The Epcot International Flower & Garden Festival, inaugurated in 1994, uses specially-themed floral displays throughout the park, including topiary sculptures of Disney characters. Each event takes more than a full year to plan and more than 20,000 cast member hours. The Epcot International Food & Wine Festival, inaugurated in 1995, draws amateur and professional gourmets to sample delicacies from all around the world, including nations that do not have a permanent presence in World Showcase. Celebrity chefs are often on-hand to host the events. In 2008, the festival featured the Bocuse d'Or USA, the American semifinal of the biennial Bocuse d'Or cooking competition. The Epcot International Festival of the Arts, inaugurated in 2017, is a festival showcasing visual, culinary, and performing arts. The first annual event took place on weekends from January 13 through February 20, 2017. The Epcot International Festival of the Holidays (previously known as Epcot Holidays Around the World (1996–2016), inaugurated in 2017, is Epcot's annual holiday celebration. The World Showcase pavilions feature storytellers describing their nation's holiday traditions, and three nightly performances of the "Candlelight Processional" featuring an auditioned mass choir and a celebrity guest narrating the story of Christmas. Kiosks throughout the World Showcase feature holiday dishes. Disney's Candlelight Processional, performed at the America Gardens Theatre at the American Pavilion every year since 1994. On New Year's Eve, the park offers a variety of additional entertainment including live DJ dance areas throughout the park. Attendance The Walt Disney Company generally does not publish attendance figures for its theme parks, so industry groups such as the Themed Entertainment Association estimate these figures. See also List of Epcot attractions Epcot Resort Area WestCOT References Further reading Alcorn, Steve and David Green. Building a Better Mouse: The Story of the Electronic Imagineers Who Designed Epcot. Themeperks Press, 2007, ISBN 0-9729777-3-2. Mannheim, Steve (2002). Walt Disney and the Quest for Community. Routledge. ISBN 0754619745. External links Official website

List_of_cities_in_Germany_by_population

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_in_Germany_by_population

As defined by the German Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development, a Großstadt (large city) is a city with more than 100,000 inhabitants. As of today, 80 cities in Germany fulfill this criterion and are listed here. This list refers only to the population of individual municipalities within their defined limits, which does not include other municipalities or suburban areas within urban agglomerations or metropolitan areas. List The following table lists the 80 cities in Germany with a population of at least 100,000 each on 31 December 2021, as estimated by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany. A city is displayed in bold if it is a state or federal capital, and in italics if it is the most populous city in the state. The table below contains the following information: The city rank by population as of 31 December 2021, as estimated by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany The city name The name of the state in which the city lies The city population as of 31 December 2021, as estimated by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany The city population as of 31 December 2015, as estimated by the Federal Statistical Office of Germany The city percentage population change from 31 December 2015 to 31 December 2021 The change in city rank by population from 31 December 2015 to 31 December 2021 The city land area as of 31 December 2021 The city population density as of 31 December 2021 (residents per unit of land area) The city latitude and longitude coordinates. Schwerin is the only state capital not listed. Gallery See also List of cities and towns in Germany List of towns and cities in Germany by historical population List of municipalities in Germany Metropolitan regions in Germany == References ==

Gold

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold

Gold is a chemical element; it has symbol Au (from Latin aurum) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal, a group 11 element, and one of the noble metals. It is one of the least reactive chemical elements, being the second-lowest in the reactivity series. It is solid under standard conditions. Gold often occurs in free elemental (native state), as nuggets or grains, in rocks, veins, and alluvial deposits. It occurs in a solid solution series with the native element silver (as in electrum), naturally alloyed with other metals like copper and palladium, and mineral inclusions such as within pyrite. Less commonly, it occurs in minerals as gold compounds, often with tellurium (gold tellurides). Gold is resistant to most acids, though it does dissolve in aqua regia (a mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid), forming a soluble tetrachloroaurate anion. Gold is insoluble in nitric acid alone, which dissolves silver and base metals, a property long used to refine gold and confirm the presence of gold in metallic substances, giving rise to the term 'acid test'. Gold dissolves in alkaline solutions of cyanide, which are used in mining and electroplating. Gold also dissolves in mercury, forming amalgam alloys, and as the gold acts simply as a solute, this is not a chemical reaction. A relatively rare element, gold is a precious metal that has been used for coinage, jewelry, and other works of art throughout recorded history. In the past, a gold standard was often implemented as a monetary policy. Gold coins ceased to be minted as a circulating currency in the 1930s, and the world gold standard was abandoned for a fiat currency system after the Nixon shock measures of 1971. In 2020, the world's largest gold producer was China, followed by Russia and Australia. As of 2020, a total of around 201,296 tonnes of gold exist above ground. This is equal to a cube, with each side measuring roughly 21.7 meters (71 ft). The world's consumption of new gold produced is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. Gold's high malleability, ductility, resistance to corrosion and most other chemical reactions, as well as conductivity of electricity have led to its continued use in corrosion-resistant electrical connectors in all types of computerized devices (its chief industrial use). Gold is also used in infrared shielding, the production of colored glass, gold leafing, and tooth restoration. Certain gold salts are still used as anti-inflammatory agents in medicine. Characteristics Gold is the most malleable of all metals. It can be drawn into a wire of single-atom width, and then stretched considerably before it breaks. Such nanowires distort via the formation, reorientation, and migration of dislocations and crystal twins without noticeable hardening. A single gram of gold can be beaten into a sheet of 1 square metre (11 sq ft), and an avoirdupois ounce into 28 square metres (300 sq ft). Gold leaf can be beaten thin enough to become semi-transparent. The transmitted light appears greenish-blue because gold strongly reflects yellow and red. Such semi-transparent sheets also strongly reflect infrared light, making them useful as infrared (radiant heat) shields in the visors of heat-resistant suits and in sun visors for spacesuits. Gold is a good conductor of heat and electricity. Gold has a density of 19.3 g/cm3, almost identical to that of tungsten at 19.25 g/cm3; as such, tungsten has been used in the counterfeiting of gold bars, such as by plating a tungsten bar with gold. By comparison, the density of lead is 11.34 g/cm3, and that of the densest element, osmium, is 22.588±0.015 g/cm3. Color Whereas most metals are gray or silvery white, gold is slightly reddish-yellow. This color is determined by the frequency of plasma oscillations among the metal's valence electrons, in the ultraviolet range for most metals but in the visible range for gold due to relativistic effects affecting the orbitals around gold atoms. Similar effects impart a golden hue to metallic caesium. Common colored gold alloys include the distinctive eighteen-karat rose gold created by the addition of copper. Alloys containing palladium or nickel are also important in commercial jewelry as these produce white gold alloys. Fourteen-karat gold-copper alloy is nearly identical in color to certain bronze alloys, and both may be used to produce police and other badges. Fourteen- and eighteen-karat gold alloys with silver alone appear greenish-yellow and are referred to as green gold. Blue gold can be made by alloying with iron, and purple gold can be made by alloying with aluminium. Less commonly, addition of manganese, indium, and other elements can produce more unusual colors of gold for various applications. Colloidal gold, used by electron-microscopists, is red if the particles are small; larger particles of colloidal gold are blue. Isotopes Gold has only one stable isotope, 197Au, which is also its only naturally occurring isotope, so gold is both a mononuclidic and monoisotopic element. Thirty-six radioisotopes have been synthesized, ranging in atomic mass from 169 to 205. The most stable of these is 195Au with a half-life of 186.1 days. The least stable is 171Au, which decays by proton emission with a half-life of 30 μs. Most of gold's radioisotopes with atomic masses below 197 decay by some combination of proton emission, α decay, and β+ decay. The exceptions are 195Au, which decays by electron capture, and 196Au, which decays most often by electron capture (93%) with a minor β− decay path (7%). All of gold's radioisotopes with atomic masses above 197 decay by β− decay. At least 32 nuclear isomers have also been characterized, ranging in atomic mass from 170 to 200. Within that range, only 178Au, 180Au, 181Au, 182Au, and 188Au do not have isomers. Gold's most stable isomer is 198m2Au with a half-life of 2.27 days. Gold's least stable isomer is 177m2Au with a half-life of only 7 ns. 184m1Au has three decay paths: β+ decay, isomeric transition, and alpha decay. No other isomer or isotope of gold has three decay paths. Synthesis The possible production of gold from a more common element, such as lead, has long been a subject of human inquiry, and the ancient and medieval discipline of alchemy often focused on it; however, the transmutation of the chemical elements did not become possible until the understanding of nuclear physics in the 20th century. The first synthesis of gold was conducted by Japanese physicist Hantaro Nagaoka, who synthesized gold from mercury in 1924 by neutron bombardment. An American team, working without knowledge of Nagaoka's prior study, conducted the same experiment in 1941, achieving the same result and showing that the isotopes of gold produced by it were all radioactive. In 1980, Glenn Seaborg transmuted several thousand atoms of bismuth into gold at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory. Gold can be manufactured in a nuclear reactor, but doing so is highly impractical and would cost far more than the value of the gold that is produced. Chemistry Although gold is the most noble of the noble metals, it still forms many diverse compounds. The oxidation state of gold in its compounds ranges from −1 to +5, but Au(I) and Au(III) dominate its chemistry. Au(I), referred to as the aurous ion, is the most common oxidation state with soft ligands such as thioethers, thiolates, and organophosphines. Au(I) compounds are typically linear. A good example is Au(CN)−2, which is the soluble form of gold encountered in mining. The binary gold halides, such as AuCl, form zigzag polymeric chains, again featuring linear coordination at Au. Most drugs based on gold are Au(I) derivatives. Au(III) (referred to as auric) is a common oxidation state, and is illustrated by gold(III) chloride, Au2Cl6. The gold atom centers in Au(III) complexes, like other d8 compounds, are typically square planar, with chemical bonds that have both covalent and ionic character. Gold(I,III) chloride is also known, an example of a mixed-valence complex. Gold does not react with oxygen at any temperature and, up to 100 °C, is resistant to attack from ozone: Au + O 2 ⟶ ( no reaction ) {\displaystyle {\ce {Au + O2 ->}}({\text{no reaction}})} Au + O 3 → t < 100 ∘ C ( no reaction ) {\displaystyle {\ce {Au{}+O3->[{} \atop {t<100^{\circ }{\text{C}}}]}}({\text{no reaction}})} Some free halogens react to form the corresponding gold halides. Gold is strongly attacked by fluorine at dull-red heat to form gold(III) fluoride AuF3. Powdered gold reacts with chlorine at 180 °C to form gold(III) chloride AuCl3. Gold reacts with bromine at 140 °C to form a combination of gold(III) bromide AuBr3 and gold(I) bromide AuBr, but reacts very slowly with iodine to form gold(I) iodide AuI: 2 Au + 3 F 2 → Δ 2 AuF 3 {\displaystyle {\ce {2Au{}+3F2->[{} \atop \Delta ]2AuF3}}} 2 Au + 3 Cl 2 → Δ 2 AuCl 3 {\displaystyle {\ce {2Au{}+3Cl2->[{} \atop \Delta ]2AuCl3}}} 2 Au + 2 Br 2 → Δ AuBr 3 + AuBr {\displaystyle {\ce {2Au{}+2Br2->[{} \atop \Delta ]AuBr3{}+AuBr}}} 2 Au + I 2 → Δ 2 AuI {\displaystyle {\ce {2Au{}+I2->[{} \atop \Delta ]2AuI}}} Gold does not react with sulfur directly, but gold(III) sulfide can be made by passing hydrogen sulfide through a dilute solution of gold(III) chloride or chlorauric acid. Unlike sulfur, phosphorus reacts directly with gold at elevated temperatures to produce gold phosphide (Au2P3). Gold readily dissolves in mercury at room temperature to form an amalgam, and forms alloys with many other metals at higher temperatures. These alloys can be produced to modify the hardness and other metallurgical properties, to control melting point or to create exotic colors. Gold is unaffected by most acids. It does not react with hydrofluoric, hydrochloric, hydrobromic, hydriodic, sulfuric, or nitric acid. It does react with selenic acid, and is dissolved by aqua regia, a 1:3 mixture of nitric acid and hydrochloric acid. Nitric acid oxidizes the metal to +3 ions, but only in minute amounts, typically undetectable in the pure acid because of the chemical equilibrium of the reaction. However, the ions are removed from the equilibrium by hydrochloric acid, forming AuCl−4 ions, or chloroauric acid, thereby enabling further oxidation: 2 Au + 6 H 2 SeO 4 → 200 ∘ C Au 2 ( SeO 4 ) 3 + 3 H 2 SeO 3 + 3 H 2 O {\displaystyle {\ce {2Au{}+6H2SeO4->[{} \atop {200^{\circ }{\text{C}}}]Au2(SeO4)3{}+3H2SeO3{}+3H2O}}} Au + 4 HCl + HNO 3 ⟶ HAuCl 4 + NO ↑ + 2 H 2 O {\displaystyle {\ce {Au{}+4HCl{}+HNO3->HAuCl4{}+NO\uparrow +2H2O}}} Gold is similarly unaffected by most bases. It does not react with aqueous, solid, or molten sodium or potassium hydroxide. It does however, react with sodium or potassium cyanide under alkaline conditions when oxygen is present to form soluble complexes. Common oxidation states of gold include +1 (gold(I) or aurous compounds) and +3 (gold(III) or auric compounds). Gold ions in solution are readily reduced and precipitated as metal by adding any other metal as the reducing agent. The added metal is oxidized and dissolves, allowing the gold to be displaced from solution and be recovered as a solid precipitate. Rare oxidation states Less common oxidation states of gold include −1, +2, and +5. The −1 oxidation state occurs in aurides, compounds containing the Au− anion. Caesium auride (CsAu), for example, crystallizes in the caesium chloride motif; rubidium, potassium, and tetramethylammonium aurides are also known. Gold has the highest electron affinity of any metal, at 222.8 kJ/mol, making Au− a stable species, analogous to the halides. Gold also has a –1 oxidation state in covalent complexes with the group 4 transition metals, such as in titanium tetraauride and the analogous zirconium and hafnium compounds. These chemicals are expected to form gold-bridged dimers in a manner similar to titanium(IV) hydride. Gold(II) compounds are usually diamagnetic with Au–Au bonds such as [Au(CH2)2P(C6H5)2]2Cl2. The evaporation of a solution of Au(OH)3 in concentrated H2SO4 produces red crystals of gold(II) sulfate, Au2(SO4)2. Originally thought to be a mixed-valence compound, it has been shown to contain Au4+2 cations, analogous to the better-known mercury(I) ion, Hg2+2. A gold(II) complex, the tetraxenonogold(II) cation, which contains xenon as a ligand, occurs in [AuXe4](Sb2F11)2. In September 2023, a novel type of metal-halide perovskite material consisting of Au3+ and Au2+ cations in its crystal structure has been found. It has been shown to be unexpectedly stable at normal conditions. Gold pentafluoride, along with its derivative anion, AuF−6, and its difluorine complex, gold heptafluoride, is the sole example of gold(V), the highest verified oxidation state. Some gold compounds exhibit aurophilic bonding, which describes the tendency of gold ions to interact at distances that are too long to be a conventional Au–Au bond but shorter than van der Waals bonding. The interaction is estimated to be comparable in strength to that of a hydrogen bond. Well-defined cluster compounds are numerous. In some cases, gold has a fractional oxidation state. A representative example is the octahedral species {Au(P(C6H5)3)}2+6. Origin Gold production in the universe Gold is thought to have been produced in supernova nucleosynthesis, and from the collision of neutron stars, and to have been present in the dust from which the Solar System formed. Traditionally, gold in the universe is thought to have formed by the r-process (rapid neutron capture) in supernova nucleosynthesis, but more recently it has been suggested that gold and other elements heavier than iron may also be produced in quantity by the r-process in the collision of neutron stars. In both cases, satellite spectrometers at first only indirectly detected the resulting gold. However, in August 2017, the spectroscopic signatures of heavy elements, including gold, were observed by electromagnetic observatories in the GW170817 neutron star merger event, after gravitational wave detectors confirmed the event as a neutron star merger. Current astrophysical models suggest that this single neutron star merger event generated between 3 and 13 Earth masses of gold. This amount, along with estimations of the rate of occurrence of these neutron star merger events, suggests that such mergers may produce enough gold to account for most of the abundance of this element in the universe. Asteroid origin theories Because the Earth was molten when it was formed, almost all of the gold present in the early Earth probably sank into the planetary core. Therefore, as hypothesized in one model, most of the gold in the Earth's crust and mantle is thought to have been delivered to Earth by asteroid impacts during the Late Heavy Bombardment, about 4 billion years ago. Gold which is reachable by humans has, in one case, been associated with a particular asteroid impact. The asteroid that formed Vredefort impact structure 2.020 billion years ago is often credited with seeding the Witwatersrand basin in South Africa with the richest gold deposits on earth. However, this scenario is now questioned. The gold-bearing Witwatersrand rocks were laid down between 700 and 950 million years before the Vredefort impact. These gold-bearing rocks had furthermore been covered by a thick layer of Ventersdorp lavas and the Transvaal Supergroup of rocks before the meteor struck, and thus the gold did not actually arrive in the asteroid/meteorite. What the Vredefort impact achieved, however, was to distort the Witwatersrand basin in such a way that the gold-bearing rocks were brought to the present erosion surface in Johannesburg, on the Witwatersrand, just inside the rim of the original 300 km (190 mi) diameter crater caused by the meteor strike. The discovery of the deposit in 1886 launched the Witwatersrand Gold Rush. Some 22% of all the gold that is ascertained to exist today on Earth has been extracted from these Witwatersrand rocks. Mantle return theories Much of the rest of the gold on Earth is thought to have been incorporated into the planet since its very beginning, as planetesimals formed the mantle. In 2017, an international group of scientists established that gold "came to the Earth's surface from the deepest regions of our planet", the mantle, as evidenced by their findings at Deseado Massif in the Argentinian Patagonia. Occurrence On Earth, gold is found in ores in rock formed from the Precambrian time onward. It most often occurs as a native metal, typically in a metal solid solution with silver (i.e. as a gold/silver alloy). Such alloys usually have a silver content of 8–10%. Electrum is elemental gold with more than 20% silver, and is commonly known as white gold. Electrum's color runs from golden-silvery to silvery, dependent upon the silver content. The more silver, the lower the specific gravity. Native gold occurs as very small to microscopic particles embedded in rock, often together with quartz or sulfide minerals such as "fool's gold", which is a pyrite. These are called lode deposits. The metal in a native state is also found in the form of free flakes, grains or larger nuggets that have been eroded from rocks and end up in alluvial deposits called placer deposits. Such free gold is always richer at the exposed surface of gold-bearing veins, owing to the oxidation of accompanying minerals followed by weathering; and by washing of the dust into streams and rivers, where it collects and can be welded by water action to form nuggets. Gold sometimes occurs combined with tellurium as the minerals calaverite, krennerite, nagyagite, petzite and sylvanite (see telluride minerals), and as the rare bismuthide maldonite (Au2Bi) and antimonide aurostibite (AuSb2). Gold also occurs in rare alloys with copper, lead, and mercury: the minerals auricupride (Cu3Au), novodneprite (AuPb3) and weishanite ((Au,Ag)3Hg2). A 2004 research paper suggests that microbes can sometimes play an important role in forming gold deposits, transporting and precipitating gold to form grains and nuggets that collect in alluvial deposits. A 2013 study has claimed water in faults vaporizes during an earthquake, depositing gold. When an earthquake strikes, it moves along a fault. Water often lubricates faults, filling in fractures and jogs. About 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) below the surface, under very high temperatures and pressures, the water carries high concentrations of carbon dioxide, silica, and gold. During an earthquake, the fault jog suddenly opens wider. The water inside the void instantly vaporizes, flashing to steam and forcing silica, which forms the mineral quartz, and gold out of the fluids and onto nearby surfaces. Seawater The world's oceans contain gold. Measured concentrations of gold in the Atlantic and Northeast Pacific are 50–150 femtomol/L or 10–30 parts per quadrillion (about 10–30 g/km3). In general, gold concentrations for south Atlantic and central Pacific samples are the same (~50 femtomol/L) but less certain. Mediterranean deep waters contain slightly higher concentrations of gold (100–150 femtomol/L), which is attributed to wind-blown dust or rivers. At 10 parts per quadrillion, the Earth's oceans would hold 15,000 tonnes of gold. These figures are three orders of magnitude less than reported in the literature prior to 1988, indicating contamination problems with the earlier data. A number of people have claimed to be able to economically recover gold from sea water, but they were either mistaken or acted in an intentional deception. Prescott Jernegan ran a gold-from-seawater swindle in the United States in the 1890s, as did an English fraudster in the early 1900s. Fritz Haber did research on the extraction of gold from sea water in an effort to help pay Germany's reparations following World War I. Based on the published values of 2 to 64 ppb of gold in seawater, a commercially successful extraction seemed possible. After analysis of 4,000 water samples yielding an average of 0.004 ppb, it became clear that extraction would not be possible, and he ended the project. History The earliest recorded metal employed by humans appears to be gold, which can be found free or "native". Small amounts of natural gold have been found in Spanish caves used during the late Paleolithic period, c. 40,000 BC. The oldest gold artifacts in the world are from Bulgaria and are dating back to the 5th millennium BC (4,600 BC to 4,200 BC), such as those found in the Varna Necropolis near Lake Varna and the Black Sea coast, thought to be the earliest "well-dated" finding of gold artifacts in history. Several prehistoric Bulgarian finds are considered no less old – the golden treasures of Hotnitsa, Durankulak, artifacts from the Kurgan settlement of Yunatsite near Pazardzhik, the golden treasure Sakar, as well as beads and gold jewelry found in the Kurgan settlement of Provadia – Solnitsata ("salt pit"). However, Varna gold is most often called the oldest since this treasure is the largest and most diverse. Gold artifacts probably made their first appearance in Ancient Egypt at the very beginning of the pre-dynastic period, at the end of the fifth millennium BC and the start of the fourth, and smelting was developed during the course of the 4th millennium; gold artifacts appear in the archeology of Lower Mesopotamia during the early 4th millennium. As of 1990, gold artifacts found at the Wadi Qana cave cemetery of the 4th millennium BC in West Bank were the earliest from the Levant. Gold artifacts such as the golden hats and the Nebra disk appeared in Central Europe from the 2nd millennium BC Bronze Age. The oldest known map of a gold mine was drawn in the 19th Dynasty of Ancient Egypt (1320–1200 BC), whereas the first written reference to gold was recorded in the 12th Dynasty around 1900 BC. Egyptian hieroglyphs from as early as 2600 BC describe gold, which King Tushratta of the Mitanni claimed was "more plentiful than dirt" in Egypt. Egypt and especially Nubia had the resources to make them major gold-producing areas for much of history. One of the earliest known maps, known as the Turin Papyrus Map, shows the plan of a gold mine in Nubia together with indications of the local geology. The primitive working methods are described by both Strabo and Diodorus Siculus, and included fire-setting. Large mines were also present across the Red Sea in what is now Saudi Arabia. Gold is mentioned in the Amarna letters numbered 19 and 26 from around the 14th century BC. Gold is mentioned frequently in the Old Testament, starting with Genesis 2:11 (at Havilah), the story of the golden calf, and many parts of the temple including the Menorah and the golden altar. In the New Testament, it is included with the gifts of the magi in the first chapters of Matthew. The Book of Revelation 21:21 describes the city of New Jerusalem as having streets "made of pure gold, clear as crystal". Exploitation of gold in the south-east corner of the Black Sea is said to date from the time of Midas, and this gold was important in the establishment of what is probably the world's earliest coinage in Lydia around 610 BC. The legend of the golden fleece dating from eighth century BCE may refer to the use of fleeces to trap gold dust from placer deposits in the ancient world. From the 6th or 5th century BC, the Chu (state) circulated the Ying Yuan, one kind of square gold coin. In Roman metallurgy, new methods for extracting gold on a large scale were developed by introducing hydraulic mining methods, especially in Hispania from 25 BC onwards and in Dacia from 106 AD onwards. One of their largest mines was at Las Medulas in León, where seven long aqueducts enabled them to sluice most of a large alluvial deposit. The mines at Roşia Montană in Transylvania were also very large, and until very recently, still mined by opencast methods. They also exploited smaller deposits in Britain, such as placer and hard-rock deposits at Dolaucothi. The various methods they used are well described by Pliny the Elder in his encyclopedia Naturalis Historia written towards the end of the first century AD. During Mansa Musa's (ruler of the Mali Empire from 1312 to 1337) hajj to Mecca in 1324, he passed through Cairo in July 1324, and was reportedly accompanied by a camel train that included thousands of people and nearly a hundred camels where he gave away so much gold that it depressed the price in Egypt for over a decade, causing high inflation. A contemporary Arab historian remarked: Gold was at a high price in Egypt until they came in that year. The mithqal did not go below 25 dirhams and was generally above, but from that time its value fell and it cheapened in price and has remained cheap till now. The mithqal does not exceed 22 dirhams or less. This has been the state of affairs for about twelve years until this day by reason of the large amount of gold which they brought into Egypt and spent there [...]. The European exploration of the Americas was fueled in no small part by reports of the gold ornaments displayed in great profusion by Native American peoples, especially in Mesoamerica, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. The Aztecs regarded gold as the product of the gods, calling it literally "god excrement" (teocuitlatl in Nahuatl), and after Moctezuma II was killed, most of this gold was shipped to Spain. However, for the indigenous peoples of North America gold was considered useless and they saw much greater value in other minerals which were directly related to their utility, such as obsidian, flint, and slate. El Dorado is applied to a legendary story in which precious stones were found in fabulous abundance along with gold coins. The concept of El Dorado underwent several transformations, and eventually accounts of the previous myth were also combined with those of a legendary lost city. El Dorado, was the term used by the Spanish Empire to describe a mythical tribal chief (zipa) of the Muisca native people in Colombia, who, as an initiation rite, covered himself with gold dust and submerged in Lake Guatavita. The legends surrounding El Dorado changed over time, as it went from being a man, to a city, to a kingdom, and then finally to an empire. Beginning in the early modern period, European exploration and colonization of West Africa was driven in large part by reports of gold deposits in the region, which was eventually referred to by Europeans as the "Gold Coast". From the late 15th to early 19th centuries, European trade in the region was primarily focused in gold, along with ivory and slaves. The gold trade in West Africa was dominated by the Ashanti Empire, who initially traded with the Portuguese before branching out and trading with British, French, Spanish and Danish merchants. British desires to secure control of West African gold deposits played a role in the Anglo-Ashanti wars of the late 19th century, which saw the Ashanti Empire annexed by Britain. Gold played a role in western culture, as a cause for desire and of corruption, as told in children's fables such as Rumpelstiltskin—where Rumpelstiltskin turns hay into gold for the peasant's daughter in return for her child when she becomes a princess—and the stealing of the hen that lays golden eggs in Jack and the Beanstalk. The top prize at the Olympic Games and many other sports competitions is the gold medal. 75% of the presently accounted for gold has been extracted since 1910, two-thirds since 1950. One main goal of the alchemists was to produce gold from other substances, such as lead — presumably by the interaction with a mythical substance called the philosopher's stone. Trying to produce gold led the alchemists to systematically find out what can be done with substances, and this laid the foundation for today's chemistry, which can produce gold (albeit uneconomically) by using nuclear transmutation. Their symbol for gold was the circle with a point at its center (☉), which was also the astrological symbol and the ancient Chinese character for the Sun. The Dome of the Rock is covered with an ultra-thin golden glassier. The Sikh Golden temple, the Harmandir Sahib, is a building covered with gold. Similarly the Wat Phra Kaew emerald Buddhist temple (wat) in Thailand has ornamental gold-leafed statues and roofs. Some European king and queen's crowns were made of gold, and gold was used for the bridal crown since antiquity. An ancient Talmudic text circa 100 AD describes Rachel, wife of Rabbi Akiva, receiving a "Jerusalem of Gold" (diadem). A Greek burial crown made of gold was found in a grave circa 370 BC. Etymology Gold is cognate with similar words in many Germanic languages, deriving via Proto-Germanic *gulþą from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰelh₃- 'to shine, to gleam; to be yellow or green'. The symbol Au is from the Latin aurum 'gold'. The Proto-Indo-European ancestor of aurum was *h₂é-h₂us-o-, meaning 'glow'. This word is derived from the same root (Proto-Indo-European *h₂u̯es- 'to dawn') as *h₂éu̯sōs, the ancestor of the Latin word aurora 'dawn'. This etymological relationship is presumably behind the frequent claim in scientific publications that aurum meant 'shining dawn'. Culture In popular culture gold is a high standard of excellence, often used in awards. Great achievements are frequently rewarded with gold, in the form of gold medals, gold trophies and other decorations. Winners of athletic events and other graded competitions are usually awarded a gold medal. Many awards such as the Nobel Prize are made from gold as well. Other award statues and prizes are depicted in gold or are gold plated (such as the Academy Awards, the Golden Globe Awards, the Emmy Awards, the Palme d'Or, and the British Academy Film Awards). Aristotle in his ethics used gold symbolism when referring to what is now known as the golden mean. Similarly, gold is associated with perfect or divine principles, such as in the case of the golden ratio and the Golden Rule. Gold is further associated with the wisdom of aging and fruition. The fiftieth wedding anniversary is golden. A person's most valued or most successful latter years are sometimes considered "golden years" or "golden jubilee". The height of a civilization is referred to as a golden age. Religion The first known prehistoric human usages of gold were religious in nature. In some forms of Christianity and Judaism, gold has been associated both with the sacred and evil. In the Book of Exodus, the Golden Calf is a symbol of idolatry, while in the Book of Genesis, Abraham was said to be rich in gold and silver, and Moses was instructed to cover the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant with pure gold. In Byzantine iconography the halos of Christ, Virgin Mary and the saints are often golden. In Islam, gold (along with silk) is often cited as being forbidden for men to wear. Abu Bakr al-Jazaeri, quoting a hadith, said that "[t]he wearing of silk and gold are forbidden on the males of my nation, and they are lawful to their women". This, however, has not been enforced consistently throughout history, e.g. in the Ottoman Empire. Further, small gold accents on clothing, such as in embroidery, may be permitted. In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Theia was seen as the goddess of gold, silver and other gemstones. According to Christopher Columbus, those who had something of gold were in possession of something of great value on Earth and a substance to even help souls to paradise. Wedding rings are typically made of gold. It is long lasting and unaffected by the passage of time and may aid in the ring symbolism of eternal vows before God and the perfection the marriage signifies. In Orthodox Christian wedding ceremonies, the wedded couple is adorned with a golden crown (though some opt for wreaths, instead) during the ceremony, an amalgamation of symbolic rites. On 24 August 2020, Israeli archaeologists discovered a trove of early Islamic gold coins near the central city of Yavne. Analysis of the extremely rare collection of 425 gold coins indicated that they were from the late 9th century. Dating to around 1,100 years back, the gold coins were from the Abbasid Caliphate. Production According to the United States Geological Survey in 2016, about 5,726,000,000 troy ounces (178,100 t) of gold has been accounted for, of which 85% remains in active use. Mining and prospecting Since the 1880s, South Africa has been the source of a large proportion of the world's gold supply, and about 22% of the gold presently accounted is from South Africa. Production in 1970 accounted for 79% of the world supply, about 1,480 tonnes. In 2007 China (with 276 tonnes) overtook South Africa as the world's largest gold producer, the first time since 1905 that South Africa had not been the largest. In 2020, China was the world's leading gold-mining country, followed in order by Russia, Australia, the United States, Canada, and Ghana. In South America, the controversial project Pascua Lama aims at exploitation of rich fields in the high mountains of Atacama Desert, at the border between Chile and Argentina. It has been estimated that up to one-quarter of the yearly global gold production originates from artisanal or small scale mining. The city of Johannesburg located in South Africa was founded as a result of the Witwatersrand Gold Rush which resulted in the discovery of some of the largest natural gold deposits in recorded history. The gold fields are confined to the northern and north-western edges of the Witwatersrand basin, which is a 5–7 km (3.1–4.3 mi) thick layer of archean rocks located, in most places, deep under the Free State, Gauteng and surrounding provinces. These Witwatersrand rocks are exposed at the surface on the Witwatersrand, in and around Johannesburg, but also in isolated patches to the south-east and south-west of Johannesburg, as well as in an arc around the Vredefort Dome which lies close to the center of the Witwatersrand basin. From these surface exposures the basin dips extensively, requiring some of the mining to occur at depths of nearly 4,000 m (13,000 ft), making them, especially the Savuka and TauTona mines to the south-west of Johannesburg, the deepest mines on Earth. The gold is found only in six areas where archean rivers from the north and north-west formed extensive pebbly Braided river deltas before draining into the "Witwatersrand sea" where the rest of the Witwatersrand sediments were deposited. The Second Boer War of 1899–1901 between the British Empire and the Afrikaner Boers was at least partly over the rights of miners and possession of the gold wealth in South Africa. During the 19th century, gold rushes occurred whenever large gold deposits were discovered. The first documented discovery of gold in the United States was at the Reed Gold Mine near Georgeville, North Carolina in 1803. The first major gold strike in the United States occurred in a small north Georgia town called Dahlonega. Further gold rushes occurred in California, Colorado, the Black Hills, Otago in New Zealand, a number of locations across Australia, Witwatersrand in South Africa, and the Klondike in Canada. Grasberg mine located in Papua, Indonesia is the largest gold mine in the world. Extraction and refining Gold extraction is most economical in large, easily mined deposits. Ore grades as little as 0.5 parts per million (ppm) can be economical. Typical ore grades in open-pit mines are 1–5 ppm; ore grades in underground or hard rock mines are usually at least 3 ppm. Because ore grades of 30 ppm are usually needed before gold is visible to the naked eye, in most gold mines the gold is invisible. The average gold mining and extraction costs were about $317 per troy ounce in 2007, but these can vary widely depending on mining type and ore quality; global mine production amounted to 2,471.1 tonnes. After initial production, gold is often subsequently refined industrially by the Wohlwill process which is based on electrolysis or by the Miller process, that is chlorination in the melt. The Wohlwill process results in higher purity, but is more complex and is only applied in small-scale installations. Other methods of assaying and purifying smaller amounts of gold include parting and inquartation as well as cupellation, or refining methods based on the dissolution of gold in aqua regia. Recycling In 1997, recycled gold accounted for approximately 20% of the 2700 tons of gold supplied to the market. Jewelry companies such as Generation Collection and computer companies including Dell conduct recycling. As of 2020, the amount of carbon dioxide CO2 produced in mining a kilogram of gold is 16 tonnes, while recycling a kilogram of gold produces 53 kilograms of CO2 equivalent. Approximately 30 percent of the global gold supply is recycled and not mined as of 2020. Consumption The consumption of gold produced in the world is about 50% in jewelry, 40% in investments, and 10% in industry. According to the World Gold Council, China was the world's largest single consumer of gold in 2013, overtaking India. Pollution Gold production is associated with contribution to hazardous pollution. Low-grade gold ore may contain less than one ppm gold metal; such ore is ground and mixed with sodium cyanide to dissolve the gold. Cyanide is a highly poisonous chemical, which can kill living creatures when exposed in minute quantities. Many cyanide spills from gold mines have occurred in both developed and developing countries which killed aquatic life in long stretches of affected rivers. Environmentalists consider these events major environmental disasters. Up to thirty tons of used ore can be dumped as waste for producing one troy ounce of gold. Gold ore dumps are the source of many heavy elements such as cadmium, lead, zinc, copper, arsenic, selenium and mercury. When sulfide-bearing minerals in these ore dumps are exposed to air and water, the sulfide transforms into sulfuric acid which in turn dissolves these heavy metals facilitating their passage into surface water and ground water. This process is called acid mine drainage. These gold ore dumps contain long-term, highly hazardous waste. It was once common to use mercury to recover gold from ore, but today the use of mercury is largely limited to small-scale individual miners. Minute quantities of mercury compounds can reach water bodies, causing heavy metal contamination. Mercury can then enter into the human food chain in the form of methylmercury. Mercury poisoning in humans causes incurable brain function damage and severe retardation. Gold extraction is also a highly energy-intensive industry, extracting ore from deep mines and grinding the large quantity of ore for further chemical extraction requires nearly 25 kWh of electricity per gram of gold produced. Monetary use Gold has been widely used throughout the world as money, for efficient indirect exchange (versus barter), and to store wealth in hoards. For exchange purposes, mints produce standardized gold bullion coins, bars and other units of fixed weight and purity. The first known coins containing gold were struck in Lydia, Asia Minor, around 600 BC. The talent coin of gold in use during the periods of Grecian history both before and during the time of the life of Homer weighed between 8.42 and 8.75 grams. From an earlier preference in using silver, European economies re-established the minting of gold as coinage during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Bills (that mature into gold coin) and gold certificates (convertible into gold coin at the issuing bank) added to the circulating stock of gold standard money in most 19th century industrial economies. In preparation for World War I the warring nations moved to fractional gold standards, inflating their currencies to finance the war effort. Post-war, the victorious countries, most notably Britain, gradually restored gold-convertibility, but international flows of gold via bills of exchange remained embargoed; international shipments were made exclusively for bilateral trades or to pay war reparations. After World War II gold was replaced by a system of nominally convertible currencies related by fixed exchange rates following the Bretton Woods system. Gold standards and the direct convertibility of currencies to gold have been abandoned by world governments, led in 1971 by the United States' refusal to redeem its dollars in gold. Fiat currency now fills most monetary roles. Switzerland was the last country to tie its currency to gold; this was ended by a referendum in 1999. Central banks continue to keep a portion of their liquid reserves as gold in some form, and metals exchanges such as the London Bullion Market Association still clear transactions denominated in gold, including future delivery contracts. Today, gold mining output is declining. With the sharp growth of economies in the 20th century, and increasing foreign exchange, the world's gold reserves and their trading market have become a small fraction of all markets and fixed exchange rates of currencies to gold have been replaced by floating prices for gold and gold future contract. Though the gold stock grows by only 1% or 2% per year, very little metal is irretrievably consumed. Inventory above ground would satisfy many decades of industrial and even artisan uses at current prices. The gold proportion (fineness) of alloys is measured by karat (k). Pure gold (commercially termed fine gold) is designated as 24 karat, abbreviated 24k. English gold coins intended for circulation from 1526 into the 1930s were typically a standard 22k alloy called crown gold, for hardness (American gold coins for circulation after 1837 contain an alloy of 0.900 fine gold, or 21.6 kt). Although the prices of some platinum group metals can be much higher, gold has long been considered the most desirable of precious metals, and its value has been used as the standard for many currencies. Gold has been used as a symbol for purity, value, royalty, and particularly roles that combine these properties. Gold as a sign of wealth and prestige was ridiculed by Thomas More in his treatise Utopia. On that imaginary island, gold is so abundant that it is used to make chains for slaves, tableware, and lavatory seats. When ambassadors from other countries arrive, dressed in ostentatious gold jewels and badges, the Utopians mistake them for menial servants, paying homage instead to the most modestly dressed of their party. The ISO 4217 currency code of gold is XAU. Many holders of gold store it in form of bullion coins or bars as a hedge against inflation or other economic disruptions, though its efficacy as such has been questioned; historically, it has not proven itself reliable as a hedging instrument. Modern bullion coins for investment or collector purposes do not require good mechanical wear properties; they are typically fine gold at 24k, although the American Gold Eagle and the British gold sovereign continue to be minted in 22k (0.92) metal in historical tradition, and the South African Krugerrand, first released in 1967, is also 22k (0.92). The special issue Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coin contains the highest purity gold of any bullion coin, at 99.999% or 0.99999, while the popular issue Canadian Gold Maple Leaf coin has a purity of 99.99%. In 2006, the United States Mint began producing the American Buffalo gold bullion coin with a purity of 99.99%. The Australian Gold Kangaroos were first coined in 1986 as the Australian Gold Nugget but changed the reverse design in 1989. Other modern coins include the Austrian Vienna Philharmonic bullion coin and the Chinese Gold Panda. Price Like other precious metals, gold is measured by troy weight and by grams. The proportion of gold in the alloy is measured by karat (k), with 24 karat (24k) being pure gold (100%), and lower karat numbers proportionally less (18k = 75%). The purity of a gold bar or coin can also be expressed as a decimal figure ranging from 0 to 1, known as the millesimal fineness, such as 0.995 being nearly pure. The price of gold is determined through trading in the gold and derivatives markets, but a procedure known as the Gold Fixing in London, originating in September 1919, provides a daily benchmark price to the industry. The afternoon fixing was introduced in 1968 to provide a price when US markets are open. As of September 2017, gold was valued at around $42 per gram ($1,300 per troy ounce). History Historically gold coinage was widely used as currency; when paper money was introduced, it typically was a receipt redeemable for gold coin or bullion. In a monetary system known as the gold standard, a certain weight of gold was given the name of a unit of currency. For a long period, the United States government set the value of the US dollar so that one troy ounce was equal to $20.67 ($0.665 per gram), but in 1934 the dollar was devalued to $35.00 per troy ounce ($0.889/g). By 1961, it was becoming hard to maintain this price, and a pool of US and European banks agreed to manipulate the market to prevent further currency devaluation against increased gold demand. The largest gold depository in the world is that of the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank in New York, which holds about 3% of the gold known to exist and accounted for today, as does the similarly laden U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox. In 2005 the World Gold Council estimated total global gold supply to be 3,859 tonnes and demand to be 3,754 tonnes, giving a surplus of 105 tonnes. After 15 August 1971 Nixon shock, the price began to greatly increase, and between 1968 and 2000 the price of gold ranged widely, from a high of $850 per troy ounce ($27.33/g) on 21 January 1980, to a low of $252.90 per troy ounce ($8.13/g) on 21 June 1999 (London Gold Fixing). Prices increased rapidly from 2001, but the 1980 high was not exceeded until 3 January 2008, when a new maximum of $865.35 per troy ounce was set. Another record price was set on 17 March 2008, at $1023.50 per troy ounce ($32.91/g). On 2 December 2009, gold reached a new high closing at $1,217.23. Gold further rallied hitting new highs in May 2010 after the European Union debt crisis prompted further purchase of gold as a safe asset. On 1 March 2011, gold hit a new all-time high of $1432.57, based on investor concerns regarding ongoing unrest in North Africa as well as in the Middle East. From April 2001 to August 2011, spot gold prices more than quintupled in value against the US dollar, hitting a new all-time high of $1,913.50 on 23 August 2011, prompting speculation that the long secular bear market had ended and a bull market had returned. However, the price then began a slow decline towards $1200 per troy ounce in late 2014 and 2015. In August 2020, the gold price picked up to US$2060 per ounce after a total growth of 59% from August 2018 to October 2020, a period during which it outplaced the Nasdaq total return of 54%. Gold futures are traded on the COMEX exchange. These contacts are priced in USD per troy ounce (1 troy ounce = 31.1034768 grams). Below are the CQG contract specifications outlining the futures contracts: Other applications Jewelry Because of the softness of pure (24k) gold, it is usually alloyed with other metals for use in jewelry, altering its hardness and ductility, melting point, color and other properties. Alloys with lower karat rating, typically 22k, 18k, 14k or 10k, contain higher percentages of copper, silver, palladium or other base metals in the alloy. Nickel is toxic, and its release from nickel white gold is controlled by legislation in Europe. Palladium-gold alloys are more expensive than those using nickel. High-karat white gold alloys are more resistant to corrosion than are either pure silver or sterling silver. The Japanese craft of Mokume-gane exploits the color contrasts between laminated colored gold alloys to produce decorative wood-grain effects. By 2014, the gold jewelry industry was escalating despite a dip in gold prices. Demand in the first quarter of 2014 pushed turnover to $23.7 billion according to a World Gold Council report. Gold solder is used for joining the components of gold jewelry by high-temperature hard soldering or brazing. If the work is to be of hallmarking quality, the gold solder alloy must match the fineness of the work, and alloy formulas are manufactured to color-match yellow and white gold. Gold solder is usually made in at least three melting-point ranges referred to as Easy, Medium and Hard. By using the hard, high-melting point solder first, followed by solders with progressively lower melting points, goldsmiths can assemble complex items with several separate soldered joints. Gold can also be made into thread and used in embroidery. Electronics Only 10% of the world consumption of new gold produced goes to industry, but by far the most important industrial use for new gold is in fabrication of corrosion-free electrical connectors in computers and other electrical devices. For example, according to the World Gold Council, a typical cell phone may contain 50 mg of gold, worth about three dollars. But since nearly one billion cell phones are produced each year, a gold value of US$2.82 in each phone adds to US$2.82 billion in gold from just this application. (Prices updated to November 2022) Though gold is attacked by free chlorine, its good conductivity and general resistance to oxidation and corrosion in other environments (including resistance to non-chlorinated acids) has led to its widespread industrial use in the electronic era as a thin-layer coating on electrical connectors, thereby ensuring good connection. For example, gold is used in the connectors of the more expensive electronics cables, such as audio, video and USB cables. The benefit of using gold over other connector metals such as tin in these applications has been debated; gold connectors are often criticized by audio-visual experts as unnecessary for most consumers and seen as simply a marketing ploy. However, the use of gold in other applications in electronic sliding contacts in highly humid or corrosive atmospheres, and in use for contacts with a very high failure cost (certain computers, communications equipment, spacecraft, jet aircraft engines) remains very common. Besides sliding electrical contacts, gold is also used in electrical contacts because of its resistance to corrosion, electrical conductivity, ductility and lack of toxicity. Switch contacts are generally subjected to more intense corrosion stress than are sliding contacts. Fine gold wires are used to connect semiconductor devices to their packages through a process known as wire bonding. The concentration of free electrons in gold metal is 5.91×1022 cm−3. Gold is highly conductive to electricity and has been used for electrical wiring in some high-energy applications (only silver and copper are more conductive per volume, but gold has the advantage of corrosion resistance). For example, gold electrical wires were used during some of the Manhattan Project's atomic experiments, but large high-current silver wires were used in the calutron isotope separator magnets in the project. It is estimated that 16% of the world's presently-accounted-for gold and 22% of the world's silver is contained in electronic technology in Japan. Medicine Metallic and gold compounds have long been used for medicinal purposes. Gold, usually as the metal, is perhaps the most anciently administered medicine (apparently by shamanic practitioners) and known to Dioscorides. In medieval times, gold was often seen as beneficial for the health, in the belief that something so rare and beautiful could not be anything but healthy. Even some modern esotericists and forms of alternative medicine assign metallic gold a healing power. In the 19th century gold had a reputation as an anxiolytic, a therapy for nervous disorders. Depression, epilepsy, migraine, and glandular problems such as amenorrhea and impotence were treated, and most notably alcoholism (Keeley, 1897). The apparent paradox of the actual toxicology of the substance suggests the possibility of serious gaps in the understanding of the action of gold in physiology. Only salts and radioisotopes of gold are of pharmacological value, since elemental (metallic) gold is inert to all chemicals it encounters inside the body (e.g., ingested gold cannot be attacked by stomach acid). Some gold salts do have anti-inflammatory properties and at present two are still used as pharmaceuticals in the treatment of arthritis and other similar conditions in the US (sodium aurothiomalate and auranofin). These drugs have been explored as a means to help to reduce the pain and swelling of rheumatoid arthritis, and also (historically) against tuberculosis and some parasites. Gold alloys are used in restorative dentistry, especially in tooth restorations, such as crowns and permanent bridges. The gold alloys' slight malleability facilitates the creation of a superior molar mating surface with other teeth and produces results that are generally more satisfactory than those produced by the creation of porcelain crowns. The use of gold crowns in more prominent teeth such as incisors is favored in some cultures and discouraged in others. Colloidal gold preparations (suspensions of gold nanoparticles) in water are intensely red-colored, and can be made with tightly controlled particle sizes up to a few tens of nanometers across by reduction of gold chloride with citrate or ascorbate ions. Colloidal gold is used in research applications in medicine, biology and materials science. The technique of immunogold labeling exploits the ability of the gold particles to adsorb protein molecules onto their surfaces. Colloidal gold particles coated with specific antibodies can be used as probes for the presence and position of antigens on the surfaces of cells. In ultrathin sections of tissues viewed by electron microscopy, the immunogold labels appear as extremely dense round spots at the position of the antigen. Gold, or alloys of gold and palladium, are applied as conductive coating to biological specimens and other non-conducting materials such as plastics and glass to be viewed in a scanning electron microscope. The coating, which is usually applied by sputtering with an argon plasma, has a triple role in this application. Gold's very high electrical conductivity drains electrical charge to earth, and its very high density provides stopping power for electrons in the electron beam, helping to limit the depth to which the electron beam penetrates the specimen. This improves definition of the position and topography of the specimen surface and increases the spatial resolution of the image. Gold also produces a high output of secondary electrons when irradiated by an electron beam, and these low-energy electrons are the most commonly used signal source used in the scanning electron microscope. The isotope gold-198 (half-life 2.7 days) is used in nuclear medicine, in some cancer treatments and for treating other diseases. Cuisine Gold can be used in food and has the E number 175. In 2016, the European Food Safety Authority published an opinion on the re-evaluation of gold as a food additive. Concerns included the possible presence of minute amounts of gold nanoparticles in the food additive, and that gold nanoparticles have been shown to be genotoxic in mammalian cells in vitro. Gold leaf, flake or dust is used on and in some gourmet foods, notably sweets and drinks as decorative ingredient. Gold flake was used by the nobility in medieval Europe as a decoration in food and drinks, Danziger Goldwasser (German: Gold water of Danzig) or Goldwasser (English: Goldwater) is a traditional German herbal liqueur produced in what is today Gdańsk, Poland, and Schwabach, Germany, and contains flakes of gold leaf. There are also some expensive (c. $1000) cocktails which contain flakes of gold leaf. However, since metallic gold is inert to all body chemistry, it has no taste, it provides no nutrition, and it leaves the body unaltered. Vark is a foil composed of a pure metal that is sometimes gold, and is used for garnishing sweets in South Asian cuisine. Miscellanea Gold produces a deep, intense red color when used as a coloring agent in cranberry glass. In photography, gold toners are used to shift the color of silver bromide black-and-white prints towards brown or blue tones, or to increase their stability. Used on sepia-toned prints, gold toners produce red tones. Kodak published formulas for several types of gold toners, which use gold as the chloride. Gold is a good reflector of electromagnetic radiation such as infrared and visible light, as well as radio waves. It is used for the protective coatings on many artificial satellites, in infrared protective faceplates in thermal-protection suits and astronauts' helmets, and in electronic warfare planes such as the EA-6B Prowler. Gold is used as the reflective layer on some high-end CDs. Automobiles may use gold for heat shielding. McLaren uses gold foil in the engine compartment of its F1 model. Gold can be manufactured so thin that it appears semi-transparent. It is used in some aircraft cockpit windows for de-icing or anti-icing by passing electricity through it. The heat produced by the resistance of the gold is enough to prevent ice from forming. Gold is attacked by and dissolves in alkaline solutions of potassium or sodium cyanide, to form the salt gold cyanide—a technique that has been used in extracting metallic gold from ores in the cyanide process. Gold cyanide is the electrolyte used in commercial electroplating of gold onto base metals and electroforming. Gold chloride (chloroauric acid) solutions are used to make colloidal gold by reduction with citrate or ascorbate ions. Gold chloride and gold oxide are used to make cranberry or red-colored glass, which, like colloidal gold suspensions, contains evenly sized spherical gold nanoparticles. Gold, when dispersed in nanoparticles, can act as a heterogeneous catalyst of chemical reactions. In recent years, gold has been used as a symbol of pride by the autism rights movement, as its symbol Au could be seen as similar to the word "autism". Toxicity Pure metallic (elemental) gold is non-toxic and non-irritating when ingested and is sometimes used as a food decoration in the form of gold leaf. Metallic gold is also a component of the alcoholic drinks Goldschläger, Gold Strike, and Goldwasser. Metallic gold is approved as a food additive in the EU (E175 in the Codex Alimentarius). Although the gold ion is toxic, the acceptance of metallic gold as a food additive is due to its relative chemical inertness, and resistance to being corroded or transformed into soluble salts (gold compounds) by any known chemical process which would be encountered in the human body. Soluble compounds (gold salts) such as gold chloride are toxic to the liver and kidneys. Common cyanide salts of gold such as potassium gold cyanide, used in gold electroplating, are toxic by virtue of both their cyanide and gold content. There are rare cases of lethal gold poisoning from potassium gold cyanide. Gold toxicity can be ameliorated with chelation therapy with an agent such as dimercaprol. Gold metal was voted Allergen of the Year in 2001 by the American Contact Dermatitis Society; gold contact allergies affect mostly women. Despite this, gold is a relatively non-potent contact allergen, in comparison with metals like nickel. A sample of the fungus Aspergillus niger was found growing from gold mining solution; and was found to contain cyano metal complexes, such as gold, silver, copper, iron and zinc. The fungus also plays a role in the solubilization of heavy metal sulfides. See also References Further reading Bachmann, H. G. The lure of gold : an artistic and cultural history (2006) online Bernstein, Peter L. The Power of Gold: The History of an Obsession (2000) online Brands, H.W. The Age of Gold: The California Gold Rush and the New American Dream (2003) excerpt Buranelli, Vincent. Gold : an illustrated history (1979) online' wide-ranging popular history Cassel, Gustav. "The restoration of the gold standard." Economica 9 (1923): 171–185. online Eichengreen, Barry. Golden Fetters: The Gold Standard and the Great Depression, 1919–1939 (Oxford UP, 1992). Ferguson, Niall. The Ascent of Money – Financial History of the World (2009) online Hart, Matthew, Gold: The Race for the World's Most Seductive Metal Gold : the race for the world's most seductive metal", New York: Simon & Schuster, 2013. ISBN 9781451650020 Johnson, Harry G. "The gold rush of 1968 in retrospect and prospect". American Economic Review 59.2 (1969): 344–348. online Kwarteng, Kwasi. War and Gold: A Five-Hundred-Year History of Empires, Adventures, and Debt (2014) online Vilar, Pierre. A History of Gold and Money, 1450–1920 (1960). online Vilches, Elvira. New World Gold: Cultural Anxiety and Monetary Disorder in Early Modern Spain (2010). External links "Gold" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). 1911. Chemistry in its element podcast (MP3) from the Royal Society of Chemistry's Chemistry World: Gold www.rsc.org Gold at The Periodic Table of Videos (University of Nottingham) Getting Gold 1898 book, www.lateralscience.co.uk Technical Document on Extraction and Mining of Gold at the Wayback Machine (archived 7 March 2008), www.epa.gov Gold element information – rsc.org

National_Peace_Corps_Association

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Peace_Corps_Association

National Peace Corps Association (NPCA) is a North American nonprofit organization supporting the Peace Corps Agency community. Founded in 1979, the NPCA is headquartered in Washington, D.C., United States The NPCA maintains a database comprising around 150,000 records of volunteers, including figures such as the Peace Corps' founder, John F. Kennedy, and individuals from host countries. The NPCA has historically provided advisory support to Peace Corps volunteers. Its stated objectives include fostering a commitment to the global ideals of the Peace Corps community and advocating for the enhancement and expansion of the U.S. Peace Corps initiative. According to the Peace Corps mission statement, those ideals entail promoting "world peace and friendship" by fulfilling three goals: To help the countries interested in meeting their need for trained people. To help promote a better understanding of Americans on the part of the peoples served. To help promote a better understanding of other peoples on the part of Americans." History In the mid-1970s, at conferences of global educators in the Midwest, a group of returned Peace Corps volunteers began meeting to discuss their service experiences. They adopted a Peace Corps objective that President John F. Kennedy stated in 1961: "Come home and teach your neighbors about the communities where you served." Their aim was to offer returning Peace Corps volunteers in America a continuing mission and communal identity as Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (RPCVs). In 1979, this group joined with RPCV community leaders in New York and Washington, D.C., to form the National Council of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, which was incorporated in 1981. In 1993, the organization’s name was later changed to the National Peace Corps Association (NPCA). In response to the Rwandan genocide in 1994, NPCA created the Emergency Response Network (ERN) of Returned Peace Corps Volunteers willing to respond to a crisis. Peace Corps Director Mark Gearan modeled the Crisis Corps (later renamed Peace Corps Response) after this program. In coordination with the Returned Peace Corps Volunteers of Washington, D.C., the NPCA organized 200 RPCVs to march in President Barack Obama's inaugural parade on January 20, 2009. That same year, the NPCA launched Peace Corps Connect, an online social networking platform to help current and returning Peace Corps volunteers interact and share ideas about projects, events, careers, and advocacy issues. In 2002, the NPCA was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, along with the Peace Corps. Advocacy Members of the NPCA continue to testify on U.S. Peace Corps legislation and key issues like safety and security. In 2005, NPCA successfully coordinated the removal of Peace Corps references from military recruitment legislation. Awards and recognition NPCA has encouraged and recognized the service of members of the Peace Corps community by awarding over 20 Sargent Shriver Awards for Distinguished Humanitarian Service. Programs Peace Corps Connect is the annual conference of the Peace Corps community.[1] Africa Rural Connect (ARC) is an online collaboration tool aiming to address some of the challenges in rural African communities. This project introduces and encourages collaboration to identify creative, new plans to deal with the fundamental problems of agricultural development and rural poverty in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded a grant to the ARC project as part of its Agricultural Development initiative to give millions of smallholder farmers in developing countries the tools and opportunities they need to improve their yields, raise their incomes, and improve the quality of life for themselves and their families. The RPCV Mentoring Program assists returning Peace Corps Volunteers with their transition from service. The program connects recently returned Peace Corps Volunteers with RPCV mentors one year after their service ends. Mentors provide advice, key networking contacts, share experiences and adjustment issues, offer guidance on further education, review resumes, assist with career planning, and promote resources available to RPCVs to help them transition from serving abroad to serving at home. Publications NPCA publishes Worldview magazine four times a year. The magazine shares the Peace Corps' perspective on global issues through articles authored by and about Peace Corps Volunteers, Returned Peace Corps volunteers, and people who "share the global values of the Peace Corps experience". NPCA also produces email newsletters, including the monthly NPCA News, GlobalEdNews on global issues, and NPCA Advocacy on action alerts and news on legislation impacting the Peace Corps community. History of conferences and events Since the year before its founding, the NPCA has planned annual events. These events include large conferences, celebrations for major Peace Corps anniversaries, and general meetings to satisfy bylaws requirements. Oct. 1978: Omaha, Nebraska (Red Lion Hotel) Gathering predates the founding of NPCA. Oct. 1979: Omaha, Nebraska (Red Lion Hotel) Marked as the founding of NPCA. At this gathering, charter members formalized and signed the bylaws. Oct. 1980: Omaha, Nebraska (Red Lion Hotel) 1981: Washington, DC (Red Lion Hotel) The 20th Anniversary of the Peace Corps and the first of the major anniversary conferences (always held in Washington, DC.) June 1982: Los Angeles, CA (University of California-Los Angeles) 1983: Denver, CO (University of Denver) 1984: Boston, MA (Emmanuel College) 1985: Atlanta, GA (Georgia Tech) July 1986: San Antonio, TX (Trinity University) Sept. 1986: Washington, DC (National Mall) 25th Anniversary of Peace Corps 1987: Madison, WI (University of Wisconsin-Madison) 1988: Boulder, CO (University of Colorado) 1989: Kent, OH (Kent State University) 1990: Eugene, OR (University of Oregon and Hilton Hotel) Aug. 1991: Washington, DC (National Mall) 30th Anniversary of Peace Corps 1992: Fayetteville, AR (University of Arkansas-Fayetteville) 1993: Berkeley, CA (University of California-Berkeley) 1994: Atlanta, GA (CNN Center and Omni Atlanta Hotel) 1995: Austin, TX (University of Texas-Austin) Mar. 1–3, 1996: Washington, DC (Mayflower Hotel) 35th Anniversary of Peace Corps 1996: Shawnee-on-Delaware, PA (Resort Hotel) July 10–13, 1997: San Diego, CA (Town & Country Hotel and Conference Center) 1998: Columbus, OH (The Ohio State University) 1999: Saint Paul, MN (University of St. Thomas ) Aug. 11–13, 2000: Shawnee-on-Delaware (Resort Hotel) Sept. 21, 2001: Planned for Washington, DC Canceled due to attacks on World Trade Center and Pentagon June 20–23, 2002: Washington, DC (Omni Shoreham Hotel) Postponed celebration of the 40th Anniversary of Peace Corps Aug. 1–3, 2003: Portland, OR (University Place Hotel and Conference Center) Aug. 5–8, 2004: Chicago, IL (Palmer House Hilton) 2005: Annual General Meeting in Washington, DC Sept. 14–16, 2006: Washington, DC 45th Anniversary of Peace Corps June 30, 2007: Annual General Meeting in Washington, DC Oct. 3–4, 2008: San Francisco, CA (Jewish Community Center) June 30, 2009: Annual General Meeting in Washington, DC June 26, 2010: Annual General Meeting in Washington, DC Sept. 21–25, 2011: Washington, DC (Georgetown University) 50th Anniversary of Peace Corps June 27 – July 1, 2012: Minneapolis, MN (Minneapolis Convention Center) June 26–29, 2013: Boston, MA (Harvard University Medical School) June 20–21, 2014: Nashville, TN (Vanderbilt University and Country Music Hall of Fame) June 4–6, 2015: Berkeley, CA (University of California-Berkeley) Sept. 21–25, 2016: Washington, DC (George Washington University) 55th Anniversary of Peace Corps August 4–6, 2017: Denver, CO (University of Denver) August 23–25, 2018: Shawnee on Delaware, PA (Resort) June 20–22, 2019: Austin, TX (University of Texas-Austin) Sept. 26, 2020: "Peace Corps Connect to the Future" (Virtual Conference) Sept. 23–25, 2021: Washington, DC (Virtual Conference) 60th Anniversary of Peace Corps Sept. 24, 2022: Washington, DC (Virtual Conference) Sept. 8–9, 2023: Washington, DC (Virtual Conference) Starting in 1990, affiliated group leaders held the NPCA Presidents' Forum in conjunction with each annual meeting at Kent State University. In 2005, these meetings were renamed the "Group Leaders' Forum." Affiliate Groups The network includes over 180 affiliate groups. Affiliate groups may be geographic (e.g., Chicago Area Peace Corps Association); based on the country of Peace Corps service (e.g., Friends of Guatemala); associated with workplaces (e.g., RPCVs at USAID); driven by social action (e.g., Peace Corps Community for Refugees); or defined by affinity (e.g., the Peace Corps Oral History Project). Groups advocate in line with the stated goals of the organization. References External links Official website Peace Corps Volunteers Papers Numerical List, National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution

John_F._Kennedy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_F._Kennedy

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to as JFK, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination in 1963. He was the youngest person elected president. Kennedy served at the height of the Cold War, and the majority of his foreign policy concerned relations with the Soviet Union and Cuba. A Democrat, Kennedy represented Massachusetts in both houses of the United States Congress prior to his presidency. Born into the prominent Kennedy family in Brookline, Massachusetts, Kennedy graduated from Harvard University in 1940, joining the U.S. Naval Reserve the following year. During World War II, he commanded PT boats in the Pacific theater. Kennedy's survival following the sinking of PT-109 and his rescue of his fellow sailors made him a war hero and earned the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, but left him with serious injuries. After a brief stint in journalism, Kennedy represented a working-class Boston district in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1947 to 1953. He was subsequently elected to the U.S. Senate, serving as the junior senator for Massachusetts from 1953 to 1960. While in the Senate, Kennedy published his book, Profiles in Courage, which won a Pulitzer Prize. Kennedy ran in the 1960 presidential election. His campaign gained momentum after the first televised presidential debates in American history, and he was elected president, narrowly defeating Republican opponent Richard Nixon, the incumbent vice president. Kennedy's presidency saw high tensions with communist states in the Cold War. He increased the number of American military advisers in South Vietnam, and the Strategic Hamlet Program began during his presidency. In 1961, he authorized attempts to overthrow the Cuban government of Fidel Castro in the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion and Operation Mongoose. In October 1962, U.S. spy planes discovered Soviet missile bases had been deployed in Cuba. The resulting period of tensions, termed the Cuban Missile Crisis, nearly resulted in nuclear war. In August 1961, after East German troops erected the Berlin Wall, Kennedy sent an army convoy to reassure West Berliners of U.S. support, and delivered one of his most famous speeches in West Berlin in June 1963. In 1963, Kennedy signed the first nuclear weapons treaty. He presided over the establishment of the Peace Corps, Alliance for Progress with Latin America, and the continuation of the Apollo program with the goal of landing a man on the Moon before 1970. He supported the civil rights movement but was only somewhat successful in passing his New Frontier domestic policies. On November 22, 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. His vice president, Lyndon B. Johnson, assumed the presidency. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the assassination, but he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby two days later. The FBI and the Warren Commission both concluded Oswald had acted alone, but conspiracy theories about the assassination persist. After Kennedy's death, Congress enacted many of his proposals, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Revenue Act of 1964. Kennedy ranks highly in polls of U.S. presidents with historians and the general public. His personal life has been the focus of considerable sustained interest following public revelations in the 1970s of his chronic health ailments and extramarital affairs. Kennedy is the most recent U.S. president to have died in office. Early life and education John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born outside Boston in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917, to Joseph P. Kennedy Sr., a businessman and politician, and Rose Kennedy (née Fitzgerald), a philanthropist and socialite. His paternal grandfather, P. J. Kennedy, was an East Boston ward boss and Massachusetts state legislator. Kennedy's maternal grandfather and namesake, John F. Fitzgerald, was a U.S. congressman and two-term mayor of Boston. All four of his grandparents were children of Irish immigrants. Kennedy had an older brother, Joseph Jr., and seven younger siblings: Rosemary, Kathleen, Eunice, Patricia, Robert, Jean, and Edward. Kennedy's father amassed a private fortune and established trust funds for his nine children that guaranteed lifelong financial independence. His business kept him away from home for long stretches, but Joe Sr. was a formidable presence in his children's lives. He encouraged them to be ambitious, emphasized political discussions at the dinner table, and demanded a high level of academic achievement. John's first exposure to politics was touring the Boston wards with his grandfather Fitzgerald during his 1922 failed gubernatorial campaign. With Joe Sr.'s business ventures concentrated on Wall Street and Hollywood and an outbreak of polio in Massachusetts, the family decided to move from Boston to the Riverdale neighborhood of New York City in September 1927. Several years later, his brother Robert told Look magazine that his father left Boston because of job signs that read: "No Irish Need Apply." The Kennedys spent summers and early autumns at their home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, a village on Cape Cod, where they swam, sailed, and played touch football. Christmas and Easter holidays were spent at their winter retreat in Palm Beach, Florida. In September 1930, Kennedy, 13 years old, was sent to the Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, for 8th grade. In April 1931, he had an appendectomy, after which he withdrew from Canterbury and recuperated at home. In September 1931, Kennedy started attending Choate, a preparatory boarding school in Wallingford, Connecticut. Rose had wanted John and Joe Jr. to attend a Catholic school, but Joe Sr. thought that if they were to compete in the political world, they needed to be with boys from prominent Protestant families. John spent his first years at Choate in his older brother's shadow and compensated with rebellious behavior that attracted a clique. Their most notorious stunt was exploding a toilet seat with a firecracker. In the next chapel assembly, the headmaster, George St. John, brandished the toilet seat and spoke of "muckers" who would "spit in our sea," leading Kennedy to name his group "The Muckers Club," which included roommate and lifelong friend Lem Billings. Kennedy graduated from Choate in June 1935, finishing 64th of 112 students. He had been the business manager of the school yearbook and was voted the "most likely to succeed." Kennedy intended to study under Harold Laski at the London School of Economics, as his older brother had done. Ill health forced his return to the U.S. in October 1935, when he enrolled late at Princeton University, but had to leave after two months due to gastrointestinal illness. In September 1936, Kennedy enrolled at Harvard College. He wrote occasionally for The Harvard Crimson, the campus newspaper, but had little involvement with campus politics, preferring to concentrate on athletics and his social life. Kennedy played football and was on the JV squad during his sophomore year, but an injury forced him off the team, and left him with back problems that plagued him for the rest of his life. He won membership in the Hasty Pudding Club and the Spee Club, one of Harvard's elite "final clubs". In July 1938, Kennedy sailed overseas with his older brother to work at the American embassy in London, where his father was serving as President Franklin D. Roosevelt's ambassador to the Court of St. James's. The following year, Kennedy traveled throughout Europe, the Soviet Union, the Balkans, and the Middle East in preparation for his Harvard senior honors thesis. He then went to Berlin, where a U.S. diplomatic representative gave him a secret message about war breaking out soon to pass on to his father, and to Czechoslovakia before returning to London on September 1, 1939, the day that Germany invaded Poland; the start of World War II. Two days later, the family was in the House of Commons for speeches endorsing the United Kingdom's declaration of war on Germany. Kennedy was sent as his father's representative to help with arrangements for American survivors of the torpedoing of SS Athenia before flying back to the U.S. on his first transatlantic flight. While Kennedy was an upperclassman at Harvard, he began to take his studies more seriously and developed an interest in political philosophy. He made the dean's list in his junior year. In 1940, Kennedy completed his thesis, "Appeasement in Munich", about British negotiations during the Munich Agreement. The thesis was released on July 24, under the title Why England Slept. The book was one of the first to offer information about the war and its origins, and quickly became a bestseller. In addition to addressing Britain's unwillingness to strengthen its military in the lead-up to the war, the book called for an Anglo-American alliance against the rising totalitarian powers. Kennedy became increasingly supportive of U.S. intervention in World War II, and his father's isolationist beliefs resulted in the latter's dismissal as ambassador. In 1940, Kennedy graduated cum laude from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts in government, concentrating on international affairs. That fall, he enrolled at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and audited classes, but he left after a semester to help his father complete his memoirs as an American ambassador. In early 1941, Kennedy toured South America. U.S. Naval Reserve (1941–1945) Kennedy planned to attend Yale Law School, but canceled when American entry into World War II seemed imminent. In 1940, Kennedy attempted to enter the army's Officer Candidate School. Despite months of training, he was medically disqualified due to his chronic back problems. On September 24, 1941, Kennedy, with the help of the director of the Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) and the former naval attaché to Joe Sr., Alan Kirk, joined the United States Naval Reserve. He was commissioned an ensign on October 26, 1941, and joined the ONI staff in Washington, D.C. In January 1942, Kennedy was assigned to the ONI field office at Headquarters, Sixth Naval District, in Charleston, South Carolina. His hope was to be the commander of a PT (patrol torpedo) boat, but his health problems seemed almost certain to prevent active duty. Kennedy's father intervened by providing misleading medical records and convincing PT officers that his presence would bring publicity to the fleet. Kennedy completed six months of training at the Naval Reserve Officer Training School in Chicago and at the Motor Torpedo Boat Squadrons Training Center in Melville, Rhode Island. His first command was PT-101 from December 7, 1942, until February 23, 1943. Unhappy to be assigned to the Panama Canal, far from the fighting, Kennedy appealed to Massachusetts senator David Walsh, who arranged for him to be assigned to the South Pacific. Commanding PT-109 and PT-59 In April 1943, Kennedy was assigned to Motor Torpedo Squadron TWO, and on April 24 he took command of PT-109, then based on Tulagi Island in the Solomons. On the night of August 1–2, in support of the New Georgia campaign, PT-109 and fourteen other PTs were ordered to block or repel four Japanese destroyers and floatplanes carrying food, supplies, and 900 Japanese soldiers to the Vila Plantation garrison on the southern tip of the Solomon's Kolombangara Island. Intelligence had been sent to Kennedy's Commander Thomas G. Warfield expecting the arrival of the large Japanese naval force that would pass on the evening of August 1. Of the 24 torpedoes fired that night by eight of the American PTs, not one hit the Japanese convoy. On that moonless night, Kennedy spotted a Japanese destroyer heading north on its return from the base of Kolombangara around 2:00 a.m., and attempted to turn to attack, when PT-109 was rammed suddenly at an angle and cut in half by the destroyer Amagiri, killing two PT-109 crew members. Avoiding surrender, the remaining crew swam towards Plum Pudding Island, 3.5 miles (5.6 km) southwest of the remains of PT-109, on August 2. Despite re-injuring his back in the collision, Kennedy towed a badly burned crewman to the island with a life jacket strap clenched between his teeth. From there, Kennedy and his subordinate, Ensign George Ross, made forays through the coral islands, searching for help. When they encountered an English-speaking native with a canoe, Kennedy carved his location on a coconut shell and requested a boat rescue. Seven days after the collision, with the coconut message delivered, the PT-109 crew were rescued. Almost immediately, the PT-109 rescue became a highly publicized event. The story was chronicled by John Hersey in The New Yorker in 1944 (decades later it was the basis of a successful film). It followed Kennedy into politics and provided a strong foundation for his appeal as a leader. Hersey portrayed Kennedy as a modest, self-deprecating hero. For his courage and leadership, Kennedy was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, and the injuries he suffered during the incident qualified him for a Purple Heart. After a month's recovery Kennedy returned to duty, commanding the PT-59. On November 2, Kennedy's PT-59 took part with two other PTs in the rescue of 40–50 marines. The 59 acted as a shield from shore fire as they escaped on two rescue landing craft at the base of the Warrior River at Choiseul Island, taking ten marines aboard and delivering them to safety. Under doctor's orders, Kennedy was relieved of his command on November 18, and sent to the hospital on Tulagi. By December 1943, with his health deteriorating, Kennedy left the Pacific front and arrived in San Francisco in early January 1944. After receiving treatment for his back injury at the Chelsea Naval Hospital in Massachusetts from May to December 1944, he was released from active duty. Beginning in January 1945, Kennedy spent three months recovering from his back injury at Castle Hot Springs, a resort and temporary military hospital in Arizona. On March 1, 1945, Kennedy retired from the Navy Reserve on physical disability and was honorably discharged with the full rank of lieutenant. When later asked how he became a war hero, Kennedy joked: "It was easy. They cut my PT boat in half." On August 12, 1944, Kennedy's older brother, Joe Jr., a navy pilot, was killed on an air mission. His body was never recovered. The news reached the family's home in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, a day later. Kennedy felt that Joe Jr.'s reckless flight was partly an effort to outdo him. To console himself, Kennedy set out to assemble a privately published book of remembrances of his brother, As We Remember Joe. Journalism (1945) In April 1945, Kennedy's father, who was a friend of William Randolph Hearst, arranged a position for his son as a special correspondent for Hearst Newspapers; the assignment kept Kennedy's name in the public eye and "expose[d] him to journalism as a possible career." That May he went to Berlin as a correspondent, covering the Potsdam Conference and other events. U.S. House of Representatives (1947–1953) Kennedy's elder brother Joe Jr. had been the family's political standard-bearer and had been tapped by their father to seek the presidency. After Joe's death, the assignment fell to JFK as the second eldest. Boston mayor Maurice J. Tobin discussed the possibility of John becoming his running mate in 1946 as a candidate for Massachusetts lieutenant governor, but Joe Sr. preferred a congressional campaign that could send John to Washington, where he could have national visibility. At the urging of Kennedy's father, U.S. Representative James Michael Curley vacated his seat in the strongly Democratic 11th congressional district of Massachusetts to become mayor of Boston in 1946. Kennedy established legal residency at 122 Bowdoin Street across from the Massachusetts State House. Kennedy won the Democratic primary with 42 percent of the vote, defeating nine other candidates. According to Fredrik Logevall, Joe Sr. spent hours on the phone with reporters and editors, seeking information, trading confidences, and cajoling them into publishing puff pieces on John, ones that invariably played up his war record in the Pacific. He oversaw a professional advertising campaign that ensured ads went up in just the right places the campaign had a virtual monopoly on [Boston] subway space, and on window stickers ("Kennedy for Congress") for cars and homes and was the force behind the mass mailing of Hersey's PT-109 article. Though Republicans took control of the House in the 1946 elections, Kennedy defeated his Republican opponent in the general election, taking 73 percent of the vote. As a congressman, Kennedy had a reputation for not taking much interest in the running of his office or his constituents' concerns, with one of the highest absenteeism rates in the House, although much was explained by illness. George Smathers, one of his few political friends at the time, claimed that he was more interested in being a writer than a politician, and at that time he suffered from extreme shyness. Kennedy found "most of his fellow congressmen boring, preoccupied as they all seemed to be with their narrow political concerns." The arcane House rules and customs, which slowed legislation, exasperated him. Kennedy served in the House for six years, joining the influential Education and Labor Committee and the Veterans' Affairs Committee. He concentrated his attention on international affairs, supporting the Truman Doctrine as the appropriate response to the emerging Cold War. He also supported public housing and opposed the Labor Management Relations Act of 1947, which restricted the power of labor unions. Though not as vocally anti-communist as Joseph McCarthy, Kennedy supported the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, which required communists to register with the government, and he deplored the "loss of China." During a speech in Salem, Massachusetts on January 30, 1949, Kennedy denounced Truman and the State Department for contributing to the "tragic story of China whose freedom we once fought to preserve. What our young men had saved [in World War II], our diplomats and our President have frittered away." Having served as a boy scout during his childhood, Kennedy was active in the Boston Council from 1946 to 1955 as district vice chairman, member of the executive board, vice-president, and National Council Representative. To appeal to the large Italian-American voting bloc in Massachusetts, Kennedy delivered a speech in November 1947 supporting a $227 million aid package to Italy. He maintained that Italy was in danger from an "onslaught of the communist minority" and that the country was the "initial battleground in the communist drive to capture Western Europe." To combat Soviet efforts to take control in Middle Eastern and Asian countries like Indochina, Kennedy wanted the United States to develop nonmilitary techniques of resistance that would not create suspicions of neoimperialism or add to the country's financial burden. The problem, as he saw it, was not simply to be anti-communist but to stand for something that these emerging nations would find appealing. Almost every weekend that Congress was in session, Kennedy would fly back to Massachusetts to give speeches to veteran, fraternal, and civic groups, while maintaining an index card file on individuals who might be helpful for a campaign for statewide office. Contemplating whether to run for Massachusetts governor or the U.S. Senate, Kennedy abandoned interest in the former, believing that the governor "sat in an office, handing out sewer contracts." U.S. Senate (1953–1960) As early as 1949, Kennedy began preparing to run for the Senate in 1952 against Republican three-term incumbent Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. with the campaign slogan "KENNEDY WILL DO MORE FOR MASSACHUSETTS". Joe Sr. again financed his son's candidacy (persuading the Boston Post to switch its support to Kennedy by promising the publisher a $500,000 loan), while John's younger brother Robert emerged as campaign manager. Kennedy's mother and sisters contributed as highly effective canvassers by hosting a series of "teas" at hotels and parlors across Massachusetts to reach out to women voters. In the presidential election, Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower carried Massachusetts by 208,000 votes, but Kennedy narrowly defeated Lodge by 70,000 votes for the Senate seat. The following year, he married Jacqueline Bouvier. Kennedy underwent several spinal operations over the next two years. Often absent from the Senate, he was at times critically ill and received Catholic last rites. During his convalescence in 1956, he published Profiles in Courage, a book about U.S. senators who risked their careers for their personal beliefs, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1957. Rumors that this work was ghostwritten by his close adviser and speechwriter, Ted Sorensen, were confirmed in Sorensen's 2008 autobiography. At the start of his first term, Kennedy focused on fulfilling the promise of his campaign to do "more for Massachusetts" than his predecessor. Although Kennedy's and Lodge's legislative records were similarly liberal, Lodge voted for the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 and Kennedy voted against it. On NBC's Meet the Press, Kennedy excoriated Lodge for not doing enough to prevent the increasing migration of manufacturing jobs from Massachusetts to the South, and blamed the right-to-work provision for giving the South an unfair advantage over Massachusetts in labor costs. In May 1953, Kennedy introduced "The Economic Problems of New England", a 36-point program to help Massachusetts industries such as fishing, textile manufacturing, watchmaking, and shipbuilding, as well as the Boston seaport. Kennedy's policy agenda included protective tariffs, preventing excessive speculation in raw wool, stronger efforts to research and market American fish products, an increase in the Fish and Wildlife Service budget, modernizing reserve-fleet vessels, tax incentives to prevent further business relocations, and the development of hydroelectric and nuclear power in Massachusetts. Kennedy's suggestions for stimulating the region's economy appealed to both parties by offering benefits to business and labor, and promising to serve national defense. Congress would eventually enact most of the program. Kennedy, a Massachusetts Audubon Society supporter, wanted to make sure that the shorelines of Cape Cod remained unsullied by industrialization. On September 3, 1959, Kennedy co-sponsored the Cape Cod National Seashore bill with his Republican colleague Senator Leverett Saltonstall. As a senator, Kennedy quickly won a reputation for responsiveness to requests from constituents (i.e., co-sponsoring legislation to provide federal loans to help rebuild communities damaged by the 1953 Worcester tornado), except on certain occasions when the national interest was at stake. In 1954, Kennedy voted in favor of the Saint Lawrence Seaway which would connect the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, despite opposition from Massachusetts politicians who argued that the project would hurt the Port of Boston economically. In 1954, when the Senate voted to condemn Joseph McCarthy for breaking Senate rules and abusing an Army general, Kennedy was the only Democrat not to cast a vote against him. Kennedy drafted a speech supporting the censure. However, it was not delivered because Kennedy was hospitalized for back surgery in Boston. Although Kennedy never indicated how he would have voted, the episode damaged his support among members of the liberal community in the 1956 and 1960 elections. In 1956, Kennedy gained control of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, and delivered the state delegation to the party's presidential nominee, Adlai Stevenson II, at the Democratic National Convention in August. Stevenson let the convention select the vice presidential nominee. Kennedy finished second in the balloting, losing to Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee, but receiving national exposure. In 1957, Kennedy joined the Senate's Select Committee on Labor Rackets (also known as the McClellan Committee) with his brother Robert, who was chief counsel, to investigate racketeering in labor-management relations. The hearings attracted extensive radio and television coverage where the Kennedy brothers engaged in dramatic arguments with controversial labor leaders, including Jimmy Hoffa, of the Teamsters Union. The following year, Kennedy introduced a bill to prevent the expenditure of union dues for improper purposes or private gain; to forbid loans from union funds for illicit transactions; and to compel audits of unions, which would ensure against false financial reports. It was the first major labor relations bill to pass either house since the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947 and dealt largely with the control of union abuses exposed by the McClellan Committee but did not incorporate tough Taft–Hartley amendments requested by President Eisenhower. It survived Senate floor attempts to include Taft-Hartley amendments and passed but was rejected by the House. "Honest union members and the general public can only regard it as a tragedy that politics has prevented the recommendations of the McClellan committee from being carried out this year," Kennedy announced. That same year, Kennedy joined the Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. There he supported Algeria's effort to gain independence from France and sponsored an amendment to the Mutual Defense Assistance Act that would provide aid to Soviet satellite nations. Kennedy also introduced an amendment to the National Defense Education Act in 1959 to eliminate the requirement that aid recipients sign a loyalty oath and provide supporting affidavits. Kennedy cast a procedural vote against President Eisenhower's bill for the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and this was considered by some to be an appeasement of Southern Democratic opponents of the bill. Kennedy did vote for Title III of the act, which would have given the Attorney General powers to enjoin, but Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson agreed to let the provision die as a compromise measure. Kennedy also voted for the "Jury Trial Amendment." Many civil rights advocates criticized that vote as one which would weaken the act. A final compromise bill, which Kennedy supported, was passed in September 1957. As a senator from Massachusetts, which lacked a sizable Black population, Kennedy was not particularly sensitive to the problems of African Americans. Robert Kennedy later reflected, "We weren't thinking of the Negroes of Mississippi or Alabama—what should be done for them. We were thinking of what needed to be done in Massachusetts." Most historians and political scientists who have written about Kennedy refer to his U.S. Senate years as an interlude. According to Robert Dallek, Kennedy called being a senator "the most corrupting job in the world." He complained that they were all too quick to cut deals and please campaign contributors to ensure their political futures. Kennedy, with the luxury of a rich father who could finance his campaigns, could remain independent of any special interest, except for those in his home state of Massachusetts that could align against his reelection. According to Robert Caro, Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson viewed Kennedy as a "playboy", describing his performance in the Senate and the House as "pathetic" on another occasion, saying that he was "smart enough, but he doesn't like the grunt work". Author John T. Shaw acknowledges that while his Senate career is not associated with acts of "historic statesmanship" or "novel political thought," Kennedy made modest contributions as a legislator, drafting more than 300 bills to assist Massachusetts and the New England region (some of which became law). In 1958, Kennedy was re-elected to the Senate, defeating his Republican opponent, Boston lawyer Vincent J. Celeste, with 73.6 percent of the vote, the largest winning margin in the history of Massachusetts politics. In the aftermath of his re-election, Kennedy began preparing to run for president by traveling throughout the U.S. with the aim of building his candidacy for 1960. 1960 presidential election On January 2, 1960, Kennedy announced his candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Though some questioned Kennedy's age and experience, his charisma and eloquence earned him numerous supporters. Kennedy faced several potential challengers, including Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson, Adlai Stevenson II, and Senator Hubert Humphrey. Kennedy traveled extensively to build his support. His campaign strategy was to win several primaries to demonstrate his electability to the party bosses, who controlled most of the delegates, and to prove to his detractors that a Catholic could win popular support. Victories over Senator Humphrey in the Wisconsin and West Virginia primaries gave Kennedy momentum as he moved on to the 1960 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. When Kennedy entered the convention, he had the most delegates, but not enough to ensure that he would win the nomination. Stevenson—the 1952 and 1956 presidential nominee—remained very popular, while Johnson also hoped to win the nomination with support from party leaders. Kennedy's candidacy also faced opposition from former President Harry S. Truman, who was concerned about Kennedy's lack of experience. Kennedy knew that a second ballot could give the nomination to Johnson or someone else, and his well-organized campaign was able to earn the support of just enough delegates to win the presidential nomination on the first ballot. Kennedy ignored the opposition of his brother Robert, who wanted him to choose labor leader Walter Reuther, and other liberal supporters when he chose Johnson as his vice-presidential nominee. He believed that the Texas senator could help him win support from the South. In accepting the presidential nomination, Kennedy gave his well-known "New Frontier" speech: For the problems are not all solved and the battles are not all won—and we stand today on the edge of a New Frontier. ... But the New Frontier of which I speak is not a set of promises—it is a set of challenges. It sums up not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them. At the start of the fall general election campaign, the Republican nominee and incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon held a six-point lead in the polls. Major issues included how to get the economy moving again, Kennedy's Catholicism, the Cuban Revolution, and whether the space and missile programs of the Soviet Union had surpassed those of the U.S. To address fears that his being Catholic would impact his decision-making, he told the Greater Houston Ministerial Association on September 12: "I am not the Catholic candidate for president. I am the Democratic Party candidate for president who also happens to be a Catholic. I do not speak for my Church on public matters—and the Church does not speak for me." He promised to respect the separation of church and state, and not to allow Catholic officials to dictate public policy. The Kennedy and Nixon campaigns agreed to a series of televised debates. An estimated 70 million Americans, about two-thirds of the electorate, watched the first debate on September 26. Kennedy had met the day before with the producer to discuss the set design and camera placement. Nixon, just out of the hospital after a painful knee injury, did not take advantage of this opportunity and during the debate looked at the reporters asking questions and not at the camera. Kennedy wore a blue suit and shirt to cut down on glare and appeared sharply focused against the gray studio background. Nixon wore a light-colored suit that blended into the gray background; in combination with the harsh studio lighting that left Nixon perspiring, he offered a less-than-commanding presence. By contrast, Kennedy appeared relaxed, tanned, and telegenic, looking into the camera whilst answering questions. It is often claimed that television viewers overwhelmingly believed Kennedy, appearing to be the more attractive of the two, had won, while radio listeners (a smaller audience) thought Nixon had defeated him. However, only one poll split TV and radio voters like this and the methodology was poor. Pollster Elmo Roper concluded that the debates raised interest, boosted turnout, and gave Kennedy an extra two million votes, mostly as a result of the first debate. The debates are now considered a milestone in American political history—the point at which the medium of television began to play a dominant role. Kennedy's campaign gained momentum after the first debate, and he pulled slightly ahead of Nixon in most polls. On Election Day, Kennedy defeated Nixon in one of the closest presidential elections of the 20th century. In the national popular vote, by most accounts, Kennedy led Nixon by just two-tenths of one percent (49.7% to 49.5%), while in the Electoral College, he won 303 votes to Nixon's 219 (269 were needed to win). Fourteen electors from Mississippi and Alabama refused to support Kennedy because of his support for the civil rights movement; they voted for Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, as did an elector from Oklahoma. Forty-three years old, Kennedy was the youngest person ever elected to the presidency (though Theodore Roosevelt was a year younger when he succeeded to the presidency after the assassination of William McKinley in 1901). Presidency (1961–1963) Kennedy was sworn in as the 35th president at noon on January 20, 1961. In his inaugural address, he spoke of the need for all Americans to be active citizens: "Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country." He asked the nations of the world to join to fight what he called the "common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself." He added: All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days, nor in the life of this Administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin." In closing, he expanded on his desire for greater internationalism: "Finally, whether you are citizens of America or citizens of the world, ask of us here the same high standards of strength and sacrifice which we ask of you. The address reflected Kennedy's confidence that his administration would chart a historically significant course in both domestic policy and foreign affairs. The contrast between this optimistic vision and the pressures of managing daily political realities would be one of the main tensions of the early years of his administration. Kennedy scrapped the decision-making structure of Eisenhower, preferring an organizational structure of a wheel with all the spokes leading to the president; he was willing to make the increased number of quick decisions required in such an environment. Though the cabinet remained important, Kennedy generally relied more on his staffers within the Executive Office. In spite of concerns over nepotism, Kennedy's father insisted that Robert Kennedy become U.S. Attorney General, and the younger Kennedy became the "assistant president" who advised on all major issues. Foreign policy Cold War and flexible response Kennedy's foreign policy was dominated by American confrontations with the Soviet Union, manifested by proxy contests in the global state of tension known as the Cold War. Like his predecessors, Kennedy adopted the policy of containment to stop the spread of communism. Fearful of the possibility of nuclear war, Kennedy implemented a defense strategy known as flexible response. This strategy relied on multiple options for responding to the Soviet Union, discouraged massive retaliation, and encouraged mutual deterrence. In contrast to Eisenhower's warning about the perils of the military-industrial complex, Kennedy focused on rearmament. From 1961 to 1964 the number of nuclear weapons increased by 50 percent, as did the number of B-52 bombers to deliver them. In January 1961, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev declared his support for wars of national liberation. Kennedy interpreted this step as a direct threat to the "free world." Decolonization and the Congo Crisis Between 1960 and 1963, twenty-four countries gained independence as the process of decolonization continued. Kennedy set out to woo the leaders and people of the "Third World," expanding economic aid and appointing knowledgeable ambassadors. His administration established the Food for Peace program and the Peace Corps to provide aid to developing countries. The Food for Peace program became a central element in American foreign policy, and eventually helped many countries to develop their economies and become commercial import customers. During the election campaign, Kennedy attacked the Eisenhower administration for losing ground on the African continent, and stressed that the U.S. should be on the side of anti-colonialism and self-determination. Kennedy considered the Congo Crisis to be among the most important foreign policy issues facing his presidency, and he supported a UN operation that prevented the secession of Katanga. Moïse Tshombe, leader of Katanga, declared its independence from the Congo and the Soviet Union responded by sending weapons and technicians to underwrite their struggle. On October 2, 1962, Kennedy signed United Nations bond issue bill to ensure U.S. assistance in financing UN peacekeeping operations in the Congo and elsewhere. Peace Corps In one of his first presidential acts, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10924 that officially started the Peace Corps. He named his brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, as its first director. Through this program, Americans volunteered to help developing countries in fields like education, farming, health care, and construction. Kennedy believed that countries that received Peace Corps volunteers were less likely to succumb to a communist revolution. Tanganyika (present-day Tanzania) and Ghana were the first countries to participate. The organization grew to 5,000 members by March 1963 and 10,000 the year after. Since 1961, over 200,000 Americans have joined the Peace Corps, representing 139 countries. Vienna Summit and the Berlin Wall Kennedy anxiously anticipated a summit with Nikita Khrushchev. The proceedings for the summit got off to a problematic start when Kennedy reacted aggressively to a routine Khrushchev speech on Cold War confrontation in early 1961. The speech was intended for domestic audiences in the Soviet Union, but Kennedy interpreted it as a personal challenge. His mistake helped raise tensions going into the Vienna summit. The summit would cover several topics, but both leaders knew that the most contentious issue would be Berlin, which had been divided in two with the start of the Cold War. The enclave of West Berlin lay within Soviet-allied East Germany, but was supported by the U.S. and other Western powers. The Soviets wanted to reunify Berlin under the control of East Germany, partly due to the large number of East Germans who had fled to West Berlin. On June 4, 1961, Kennedy met with Khrushchev in Vienna and left the meeting angry and disappointed that he had allowed the premier to bully him, despite the warnings he had received. Khrushchev, for his part, was impressed with the president's intelligence but thought him weak. Kennedy did succeed in conveying the bottom line to Khrushchev on the most sensitive issue before them, a proposed treaty between Moscow and East Berlin. He made it clear that any treaty interfering with U.S. access rights in West Berlin would be regarded as an act of war. Shortly after Kennedy returned home, the Soviet Union announced its plan to sign a treaty with East Berlin, abrogating any third-party occupation rights in either sector of the city. Kennedy assumed that his only option was to prepare the country for nuclear war, which he thought had a one-in-five chance of occurring. In the weeks immediately following the summit, more than 20,000 people fled from East Berlin to the western sector, reacting to statements from the Soviet Union. Kennedy began intensive meetings on the Berlin issue, where Dean Acheson took the lead in recommending a military buildup alongside NATO allies. In a July 1961 speech, Kennedy announced his decision to add $3.25 billion (equivalent to $33.14 billion in 2023) to the defense budget, along with over 200,000 additional troops, stating that an attack on West Berlin would be taken as an attack on the U.S. The speech received an 85% approval rating. A month later, both the Soviet Union and East Berlin began blocking any further passage of East Germans into West Berlin and erected barbed-wire fences, which were quickly upgraded to the Berlin Wall. Kennedy acquiesced to the wall, though he sent Vice President Johnson to West Berlin to reaffirm U.S. commitment to the enclave's defense. In the following months, in a sign of rising Cold War tensions, both the U.S. and the Soviet Union ended a moratorium on nuclear weapon testing. A brief stand-off between U.S. and Soviet tanks occurred at Checkpoint Charlie in October following a dispute over free movement of Allied personnel. The crisis was defused largely through a backchannel communication the Kennedy administration had set up with Soviet spy Georgi Bolshakov. In remarks to his aides on the Berlin Wall, Kennedy noted that "it's not a very nice solution, but a wall is a hell of a lot better than a war." Bay of Pigs Invasion The Eisenhower administration had created a plan to overthrow Fidel Castro's regime though an invasion of Cuba by a counter-revolutionary insurgency composed of U.S.-trained, anti-Castro Cuban exiles led by CIA paramilitary officers. Kennedy had campaigned on a hardline stance against Castro, and when presented with the plan that had been developed under the Eisenhower administration, he enthusiastically adopted it regardless of the risk of inflaming tensions with the Soviet Union. Kennedy approved the final invasion plan on April 4, 1961. On April 15, 1961, eight CIA-supplied B-26 bombers left Nicaragua to bomb Cuban airfields. The bombers missed many of their targets, leaving most of Castro's air force intact. On April 17, the 1,500 U.S.-trained Cuban exile invasion force, known as Brigade 2506, landed at beaches along the Bay of Pigs and immediately came under heavy fire. The goal was to spark a widespread popular uprising against Castro, but no such uprising occurred. No U.S. air support was provided. The invading force was defeated within two days by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces; 114 were killed and Kennedy was forced to negotiate for the release of the 1,189 survivors. After twenty months, Cuba released the captured exiles in exchange for a ransom of $53 million worth of food and medicine. The incident made Castro wary of the U.S. and led him to believe that another invasion would take place. Biographer Richard Reeves said that Kennedy focused primarily on the political repercussions of the plan rather than military considerations. When it proved unsuccessful, he was convinced that the plan was a setup to make him look bad. He took responsibility for the failure, saying, "We got a big kick in the leg and we deserved it. But maybe we'll learn something from it." Kennedy's approval ratings climbed afterwards, helped in part by the vocal support given to him by Nixon and Eisenhower. He appointed Robert Kennedy to help lead a committee to examine the causes of the failure. The Kennedy administration banned all Cuban imports and convinced the Organization of American States (OAS) to expel Cuba. Operation Mongoose In late 1961, the White House formed the Special Group (Augmented), headed by Robert Kennedy and including Edward Lansdale, Secretary Robert McNamara, and others. The group's objective—to overthrow Castro via espionage, sabotage, and other covert tactics—was never pursued. In November 1961, he authorized Operation Mongoose. In March 1962, Kennedy rejected Operation Northwoods, proposals for false flag attacks against American military and civilian targets, and blaming them on the Cuban government to gain approval for a war against Cuba. However, the administration continued to plan for an invasion of Cuba in the summer of 1962. Cuban Missile Crisis In the aftermath of the Bay of Pigs invasion, Khrushchev increased economic and military assistance to Cuba. The Soviet Union planned to allocate in Cuba 49 medium-range ballistic missiles, 32 intermediate-range ballistic missiles, 49 light Il-28 bombers and about 100 tactical nuclear weapons. The Kennedy administration viewed the growing Cuba-Soviet alliance with alarm, fearing that it could eventually pose a threat to the U.S. On October 14, 1962, CIA U-2 spy planes took photographs of the Soviets' construction of intermediate-range ballistic missile sites in Cuba. The photos were shown to Kennedy on October 16; a consensus was reached that the missiles were offensive in nature and posed an immediate nuclear threat. Kennedy faced a dilemma: if the U.S. attacked the sites, it might lead to nuclear war with the Soviet Union, but if the U.S. did nothing, it would be faced with the increased threat from close-range nuclear weapons (positioned approximately 90 mi (140 km) away from the Florida coast). The U.S. would also appear to the world as less committed to the defense of the Western Hemisphere. On a personal level, Kennedy needed to show resolve in reaction to Khrushchev, especially after the Vienna summit. To deal with the crisis, he formed an ad-hoc body of key advisers, later known as EXCOMM, that met secretly between October 16 and 28. More than a third of U.S. National Security Council (NSC) members favored an unannounced air assault on the missile sites, but some saw this as "Pearl Harbor in reverse." There was some concern from the international community (asked in confidence) that the assault plan was an overreaction given that Eisenhower had placed PGM-19 Jupiter missiles in Italy and Turkey in 1958. It also could not be assured that the assault would be 100% effective. In concurrence with a majority vote of the NSC, Kennedy decided on a naval blockade (or "quarantine"). On October 22, after privately informing the cabinet and leading members of Congress about the situation, Kennedy announced the naval blockade on national television and warned that U.S. forces would seize "offensive weapons and associated materiel" that Soviet vessels might attempt to deliver to Cuba. The U.S. Navy would stop and inspect all Soviet ships arriving off Cuba, beginning October 24. Several Soviet ships approached the blockade line, but they stopped or reversed course. The OAS gave unanimous support to the removal of the missiles. Kennedy exchanged two sets of letters with Khrushchev, to no avail. UN Secretary General U Thant requested both parties to reverse their decisions and enter a cooling-off period. Khrushchev agreed, but Kennedy did not. Kennedy managed to preserve restraint when a Soviet missile unauthorizedly downed a U.S. Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance aircraft over Cuba, killing pilot Rudolf Anderson. At the president's direction, Robert Kennedy privately informed Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin that the U.S. would remove the Jupiter missiles from Turkey "within a short time after this crisis was over." On October 28, Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missile sites, subject to UN inspections. The U.S. publicly promised never to invade Cuba and privately agreed to remove its Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey, which were by then obsolete and had been supplanted by submarines equipped with UGM-27 Polaris missiles. In the aftermath, a Moscow–Washington hotline was established to ensure clear communications between the leaders of the two countries. This crisis brought the world closer to nuclear war than at any point before or after, but "the humanity" of Khrushchev and Kennedy prevailed. The crisis improved the image of American willpower and the president's credibility. Kennedy's approval rating increased from 66% to 77% immediately thereafter. Latin America and communism Believing that "those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable," Kennedy sought to contain the perceived threat of communism in Latin America by establishing the Alliance for Progress, which sent aid to some countries and sought greater human rights standards in the region. In response to Kennedy's plea, Congress voted for an initial grant of $500 million in May 1961. The Alliance for Progress supported the construction of housing, schools, airports, hospitals, clinics and water-purification projects as well as the distribution of free textbooks to students. However, the program did not meet many of its goals. Massive land reform was not achieved; populations more than kept pace with gains in health and welfare; and according to one study, only 2 percent of economic growth in 1960s Latin America directly benefited the poor. U.S. presidents after Kennedy were less supportive of the program and by 1973, the permanent committee established to implement the Alliance was disbanded by the OAS. The Eisenhower administration, through the CIA, had begun formulating plans to assassinate Castro in Cuba and Rafael Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. When Kennedy took office, he privately instructed the CIA that any plan must include plausible deniability by the U.S. His public position was in opposition. In June 1961, the Dominican Republic's leader was assassinated; in the days following, Undersecretary of State Chester Bowles led a cautious reaction by the nation. Robert Kennedy, who saw an opportunity for the U.S., called Bowles "a gutless bastard" to his face. Laos After the election, Eisenhower emphasized to Kennedy that the communist threat in Southeast Asia required priority; Eisenhower considered Laos to be "the cork in the bottle" in regards to the regional threat. In March 1961, Kennedy voiced a change in policy from supporting a "free" Laos to a "neutral" Laos, indicating privately that Vietnam should be deemed America's tripwire for communism's spread in the area. Though he was unwilling to commit U.S. forces to a major military intervention in Laos, Kennedy did approve CIA activities designed to defeat Communist insurgents through bombing raids and the recruitment of the Hmong people. Vietnam During his presidency, Kennedy continued policies that provided political, economic, and military support to the South Vietnamese government. Vietnam had been divided into a communist North Vietnam and a non-communist South Vietnam after the 1954 Geneva Conference, but Kennedy escalated American involvement in Vietnam in 1961 by financing the South Vietnam army, increasing the number of U.S. military advisors above the levels of the Eisenhower administration, and authorizing U.S. helicopter units to provide support to South Vietnamese forces. On January 18, 1962, Kennedy formally authorized escalated involvement when he signed the National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) – "Subversive Insurgency (War of Liberation)." Operation Ranch Hand, a large-scale aerial defoliation effort using the herbicide Agent Orange, began on the roadsides of South Vietnam to combat guerrilla defendants. Though Kennedy provided support for South Vietnam throughout his tenure, Vietnam remained a secondary issue for the Kennedy administration until 1963. On September 2, Kennedy declared in an interview with Walter Cronkite of CBS: In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam, against the Communists... But I don't agree with those who say we should withdraw. That would be a great mistake... [The United States] made this effort to defend Europe. Now Europe is quite secure. We also have to participate—we may not like it—in the defense of Asia. Kennedy increasingly soured on the president of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, whose violent crackdown on Buddhist practices galvanized opposition to his leadership. In August 1963, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. replaced Frederick Nolting as the U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam. Days after his arrival in South Vietnam, Lodge reported that several South Vietnamese generals sought the assent of the U.S. government to their plan of removing Diem from power. The Kennedy administration was split regarding not just the removal of Diem, but also their assessment of the military situation and the proper U.S. role in the country. After the State Department sent a diplomatic cable to Lodge that ordered him to pressure Diem to remove military authority from his brother, Ngô Đình Nhu, or face potential withdrawal of U.S. support and removal from power, Kennedy instructed Lodge to offer covert assistance to a coup d'état, excluding assassination. On November 1, 1963, a junta of senior military officers executed the coup which led to the arrest and assassinations of Diem and Nhu on November 2. By November 1963, there were 16,000 American military personnel in South Vietnam, up from Eisenhower's 900 advisors; more than one hundred Americans had been killed in action and no final policy decision was made. In the aftermath of the aborted coup in September 1963, the Kennedy administration reevaluated its policies in South Vietnam. Kennedy rejected the full-scale deployment of ground soldiers but also the total withdrawal of U.S. forces. Historians disagree on whether the U.S. military presence in Vietnam would have escalated had Kennedy survived and been re-elected in 1964. Fueling the debate are statements made by Secretary of Defense McNamara in the 2003 documentary film The Fog of War that Kennedy was strongly considering pulling out of Vietnam after the 1964 election, and comments made by Kennedy administration White House Counsel and speechwriter Ted Sorensen in a 2008 memoir suggesting that Kennedy was undecided about what policy direction to take. On October 11, 1963, Kennedy signed NSAM 263 ordering the withdrawal of 1,000 military personnel by the end of the year following the third recommendation of the McNamara–Taylor mission report, which concluded that the training program for the South Vietnamese military had sufficiently progressed to justify the withdrawal. However, NSAM 263 also approved the first recommendation of the report to continue providing support to South Vietnam to prevent the spread of communism and until the Viet Cong was suppressed, while the third recommendation suggested that even if the majority of the U.S. military objective was completed by the end of 1965 that continued presence of U.S. training personnel in more limited numbers could be necessary if the insurgency was not suppressed. West Berlin speech In 1963, Germany was enduring a time of particular vulnerability due to Soviet aggression to the east as well as the impending retirement of West German Chancellor Adenauer. At the same time, French President Charles de Gaulle was trying to build a Franco-West German counterweight to the American and Soviet spheres of influence. To Kennedy's eyes, this Franco-German cooperation seemed directed against NATO's influence in Europe. To reinforce the U.S. alliance with West Germany, Kennedy travelled to West Germany and West Berlin in June 1963. On June 26, Kennedy toured West Berlin, culminating in a public speech at the city hall in front of hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic Berliners. He reiterated the American commitment to Germany and criticized communism and was met with an ecstatic response from the massive audience. Kennedy used the construction of the Berlin Wall as an example of the failures of communism: "Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect. But we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us." The speech is known for its famous phrase "Ich bin ein Berliner" ("I am a Berliner"). Middle East Kennedy ended the arms embargo that the Truman and Eisenhower administrations had enforced on Israel in favor of increased security ties, becoming the founder of the U.S.-Israeli military alliance. Describing the protection of Israel as a moral and national commitment, he was the first to introduce the concept of a 'special relationship' between the U.S. and Israel. In 1962, the Kennedy administration sold Israel a major weapon system, the Hawk antiaircraft missile. Historians differ as to whether Kennedy pursued security ties with Israel primarily to shore up support with Jewish-American voters, or because of his admiration of the Jewish state. In December 1961, Abd al-Karim Qasim's Iraqi government passed Public Law 80, which restricted the partially American-controlled Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC)'s concessionary holding to those areas in which oil was actually being produced (namely, the fields at Az Zubair and Kirkuk), effectively expropriating 99.5% of the IPC concession. British and U.S. officials demanded that the Kennedy administration place pressure on the Qasim regime. In April 1962, the State Department issued new guidelines on Iraq that were intended to increase American influence. Meanwhile, Kennedy instructed the CIA—under the direction of Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt Jr.—to begin making preparations for a military coup against Qasim. The anti-imperialist and anti-communist Iraqi Ba'ath Party overthrew and executed Qasim in a violent coup on February 8, 1963. Despite persistent rumors that the CIA orchestrated the coup, declassified documents and the testimony of former CIA officers indicate that there was no direct American involvement. The Kennedy administration was pleased with the outcome and ultimately approved a $55-million arms deal for Iraq. Ireland During his four-day visit to his ancestral home of Ireland beginning on June 26, 1963, Kennedy accepted a grant of armorial bearings from the Chief Herald of Ireland, received honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland and Trinity College Dublin, attended a State Dinner in Dublin, and was conferred with the freedom of the towns and cities of Wexford, Cork, Dublin, Galway, and Limerick. He visited the cottage at Dunganstown, near New Ross, County Wexford, where his ancestors had lived before emigrating to America. Kennedy was the first foreign leader to address the Houses of the Oireachtas, the Irish parliament. Kennedy later told aides that the trip was the best four days of his life. American University speech On June 10, 1963, Kennedy, at the high point of his rhetorical powers, delivered the commencement address at American University. Also known as "A Strategy of Peace", not only did Kennedy outline a plan to curb nuclear arms, but he also "laid out a hopeful, yet realistic route for world peace at a time when the U.S. and Soviet Union faced the potential for an escalating nuclear arms race." Kennedy also announced that the Soviets had expressed a desire to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty, and that the U.S. had postponed planned atmospheric tests. Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Troubled by the long-term dangers of radioactive contamination and nuclear proliferation, Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed to negotiate a nuclear test ban treaty, originally conceived in Adlai Stevenson's 1956 presidential campaign. In their Vienna summit meeting in June 1961, Khrushchev and Kennedy reached an informal understanding against nuclear testing, but the Soviet Union began testing nuclear weapons that September. In response, the United States conducted tests five days later. Shortly afterwards, new U.S. satellites began delivering images that made it clear that the Soviets were substantially behind the U.S. in the arms race. Nevertheless, the greater nuclear strength of the U.S. was of little value as long as the Soviet Union perceived itself to be at parity. In July 1963, Kennedy sent W. Averell Harriman to Moscow to negotiate a treaty with the Soviets. The introductory sessions included Khrushchev, who later delegated Soviet representation to Andrei Gromyko. It quickly became clear that a comprehensive test ban would not be implemented, due largely to the reluctance of the Soviets to allow inspections to verify compliance. Ultimately, the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Soviet Union were the initial signatories to a limited treaty, which prohibited atomic testing on the ground, in the atmosphere, or underwater, but not underground. The U.S. Senate approved the treaty on September 23, 1963, and Kennedy signed it on October 7, 1963. France was quick to declare that it was free to continue developing and testing its nuclear defenses. Domestic policy New Frontier Kennedy called his domestic proposals the "New Frontier". However, Kennedy's small margin of victory in the 1960 election, his lack of deep connections to influential members of Congress, and his administration's focus on foreign policy hindered the passage of New Frontier policies. In 1961, Kennedy prioritized passing five bills: federal assistance for education, medical insurance for the elderly, housing legislation, federal aid to struggling areas, and an increase in the federal minimum wage. Kennedy's bill to increase the federal minimum wage to $1.25 an hour passed in early 1961, but an amendment inserted by conservative leader from Georgia, Carl Vinson, exempted laundry workers from the law. Kennedy also won passage of the Area Redevelopment Act and the Housing Act of 1961. The Area Redevelopment Act, a $394 million program, provided federal funding to economically struggling regions (primarily in Appalachia), while the Housing Act of 1961 provided funds for urban renewal and public housing and authorized federal mortgage loans to those who did not qualify for public housing. Kennedy proposed a bill providing for $2.3 billion in federal educational aid to the states, with more money going to states with lower per capita income. Though the Senate passed the education bill, it was defeated in the House by a coalition of Republicans, Southern Democrats, and Catholics. Kennedy's health insurance bill, which would have paid for hospitalization and nursing costs for the elderly, failed to pass either house of Congress. A bill that would have established the Department of Urban Affairs and Housing was also defeated. In 1962, Kennedy won approval of the Manpower Development and Training Act, a three-year program aimed at retraining workers displaced by new technology. Its impact on structural unemployment, however, was minimal. At the urging of his sister Eunice, Kennedy made intellectual disabilities a priority for his administration. In 1963, Congress passed the Community Mental Health Act, which provided funding to local mental health community centers and research facilities. Trade policy included both domestic and foreign policy. The 1962 Trade Expansion Act passed Congress by wide majorities. It authorized the president to negotiate tariff reductions on a reciprocal basis of up to 50 percent with the European Common Market. The legislation paved the way for the Kennedy Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade negotiations, concluding on June 30, 1967, the last day before expiration of the Act. Taxes Walter Heller, who served as the chairman of the CEA, advocated for a Keynesian-style tax cut designed to help spur economic growth, and Kennedy adopted this policy. The idea was that a tax cut would stimulate consumer demand, which in turn would lead to higher economic growth, lower unemployment, and increased federal revenues. To the disappointment of liberals like John Kenneth Galbraith, Kennedy's embrace of the tax cut shifted his administration's focus away from the proposed old-age health insurance program and other domestic expenditures. In January 1963, Kennedy proposed a tax cut that would reduce the top marginal tax rate from 91 to 65 percent, and lower the corporate tax rate from 52 to 47 percent. The predictions according to the Keynesian model indicated the cuts would decrease income taxes by about $10 billion and corporate taxes by about $3.5 billion. The plan included reforms designed to reduce the impact of itemized deductions, as well as provisions to help the elderly and handicapped. Republicans and many Southern Democrats opposed the bill, calling for simultaneous reductions in expenditures, but debate continued throughout 1963. Three months after Kennedy died, Johnson pushed the plan through Congress. The Revenue Act of 1964 lowered the top individual rate to 70 percent, and the top corporate rate to 48 percent. Economy Kennedy ended a period of tight fiscal policies, loosening monetary policy to keep interest rates down and to encourage growth of the economy. He presided over the first government budget to top the $100 billion mark, in 1962, and his first budget in 1961 resulted in the nation's first non-war, non-recession deficit. The economy, which had been through two recessions in three years and was in one when Kennedy took office, accelerated notably throughout his administration. Despite low inflation and interest rates, the GDP had grown by an average of only 2.2% per annum during the Eisenhower administration (scarcely more than population growth at the time), and it had declined by 1% during Eisenhower's last twelve months in office. The economy turned around and prospered during Kennedy's presidency. The GDP expanded by an average of 5.5% from early 1961 to late 1963, while inflation remained steady at around 1% and unemployment eased. Industrial production rose by 15% and motor vehicle sales increased by 40%. This sustained rate of growth in GDP and industry continued until around 1969. Kennedy was proud that his Labor Department helped keep wages steady in the steel industry, but was outraged in April 1962 when Roger Blough, the president of U.S. Steel, quietly informed Kennedy that his company would raise prices. In response, Attorney General Robert Kennedy began a price-fixing investigation against U.S. Steel, and President Kennedy convinced other steel companies to rescind their price increases until finally even U.S. Steel, isolated and in danger of being undersold, agreed to rescind its own price increase. An editorial in The New York Times praised Kennedy's actions and stated that the steel industry's price increase "imperil[ed] the economic welfare of the country by inviting a tidal wave of inflation." Nevertheless, the administration's Bureau of Budget reported the price increase would have caused a net gain for the GDP as well as a net budget surplus. The stock market, which had steadily declined since Kennedy's election in 1960, dropped 10% shortly after the administration's action on the steel industry took place. Civil rights movement Kennedy verbally supported civil rights during his 1960 presidential campaign; he telephoned Coretta Scott King, wife of Martin Luther King Jr., who had been jailed while trying to integrate a department store lunch counter. Robert Kennedy called Georgia Governor Ernest Vandiver and obtained King's release from prison, which drew additional Black support to his brother's candidacy. Recognizing that conservative Southern Democrats could block legislation, Kennedy did not introduce civil rights legislation on taking office. He needed their support to pass his economic and foreign policy agendas, and to support his reelection in 1964. Kennedy did appoint many Blacks to office, including civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to the U.S. Court of Appeals. Kennedy believed the grassroots movement for civil rights would anger many Southern Whites and make it more difficult to pass civil rights laws in Congress, and he distanced himself from it. As articulated by Robert Kennedy, the administration's early priority was to "keep the president out of this civil rights mess." Civil rights movement participants, mainly those on the front line in the South, viewed Kennedy as lukewarm, especially concerning the Freedom Riders. In May 1961, the Congress of Racial Equality, led by James Farmer, organized integrated Freedom Rides to test a Supreme Court case ruling that declared segregation on interstate transportation illegal. The Riders were repeatedly met with mob violence, including by federal and state law enforcement officers. Kennedy assigned federal marshals to protect the Riders rather than using federal troops or uncooperative FBI agents. Kennedy feared sending federal troops would stir up "hated memories of Reconstruction" among conservative Southern whites. The Justice Department then petitioned the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to adhere to federal law. By September 1961, the ICC ruled in favor of the petition. On March 6, 1961, Kennedy signed Executive Order 10925, which required government contractors to "take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin." It established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. In September 1962, James Meredith enrolled at the all-White University of Mississippi but was prevented from entering. In response, Attorney General Robert Kennedy sent 400 federal marshals. The Ole Miss riot of 1962 left two dead and dozens injured, prompting Kennedy to send in 3,000 troops to quell the riot. Meredith did finally enroll in class. Kennedy regretted not sending in troops earlier and he began to doubt whether the "evils of Reconstruction" he had been taught or believed were true. On November 20, 1962, Kennedy signed Executive Order 11063, which prohibited racial discrimination in federally supported housing. On June 11, 1963, Kennedy intervened when Alabama Governor George Wallace blocked the doorway to the University of Alabama to stop two Black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from attending. Wallace moved aside only after being confronted by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and the Alabama National Guard, which had just been federalized by order of the president. That evening Kennedy gave his famous Report to the American People on Civil Rights speech on national television and radio, launching his initiative for civil rights legislation—to provide equal access to public schools and other facilities, and greater protection of voting rights. His proposals became part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The day ended with the murder of an NAACP leader, Medgar Evers, in Mississippi. As Kennedy had predicted, the day after his TV speech, and in reaction to it, House Majority leader Carl Albert called to advise him that his two-year signature effort in Congress to combat poverty in Appalachia had been defeated, primarily by the votes of Southern Democrats and Republicans. When Arthur Schlesinger Jr. complimented Kennedy on his remarks, Kennedy bitterly replied, "Yes, and look at what happened to area development the very next day in the House." He then added, "But of course, I had to give that speech, and I'm glad that I did." On June 16, The New York Times published an editorial which argued that while Kennedy had initially "moved too slowly and with little evidence of deep moral commitment" in regards to civil rights he "now demonstrate[d] a genuine sense of urgency about eradicating racial discrimination from our national life." A crowd of over 250,000, predominantly African Americans, gathered in Washington for the civil rights March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. Kennedy initially opposed the march, fearing it would have a negative effect on the prospects for the civil rights bills pending in Congress. These fears were heightened just prior to the march when FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover presented Kennedy with reports that some of King's close advisers, specifically Jack O'Dell and Stanley Levison, were communists. When King ignored the administration's warning, Robert Kennedy authorized the FBI to wiretap King and other leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Although Kennedy only gave written approval for limited wiretapping of King's phones "on a trial basis, for a month or so," Hoover extended the clearance so his men were "unshackled" to look for evidence in any areas of King's life they deemed worthy. The Department of Justice was assigned to coordinate the federal government's involvement in the March on Washington on August 28; several hundred thousand dollars to were channeled to the six sponsors of the March. To ensure a peaceful demonstration, the organizers and the president personally edited speeches that were inflammatory and collaborated on all aspects related to times and venues. Thousands of troops were placed on standby. Kennedy watched King's speech on TV and was very impressed. The March was considered a "triumph of managed protest," and not one arrest relating to the demonstration occurred. Afterwards, the March leaders accepted an invitation to the White House to meet with Kennedy and photos were taken. Kennedy felt that the March was a victory for him as well and bolstered the chances for his civil rights bill. Three weeks later on Sunday, September 15, a bomb exploded at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham; by the end of the day, four Black children had died in the explosion, and two others were shot to death in the aftermath. Due to this resurgent violence, the civil rights legislation underwent some drastic amendments that critically endangered any prospects for passage of the bill, to the outrage of Kennedy. He called the congressional leaders to the White House and by the following day the original bill, without the additions, had enough votes to get it out of the House committee. Gaining Republican support, Senator Everett Dirksen promised the legislation would be brought to a vote preventing a Senate filibuster. On July 2, 1964, the guarantees Kennedy proposed in his June 1963 speech became federal law, when President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. Status of women During the 1960 presidential campaign, Kennedy endorsed the concept of equal pay for equal work. In December 1961, Kennedy signed an executive order creating the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women to advise him on issues concerning the status of women. Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt led the commission. The commission's final report was issued in October 1963; it documented the legal and cultural discrimination women in America faced and made several policy recommendations to bring about change. On June 10, 1963, Kennedy signed the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which amended the Fair Labor Standards Act and abolished wage disparity based on sex. Crime Under the leadership of the attorney general, the Kennedy administration shifted the focus of the Justice Department, the FBI, and the IRS to organized crime. Kennedy won congressional approval for five bills (i.e., Federal Wire Act of 1961) designed to crack down on interstate racketeering, gambling, and the transportation of firearms. On March 22, 1962, Kennedy signed into law a bill abolishing the mandatory death penalty for first degree murder in the District of Columbia, the only remaining jurisdiction in the United States with such a penalty. The death penalty has not been applied in D.C. since 1957 and has now been abolished. Agriculture Kennedy had relatively little interest in agricultural issues, but he sought to remedy the issue of overproduction, boost the income of farmers, and lower federal expenditures on agriculture. Under the direction of Secretary of Agriculture Orville Freeman, the administration sought to limit the production of farmers, but these proposals were generally defeated in Congress. To increase demand for domestic agricultural products and help the impoverished, Kennedy launched a pilot Food Stamp program and expanded the federal school lunch program. Native American relations Construction of the Kinzua Dam flooded 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) of Seneca nation land that they had occupied under the Treaty of 1794, and forced 600 Seneca to relocate to Salamanca, New York. Kennedy was asked by the American Civil Liberties Union to halt the project, but he declined, citing a critical need for flood control. He expressed concern about the plight of the Seneca and directed government agencies to assist in obtaining more land, damages, and assistance to mitigate their displacement. Space policy In the aftermath of the Soviet launch of Sputnik 1, the first artificial Earth satellite, NASA proposed a crewed lunar landing by the early 1970s. Funding for the program, known as the Apollo program, was far from certain as Eisenhower held an ambivalent attitude. Early in his presidency, Kennedy was poised to dismantle the crewed space program, but he postponed any decision out of deference to Vice President Johnson, who had been a strong supporter of the program in the Senate. With Jerome Wiesner, Johnson was given a major role in overseeing the administration's space policy, and at Johnson's recommendation Kennedy appointed James E. Webb to head NASA. In Kennedy's State of the Union address in 1961, he suggested international cooperation in space. Khrushchev declined, as the Soviets did not wish to reveal the status of their rocketry and space capabilities. In April 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space, reinforcing American fears about being left behind by the Soviet Union. Less than a month later, Alan Shepard became the first American to travel into space, strengthening Kennedy's confidence in NASA. The following year, John Glenn, aboard the Mercury craft Friendship 7, became the first American to orbit the Earth. In the aftermath of Gagarin's flight, as well as the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy felt pressured to respond to the perceived erosion of American prestige. He asked Johnson to explore the feasibility of beating the Soviets to the Moon. Though he was concerned about the program's costs, Kennedy agreed to Johnson's recommendation that the U.S. commit to a crewed lunar landing as the major objective of the space program. In a May 25 speech to Congress, Kennedy declared, ... I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. Full text Though Gallup polling showed that many in the public were skeptical of the necessity of the Apollo program, members of Congress were strongly supportive in 1961 and approved a major increase in NASA's funding. Webb began reorganizing NASA, increasing its staffing level, and building two new centers: a Launch Operations Center for the large Moon rocket northwest of Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, and a Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston. Kennedy took the latter occasion as an opportunity to deliver another speech promoting the space effort on September 12, 1962, in which he said: No nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space. ... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard. Full text On November 21, 1962, in a cabinet meeting with Webb and other officials, Kennedy explained that the Moon shot was important for reasons of international prestige, and that the expense was justified. On July 20, 1969, almost six years after Kennedy's death, Apollo 11 landed the first crewed spacecraft on the Moon. Judicial appointments In 1962, Kennedy appointed justices Byron White and Arthur Goldberg to the Supreme Court. Additionally, Kennedy appointed 21 judges to the United States Courts of Appeals, and 102 judges to the United States district courts. Assassination Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas at 12:30 p.m. Central Standard Time on November 22, 1963. He was in Texas on a political trip to smooth over frictions in the Democratic Party between liberals Ralph Yarborough and Don Yarborough (no relation) and conservative John Connally. Traveling in a presidential motorcade through Dealey Plaza, he was shot once in the back, the bullet exiting via his throat, and once in the head. Kennedy was taken to Parkland Hospital, where he was pronounced dead 30 minutes later, at 1:00 p.m. He was 46 years old. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested for the murder of police officer J. D. Tippit and was subsequently charged with Kennedy's assassination. He denied shooting anyone, claiming he was a patsy, and was shot dead by Jack Ruby on November 24, before he could be prosecuted. Ruby was arrested and convicted for the murder of Oswald. Ruby successfully appealed his conviction but died of cancer on January 3, 1967, while the date for his new trial was being set. President Johnson quickly issued an executive order to create the Warren Commission—chaired by Chief Justice Earl Warren—to investigate the assassination. The commission concluded that Oswald acted alone in killing Kennedy and that Oswald was not part of any conspiracy. These conclusions are disputed by many. A Gallup Poll in November 2013 showed 61% believed in a conspiracy, and only 30% thought that Oswald did it alone. In 1979, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded, with one third of the committee dissenting, "that Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy." The committee was unable to identify the other gunmen or the extent of the conspiracy. This conclusion was based largely on audio recordings of the shooting. Subsequently, investigative reports from the FBI and a specially appointed National Academy of Sciences Committee determined that "reliable acoustic data do not support a conclusion that there was a second gunman." The Justice Department concluded "that no persuasive evidence can be identified to support the theory of a conspiracy". Funeral Kennedy's body was brought back to Washington. On November 23, six military pallbearers carried the flag-draped coffin into the East Room of the White House, where he lay in repose for 24 hours. Then, the coffin was carried on a horse-drawn caisson to the Capitol to lie in state. Throughout the day and night, hundreds of thousands lined up to view the guarded casket, with a quarter million passing through the rotunda during the 18 hours of lying in state. Kennedy's funeral service was held on November 25, at St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, D.C. The Requiem Mass was led by Cardinal Richard Cushing, then the Archbishop of Boston. It was attended by approximately 1,200 guests, including representatives from over 90 countries. After the service, Kennedy was buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington County, Virginia. Personal life, family, and reputation The Kennedy family is one of the most established political families in the United States, having produced a president, three senators, three ambassadors, and multiple other representatives and politicians. While a congressman, Kennedy embarked on a seven-week trip to India, Japan, Vietnam, and Israel in 1951, at which point he became close with his then 25-year-old brother Robert, as well as his 27-year-old sister Patricia. Because they were several years apart in age, the brothers had previously seen little of each other. This 25,000-mile (40,000 km) trip was the first extended time they had spent together and resulted in their becoming best friends. Robert would eventually serve as his brother's attorney general and closest presidential advisor; he would later run for president in 1968 before his assassination, while another Kennedy brother, Ted, ran for president in 1980. Kennedy's nephew and Robert's son, Robert Jr., ran for president in 2024. Wife and children Kennedy met his wife, Jacqueline Lee "Jackie" Bouvier, when he was a congressman. Charles L. Bartlett, a journalist, introduced the pair at a dinner party. They were married on September 12, 1953, at St. Mary's Church in Newport, Rhode Island. The newlyweds honeymooned in Mexico, before settling in their new home, Hickory Hill in McLean, Virginia. In 1956, they sold their Hickory Hill estate to Kennedy's brother Robert, and bought a townhouse in Georgetown. The Kennedys also resided at an apartment in Boston, their legal residence during John's congressional career, and a summer home in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. After a miscarriage in 1955 and a stillbirth in 1956 (their daughter Arabella), their daughter Caroline was born in 1957. John Jr., nicknamed "John-John" by the press as a child, was born in late November 1960, 17 days after his father was elected. John Jr. died in 1999 when the small plane he was piloting crashed. In August 1963, Jackie gave birth to a son, Patrick. However, he died after two days due to complications from birth. Popular image Kennedy and his wife were younger than the presidents and first ladies who preceded them, and both were popular in the media culture in ways more common to pop singers and movie stars than politicians, influencing fashion trends and becoming the subjects of photo spreads in popular magazines. Although Eisenhower had allowed presidential press conferences to be filmed for television, Kennedy was the first president to ask for them to be broadcast live and made good use of the medium. In 1961, the Radio-Television News Directors Association presented Kennedy with its highest honor, the Paul White Award, in recognition of his open relationship with the media. The Kennedys invited a range of artists, writers and intellectuals to White House dinners, raising the profile of the arts in America. On the White House lawn, they established a swimming pool and tree house, while Caroline attended a preschool with 10 other children inside the home. Vaughn Meader's First Family comedy album, which parodied the president, the first lady, their family, and the administration, sold about four million copies. Health Despite a privileged youth, Kennedy was plagued by childhood diseases, including whooping cough, chicken pox, measles, and ear infections. These ailments compelled him to spend a considerable amount of time convalescing. Three months prior to his third birthday, in 1920, Kennedy came down with scarlet fever, a highly contagious and life-threatening disease, and was admitted to Boston City Hospital. During his years at Choate, Kennedy was beset by health problems that culminated with his emergency hospitalization in 1934 at Yale New Haven Hospital, where doctors suspected leukemia. While sick, he became a passionate reader and also a fatalist. In June 1934, he was admitted to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota; the ultimate diagnosis was colitis. After withdrawing from Princeton University, Kennedy was hospitalized for observation at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston. He then spent the spring of 1936 working as a ranch hand outside Benson, Arizona under Jack Speiden. Years after Kennedy's death, it was revealed that in September 1947, when he was 30 and in his first term in Congress, he was diagnosed by Sir Daniel Davis at The London Clinic with Addison's disease. Davis estimated that Kennedy would not live for another year, while Kennedy hoped he could live for ten. In 1966, White House physician Janet Travell revealed that Kennedy also had hypothyroidism. The presence of two endocrine diseases raises the possibility that Kennedy had autoimmune polyendocrine syndrome type 2. Kennedy suffered from chronic severe back pain, for which he had surgery. His condition may have had diplomatic repercussions, as he appears to have been taking a combination of drugs to treat back pain during the 1961 Vienna Summit. The combination included hormones, animal organ cells, steroids, vitamins, enzymes, and amphetamines, and possible side effects included hyperactivity, hypertension, impaired judgment, nervousness, and mood swings. Kennedy at one time was regularly seen by three doctors, one of whom, Max Jacobson, at first was unknown to the other two, as his mode of treatment was controversial and used for the most severe bouts of back pain. Into late 1961, disagreements existed among Kennedy's doctors concerning the balance of medication and exercise. Kennedy preferred the former because he was short on time and desired immediate relief. The president's primary White House physician, George G. Burkley, set up gym equipment in the White House basement, where Kennedy did stretching exercises thrice weekly. Details of these and other medical problems were not publicly disclosed during Kennedy's lifetime. Burkley realized that treatments by Jacobson and Travell, including excessive use of steroids and amphetamines, were medically inappropriate, and took action to remove Kennedy from their care. In 2002, Robert Dallek wrote an extensive history of Kennedy's health based on a collection of Kennedy-associated papers from 1955 to 1963, including X-rays and prescription records from Travell. According to Travell's records, during his presidential years Kennedy suffered from high fevers; stomach, colon, and prostate issues; abscesses; high cholesterol; and adrenal problems. Travell kept a "Medicine Administration Record", cataloging Kennedy's medications: injected and ingested corticosteroids for his adrenal insufficiency; procaine shots and ultrasound treatments and hot packs for his back; Lomotil, Metamucil, paregoric, phenobarbital, testosterone, and trasentine to control his diarrhea, abdominal discomfort, and weight loss; penicillin and other antibiotics for his urinary-tract infections and an abscess; and Tuinal to help him sleep. Affairs and friendships Kennedy was single in the 1940s while having relationships with Danish journalist Inga Arvad and actress Gene Tierney. During his time as a senator, he had an affair with Gunilla von Post, who later wrote that the future president tried to end his marriage to be with her before having any children with his wife. Kennedy was also reported to have had affairs with Marilyn Monroe, Judith Campbell, Mary Pinchot Meyer, Marlene Dietrich, White House intern Mimi Alford, and his wife's press secretary, Pamela Turnure. There have been several conspiracy theories surrounding the deaths of Monroe and Meyer, alleging that Kennedy may have had a part in their deaths. The full extent of Kennedy's relationship with Monroe (who in 1962 famously sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" at Kennedy's birthday celebration at Madison Square Garden) is not known, though it has been reported that they spent a weekend together in March 1962 while he was staying at Bing Crosby's house. Furthermore, people at the White House switchboard noted that Monroe had called Kennedy during 1962. J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director, received reports about Kennedy's indiscretions. These included an alleged tryst with an East German spy, Ellen Rometsch. According to historian Michael Beschloss, in July 1963, Hoover reportedly informed Robert Kennedy about the affair with a woman "suspected as a Soviet intelligence agent, someone linked to East German intelligence." Robert reportedly took the matter sufficiently seriously to raise it with leading Democratic and Republican figures in Congress. Former Secret Service agent Larry Newman recalled "morale problems" that the president's indiscretions engendered within the Secret Service. Kennedy inspired affection and loyalty from the members of his team and his supporters. According to Reeves, this included "the logistics of Kennedy's liaisons ... [which] required secrecy and devotion rare in the annals of the energetic service demanded by successful politicians." Kennedy believed that his friendly relationship with members of the press would help protect him from public revelations about his sex life. Sports Kennedy was a fan of Major League Baseball's Boston Red Sox and the National Basketball Association's Boston Celtics. Growing up on Cape Cod, Kennedy and his siblings developed a lifelong passion for sailing. He also took up golf; playing regularly at the Hyannisport Club in Massachusetts and the Palm Beach Country Club in Florida. Religion Kennedy was the first Catholic elected to the presidency. During his childhood, he attended St. Aidan's Church in Brookline, Massachusetts, where he was baptized on June 19, 1917. Historical evaluations and legacy Presidency Historians and political scientists tend to rank Kennedy as an above-average president, and he is usually the highest-ranking president who served less than one full term. A 2014 survey from The Washington Post of 162 members of the American Political Science Association's Presidents and Executive Politics section ranked Kennedy 14th highest overall among the 43 persons who have been president, including then-president Barack Obama. The survey found Kennedy to be the most overrated U.S. president. A 2017 C-SPAN survey has Kennedy ranked among the top ten presidents. A 2023 Gallup, Inc. survey showed Kennedy with a retrospective approval rating of 90 percent, the highest of all U.S. presidents in recent history. Assessments of his policies are mixed. Many of Kennedy's legislative proposals were passed after his death, during the Johnson administration, and Kennedy's death gave those proposals a powerful moral component. Kennedy came in third (behind Martin Luther King Jr. and Mother Teresa) in Gallup's List of Widely Admired People of the 20th century. In 1961, he was awarded the Laetare Medal by the University of Notre Dame, considered the most prestigious award for American Catholics. He was posthumously awarded the Pacem in Terris Award (Latin: Peace on Earth) and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Camelot The term "Camelot" is often used to describe his presidency, reflecting both the mythic grandeur accorded Kennedy in death and powerful nostalgia for that era of American history. According to Richard Dean Burns and Joseph M. Siracusa, the most popular theme surrounding Kennedy's legacy is its replay of the legend of King Arthur and Camelot from Arthurian Literature. In an interview following Kennedy's death, his widow Jacqueline mentioned his affection for the Broadway musical Camelot and quoted its closing lines: "Don't let it be forgot, that once there was a spot, for one brief, shining moment that was known as Camelot." Critics, especially historians, have mocked the Camelot myth as a distortion of Kennedy's actions, beliefs, and policies. However, in the public memory, the years of Kennedy's presidency are still seen as a brief, brilliant, and shining moment. Memorials and eponyms Examples of the extensive list include: Idlewild Airport in Queens, New York City, renamed John F. Kennedy International Airport on December 24, 1963 NASA Launch Operations Center in Merritt Island, Florida named the John F. Kennedy Space Center on November 29, 1963. USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), U.S. Navy aircraft carrier ordered in April 1964, launched May 1967, decommissioned August 2007; nicknamed "Big John" Kennedy half dollar, first minted in 1964 John F. Kennedy School of Government, part of Harvard University, renamed in 1966 John F. Kennedy Federal Building in the Government Center section of Boston, opened in 1966 John Fitzgerald Kennedy Memorial, opened in 1970 in Dallas National cultural center was named John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 1964, opened in 1971 in Washington, D.C. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum on Columbia Point in Boston; opened in 1979 Statue of John F. Kennedy by Isabel McIlvain on the grounds of the Massachusetts State House in Boston; dedicated on May 29, 1990. Works Books Kennedy, John F. (1940). Why England Slept. W. Funk. ISBN 978-1-44-084990-9. Kennedy, John F. (1956). Profiles in Courage. Harper & Brothers. ISBN 978-0-06-095544-1. Kennedy, John F. (1958). A Nation of Immigrants. Anti-Defamation League. ISBN 978-0-06-144754-9. Select speeches See also Cultural depictions of John F. Kennedy Electoral history of John F. Kennedy History of the United States (1945–1964) Kennedy Doctrine Lincoln–Kennedy coincidences urban legend List of United States presidential assassination attempts and plots Presidential transition of John F. Kennedy Presidents of the United States on U.S. postage stamps "Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy" retort by Senator Lloyd Bentsen, 1988 VP debate Notes References Citations Works cited Further reading External links John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum John Fitzgerald Kennedy National Historic Site Appearances on C-SPAN John F. Kennedy: A Resource Guide – the Library of Congress Extensive Essays on JFK with shorter essays on his cabinet and First Lady – Miller Center of Public Affairs Kennedy Administration from Office of the Historian, United States Government Printing Office Works by or about John F. Kennedy at the Internet Archive Works by John F. Kennedy at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) John F. Kennedy at Curlie Works by John F. Kennedy at Project Gutenberg Kennedy Convocation Collection at the Amherst College Archives & Special Collections, documenting one of his last visits before his assassination United States Congress. "John F. Kennedy (id: K000107)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

Sargent_Shriver

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sargent_Shriver

Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. (November 9, 1915 – January 18, 2011) was an American diplomat, politician, and activist. He was a member of the Shriver family by birth, and a member of the Kennedy family through his marriage to Eunice Kennedy. Shriver was the driving force behind the creation of the Peace Corps, and founded the Job Corps, Head Start, VISTA, Upward Bound, and other programs as the architect of the 1960s War on Poverty. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president in the 1972 presidential election. Born in Westminster, Maryland, Shriver attended Yale University, then Yale Law School, graduating in 1941. An opponent of U.S. entry into World War II, he helped establish the America First Committee but volunteered for the United States Navy before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. During the war, he served in the South Pacific, participating in the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal. After being discharged from the navy, he worked as an assistant editor for Newsweek and met Eunice Kennedy, marrying her in 1953. He worked on the 1960 presidential campaign of his brother-in-law, John F. Kennedy, and helped establish the Peace Corps after Kennedy's victory. After Kennedy's assassination, Shriver served in the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson and helped establish several anti-poverty programs as director of the Office of Economic Opportunity from October 16, 1964, to March 22, 1968. He also served as the United States Ambassador to France from 1968 to 1970. In 1972, Democratic vice presidential nominee Thomas Eagleton resigned from the ticket, and Shriver was chosen as his replacement. The Democratic ticket of George McGovern and Shriver lost in a landslide election defeat to Republican President Richard Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew. Shriver briefly sought the 1976 Democratic presidential nomination but dropped out of the race after the first set of primaries. After leaving office, he resumed the practice of law, becoming a partner with Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. He also served as president of the Special Olympics and was briefly a part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles. He was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2003 and died in Bethesda, Maryland, in 2011. Early life and education Robert Sargent Shriver Jr. was born in Westminster, Maryland, the younger of two sons. Shriver's parents Robert Sargent Shriver Sr. and Hilda, who had also been born with the surname Shriver, were second cousins. His elder brother was Thomas Herbert Shriver. Shriver was a member of the Shriver family that has been in Maryland since 1721 and have occupied the Union Mills Homestead. His grandfather, Thomas Herbert Shriver, guided J. E. B. Stuart to the battle of Gettysburg when Thomas was just seventeen years of age. He was also a descendant of David Shriver, who signed the Maryland Constitution and Bill of Rights at Maryland's Constitutional Convention of 1776. He spent his high school years at Canterbury School in New Milford, Connecticut, which he attended on a full scholarship. In his freshman year at Canterbury, he befriended future brother-in-law President John F. Kennedy. He was on Canterbury's baseball, basketball, and football teams, became the editor of the school's newspaper, and participated in choral and debating clubs. On June 9, 2023, Shriver was inducted into the Canterbury School Athletic Hall of Fame for all three sports. After graduating from The Browning School in 1934, Shriver spent the summer in Germany as part of The Experiment in International Living, returning in the fall of 1934 to enter Yale University, where he was a brother in the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, as well as a member of Yale's Scroll and Key society. Military career An early opponent of American involvement in World War II, Shriver was a founding member of the America First Committee, an organization started in 1940 by a group of Yale Law School students, also including future President Gerald Ford and future Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, which tried to keep the US out of the European war. Nevertheless, Shriver volunteered for the US Navy before the attack on Pearl Harbor and said he had a duty to serve his country even if he disagreed with its policies. He spent five years on active duty, mostly in the South Pacific, serving aboard the USS South Dakota (BB-57), reaching the rank of lieutenant commander (O-4). He was awarded a Purple Heart for wounds he received during the bombardment of Guadalcanal. Family life Shriver's relationship with the Kennedys began when he was working as an assistant editor at Newsweek after his discharge from the Navy. He met Eunice Kennedy at a party in New York, and shortly afterwards, family patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy Sr. asked him to look at diary entries written by his eldest son, Joseph P. Kennedy Jr., who had died in a plane crash while he was on a military mission during World War II. Shriver was later hired to manage the Merchandise Mart, part of Kennedy's business empire, in Chicago, Illinois. After a seven-year courtship, Shriver married Eunice Kennedy on May 23, 1953, at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. She was the third daughter of Joseph Kennedy Sr. and Rose Kennedy. They had five children: Robert Sargent "Bobby" Shriver III (born April 28, 1954), Maria Owings Shriver (born November 6, 1955), Timothy Perry Shriver (born August 29, 1959), Mark Kennedy Shriver (born February 17, 1964), and Anthony Paul Kennedy Shriver (born July 20, 1965). The Shrivers were married for 56 years, and often worked together on projects. Shriver was admitted to practice law in the District of Columbia, Illinois, and New York, and at the US Supreme Court. A devout Catholic, Shriver attended daily Mass and always carried a rosary of well-worn wooden beads. He was critical of abortion and was a signatory to "A New Compact of Care: Caring about Women, Caring for the Unborn", which appeared in The New York Times in July 1992 and stated that "To establish justice and to promote the general welfare, America does not need the abortion license. What America needs are policies that responsibly protect and advance the interest of mothers and their children, both before and after birth." Public service and political career 1950s In May 1954, Shriver was appointed to the Chicago Board of Education by Chicago mayor Martin H. Kennelly. On October 26, 1955, Shriver was chosen to serve as president of the Chicago Board of Education by a vote of the board. Shriver would serve in the position of president for five years, resigning from the position on October 10, 1960. At the time he became president of the board, he was the second-youngest individual to hold that office, being only 39. At the time, Chicago Public Schools was the second-largest school district in the United States. Shriver also served as director of the Catholic Interracial Council, a group created to advocate for desegregation in Chicago schools. Shriver considered several runs for statewide office. His first consideration was for the Democratic nomination in the 1956 Illinois gubernatorial election. Shriver had been courted by many Chicago Democrats, including Mayor Richard J. Daley, but ultimately chose to stay out of the election. The primary was won by Cook County Treasurer Herbert C. Paschen who would be forced to withdraw as the nominee after becoming embroiled in scandals surrounding his work as Treasurer. District Court Judge Richard B. Austin, was chosen as the replacement and went on to narrowly lose the election to incumbent Governor William Stratton. 1960s In 1960, Shriver once again received serious courting by Democratic leaders in both Chicago and across the state to enter the Democratic primary for the 1960 Illinois gubernatorial election. Shriver even met with Mayor Daley and the Cook County Democratic Committee to gauge a possible run at Daley's urging. However his father-in-law, Joseph P. Kennedy, told Shriver he would not be able to run or else he could seriously cripple the Presidential campaign of his brother-in-law, John F. Kennedy. His father-in-law cited the oversaturation of Catholic candidates in Illinois could cost the Democrats the state in November (Kennedy, Shriver, and Daley were all Catholic). When John F. Kennedy ran for president, Shriver worked as a political and organization coordinator in the Wisconsin and West Virginia primaries. During Kennedy's presidential term, Shriver founded and served as the first director of the Peace Corps from March 22, 1961, to February 28, 1966. Shriver has been credited with convincing a hesitant Kennedy to contact Coretta Scott King after her husband, prominent civil rights activist Martin Luther King, was jailed for civil disobedience in Georgia in October 1960. Kennedy's phone call to Coretta Scott King was credited with helping to strengthen black support for Kennedy's candidacy. After Kennedy's assassination, Shriver continued to serve as Director of the Peace Corps and served as Special Assistant to President Lyndon Johnson. Under Johnson, he created the Office of Economic Opportunity and served as its first director. He is known as the "architect" of the Johnson administration's "War on Poverty". Hired by President Johnson to be the "salesman" for Johnson's War on Poverty initiative, Shriver initially was "not interested in hearing about community action proposals." The Job Corps movement was more consistent with his goals. Thus, soon after his appointment, Shriver "moved quickly to reconsider the proposed anti-poverty initiative." Shriver founded numerous social programs and organizations, including Head Start, VISTA, Job Corps, Community Action, Upward Bound, Foster Grandparents, Legal Services, the National Clearinghouse for Legal Services (now the Shriver Center), Indian and Migrant Opportunities and Neighborhood Health Services, in addition to directing the Peace Corps. He was active in the Special Olympics, which was founded in 1968 by his wife Eunice. Shriver was awarded the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award in 1967. It was named after a 1963 encyclical letter by Pope John XXIII that calls upon all people of good will to secure peace among all nations. Pacem in terris is Latin for 'Peace on Earth'. In 1964 Shriver was considered one of the primary finalists on Johnson's shortlist to be vice president. After weighing the benefits of Shriver as the second spot on the ticket, Johnson ultimately chose Hubert Humphrey. Shriver again considered running for Governor of Illinois in the 1964 Illinois gubernatorial election. However, he demurred after being asked by President Johnson to stay on and continue leading the creation of many of the aforementioned War on Poverty programs that would become part of the Great Society. In 1968, Shriver was once again seriously courted by Illinois Democrats for both the 1968 Illinois gubernatorial election against increasingly unpopular incumbent Governor Otto Kerner, Jr. and the 1968 United States Senate election in Illinois against incumbent Republican Everett Dirksen. Shriver expressed little interest in serving in the Senate, not wanting to be overshadowed by his brothers-in-law Ted Kennedy and specifically Robert Kennedy, who he had expected to run for president in 1972. To move Shriver toward a run, Daley pitched to Illinois Democratic leaders and Shriver on recruiting Illinois State Treasurer Adlai E. Stevenson III to run for the Senate seat with Shriver running for Governor. Shriver even received Johnson's blessing to make the run as part of Daley's "Dream Ticket", should he choose to do so. However, when Stevenson spoke out against the Vietnam War, Daley rejected Stevenson's candidacy and again tried to recruit Shriver for the Senate seat. Johnson had offered Shriver the post of U.S. Ambassador to France, but asked for time to consider the offer, during which he considered his potential candidacy. When Stevenson lost Daley's support for the Senate seat and began trying to recruit Shriver again, Shriver decided to accept Johnson's offer of the Ambassadorship. Shriver served as U.S. Ambassador to France from 1968 to 1970, becoming a quasi-celebrity among the French for bringing what Time magazine called "a rare and welcome panache" to the normally sedate world of international diplomacy. Upon returning to the United States in 1970, Shriver was speculated to be considering challenging incumbent Democratic Governor Marvin Mandel for the Democratic nomination for the 1970 Maryland gubernatorial election, reports he did nothing to dissuade despite Mandel's sizable campaign fund and being the state's first Jewish Governor. Mandel had been elected by the Maryland Legislature to finish out the term Spiro Agnew had been elected to in 1966, but resigned from after being elected Vice President in 1968. After traveling the state to gauge the support a potential candidacy might have, Shriver met with Mandel in the Governor's office. After emerging from the meeting, Shriver declined to be a candidate. Mandel recalled years later, "We had a long discussion, and when it was over, he wasn't a candidate." Vice Presidential candidacy During the 1972 Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, Florida, George McGovern considered Shriver as a vice presidential candidate, but his campaign was unable to reach Shriver, who was at the time visiting Moscow, Soviet Union. McGovern then selected Thomas Eagleton instead, who later resigned from the Democratic ticket following revelations of past mental health treatments. Shriver replaced Eagleton on the ticket. The McGovern-Shriver ticket lost to Republican incumbents Richard Nixon and Spiro Agnew. Presidential candidacy Shriver unsuccessfully sought the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976. In the months before the primaries began, political observers thought that Shriver would draw strength from legions of former colleagues from the Peace Corps and the War on Poverty programs, and he was even seen as an inheritor of the Kennedy legacy, but neither theory proved true. His candidacy was short-lived and he returned to private life. Life after politics Shriver was a partner of the Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson law firm in Washington, D.C., where he specialized in international law and foreign affairs, beginning in 1971. He retired as partner in 1986 and was then named of counsel to the firm. In 1981, Shriver was appointed to the Rockefeller University Council, an organization devoted exclusively to research and graduate education in the biomedical and related sciences. In 1984, he was elected president of Special Olympics by the board of directors; as president, he directed the operation and international development of sports programs around the world. Six years later, in 1990, he was appointed chairman of the board of Special Olympics. He was an investor in the Baltimore Orioles along with his eldest son Bobby Shriver, Eli Jacobs, and Larry Lucchino from 1989 to 1993. Illness and death Shriver was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 2003. In 2004, his daughter, Maria, published a children's book, What's Happening to Grandpa?, to help explain Alzheimer's to children. The book gives suggestions on how to help and to show love to an elderly person with the disease. In July 2007, Shriver's son-in-law, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, speaking in favor of stem-cell research, said that Shriver's Alzheimer's disease had advanced to the point that "Today, he does not even recognize his wife." Maria Shriver discusses her father's worsening condition in a segment for the four-part 2009 HBO documentary series The Alzheimer's Project called Grandpa, Do You Know Who I Am?, including describing a moment when she decided to stop trying to correct his various delusions. On August 11, 2009, Shriver's wife of 56 years, Eunice, died at the age of 88. He attended her wake and funeral in Centerville and Hyannis, Massachusetts. Two weeks later, on August 29, 2009, he attended the funeral of her brother Ted Kennedy in Boston, Massachusetts. Shriver died on January 18, 2011, in Suburban Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland, at age 95. Shriver's family released a statement calling him "a man of giant love, energy, enthusiasm, and commitment" who "lived to make the world a more joyful, faithful, and compassionate place." President Barack Obama also released a statement, calling Shriver "one of the brightest lights of the greatest generation". Aaron S. Williams, the director of the Peace Corps, said in a statement, "The entire Peace Corps community is deeply saddened by the passing of Sargent Shriver." He further noted that Shriver "served as our founder, friend, and guiding light for the past 50 years" and that "his legacy of idealism will live on in the work of current and future Peace Corps volunteers." He is buried alongside his wife Eunice at St. Francis Xavier Cemetery in Centerville, Massachusetts. Legacy In 1968, he was awarded the Laetare Medal by the University of Notre Dame, the oldest and most prestigious award for American Catholics. In 1993, Shriver received the Franklin D. Roosevelt Freedom From Want Award. On August 8, 1994, Shriver received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the United States' highest civilian honor, from President Bill Clinton. In December 1993, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County created the Shriver Center in honor of Shriver and his wife. The center serves as the university's civic engagement, and applied learning organization. The Shriver Center also is home to the Shriver Peaceworker Program and the Shriver Living Learning Community. The Job Corps dedicated a center to his name in 1998 – the "Shriver Job Corps Center" – located in Devens, Massachusetts. The National Clearinghouse for Legal Services (renamed the National Center on Poverty Law in 1995) was renamed the Shriver Center in 2002 and each year awards a Sargent Shriver Award for Equal Justice. Sargent Shriver Elementary School, located in Silver Spring, Maryland, is named after him. In January 2008, a documentary film about Shriver aired on PBS, titled American Idealist: The Story of Sargent Shriver. The Kennedy Shriver Aquatic Center in Bethesda, Maryland, is named after him and Eunice Kennedy Shriver. Following his death, Daniel Larison wrote: Shriver was an admirable, principled, and conscientious man who respected the dignity and sanctity of human life, and he also happened to be a contemporary and in-law of Kennedy. Not only did Shriver represent a "link" with JFK, but he represented a particular culture of white ethnic Catholic Democratic politics that has been gradually disappearing for the last fifty years. A pro-life Catholic, Shriver had been a founding member of the America First Committee, and more famously he was also on the 1972 antiwar ticket with George McGovern. In short, he represented much of what was good in the Democratic Party of his time. Electoral history 1972 United States presidential election Richard Nixon/Spiro Agnew (R) (inc.) – 47,168,710 (60.7%) and 520 electoral votes (49 states carried) George McGovern/Sargent Shriver (D) – 29,173,222 (37.5%) and 17 electoral votes (1 state and D.C. carried) John Hospers/Theodora Nathan (Libertarian) – 3,674 (0.00%) and 1 electoral vote (Republican faithless elector) John G. Schmitz/Thomas J. Anderson (AI) – 1,100,868 (1.4%) and 0 electoral votes Linda Jenness/Andrew Pulley (Socialist Workers) – 83,380 (0.1%) Benjamin Spock/Julius Hobson (People's) – 78,759 (0.1%) 1976 Democratic presidential primaries Jimmy Carter – 6,235,609 (39.27%) Jerry Brown – 2,449,374 (15.43%) George Wallace – 1,955,388 (12.31%) Mo Udall – 1,611,754 (10.15%) Henry M. Jackson – 1,134,375 (7.14%) Frank Church – 830,818 (5.23%) Robert Byrd – 340,309 (2.14%) Sargent Shriver – 304,399 (1.92%) Unpledged – 283,437 (1.79%) Ellen McCormack – 238,027 (1.50%) Fred R. Harris – 234,568 (1.48%) Milton Shapp – 88,254 (0.56%) Birch Bayh – 86,438 (0.54%) Hubert Humphrey – 61,992 (0.39%) Ted Kennedy – 19,805 (0.13%) Lloyd Bentsen – 4,046 (0.03%) Terry Sanford – 404 (0.00%) Portrayals in film The film Too Young the Hero (1988), about the life of Calvin Graham, features a scene during World War II in which Graham (played by Ricky Schroder) meets Shriver (played by Carl Mueller). Al Conti portrays Shriver in the 1983 miniseries Kennedy. He is played by David De Beck in the 2018 film Chappaquiddick. See also List of United States political appointments across party lines References Further reading Stossel, Scott (2004). Sarge: The life and times of Sargent Shriver. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Books. ISBN 978-1-58834-127-3. Shriver, Mark (2012). A Good Man: Rediscovering My Father, Sargent Shriver. Henry Holt & Co. ISBN 978-0805095302. External links Sargent Shriver Peace Institute Appearances on C-SPAN FBI file on Sargent Shriver Sargent Shriver National Center on Poverty Law Video: Sargent Shriver delivering a speech about the Peace Corps in 1965 Sargent Shriver at Find a Grave

2014_Stanley_Cup_Finals

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Stanley_Cup_Finals

The 2014 Stanley Cup Finals was the championship series of the National Hockey League's (NHL) 2013–14 season, and the culmination of the 2014 Stanley Cup playoffs. The League realigned its divisions prior to the season, and changed the structure of the playoffs, but the championship series remained the same. The Western Conference champion Los Angeles Kings defeated the Eastern Conference champion New York Rangers four games to one to win their second championship in franchise history, marking the first time since 2007 that the championship series was determined in fewer than six games. Their Stanley Cup–winning run of 26 playoff games was later tied by the 2019 St. Louis Blues for the longest of any Stanley Cup–winning team in history. Los Angeles had home ice advantage in the series, as the Kings finished with a better regular season record than the Rangers. The series started on June 4 and ended on June 13 with the Kings winning their second Stanley Cup in three seasons. It was the first meeting between teams from New York City and Los Angeles for a major professional sports championship since the Yankees and the Dodgers played in the 1981 World Series. Coincidentally, 1981 was also the last time the Rangers and the Kings had met in the postseason; that was the last season where the league did not use a geographical based playoff format and as a result any two teams could meet in any round of the postseason regardless of geography. In 1981 the Rangers eliminated the Kings during the first round of the playoffs. Paths to the Finals New York Rangers This was New York's 11th appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals, and they were seeking their fifth Cup championship overall and their first one since 1994, 20 years earlier. Since their win in 1994, their only other post-season highlights were reaching the Conference Finals in 1997 and 2012. The Rangers entered the season after essentially swapping head coaches with the Vancouver Canucks: the Rangers and the Canucks fired John Tortorella and Alain Vigneault, respectively, and then coincidentally hired the other's former coach. While Vancouver, under Tortorella's first year, failed to make the playoffs, Vigneault guided New York to 96 regular season points and second place in the new Metropolitan Division. En route, the Rangers made a major trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning on March 5, acquiring Tampa Bay's captain Martin St. Louis in exchange for their own captain Ryan Callahan. The transaction happened as Callahan and the Rangers were not close to terms on a new contract, while St. Louis was unhappy at his initial omission from the Olympics by Steve Yzerman (general manager of both the Lightning and Team Canada). In the first round of the playoffs, the Rangers eliminated the Philadelphia Flyers in seven games. Then, in the second round against the Pittsburgh Penguins, New York overcame a 3–1 game deficit to win the series. In the Eastern Conference Finals, the Rangers defeated the Montreal Canadiens in six games to capture their first Eastern Conference championship in 20 years. In the process, the Rangers became the first team ever to play two full seven-game series in the first two rounds of the playoffs and reach the Stanley Cup Finals, a feat later matched and exceeded in the same postseason by the Kings. Due to trading away captain Ryan Callahan and not naming a successor for the remainder of the season, Rangers were the first team since the 1972–73 Chicago Black Hawks to advance to the Stanley Cup Finals without a captain. By reaching the Finals with the Rangers, Mats Zuccarello made history when he became the first Norwegian to play in the Stanley Cup Finals. Los Angeles Kings Los Angeles made their third appearance in the Stanley Cup Finals and sought to capture their second Cup championship after winning it in 2012. Much of the core from the Kings' 2012 championship remained on the team. Los Angeles made a late regular season trade on March 5, acquiring former Ranger Marian Gaborik from the Columbus Blue Jackets in exchange for Matt Frattin and two draft picks. The Kings then finished the regular season in third place in the Pacific Division with 100 points. The Finals were the only series in the 2014 playoffs in which the Kings had home ice advantage. Los Angeles needed three consecutive game sevens to advance to the Cup Finals (breaking the aforementioned Rangers' game sevens record just a couple of days later), winning all of them on the road. The team became the fourth team in NHL playoff history to win a seven-game series after losing the first three games, defeating the San Jose Sharks in the first round. The Kings eliminated their local rival Anaheim Ducks next, despite squandering a 2–0 series lead and then facing a 3–2 series deficit. In a rematch of the 2013 Western Conference Final, the Kings defeated the defending Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks in the Western Conference Final who had forced a seventh game after trailing the series 3–1. Like their 2012 championship series, the Kings' 2014 Cup Finals was marked by a 3–0 series start of winning the first two games in overtime and the third as a shutout. With their 2014 Stanley Cup win, the Kings have the distinction of winning the first championship after the League's realignment as well as becoming the first team in the salary-cap era to win two championships in the span of three years or less. Their 2012 championship made them also the final team to win the Cup in the League's last full season before the realignment, as the 2012–13 season was shortened by a lockout. The Kings played a record 26 playoff games to win the Stanley Cup, the most ever for a champion (the St. Louis Blues matched this feat in 2019). Game summaries Number in parentheses represents the player's total in goals or assists to that point of the entire four rounds of the playoffs Game one The Kings overcame a two-goal deficit to defeat the Rangers 3–2 in the first game. New York built their 2–0 lead in the first period by scoring 1:42 apart. Benoit Pouliot scored first on a breakaway after stealing the puck from Drew Doughty, then shooting past Jonathan Quick. Carl Hagelin then recorded a short-handed goal, as his shot was initially blocked by Quick but then rebounded off of Slava Voynov's skate into the net. The Kings' comeback began with Kyle Clifford's goal late in the first period. Clifford shot it in from near the left post after receiving a pass from Jeff Carter. Doughty tied the game in the second period, beating Henrik Lundqvist from the left circle. In the third period, the Kings outshot the Rangers, 20–3, but neither Lundqvist nor Quick allowed any goals. In the final minute of regulation, Quick stopped Hagelin's shot on a breakaway, and seconds later Lundqvist barely kept Carter's wrap-around shot from crossing the goal line. In overtime, Daniel Girardi turned over the puck in the New York zone, leading Mike Richards to pass the puck to Justin Williams, who then put the puck over Lundqvist to win the game. Game two The Kings overcame three two-goal deficits to defeat the Rangers 5–4 in double overtime. Including their game seven victory in the Western Conference Final against the Chicago Blackhawks, Los Angeles became the first team in Stanley Cup playoffs history to overcome three consecutive two-goal deficits. With the first game also going to overtime, it marked the third consecutive year that the first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals went to overtime. Ryan McDonagh and Mats Zuccarello scored in the first period to give the Rangers a 2–0 lead. Jarret Stoll then cut New York's lead in half at 1:46 of the second period. The teams then traded power play goals with Martin St. Louis scoring for the Rangers and Willie Mitchell for the Kings. Eleven seconds after Mitchell's goal, Derick Brassard gave New York a 4–2 lead after miscommunication between Mitchell and Jonathan Quick behind the Kings net lead to a turnover. Dwight King's goal to cut the Rangers' lead to 4–3 early in the third period was controversial. King and McDonagh were fighting for position in front of Henrik Lundqvist when Matt Greene shot the puck from the right point. King made contact with Lundqvist in the crease as he touched the puck before it went into the net but no goaltender interference was called: the referee ruled that the contact occurred after the puck already sailed past Lundqvist. Marian Gaborik then tied the game with an unassisted goal at 7:36 of the third during a scramble in front of the New York net. At 10:26 of double overtime, Dustin Brown deflected Mitchell's shot from the left point into the net to give the Kings the 5–4 win. This gave the Kings a 2–0 series lead as the series shifted to New York City, despite never leading in either game during regulation time in Los Angeles. Game three This was the first Stanley Cup Finals game played in the state of New York since Game 6 of the 1999 Finals in Buffalo. The Kings won 3–0, led by the goaltending of Jonathan Quick, who shut out the Rangers on 32 shots. The first period was marked by tight checking, and only nine shots were recorded by the two teams. Mats Zuccarello nearly scored for the Rangers at 12:37 of the first, but his shot went off the post and Quick's stick to stay out. With one second to play, Jeff Carter's shot from the slot deflected off a Rangers defenceman past Henrik Lundqvist to put the Kings ahead by one. In the second period, Jake Muzzin scored from the point on another deflection off a Rangers player. Mike Richards scored later in the period, on a two-on-one, his attempted pass deflecting off a Rangers player back to him, leaving Lundqvist out of position to make the stop. Meanwhile, Quick stopped all 17 shots the Rangers put on the net in the second, including a stick save on Derick Brassard when he appeared to be well out of position to make the save. There was no scoring in the third and the Kings took a three games to none series lead, putting the Rangers on the brink of elimination. Game four The Rangers avoided becoming the first team since 1998 to get swept in the Finals by defeating the Kings 2–1. In a turn-around from game three, the Kings outshot the Rangers and lost as Rangers netminder Henrik Lundqvist saved 40 out of 41 shots. Like games one and two, the Rangers scored the first two goals, on goals by Benoit Pouliot and Martin St. Louis. Dustin Brown scored for the Kings in the second period to cut the margin to 2–1. In the third period, the Kings put pressure on the Rangers and nearly tied the score when the puck slid past Lundqvist to rest on the goal line before being cleared away. Earlier, in the first period, another shot by the Kings also rested on the goal line and did not go in. In all, the Kings outshot the Rangers 15–1 in the third, but did not score. Game five The Kings clinched their second Stanley Cup in franchise history, their first since 2012, by defeating the Rangers 3–2 on home ice. This was the first Stanley Cup–clinching game since 2010 to be determined in overtime, and the first time that the home team had the overtime Stanley Cup winner since 1980. The Kings played 26 playoff games on their road to the trophy, more than any previous Stanley Cup–winning team. The Kings grabbed the lead in the first period with an even-strength goal by Justin Williams. In the second, Chris Kreider converted on a Rangers power play before Brian Boyle scored a short-handed goal to put the road team up by one with 30 seconds left. In the third, Marian Gaborik tied the game at two on a Kings power play. No more goals were scored in regulation and the game went to overtime. The first overtime period featured one penalty for the Kings, but the Rangers were unable to score on the ensuing power play. With five minutes to go in the second overtime period and the Kings on a 3-on-2 breakaway, Tyler Toffoli fired a shot that Henrik Lundqvist kicked out directly to Alec Martinez, who fired it into the open net to win both the game and the series for the Kings. At that time, the Kings had outshot the Rangers 51–30. It was the longest game in Kings history until 2018. Team rosters Years indicated in boldface under the "Finals appearance" column signify that the player won the Stanley Cup in the given year. Los Angeles Kings New York Rangers Note: Brad Richards served as the Rangers unofficial team captain during the 2014 Stanley Cup playoffs. Richards was the alternate captain with the longest tenure in the league on the roster at the time of the playoffs. Stanley Cup engraving The 2014 Stanley Cup was presented to Kings captain Dustin Brown by NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman following the Kings 3–2 overtime win over the Rangers in game five. The following Kings players and staff had their names engraved on the Stanley Cup 2013–14 Los Angeles Kings Players 1 Played both center and wing. Stanley Cup engraving (D) – **Jeff Schultz played 67 regular season and two playoff games for the Manchester Monarchs(AHL). He was recalled during the playoffs and played seven playoff games for Los Angeles, including one in the Conference Finals. He spent the whole regular season in the minors and did not play in the Stanley Cup Finals. Los Angeles requested that his name be included. It was included for playing in the Conference Finals and playing in his eighth NHL season (C) – Colin Fraser played 33 regular-season games for Los Angeles, but no playoff games. Fraser was sent to the minors in February. He played ten games for Manchester Monarchs (AHL) before getting injured. He later rejoined the Kings for the playoffs in April. Fraser did not play half of the Kings' regular-season games, or a single game in Finals (the criteria for being automatically included in the engravings), and Los Angeles did not request that his name be included. (Colin Fraser's name is on the Stanley Cup with Blackhawks in 2010 and Kings in 2012.) (C) – Linden Vey played in 18 regular-season games and spent most of the regular season in the minors before being recalled during the playoffs, where he did not play. Los Angeles did not request his name be included. (D) – Andrew Campbell played in three regular-season games and spent most of the regular season in the minors before being recalled during the playoffs, where he did not play. Los Angeles did not request his name be included. Edward P. Roski, Jr. (owner) asked that his name not be included, so that another member could get his name on the Stanley Cup (on cup in 2012). Rob Laird, (Sr. Pro Scout), and Ted Fikre (Chief Legal & Development Officer), who were listed on the cup with Los Angeles in 2012, agreed not to have their names engraved in 2014 so that two other scouts could be listed on the Stanley Cup for the first time. Six out of 12 scouts had their name on the Stanley Cup in 2014 (Missing six were Bob Crocker, Bob Friedlander, Bill Gurney, Denis Fugere, Mike Donelly, Christian Ruuttu). Canadian Robyn Regehr was the first player born in Brazil to win the Stanley Cup. He lived in Indonesia, before settling in Rosthern, Saskatchewan as a child. Included on team picture, but left off the Stanley Cup Colin Fraser (C), Ryan Van Asten (Strength and Conditioning Coach), Chris Pikosky (Massage Therapist), Denver Wilson (Asst. Equipment Manager), Bobby Halfacre (Equipment Asst.) Television This was the last year under the League's current Canadian TV contracts with CBC (English broadcasts of the Finals) and the cable network TSN (English broadcasts), and RDS (French broadcasts). The NHL's twelve-year contract with Rogers Communications would then take effect beginning next season, with English-language national coverage of the Finals being sub-licensed to CBC, and French-language telecasts being sub-licensed to TVA Sports. TSN will only be showing regional games for Toronto, Ottawa and Winnipeg starting the fall of 2014. In the United States, NBCSN broadcast games three and four, while NBC televised the remaining games. NBC Sports originally planned to repeat its coverage pattern from the last few seasons: NBCSN would televise game two and three, while NBC would broadcast game one, and then games four to seven. After the League scheduled game two on the day of the 2014 Belmont Stakes, coverage of games two and four were switched so NBC's telecast of the horse race would serve as lead-in programming to game two. Due to the death of a family member, NBC lead play-by-play announcer Mike Emrick missed game one. Kenny Albert, who was also the Rangers radio announcer for WEPN and announced several national games (including the Western Conference Finals) for NBC/NBCSN, filled in for Emrick in the first game. Quotes Starting back up with it now it’s Martinez in a three on two, Clifford gave it across. It’s held in a shot, save, rebound, SCORE! THE STANLEY CUP! MARTINEZ! References External links Official Site

Dustin_Brown_(ice_hockey)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dustin_Brown_(ice_hockey)

Dustin James Brown (born November 4, 1984) is an American former professional ice hockey right winger. Brown spent his entire NHL career with the Los Angeles Kings of the National Hockey League (NHL), who drafted him 13th overall in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft. He is the Kings all-time games leader and served as team captain from 2008 to 2016; during this time he led the Kings to the 2012 and 2014 Stanley Cup championships, becoming the first Kings captain and second American captain (behind Derian Hatcher) to win the Stanley Cup. During the 2012–13 NHL lockout, he played for ZSC Lions in the Swiss National League A. Brown was noted for his physical playing style, consistently ranking among NHL leaders in hits and penalties drawn, and his reserved, lead-by-example approach to his captaincy of the Kings. Internationally, Brown has represented the United States at three World Championships, winning a bronze medal in 2004, and two World Junior Championships. He won a silver medal as an alternate captain of the United States national team at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Brown received the 2011 NHL Foundation Player Award for his extensive charity work in the Los Angeles community, and the Mark Messier Leadership Award in 2014. Playing career Junior career After playing hockey at Ithaca High School for two years, Brown left his hometown to play junior hockey at age 16. He was drafted in the second round, 26th overall, by the Guelph Storm in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL) Priority Selection Draft. Brown played three seasons for Guelph, scoring 194 points in 174 games. He was drafted by the Los Angeles Kings in the first round, 13 overall, in 2003. Los Angeles Kings (2003–2022) 2003–2008: Early seasons Brown signed a three-year entry-level contract with the Kings and made the Kings' 2003–04 team out of training camp. His first NHL game was October 9, 2003, against the Detroit Red Wings. Brown saw fourth-line ice time in his rookie year, and he scored his first NHL goal on November 22, 2003, in a 2–0 win over the Colorado Avalanche. He managed just 1 goal and 5 points in 31 games before his season was cut short by a high ankle sprain. Nonetheless, Brown's physicality made a favorable impression with the Kings' coaching staff. The following season was cancelled due to the NHL lockout. Brown was assigned to the Manchester Monarchs, the Kings' American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, in order to develop his offensive game. He performed well in Manchester, averaging nearly a point per game and readying himself for an expanded NHL role. With the lockout over, and NHL play resuming in 2005–06, Brown cemented his place on the team. As a 21-year-old checking forward, he managed 28 points in 79 games. More impressively, he led the team (and ranked 13th in the NHL) with 175 hits, and he drew the second most penalties in the NHL despite his limited ice time. A restricted free agent at the end of the year, Brown signed a two-year contract before the start of the 2006–07 season. Brown's third season saw an expansion in his role, as he was placed on the top line with star rookie center Anže Kopitar. The two young forwards became frequent linemates, as Brown's hitting abilities and willingness to shoot complemented Kopitar's dynamic passing and puck possession skills. Receiving the third-most ice time among Kings forwards, Brown responded with career-highs of 17 goals and 46 points in 81 games. Brown also received the most short-handed ice time among Kings forwards, a sign of his growing defensive reliability. He finished second in the NHL in hits, the first of six consecutive years that he ranked top three in the NHL in that category. On October 26, 2007, shortly after the start of the 2007–08 season, the Kings and Brown agreed to a six-year, $19.05 million contract extension that ran through the 2013–14 season. The contract was signed a full year before Brown hit restricted free agency, partially because young forwards Dustin Penner of the Anaheim Ducks and Thomas Vanek of the Buffalo Sabres had just received lucrative offer sheets in restricted free agency, and the Kings did not want Brown to receive one. Brown produced his best offensive season that year. Continuing to play top-line minutes with Kopitar, he recorded 33 goals and 60 points. To date, that season remains the only year Brown has managed to reach the 30-goal plateau. Despite his personal success, the rebuilding Kings missed the Stanley Cup playoffs for the fifth-straight year. 2008–2016: Stanley Cup championships and captaincy The Kings named Brown the 13th captain in team history on October 8, 2008, just after the start of the 2008–09 season. Brown's appointment filled the vacancy created when prior captain Rob Blake left the Kings in free agency to sign with the San Jose Sharks on July 3, 2008. Just 23 years old when he assumed the captaincy, Brown became the youngest captain and the only American captain in Kings history. Head coach Terry Murray pointed to Brown's work ethic and commitment to the Kings to explain the decision, saying Brown "shows that he cares tremendously about this team, about winning every night. I just want him to follow through with that, and he will because that's his personality. Just keep blazing that trail, and players on the team will follow". Kings management was impressed by Brown's emergence as a vocal leader in the locker room, especially after the departure of veteran presences Mattias Norström and Rob Blake. On the ice, Brown's numbers dipped slightly from 2007–08, in part because of an 8.2% shooting percentage, his lowest since his rookie season. However, his 292 shots led the team, and his 24 goals were third. Brown was chosen to represent the Western Conference at the 2009 All-Star Game. The Kings missed the playoffs for a franchise-worst sixth straight year. Brown again posted solid numbers in 2009–10, playing all 82 games for the first time and registering 24 goals and a career-high 32 assists. He scored his 100th NHL goal on January 14, 2010, against the Anaheim Ducks. With Brown leading a rapidly improving young core that included center Anze Kopitar, defenseman Drew Doughty and goaltender Jonathan Quick, the Kings finally snapped the eight-year playoff drought after clinching the sixth seed in the West to qualify for a playoff spot. Brown had one goal and four assists in six games as the Kings lost in the first round of the 2010 playoffs to the third seeded Vancouver Canucks. Brown and the Kings entered the 2010–11 season with higher expectations. Brown again played all 82 games and scored 28 goals and 29 assists for 57 points. Anže Kopitar's late season ankle injury forced the Kings to settle for a seventh-seeded finish in the Western Conference and a matchup with the second-seeded San Jose Sharks in the first round of the 2011 playoffs. The Kings lost in six games for the second straight year, with Brown recording two points (a goal and an assist) in the series. Brown began the 2011–12 season on a line with newly acquired center Mike Richards, but was shuffled throughout the lineup for most of the season. He maintained his consistent production, topping 20 goals and 50 points for the fifth-straight year. However, along with the rest of the Kings, he struggled to score in the first half of the season. Head coach Terry Murray was fired midway through the season, and as the Kings fell further out of the playoff picture, they were rumored to be listening to trade offers for Brown. New head coach Darryl Sutter called the Brown-Kopitar tandem "stale" and said Brown was not playing the "straight-line, up-and-down, go-to-the-net, shoot-the-puck, run-over-people" style Brown needed to be effective. Brown's scoring pace picked up amidst the trade rumors, and he scored three goals on Corey Crawford and an assist on a Willie Mitchell goal in the last game before the NHL trade deadline, a 4–0 win over the Chicago Blackhawks on February 25, 2012. The Kings retained Brown, who responded with 11 points in the nine games following the trade deadline. Brown later said he was playing with "a chip on his shoulder" and "whether those rumors are true or not, they're still out there, it gives you maybe a bit more motivation". With Brown producing and the trade-deadline acquisition of Jeff Carter, the Kings were one of the highest-scoring NHL teams down the stretch and made the playoffs as an eighth seed. After moving up-and-down the lineup for most of the season, Brown found stability playing on the first line with Anže Kopitar and Justin Williams. That line would remain intact throughout the entire 2012 playoffs. Brown recorded four goals and one assist for five points in the first round against the back-to-back Presidents' Trophy-winning Vancouver Canucks, including two shorthanded goals on Canucks' goaltender Roberto Luongo in a 4–2 Game 2 win. Brown is the first and only player as of 2022 with two shorthanded goals in a playoff game. In Game 3, he delivered a devastating open-ice check to Canucks center and captain Henrik Sedin directly in front of the Vancouver' bench. The hit left Sedin uninjured but dazed on the ice for several seconds until fellow Canuck' center Manny Malhotra, who was on the bench with his linemates at the time of the play, had to guide Henrik off the ice and on to the bench. Brown later scored the game-winning goal in the third period. Many observers, including TSN's Bob McKenzie and Sports Illustrated' Michael Farber, called the hit the decisive moment in the series. The Kings upset the heavily favored top-seeded Canucks in five games, and then recorded the first sweep in franchise history over the second seeded St. Louis Blues in the second round. Brown registered two goals and four assists in the series. Both of his goals came in the decisive Game 4, a 3–1 Kings victory. The Kings then beat the third seeded Arizona Coyotes in five games in the Western Conference Finals. Brown scored the game-winning goal in Game 1 of that series and did not score again until Game 6 of the 2012 Stanley Cup Finals against the sixth seeded New Jersey Devils, although he did manage five assists in that span. After being benched for the final minutes of a Game 5 loss, Brown produced three points in Game 6 to secure the Kings' first-ever Stanley Cup. He scored the first of three goals on a five-minute power play, and shortly afterwards, fired a shot that Jeff Carter deflected into the net for the eventual Cup-winning goal. Later, he assisted on another Carter goal. The Kings defeated the Devils 6–1, making Brown the second American-born captain to lead a team to a Stanley Cup championship and the Kings the second California-based team to win the Stanley Cup. With eight goals and 12 assists for 20 points in 20 games, Brown tied teammate Anže Kopitar for the lead in overall playoff point total. On July 28, 2012, Brown had his "Day with the Cup". Each year after a team has won the Stanley Cup, players, front office and hockey operation staff each get a day with the Stanley Cup. Brown hinted on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno he would bring the Cup back home. He did just that, bringing it to Ithaca High School in late July. During the lockout-shortened season, Brown finished shortened regular season with 18 goals and 11 assists for 29 points in 46 games. The Kings reached the Western Conference Finals for a second-straight year, but fell in five games to the Presidents’ Trophy-winning and eventual Stanley Cup champion Chicago Blackhawks. On July 18, 2013, the Kings signed Brown to an eight-year, $47 million contract extension. In the 2014 Stanley Cup Finals, Brown led the Kings to another Stanley Cup title, despite facing some criticism for more muted contributions on the team's run to the title. In the Finals against the New York Rangers, Brown scored the overtime winner in Game 2 to give the Kings a 5–4 victory and a 2–0 series lead, and he scored again during the Kings' 2–1 loss in Game 4. At the conclusion of the 2013–14 season, Brown was awarded the Mark Messier Leadership Award "in recognition of his commitment and service to charities in his community". On November 26, 2014, Brown recorded his 200th NHL goal in a 4–0 Kings win over the Minnesota Wild. After the Kings missed the playoffs entirely for the first time since 2009 in 2015, Brown and the Kings returned to the playoffs in 2016 only to fall in the first round in five games to the San Jose Sharks. 2016–2022: Later years Following back-to-back seasons of scoring less than 30 points, Brown was replaced as the Kings captain by Anže Kopitar on June 16, 2016. Speaking on the decision to have his captaincy stripped, Brown stated, "I understand the decision and I respect the decision. Part of my problem was how it was handled. It just put me in an awkward spot." The 2017–18 season marked a resurgence for Brown. After earning 36 points the season prior, Brown managed 28 goals and 33 assists for a career-high 61 points in 81 contests played. On December 21, 2017, Brown played in his 1,000th career NHL game. The Kings defeated the Colorado Avalanche 2–1 in overtime, where Brown scored the game-winning goal. On April 5, 2018, Brown scored four goals, including the overtime winner, against the Minnesota Wild. In the pandemic-shortened 2020–21 season opener in a 4–3 OT loss against the Minnesota Wild on January 13, 2021, Brown recorded his 300th NHL goal. Brown was eventually re-promoted to alternate captain since his demotion, and announced on April 28, 2022 before the 2021–22 season finale against the Vancouver Canucks that he would retire after the completion of the 2022 Stanley Cup playoffs, for which his Kings team qualified for the first time since 2018. At the time of the announcement, Brown had 28 points (9 goals, 19 assists) in 64 games in the 2021–22 regular season. In the season finale against the Canucks, he was named team captain for the Kings. In the 2022 playoffs, Brown's Kings would be eliminated in seven games in the first round by the Edmonton Oilers, with Brown skating in all seven appearances and recording two points, his final game was on May 14. Brown was honored with a statue on February 11, 2023, joining Wayne Gretzky and Luc Robitaille as the only Kings players with statues. The Kings also retired his #23 jersey that night, making him the sixth King so honored. International play Brown has played for the United States in multiple international tournaments. During the World Championship tournament of 2008, Brown received negative attention for a controversial hit that made contact with the head of Finnish player Jussi Jokinen as the final horn sounded. Brown was named an alternate captain of the United States at the 2010 Winter Olympics and again in 2014. Style of play Brown was known for his physical, north–south style of game. Brown considered himself a clean hitter: after a controversial hit on Phoenix Coyotes defenseman Michal Rozsíval in the 2012 Western Conference Finals, Brown defended himself by saying, "I take pride in playing the game clean and hard. There are going to be hits that are unfortunate but still clean." Brown had never been issued a fine or suspension from the NHL Department of Player Safety until April 24, 2013, when he received two-game suspension for an illegal elbow to the head of Minnesota Wild forward Jason Pominville on April 23, 2013. Brown's former teammate Rob Blake said Brown "comes at guys straight on, face-to-face. He goes right through guys." Despite his aggressive style, Brown did not miss a game due to injury over a span of four seasons. Brown was one of the most effective NHL players at drawing penalties, having led the NHL in that category in five of seven post-lockout seasons. Brown's unparalleled success in that area led several commentators, including ex-NHL referee Kerry Fraser, to say that Brown acquired a reputation for embellishing infractions in order to draw penalties. Beyond his physicality and agitation, Brown provided a consistent offensive threat for the Kings, scoring at least 22 goals for five consecutive years. Brown played an effective two-way game and matured into an elite defensive and penalty-killing forward. Personal life Brown has 3 sons Jake, Mason, Cooper and one daughter MacKenzie, with his wife Nicole and lives in Buffalo, New York. Brown had a speech impediment early in his career, which he received therapy for before his professional career. He was heavily involved in charity work in the Greater Los Angeles Area during his playing years and was awarded the 2011 NHL Foundation Player Award for his community efforts and involvement. Career statistics Regular season and playoffs Bold indicates led league International Awards and honours References External links Biographical information and career statistics from NHL.com, or Eliteprospects.com, or Hockey-Reference.com, or The Internet Hockey Database, or TSN.ca Dustin Brown on Twitter

Margaret_Thatcher

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Thatcher

Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, (née Roberts; 13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013) was a British stateswoman and Conservative politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the longest-serving British prime minister of the 20th century and the first woman to hold the position. As prime minister, she implemented economic policies known as Thatcherism. A Soviet journalist dubbed her the "Iron Lady", a nickname that became associated with her uncompromising politics and leadership style. Thatcher studied chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, and worked briefly as a research chemist before becoming a barrister. She was elected Member of Parliament for Finchley in 1959. Edward Heath appointed her secretary of state for education and science in his 1970–1974 government. In 1975, she defeated Heath in the Conservative Party leadership election to become leader of the opposition, the first woman to lead a major political party in the UK. On becoming prime minister after winning the 1979 general election, Thatcher introduced a series of economic policies intended to reverse high inflation and Britain's struggles in the wake of the Winter of Discontent and an oncoming recession. Her political philosophy and economic policies emphasised greater individual liberty, the privatisation of state-owned companies, and reducing the power and influence of trade unions. Her popularity in her first years in office waned amid recession and rising unemployment. Victory in the 1982 Falklands War and the recovering economy brought a resurgence of support, resulting in her landslide re-election in 1983. She survived an assassination attempt by the Provisional IRA in the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing and achieved a political victory against the National Union of Mineworkers in the 1984–85 miners' strike. In 1986, Thatcher oversaw the deregulation of UK financial markets, leading to an economic boom, in what came to be known as the Big Bang. Thatcher was re-elected for a third term with another landslide in 1987, but her subsequent support for the Community Charge (also known as the "poll tax") was widely unpopular, and her increasingly Eurosceptic views on the European Community were not shared by others in her cabinet. She resigned as prime minister and party leader in 1990, after a challenge was launched to her leadership, and was succeeded by John Major, her chancellor of the Exchequer. After retiring from the Commons in 1992, she was given a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher (of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire) which entitled her to sit in the House of Lords. In 2013, she died of a stroke at the Ritz Hotel, London, at the age of 87. A polarising figure in British politics, Thatcher is nonetheless viewed favourably in historical rankings and public opinion of British prime ministers. Her tenure constituted a realignment towards neoliberal policies in Britain; the complex legacy attributed to this shift continues to be debated into the 21st century. Early life and education Family and childhood (1925–1943) Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on 13 October 1925 in Grantham, Lincolnshire. Her parents were Alfred Roberts (1892–1970), from Northamptonshire, and Beatrice Ethel Stephenson (1888–1960), from Lincolnshire. Her father's maternal grandmother, Catherine Sullivan, was born in County Kerry, Ireland. Roberts spent her childhood in Grantham, where her father owned a tobacconist's and a grocery shop. In 1938, before the Second World War, the Roberts family briefly gave sanctuary to a teenage Jewish girl who had escaped Nazi Germany. With her pen-friending elder sister Muriel, Margaret saved pocket money to help pay for the teenager's journey. Alfred was an alderman and a Methodist local preacher. He brought up his daughter as a strict Wesleyan Methodist, attending the Finkin Street Methodist Church, but Margaret was more sceptical; the future scientist told a friend that she could not believe in angels, having calculated that they needed a breastbone 6 feet (1.8 m) long to support wings. Alfred came from a Liberal family but stood (as was then customary in local government) as an Independent. He served as Mayor of Grantham from 1945 to 1946 and lost his position as alderman in 1952 after the Labour Party won its first majority on Grantham Council in 1950. Roberts attended Huntingtower Road Primary School and won a scholarship to Kesteven and Grantham Girls' School, a grammar school. Her school reports showed hard work and continual improvement; her extracurricular activities included the piano, field hockey, poetry recitals, swimming and walking. She was head girl in 1942–43, and outside school, while the Second World War was ongoing, she voluntarily worked as a fire watcher in the local ARP service. Other students thought of Roberts as the "star scientist", although mistaken advice regarding cleaning ink from parquetry almost caused chlorine gas poisoning. In her upper sixth year, Roberts was accepted for a scholarship to study chemistry at Somerville College, Oxford, a women's college, starting in 1944. After another candidate withdrew, Roberts entered Oxford in October 1943. Oxford (1943–1947) Following her arrival at Oxford, Roberts began studies under X-ray crystallographer Dorothy Hodgkin, the tutor in chemistry for Somerville College since 1934. Hodgkin considered Roberts a "good" student, and later recalled: "One could always rely on her producing a sensible, well-read essay." She opted to read for a classified honours degree, entailing an additional year of supervised research. As her thesis supervisor, Hodgkin assigned Roberts to work with Gerhard Schmidt, a researcher in Hodgkin's lab, to determine the structure of the antibiotic peptide gramicidin S. Although the research made some progress, the peptide's structure proved more complex than anticipated, and Schmidt would only determine its full structure much later; Roberts (by then Thatcher) learned this in the 1960s while visiting the Weizmann Institute, where her former research partner was then working. Roberts graduated in 1947 with a second-class honours degree in chemistry, and in 1950 also received the degree of Master of Arts (as an Oxford BA, she was entitled to the degree 21 terms after her matriculation). Although Hodgkin would later be critical of her former student's politics, they continued to correspond into the 1980s, and Roberts in her memoirs would describe her mentor as "ever-helpful", "a brilliant scientist and a gifted teacher". As prime minister, she would keep a portrait of Hodgkin at 10 Downing Street. Later in life, she was reportedly prouder of becoming the first prime minister with a science degree than becoming the first female prime minister. While prime minister she attempted to preserve Somerville as a women's college. Twice a week outside study she worked in a local forces canteen. During her time at Oxford, Roberts was noted for her isolated and serious attitude. Her first boyfriend, Tony Bray (1926–2014), recalled that she was "very thoughtful and a very good conversationalist. That's probably what interested me. She was good at general subjects". Roberts's coursework involved subjects beyond chemistry as she was already contemplating an entry into law and politics. Her enthusiasm for politics as a girl made Bray think of her as "unusual" and her parents as "slightly austere" and "very proper". Roberts became President of the Oxford University Conservative Association in 1946. She was influenced at university by political works such as Friedrich Hayek's The Road to Serfdom (1944), which condemned economic intervention by government as a precursor to an authoritarian state. Post-Oxford career (1947–1951) After graduating, Roberts secured a position as a research chemist for British Xylonite (BX Plastics) following a series of interviews arranged by Oxford; she subsequently moved to Colchester in Essex to work at the firm. Little is known about her brief time there. By her own account, she was initially enthusiastic about the position, as she had been intended to function as a personal assistant to the company's head of research and development, providing opportunities to learn about operations management: "But on my arrival it was decided that there was not enough to do in that capacity." Instead, she seems to have researched methods of attaching polyvinyl chloride (PVC) to metals. While with the firm, she joined the Association of Scientific Workers. In 1948, she applied for a job at Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) but was rejected after the personnel department assessed her as "headstrong, obstinate and dangerously self-opinionated". Jon Agar in Notes and Records argues that her understanding of modern scientific research later impacted her views as prime minister. Roberts joined the local Conservative Association and attended the party conference at Llandudno, Wales, in 1948, as a representative of the University Graduate Conservative Association. Meanwhile, she became a high-ranking affiliate of the Vermin Club, a group of grassroots Conservatives formed in response to a derogatory comment made by Aneurin Bevan. One of her Oxford friends was also a friend of the Chair of the Dartford Conservative Association in Kent, who were looking for candidates. Officials of the association were so impressed by her that they asked her to apply, even though she was not on the party's approved list; she was selected in January 1950 (aged 24) and added to the approved list post ante. At a dinner following her formal adoption as Conservative candidate for Dartford in February 1949, she met divorcé Denis Thatcher, a successful and wealthy businessman, who drove her to her Essex train. After their first meeting, she described him to Muriel as "not a very attractive creature – very reserved but quite nice". In preparation for the election, Roberts moved to Dartford, while she supported herself by working as a research chemist for J. Lyons and Co. in Hammersmith, reportedly as part of a team developing emulsifiers for ice cream. As the work was more theoretical in nature than during her prior role with BX Plastics, Roberts found it "more satisfying". While at Lyons, she worked under the supervision of Hans Jellinek, who headed the company's physical chemistry section. Jellinek assigned her to research the saponification of α-monostearin (glycerol monostearate), which has properties as an emulsifier, stabiliser and food preservative. Agar has noted the research may have been connected with the emulsification of ice cream, but only as a possibility. In September 1951, their research was published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, a recently launched publication of the Society of Chemical Industry, as "The saponification of α-monostearin in a monolayer". This would be Roberts's sole scientific publication. In 1979, following his former assistant's election as prime minister, Jellinek, by then a professor of physical chemistry at Clarkson University in the United States, said she had done "a very good job" on the project, "showing great determination". She sent Jellinek a congratulatory letter upon his retirement in 1984, and another letter shortly before his death two years later. Roberts married at Wesley's Chapel and her children were baptised there, but she and her husband began attending Church of England services and would later convert to Anglicanism. Early political career In the 1950 and 1951 general elections, Roberts was the Conservative candidate for the Labour seat of Dartford. The local party selected her as its candidate because, though not a dynamic public speaker, Roberts was well-prepared and fearless in her answers. A prospective candidate, Bill Deedes, recalled: "Once she opened her mouth, the rest of us began to look rather second-rate." She attracted media attention as the youngest and the only female candidate; in 1950, she was the youngest Conservative candidate in the country. She lost on both occasions to Norman Dodds but reduced the Labour majority by 6,000 and then a further 1,000. During the campaigns, she was supported by her parents and by her future husband Denis Thatcher, whom she married in December 1951. Denis funded his wife's studies for the bar; she qualified as a barrister in 1953 and specialised in taxation. Later that same year their twins Carol and Mark were born, delivered prematurely by Caesarean section. Member of Parliament (1959–1970) In 1954, Thatcher was defeated when she sought selection to be the Conservative Party candidate for the Orpington by-election of January 1955. She chose not to stand as a candidate in the 1955 general election, in later years, stating: "I really just felt the twins were [...] only two, I really felt that it was too soon. I couldn't do that." Afterwards, Thatcher began looking for a Conservative safe seat and was selected as the candidate for Finchley in April 1958 (narrowly beating Ian Montagu Fraser). She was elected as MP for the seat after a hard campaign in the 1959 election. Benefiting from her fortunate result in a lottery for backbenchers to propose new legislation, Thatcher's maiden speech was, unusually, in support of her private member's bill, the Public Bodies (Admission to Meetings) Act 1960, requiring local authorities to hold their council meetings in public; the bill was successful and became law. In 1961 she went against the Conservative Party's official position by voting for the restoration of birching as a judicial corporal punishment. On the frontbenches Thatcher's talent and drive caused her to be mentioned as a future prime minister in her early 20s although she herself was more pessimistic, stating as late as 1970: "There will not be a woman prime minister in my lifetime – the male population is too prejudiced." In October 1961 she was promoted to the frontbench as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry for Pensions by Harold Macmillan. Thatcher was the youngest woman in history to receive such a post, and among the first MPs elected in 1959 to be promoted. After the Conservatives lost the 1964 election, she became spokeswoman on housing and land. In that position, she advocated her party's policy of giving tenants the right to buy their council houses. She moved to the Shadow Treasury team in 1966 and, as Treasury spokeswoman, opposed Labour's mandatory price and income controls, arguing they would unintentionally produce effects that would distort the economy. Jim Prior suggested Thatcher as a Shadow Cabinet member after the Conservatives' 1966 defeat, but party leader Edward Heath and Chief Whip William Whitelaw eventually chose Mervyn Pike as the Conservative shadow cabinet's sole woman member. At the 1966 Conservative Party conference, Thatcher criticised the high-tax policies of the Labour government as being steps "not only towards Socialism, but towards Communism", arguing that lower taxes served as an incentive to hard work. Thatcher was one of the few Conservative MPs to support Leo Abse's bill to decriminalise male homosexuality. She voted in favour of David Steel's bill to legalise abortion, as well as a ban on hare coursing. She supported the retention of capital punishment and voted against the relaxation of divorce laws. In the Shadow Cabinet In 1967, the United States Embassy chose Thatcher to take part in the International Visitor Leadership Program (then called the Foreign Leader Program), a professional exchange programme that allowed her to spend about six weeks visiting various US cities and political figures as well as institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. Although she was not yet a Shadow Cabinet member, the embassy reportedly described her to the State Department as a possible future prime minister. The description helped Thatcher meet with prominent people during a busy itinerary focused on economic issues, including Paul Samuelson, Walt Rostow, Pierre-Paul Schweitzer and Nelson Rockefeller. Following the visit, Heath appointed Thatcher to the Shadow Cabinet as fuel and power spokeswoman. Before the 1970 general election, she was promoted to shadow transport spokeswoman and later to education. In 1968, Enoch Powell delivered his "Rivers of Blood" speech in which he strongly criticised Commonwealth immigration to the United Kingdom and the then-proposed Race Relations Bill. When Heath telephoned Thatcher to inform her that he would sack Powell from the Shadow Cabinet, she recalled that she "really thought that it was better to let things cool down for the present rather than heighten the crisis". She believed that his main points about Commonwealth immigration were correct and that the selected quotations from his speech had been taken out of context. In a 1991 interview for Today, Thatcher stated that she thought Powell had "made a valid argument, if in sometimes regrettable terms". Around this time, she gave her first Commons speech as a shadow transport minister and highlighted the need for investment in British Rail. She argued: "[I]f we build bigger and better roads, they would soon be saturated with more vehicles and we would be no nearer solving the problem." Thatcher made her first visit to the Soviet Union in the summer of 1969 as the Opposition transport spokeswoman, and in October, delivered a speech celebrating her ten years in Parliament. In early 1970, she told The Finchley Press that she would like to see a "reversal of the permissive society". Education Secretary (1970–1974) The Conservative Party, led by Edward Heath, won the 1970 general election, and Thatcher was appointed to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Education and Science. Thatcher caused controversy when, after only a few days in office, she withdrew Labour's Circular 10/65, which attempted to force comprehensivisation, without going through a consultation process. She was highly criticised for the speed at which she carried this out. Consequently, she drafted her own new policy (Circular 10/70), which ensured that local authorities were not forced to go comprehensive. Her new policy was not meant to stop the development of new comprehensives; she said: "We shall [...] expect plans to be based on educational considerations rather than on the comprehensive principle." Thatcher supported Lord Rothschild's 1971 proposal for market forces to affect government funding of research. Although many scientists opposed the proposal, her research background probably made her sceptical of their claim that outsiders should not interfere with funding. The department evaluated proposals for more local education authorities to close grammar schools and to adopt comprehensive secondary education. Although Thatcher was committed to a tiered secondary modern-grammar school system of education and attempted to preserve grammar schools, during her tenure as education secretary, she turned down only 326 of 3,612 proposals (roughly 9 per cent) for schools to become comprehensives; the proportion of pupils attending comprehensive schools consequently rose from 32 per cent to 62 per cent. Nevertheless, she managed to save 94 grammar schools. During her first months in office, she attracted public attention due to the government's attempts to cut spending. She gave priority to academic needs in schools, while administering public expenditure cuts on the state education system, resulting in the abolition of free milk for schoolchildren aged seven to eleven. She held that few children would suffer if schools were charged for milk but agreed to provide younger children with 0.3 imperial pints (0.17 L) daily for nutritional purposes. She also argued that she was simply carrying on with what the Labour government had started since they had stopped giving free milk to secondary schools. Milk would still be provided to those children that required it on medical grounds, and schools could still sell milk. The aftermath of the milk row hardened her determination; she told the editor-proprietor Harold Creighton of The Spectator: "Don't underestimate me, I saw how they broke Keith [Joseph], but they won't break me." Cabinet papers later revealed that she opposed the policy but had been forced into it by the Treasury. Her decision provoked a storm of protest from Labour and the press, leading to her being notoriously nicknamed "Margaret Thatcher, Milk Snatcher". She reportedly considered leaving politics in the aftermath and later wrote in her autobiography: "I learned a valuable lesson. I had incurred the maximum of political odium for the minimum of political benefit." Leader of the Opposition (1975–1979) The Heath government continued to experience difficulties with oil embargoes and union demands for wage increases in 1973, subsequently losing the February 1974 general election. Labour formed a minority government and went on to win a narrow majority in the October 1974 general election. Heath's leadership of the Conservative Party looked increasingly in doubt. Thatcher was not initially seen as the obvious replacement, but she eventually became the main challenger, promising a fresh start. Her main support came from the parliamentary 1922 Committee and The Spectator, but Thatcher's time in office gave her the reputation of a pragmatist rather than that of an ideologue. She defeated Heath on the first ballot, and he resigned from the leadership. In the second ballot she defeated Whitelaw, Heath's preferred successor. Thatcher's election had a polarising effect on the party; her support was stronger among MPs on the right, and also among those from southern England, and those who had not attended public schools or Oxbridge. Thatcher became Conservative Party leader and Leader of the Opposition on 11 February 1975; she appointed Whitelaw as her deputy. Heath was never reconciled to Thatcher's leadership of the party. Television critic Clive James, writing in The Observer prior to her election as Conservative Party leader, compared her voice of 1973 to "a cat sliding down a blackboard". Thatcher had already begun to work on her presentation on the advice of Gordon Reece, a former television producer. By chance, Reece met the actor Laurence Olivier, who arranged lessons with the National Theatre's voice coach. Thatcher began attending lunches regularly at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA), a think tank founded by Hayekian poultry magnate Antony Fisher; she had been visiting the IEA and reading its publications since the early 1960s. There she was influenced by the ideas of Ralph Harris and Arthur Seldon and became the face of the ideological movement opposing the British welfare state. Keynesian economics, they believed, was weakening Britain. The institute's pamphlets proposed less government, lower taxes, and more freedom for business and consumers. Thatcher intended to promote neoliberal economic ideas at home and abroad. Despite setting the direction of her foreign policy for a Conservative government, Thatcher was distressed by her repeated failure to shine in the House of Commons. Consequently, Thatcher decided that as "her voice was carrying little weight at home", she would "be heard in the wider world". Thatcher undertook visits across the Atlantic, establishing an international profile and promoting her economic and foreign policies. She toured the United States in 1975 and met President Gerald Ford, visiting again in 1977, when she met President Jimmy Carter. Among other foreign trips, she met Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi during a visit to Iran in 1978. Thatcher chose to travel without being accompanied by her shadow foreign secretary, Reginald Maudling, in an attempt to make a bolder personal impact. In domestic affairs, Thatcher opposed Scottish devolution (home rule) and the creation of a Scottish Assembly. She instructed Conservative MPs to vote against the Scotland and Wales Bill in December 1976, which was successfully defeated, and then when new Bills were proposed, she supported amending the legislation to allow the English to vote in the 1979 referendum on Scottish devolution. Britain's economy during the 1970s was so weak that then Foreign Secretary James Callaghan warned his fellow Labour Cabinet members in 1974 of the possibility of "a breakdown of democracy", telling them: "If I were a young man, I would emigrate." In mid-1978, the economy began to recover, and opinion polls showed Labour in the lead, with a general election being expected later that year and a Labour win a serious possibility. Now prime minister, Callaghan surprised many by announcing on 7 September that there would be no general election that year and that he would wait until 1979 before going to the polls. Thatcher reacted to this by branding the Labour government "chickens", and Liberal Party leader David Steel joined in, criticising Labour for "running scared". The Labour government then faced fresh public unease about the direction of the country and a damaging series of strikes during the winter of 1978–79, dubbed the "Winter of Discontent". The Conservatives attacked the Labour government's unemployment record, using advertising with the slogan "Labour Isn't Working". A general election was called after the Callaghan ministry lost a motion of no confidence in early 1979. The Conservatives won a 44-seat majority in the House of Commons, and Thatcher became the first female British prime minister. "Iron Lady" I stand before you tonight in my Red Star chiffon evening gown, my face softly made up and my fair hair gently waved, the Iron Lady of the Western world. In 1976, Thatcher gave her "Britain Awake" foreign policy speech which lambasted the Soviet Union, saying it was "bent on world dominance". The Soviet Army journal Red Star reported her stance in a piece headlined "Iron Lady Raises Fears", alluding to her remarks on the Iron Curtain. The Sunday Times covered the Red Star article the next day, and Thatcher embraced the epithet a week later; in a speech to Finchley Conservatives she likened it to the Duke of Wellington's nickname "Iron Duke". The "Iron" metaphor followed her throughout ever since, and would become a generic sobriquet for other strong-willed female politicians. Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1979–1990) Thatcher became prime minister on 4 May 1979. Arriving at Downing Street she said, paraphrasing the Prayer of Saint Francis: In office throughout the 1980s, Thatcher was frequently referred to as the most powerful woman in the world. Domestic affairs Minorities Thatcher was the Opposition leader and prime minister at a time of increased racial tension in Britain. During the 1977 local elections, The Economist commented: "The Tory tide swamped the smaller parties – specifically the National Front [NF], which suffered a clear decline from last year." Her standing in the polls had risen by 11% after a 1978 interview for World in Action in which she said "the British character has done so much for democracy, for law and done so much throughout the world that if there is any fear that it might be swamped people are going to react and be rather hostile to those coming in", as well as "in many ways [minorities] add to the richness and variety of this country. The moment the minority threatens to become a big one, people get frightened". In the 1979 general election, the Conservatives had attracted votes from the NF, whose support almost collapsed. In a July 1979 meeting with Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington and Home Secretary William Whitelaw, Thatcher objected to the number of Asian immigrants, in the context of limiting the total of Vietnamese boat people allowed to settle in the UK to fewer than 10,000 over two years. The Queen As prime minister, Thatcher met weekly with Queen Elizabeth II to discuss government business, and their relationship came under scrutiny. Campbell (2011a, p. 464) states: One question that continued to fascinate the public about the phenomenon of a woman Prime Minister was how she got on with the Queen. The answer is that their relations were punctiliously correct, but there was little love lost on either side. As two women of very similar age – Mrs Thatcher was six months older – occupying parallel positions at the top of the social pyramid, one the head of government, the other head of state, they were bound to be in some sense rivals. Mrs Thatcher's attitude to the Queen was ambivalent. On the one hand she had an almost mystical reverence for the institution of the monarchy [...] Yet at the same time she was trying to modernise the country and sweep away many of the values and practices which the monarchy perpetuated. Michael Shea, the Queen's press secretary, in 1986 leaked stories of a deep rift to The Sunday Times. He said that she felt Thatcher's policies were "uncaring, confrontational and socially divisive". Thatcher later wrote: "I always found the Queen's attitude towards the work of the Government absolutely correct [...] stories of clashes between 'two powerful women' were just too good not to make up." Economy and taxation Thatcher's economic policy was influenced by monetarist thinking and economists such as Milton Friedman and Alan Walters. Together with her first chancellor, Geoffrey Howe, she lowered direct taxes on income and increased indirect taxes. She increased interest rates to slow the growth of the money supply, and thereby lower inflation; introduced cash limits on public spending and reduced expenditure on social services such as education and housing. Cuts to higher education led to Thatcher being the first Oxonian post-war prime minister without an honorary doctorate from Oxford University after a 738–319 vote of the governing assembly and a student petition. Some Heathite Conservatives in the Cabinet, the so-called "wets", expressed doubt over Thatcher's policies. The 1981 England riots resulted in the British media discussing the need for a policy U-turn. At the 1980 Conservative Party conference, Thatcher addressed the issue directly with a speech written by the playwright Ronald Millar, that notably included the following lines:To those waiting with bated breath for that favourite media catchphrase, the "U" turn, I have only one thing to say. "You turn if you want to. The lady's not for turning." Thatcher's job approval rating fell to 23% by December 1980, lower than recorded for any previous prime minister. As the recession of the early 1980s deepened, she increased taxes, despite concerns expressed in a March 1981 statement signed by 364 leading economists, which argued there was "no basis in economic theory [...] for the Government's belief that by deflating demand they will bring inflation permanently under control", adding that "present policies will deepen the depression, erode the industrial base of our economy and threaten its social and political stability". By 1982, the UK began to experience signs of economic recovery; inflation was down to 8.6% from a high of 18%, but unemployment was over 3 million for the first time since the 1930s. By 1983, overall economic growth was stronger, and inflation and mortgage rates had fallen to their lowest levels in 13 years, although manufacturing employment as a share of total employment fell to just over 30%, with total unemployment remaining high, peaking at 3.3 million in 1984. During the 1982 Conservative Party Conference, Thatcher said: "We have done more to roll back the frontiers of socialism than any previous Conservative Government." She said at the Party Conference the following year that the British people had completely rejected state socialism and understood "the state has no source of money other than money which people earn themselves [...] There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers' money." By 1987, unemployment was falling, the economy was stable and strong, and inflation was low. Opinion polls showed a comfortable Conservative lead, and local council election results had also been successful, prompting Thatcher to call a general election for 11 June that year, despite the deadline for an election still being 12 months away. The election saw Thatcher re-elected for a third successive term. Thatcher had been firmly opposed to British membership of the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM, a precursor to European Economic and Monetary Union), believing that it would constrain the British economy, despite the urging of both Chancellor of the Exchequer Nigel Lawson and Foreign Secretary Geoffrey Howe; in October 1990 she was persuaded by John Major, Lawson's successor as chancellor, to join the ERM at what proved to be too high a rate. Thatcher reformed local government taxes by replacing domestic rates (a tax based on the nominal rental value of a home) with the Community Charge (or poll tax) in which the same amount was charged to each adult resident. The new tax was introduced in Scotland in 1989 and in England and Wales the following year, and proved to be among the most unpopular policies of her premiership. Public disquiet culminated in a 70,000 to 200,000-strong demonstration in London in March 1990; the demonstration around Trafalgar Square deteriorated into riots, leaving 113 people injured and 340 under arrest. The Community Charge was abolished in 1991 by her successor, John Major. It has since transpired that Thatcher herself had failed to register for the tax and was threatened with financial penalties if she did not return her form. Industrial relations Thatcher believed that the trade unions were harmful to both ordinary trade unionists and the public. She was committed to reducing the power of the unions, whose leadership she accused of undermining parliamentary democracy and economic performance through strike action. Several unions launched strikes in response to legislation introduced to limit their power, but resistance eventually collapsed. Only 39% of union members voted Labour in the 1983 general election. According to the BBC's political correspondent in 2004, Thatcher "managed to destroy the power of the trade unions for almost a generation". The miners' strike of 1984–85 was the biggest and most devastating confrontation between the unions and the Thatcher government. In March 1984, the National Coal Board (NCB) proposed to close 20 of the 174 state-owned mines and cut 20,000 jobs out of 187,000. Two-thirds of the country's miners, led by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) under Arthur Scargill, went on strike in protest. However, Scargill refused to hold a ballot on the strike, having previously lost three ballots on a national strike (in January and October 1982, and March 1983). This led to the strike being declared illegal by the High Court of Justice. Thatcher refused to meet the union's demands and compared the miners' dispute to the Falklands War, declaring in a speech in 1984: "We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty." Thatcher's opponents characterised her words as indicating contempt for the working class and have been employed in criticism of her ever since. After a year out on strike in March 1985, the NUM leadership conceded without a deal. The cost to the economy was estimated to be at least £1.5 billion, and the strike was blamed for much of the pound's fall against the US dollar. Thatcher reflected on the end of the strike in her statement that "if anyone has won", it was "the miners who stayed at work" and all those "that have kept Britain going". The government closed 25 unprofitable coal mines in 1985, and by 1992 a total of 97 mines had been closed; those that remained were privatised in 1994. The resulting closure of 150 coal mines, some of which were not losing money, resulted in the loss of tens of thousands of jobs and had the effect of devastating entire communities. Strikes had helped bring down Heath's government, and Thatcher was determined to succeed where he had failed. Her strategy of preparing fuel stocks, appointing hardliner Ian MacGregor as NCB leader and ensuring that police were adequately trained and equipped with riot gear contributed to her triumph over the striking miners. The number of stoppages across the UK peaked at 4,583 in 1979, when more than 29 million working days had been lost. In 1984, the year of the miners' strike, there were 1,221, resulting in the loss of more than 27 million working days. Stoppages then fell steadily throughout the rest of Thatcher's premiership; in 1990, there were 630 and fewer than 2 million working days lost, and they continued to fall thereafter. Thatcher's tenure also witnessed a sharp decline in trade union density, with the percentage of workers belonging to a trade union falling from 57.3% in 1979 to 49.5% in 1985. In 1979 up until Thatcher's final year in office, trade union membership also fell, from 13.5 million in 1979 to fewer than 10 million. Privatisation The policy of privatisation has been called "a crucial ingredient of Thatcherism". After the 1983 election, the sale of state utilities accelerated; more than £29 billion was raised from the sale of nationalised industries, and another £18 billion from the sale of council houses. The process of privatisation, especially the preparation of nationalised industries for privatisation, was associated with marked improvements in performance, particularly in terms of labour productivity. Some of the privatised industries, including gas, water, and electricity, were natural monopolies for which privatisation involved little increase in competition. The privatised industries that demonstrated improvement sometimes did so while still under state ownership. British Steel Corporation had made great gains in profitability while still a nationalised industry under the government-appointed MacGregor chairmanship, which faced down trade-union opposition to close plants and halve the workforce. Regulation was also significantly expanded to compensate for the loss of direct government control, with the foundation of regulatory bodies such as Oftel (1984), Ofgas (1986), and the National Rivers Authority (1989). There was no clear pattern to the degree of competition, regulation, and performance among the privatised industries. In most cases, privatisation benefited consumers in terms of lower prices and improved efficiency but results overall have been mixed. Not all privatised companies have had successful share price trajectories in the longer term. A 2010 review by the IEA states: "[I]t does seem to be the case that once competition and/or effective regulation was introduced, performance improved markedly [...] But I hasten to emphasise again that the literature is not unanimous." Thatcher always resisted privatising British Rail and was said to have told Transport Secretary Nicholas Ridley: "Railway privatisation will be the Waterloo of this government. Please never mention the railways to me again." Shortly before her resignation in 1990, she accepted the arguments for privatisation, which her successor John Major implemented in 1994. The privatisation of public assets was combined with financial deregulation to fuel economic growth. Chancellor Geoffrey Howe abolished the UK's exchange controls in 1979, which allowed more capital to be invested in foreign markets, and the Big Bang of 1986 removed many restrictions on the London Stock Exchange. Northern Ireland In 1980 and 1981, Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) and Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) prisoners in Northern Ireland's Maze Prison carried out hunger strikes to regain the status of political prisoners that had been removed in 1976 by the preceding Labour government. Bobby Sands began the 1981 strike, saying that he would fast until death unless prison inmates won concessions over their living conditions. Thatcher refused to countenance a return to political status for the prisoners, having declared "Crime is crime is crime; it is not political". Nevertheless, the British government privately contacted republican leaders in a bid to bring the hunger strikes to an end. After the deaths of Sands and nine others, the strike ended. Some rights were restored to paramilitary prisoners, but not official recognition of political status. Violence in Northern Ireland escalated significantly during the hunger strikes. Thatcher narrowly escaped injury in an IRA assassination attempt at a Brighton hotel early in the morning on 12 October 1984. Five people were killed, including the wife of minister John Wakeham. Thatcher was staying at the hotel to prepare for the Conservative Party conference, which she insisted should open as scheduled the following day. She delivered her speech as planned, though rewritten from her original draft, in a move that was supported across the political spectrum and enhanced her popularity with the public. On 6 November 1981, Thatcher and Taoiseach (Irish prime minister) Garret FitzGerald had established the Anglo-Irish Inter-Governmental Council, a forum for meetings between the two governments. On 15 November 1985, Thatcher and FitzGerald signed the Hillsborough Anglo-Irish Agreement, which marked the first time a British government had given the Republic of Ireland an advisory role in the governance of Northern Ireland. In protest, the Ulster Says No movement led by Ian Paisley attracted 100,000 to a rally in Belfast, Ian Gow, later assassinated by the PIRA, resigned as Minister of State in HM Treasury, and all 15 Unionist MPs resigned their parliamentary seats; only one was not returned in the subsequent by-elections on 23 January 1986. Environment Thatcher supported an active climate protection policy; she was instrumental in the passing of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, the founding of the Hadley Centre for Climate Research and Prediction, the establishment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and the ratification of the Montreal Protocol on preserving the ozone. Thatcher helped to put climate change, acid rain and general pollution in the British mainstream in the late 1980s, calling for a global treaty on climate change in 1989. Her speeches included one to the Royal Society in 1988, followed by another to the UN General Assembly in 1989. Foreign affairs Thatcher appointed Lord Carrington, an ennobled member of the party and former Secretary of State for Defence, to run the Foreign Office in 1979. Although considered a "wet", he avoided domestic affairs and got along well with Thatcher. One issue was what to do with Rhodesia, where the white minority had determined to rule the prosperous, black-majority breakaway colony in the face of overwhelming international criticism. With the 1975 Portuguese collapse in the continent, South Africa (which had been Rhodesia's chief supporter) realised that their ally was a liability; black rule was inevitable, and the Thatcher government brokered a peaceful solution to end the Rhodesian Bush War in December 1979 via the Lancaster House Agreement. The conference at Lancaster House was attended by Rhodesian prime minister Ian Smith, as well as by the key black leaders: Muzorewa, Mugabe, Nkomo and Tongogara. The result was the new Zimbabwean nation under black rule in 1980. Cold War Thatcher's first foreign-policy crisis came with the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. She condemned the invasion, said it showed the bankruptcy of a détente policy and helped convince some British athletes to boycott the 1980 Moscow Olympics. She gave weak support to US president Jimmy Carter who tried to punish the USSR with economic sanctions. Britain's economic situation was precarious, and most of NATO was reluctant to cut trade ties. Thatcher nevertheless gave the go-ahead for Whitehall to approve MI6 (along with the SAS) to undertake "disruptive action" in Afghanistan. As well as working with the CIA in Operation Cyclone, they also supplied weapons, training and intelligence to the mujaheddin. The Financial Times reported in 2011 that her government had secretly supplied Iraq under Saddam Hussein with "non-lethal" military equipment since 1981. Having withdrawn formal recognition from the Pol Pot regime in 1979, the Thatcher government backed the Khmer Rouge keeping their UN seat after they were ousted from power in Cambodia by the Cambodian–Vietnamese War. Although Thatcher denied it at the time, it was revealed in 1991 that, while not directly training any Khmer Rouge, from 1983 the Special Air Service (SAS) was sent to secretly train "the armed forces of the Cambodian non-communist resistance" that remained loyal to Prince Norodom Sihanouk and his former prime minister Son Sann in the fight against the Vietnamese-backed puppet regime. Thatcher was one of the first Western leaders to respond warmly to reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Following Reagan–Gorbachev summit meetings and reforms enacted by Gorbachev in the USSR, she declared in November 1988 that "[w]e're not in a Cold War now" but rather in a "new relationship much wider than the Cold War ever was". She went on a state visit to the Soviet Union in 1984 and met with Gorbachev and Council of Ministers chairman Nikolai Ryzhkov. Ties with the US Despite opposite personalities, Thatcher bonded quickly with US president Ronald Reagan. She gave strong support to the Reagan administration's Cold War policies based on their shared distrust of communism. A sharp disagreement came in 1983 when Reagan did not consult with her on the invasion of Grenada. During her first year as prime minister, she supported NATO's decision to deploy US nuclear cruise and Pershing II missiles in Western Europe, permitting the US to station more than 160 cruise missiles at RAF Greenham Common, starting in November 1983 and triggering mass protests by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. She bought the Trident nuclear missile submarine system from the US to replace Polaris, tripling the UK's nuclear forces at an eventual cost of more than £12 billion (at 1996–97 prices). Thatcher's preference for defence ties with the US was demonstrated in the Westland affair of 1985–86 when she acted with colleagues to allow the struggling helicopter manufacturer Westland to refuse a takeover offer from the Italian firm Agusta in favour of the management's preferred option, a link with Sikorsky Aircraft. Defence Secretary Michael Heseltine, who had supported the Agusta deal, resigned from the government in protest. In April 1986 she permitted US F-111s to use Royal Air Force bases for the bombing of Libya in retaliation for the alleged Libyan bombing of a Berlin discothèque, citing the right of self-defence under Article 51 of the UN Charter. Polls suggested that fewer than one in three British citizens approved of her decision. Thatcher was in the US on a state visit when Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990. During her talks with President George H. W. Bush, who succeeded Reagan in 1989, she recommended intervention, and put pressure on Bush to deploy troops in the Middle East to drive the Iraqi Army out of Kuwait. Bush was apprehensive about the plan, prompting Thatcher to remark to him during a telephone conversation: "This was no time to go wobbly!" Thatcher's government supplied military forces to the international coalition in the build-up to the Gulf War, but she had resigned by the time hostilities began on 17 January 1991. She applauded the coalition victory on the backbenches, while warning that "the victories of peace will take longer than the battles of war". It was disclosed in 2017 that Thatcher had suggested threatening Saddam with chemical weapons after the invasion of Kuwait. Crisis in the South Atlantic On 2 April 1982, the ruling military junta in Argentina ordered the invasion of the British Overseas Territories of the Falkland Islands and South Georgia, triggering the Falklands War. The subsequent crisis was "a defining moment of [Thatcher's] premiership". At the suggestion of Harold Macmillan and Robert Armstrong, she set up and chaired a small War Cabinet (formally called ODSA, Overseas and Defence committee, South Atlantic) to oversee the conduct of the war, which by 5–6 April had authorised and dispatched a naval task force to retake the islands. Argentina surrendered on 14 June and Operation Corporate was hailed a success, notwithstanding the deaths of 255 British servicemen and three Falkland Islanders. Argentine fatalities totalled 649, half of them after the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Conqueror torpedoed and sank the cruiser ARA General Belgrano on 2 May. Thatcher was criticised for the neglect of the Falklands' defence that led to the war, and especially by Labour MP Tam Dalyell in Parliament for the decision to torpedo the General Belgrano, but overall, she was considered a competent and committed war leader. The "Falklands factor", an economic recovery beginning early in 1982, and a bitterly divided opposition all contributed to Thatcher's second election victory in 1983. Thatcher frequently referred after the war to the "Falklands spirit"; Hastings & Jenkins (1983, p. 329) suggests that this reflected her preference for the streamlined decision-making of her War Cabinet over the painstaking deal-making of peacetime cabinet government. Negotiating Hong Kong In September 1982, she visited China to discuss with Deng Xiaoping the sovereignty of Hong Kong after 1997. China was the first communist state Thatcher had visited as prime minister, and she was the first British prime minister to visit China. Throughout their meeting, she sought the PRC's agreement to a continued British presence in the territory. Deng insisted that the PRC's sovereignty over Hong Kong was non-negotiable but stated his willingness to settle the sovereignty issue with the British government through formal negotiations. Both governments promised to maintain Hong Kong's stability and prosperity. After the two-year negotiations, Thatcher conceded to the PRC government and signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration in Beijing in 1984, agreeing to hand over Hong Kong's sovereignty in 1997. Apartheid in South Africa Despite saying that she was in favour of "peaceful negotiations" to end apartheid, Thatcher opposed sanctions imposed on South Africa by the Commonwealth and the European Economic Community (EEC). She attempted to preserve trade with South Africa while persuading its government to abandon apartheid. This included "[c]asting herself as President Botha's candid friend" and inviting him to visit the UK in 1984, despite the "inevitable demonstrations" against his government. Alan Merrydew of the Canadian broadcaster BCTV News asked Thatcher what her response was "to a reported ANC statement that they will target British firms in South Africa?" to which she later replied: "[...] when the ANC says that they will target British companies [...] This shows what a typical terrorist organisation it is. I fought terrorism all my life and if more people fought it, and we were all more successful, we should not have it and I hope that everyone in this hall will think it is right to go on fighting terrorism." During his visit to Britain five months after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela praised Thatcher: "She is an enemy of apartheid [...] We have much to thank her for." Europe Thatcher and her party supported British membership of the EEC in the 1975 national referendum and the Single European Act of 1986, and obtained the UK rebate on contributions, but she believed that the role of the organisation should be limited to ensuring free trade and effective competition, and feared that the EEC approach was at odds with her views on smaller government and deregulation. Believing that the single market would result in political integration, Thatcher's opposition to further European integration became more pronounced during her premiership and particularly after her third government in 1987. In her Bruges speech in 1988, Thatcher outlined her opposition to proposals from the EEC, forerunner of the European Union, for a federal structure and increased centralisation of decision-making:We have not successfully rolled back the frontiers of the state in Britain, only to see them re-imposed at a European level, with a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels. Sharing the concerns of French president François Mitterrand, Thatcher was initially opposed to German reunification, telling Gorbachev that it "would lead to a change to postwar borders, and we cannot allow that because such a development would undermine the stability of the whole international situation and could endanger our security". She expressed concern that a united Germany would align itself more closely with the Soviet Union and move away from NATO. In March 1990, Thatcher held a Chequers seminar on the subject of German reunification that was attended by members of her cabinet and historians such as Norman Stone, George Urban, Timothy Garton Ash and Gordon A. Craig. During the seminar, Thatcher described "what Urban called 'saloon bar clichés' about the German character, including 'angst, aggressiveness, assertiveness, bullying, egotism, inferiority complex [and] sentimentality'". Those present were shocked to hear Thatcher's utterances and "appalled" at how she was "apparently unaware" about the post-war German collective guilt and Germans' attempts to work through their past. The words of the meeting were leaked by her foreign-policy advisor Charles Powell and, subsequently, her comments were met with fierce backlash and controversy. During the same month, German chancellor Helmut Kohl reassured Thatcher that he would keep her "informed of all his intentions about unification", and that he was prepared to disclose "matters which even his cabinet would not know". Challenges to leadership and resignation During her premiership, Thatcher had the second-lowest average approval rating (40%) of any post-war prime minister. Since Nigel Lawson's resignation as chancellor in October 1989, polls consistently showed that she was less popular than her party. A self-described conviction politician, Thatcher always insisted that she did not care about her poll ratings and pointed instead to her unbeaten election record. In December 1989, Thatcher was challenged for the leadership of the Conservative Party by the little-known backbench MP Sir Anthony Meyer. Of the 374 Conservative MPs eligible to vote, 314 voted for Thatcher and 33 for Meyer. Her supporters in the party viewed the result as a success and rejected suggestions that there was discontent within the party. Opinion polls in September 1990 reported that Labour had established a 14% lead over the Conservatives, and by November, the Conservatives had been trailing Labour for 18 months. These ratings, together with Thatcher's combative personality and tendency to override collegiate opinion, contributed to further discontent within her party. In July 1989, Thatcher removed Geoffrey Howe as foreign secretary after he and Lawson had forced her to agree to a plan for Britain to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM). Britain joined the ERM in October 1990. On 1 November 1990, Howe, by then the last remaining member of Thatcher's original 1979 cabinet, resigned as deputy prime minister, ostensibly over her open hostility to moves towards European monetary union. In his resignation speech on 13 November, which was instrumental in Thatcher's downfall, Howe attacked Thatcher's openly dismissive attitude to the government's proposal for a new European currency competing against existing currencies (a "hard ECU"): How on earth are the Chancellor and the Governor of the Bank of England, commending the hard ECU as they strive to, to be taken as serious participants in the debate against that kind of background noise? I believe that both the Chancellor and the Governor are cricketing enthusiasts, so I hope that there is no monopoly of cricketing metaphors. It is rather like sending your opening batsmen to the crease only for them to find, the moment the first balls are bowled, that their bats have been broken before the game by the team captain. On 14 November, Michael Heseltine mounted a challenge for the leadership of the Conservative Party. Opinion polls had indicated that he would give the Conservatives a national lead over Labour. Although Thatcher led on the first ballot with the votes of 204 Conservative MPs (54.8%) to 152 votes (40.9%) for Heseltine, with 16 abstentions, she was four votes short of the required 15% majority. A second ballot was therefore necessary. Thatcher initially declared her intention to "fight on and fight to win" the second ballot, but consultation with her cabinet persuaded her to withdraw. After holding an audience with the Queen, calling other world leaders, and making one final Commons speech, on 28 November she left Downing Street in tears. She reportedly regarded her ousting as a betrayal. Her resignation was a shock to many outside Britain, with such foreign observers as Henry Kissinger and Gorbachev expressing private consternation. Chancellor John Major replaced Thatcher as head of government and party leader, whose lead over Heseltine in the second ballot was sufficient for Heseltine to drop out. Major oversaw an upturn in Conservative support in the 17 months leading to the 1992 general election and led the party to a fourth successive victory on 9 April 1992. Thatcher had lobbied for Major in the leadership contest against Heseltine, but her support for him waned in later years. Later life Return to backbenches (1990–1992) After leaving the premiership, Thatcher returned to the backbenches as a constituency parliamentarian. Her domestic approval rating recovered after her resignation, though public opinion remained divided on whether her government had been good for the country. Aged 66, she retired from the House of Commons at the 1992 general election, saying that leaving the Commons would allow her more freedom to speak her mind. Post-Commons (1992–2003) On leaving the Commons, Thatcher became the first former British prime minister to set up a foundation; the British wing of the Margaret Thatcher Foundation was dissolved in 2005 due to financial difficulties. She wrote two volumes of memoirs, The Downing Street Years (1993) and The Path to Power (1995). In 1991, she and her husband Denis moved to a house in Chester Square, a residential garden square in central London's Belgravia district. Thatcher was hired by the tobacco company Philip Morris as a "geopolitical consultant" in July 1992 for $250,000 per year and an annual contribution of $250,000 to her foundation. Thatcher earned $50,000 for each speech she delivered. Thatcher became an advocate of Croatian and Slovenian independence. Commenting on the Yugoslav Wars, in a 1991 interview for Croatian Radiotelevision, she was critical of Western governments for not recognising the breakaway republics of Croatia and Slovenia as independent and for not supplying them with arms after the Serbian-led Yugoslav Army attacked. In August 1992, she called for NATO to stop the Serbian assault on Goražde and Sarajevo to end ethnic cleansing during the Bosnian War, comparing the situation in Bosnia–Herzegovina to "the barbarities of Hitler's and Stalin's". She made a series of speeches in the Lords criticising the Maastricht Treaty, describing it as "a treaty too far" and stated: "I could never have signed this treaty." She cited A. V. Dicey when arguing that, as all three main parties were in favour of the treaty, the people should have their say in a referendum. Thatcher served as honorary chancellor of the College of William & Mary in Virginia from 1993 to 2000, while also serving as chancellor of the private University of Buckingham from 1992 to 1998, a university she had formally opened in 1976 as the former education secretary. After Tony Blair's election as Labour Party leader in 1994, Thatcher praised Blair as "probably the most formidable Labour leader since Hugh Gaitskell", adding: "I see a lot of socialism behind their front bench, but not in Mr Blair. I think he genuinely has moved." Blair responded in kind: "She was a thoroughly determined person, and that is an admirable quality." In 1998, Thatcher called for the release of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet when Spain had him arrested and sought to try him for human rights violations. She cited the help he gave Britain during the Falklands War. In 1999, she visited him while he was under house arrest near London. Pinochet was released in March 2000 on medical grounds by Home Secretary Jack Straw. At the 2001 general election, Thatcher supported the Conservative campaign, as she had done in 1992 and 1997, and in the Conservative leadership election following its defeat, she endorsed Iain Duncan Smith over Kenneth Clarke. In 2002 she encouraged George W. Bush to aggressively tackle the "unfinished business" of Iraq under Saddam Hussein, and praised Blair for his "strong, bold leadership" in standing with Bush in the Iraq War. She broached the same subject in her Statecraft: Strategies for a Changing World, which was published in April 2002 and dedicated to Ronald Reagan, writing that there would be no peace in the Middle East until Saddam was toppled. Her book also said that Israel must trade land for peace and that the European Union (EU) was a "fundamentally unreformable", "classic utopian project, a monument to the vanity of intellectuals, a programme whose inevitable destiny is failure". She argued that Britain should renegotiate its terms of membership or else leave the EU and join the North American Free Trade Area. Following several small strokes, her doctors advised her not to engage in further public speaking. In March 2002 she announced that, on doctors' advice, she would cancel all planned speaking engagements and accept no more. On 26 June 2003, Thatcher's husband, Sir Denis, died aged 88; his body was cremated on 3 July at Mortlake Crematorium in London. Final years (2003–2013) On 11 June 2004, Thatcher (against doctors' orders) attended the state funeral service for Ronald Reagan. She delivered her eulogy via videotape; in view of her health, the message had been pre-recorded several months earlier. Thatcher flew to California with the Reagan entourage, and attended the memorial service and interment ceremony for the president at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library. In 2005, Thatcher criticised how Blair had decided to invade Iraq two years previously. Although she still supported the intervention to topple Saddam Hussein, she said that (as a scientist) she would always look for "facts, evidence and proof" before committing the armed forces. She celebrated her 80th birthday on 13 October at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Hyde Park, London; guests included the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Alexandra and Tony Blair. Geoffrey Howe, Baron Howe of Aberavon, was also in attendance and said of his former leader: "Her real triumph was to have transformed not just one party but two, so that when Labour did eventually return, the great bulk of Thatcherism was accepted as irreversible." In 2006, Thatcher attended the official Washington memorial service to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US. She was a guest of Vice President Dick Cheney and met Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during her visit. In February 2007 Thatcher became the first living British prime minister to be honoured with a statue in the Houses of Parliament. The bronze statue stood opposite that of her political hero, Winston Churchill, and was unveiled on 21 February 2007 with Thatcher in attendance; she remarked in the Members' Lobby of the Commons: "I might have preferred iron – but bronze will do [...] It won't rust." Thatcher was a public supporter of the Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism and the resulting Prague Process and sent a public letter of support to its preceding conference. After collapsing at a House of Lords dinner, Thatcher, suffering low blood pressure, was admitted to St Thomas' Hospital in central London on 7 March 2008 for tests. In 2009 she was hospitalised again when she fell and broke her arm. Thatcher returned to 10 Downing Street in late November 2009 for the unveiling of an official portrait by artist Richard Stone, an unusual honour for a living former prime minister. Stone was previously commissioned to paint portraits of the Queen and Queen Mother. On 4 July 2011, Thatcher was to attend a ceremony for the unveiling of a 10 ft (3.0 m) statue of Ronald Reagan outside the US embassy in London, but was unable to attend due to her frail health. She last attended a sitting of the House of Lords on 19 July 2010, and on 30 July 2011 it was announced that her office in the Lords had been closed. Earlier that month, Thatcher was named the most competent prime minister of the past 30 years in an Ipsos MORI poll. Thatcher's daughter Carol first revealed that her mother had dementia in 2005, saying "Mum doesn't read much any more because of her memory loss". In her 2008 memoir, Carol wrote that her mother "could hardly remember the beginning of a sentence by the time she got to the end". She later recounted how she was first struck by her mother's dementia when, in conversation, Thatcher confused the Falklands and Yugoslav conflicts; she recalled the pain of needing to tell her mother repeatedly that her husband Denis was dead. Death and funeral (2013) Thatcher died on 8 April 2013, at the age of 87, after suffering a stroke. She had been staying at a suite in the Ritz Hotel in London since December 2012 after having difficulty with stairs at her Chester Square home in Belgravia. Her death certificate listed the primary causes of death as a "cerebrovascular accident" and "repeated transient ischaemic attack"; secondary causes were listed as a "carcinoma of the bladder" and dementia. Reactions to the news of Thatcher's death were mixed across the UK, ranging from tributes lauding her as Britain's greatest-ever peacetime prime minister to public celebrations of her death and expressions of hatred and personalised vitriol. Details of Thatcher's funeral had been agreed upon with her in advance. She received a ceremonial funeral, including full military honours, with a church service at St Paul's Cathedral on 17 April. Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh attended her funeral, marking only the second and final time in the Queen's reign that she attended the funeral of any of her former prime ministers, after that of Churchill, who received a state funeral in 1965. After the service at St Paul's, Thatcher's body was cremated at Mortlake, where her husband's had been cremated. On 28 September, a service for Thatcher was held in the All Saints Chapel of the Royal Hospital Chelsea's Margaret Thatcher Infirmary. In a private ceremony, Thatcher's ashes were interred in the hospital's grounds, next to her husband's. Legacy Political impact Thatcherism represented a systematic and decisive overhaul of the post-war consensus, whereby the major political parties largely agreed on the central themes of Keynesianism, the welfare state, nationalised industry, and close regulation of the economy, and high taxes. Thatcher generally supported the welfare state while proposing to rid it of abuses. She promised in 1982 that the highly popular National Health Service was "safe in our hands". At first, she ignored the question of privatising nationalised industries; heavily influenced by right-wing think tanks, and especially by Sir Keith Joseph, Thatcher broadened her attack. Thatcherism came to refer to her policies as well as aspects of her ethical outlook and personal style, including moral absolutism, nationalism, liberal individualism, and an uncompromising approach to achieving political goals. Thatcher defined her political philosophy, in a major and controversial break with the one-nation conservatism of her predecessor Edward Heath, in a 1987 interview published in Woman's Own magazine: I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand "I have a problem, it is the Government's job to cope with it!" or "I have a problem, I will go and get a grant to cope with it!" "I am homeless, the Government must house me!" and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. It is our duty to look after ourselves and then also to help look after our neighbour and life is a reciprocal business and people have got the entitlements too much in mind without the obligations. Overview The number of adults owning shares rose from 7 per cent to 25 per cent during her tenure, and more than a million families bought their council houses, increasing from 55 per cent to 67 per cent in owner-occupiers from 1979 to 1990. The houses were sold at a discount of 33–55 per cent, leading to large profits for some new owners. Personal wealth rose by 80 per cent in real terms during the 1980s, mainly due to rising house prices and increased earnings. Shares in the privatised utilities were sold below their market value to ensure quick and wide sales rather than maximise national income. The "Thatcher years" were also marked by periods of high unemployment and social unrest, and many critics on the left of the political spectrum fault her economic policies for the unemployment level; many of the areas affected by mass unemployment as well as her monetarist economic policies remained blighted for decades, by such social problems as drug abuse and family breakdown. Unemployment did not fall below its May 1979 level during her tenure, only falling below its April 1979 level in 1990. The long-term effects of her policies on manufacturing remain contentious. Speaking in Scotland in 2009, Thatcher insisted she had no regrets and was right to introduce the poll tax and withdraw subsidies from "outdated industries, whose markets were in terminal decline", subsidies that created "the culture of dependency, which had done such damage to Britain". Political economist Susan Strange termed the neoliberal financial growth model "casino capitalism", reflecting her view that speculation and financial trading were becoming more important to the economy than industry. Critics on the left describe her as divisive and say she condoned greed and selfishness. Leading Welsh politician Rhodri Morgan, among others, characterised Thatcher as a "Marmite" figure. Journalist Michael White, writing in the aftermath of the 2007–2008 financial crisis, challenged the view that her reforms were still a net benefit. Others consider her approach to have been "a mixed bag" and "[a] Curate's egg". Thatcher did "little to advance the political cause of women" within her party or the government. Some British feminists regarded her as "an enemy". June Purvis in Women's History Review says that, although Thatcher had struggled laboriously against the sexist prejudices of her day to rise to the top, she made no effort to ease the path for other women. Thatcher did not regard women's rights as requiring particular attention as she did not, especially during her premiership, consider that women were being deprived of their rights. She had once suggested the shortlisting of women by default for all public appointments and proposed that those with young children should leave the workforce. Thatcher's stance on immigration in the late 1970s was perceived as part of a rising racist public discourse, which Martin Barker terms "new racism". In opposition, Thatcher believed that the National Front (NF) was winning over large numbers of Conservative voters with warnings against floods of immigrants. Her strategy was to undermine the NF narrative by acknowledging that many of their voters had serious concerns in need of addressing. In 1978 she criticised Labour's immigration policy to attract voters away from the NF to the Conservatives. Her rhetoric was followed by increased Conservative support at the expense of the NF. Critics on the left accused her of pandering to racism. Many Thatcherite policies influenced the Labour Party, which returned to power in 1997 under Tony Blair. Blair rebranded the party "New Labour" in 1994 with the aim of increasing its appeal beyond its traditional supporters, and to attract those who had supported Thatcher, such as the "Essex man". Thatcher is said to have regarded the "New Labour" rebranding as her greatest achievement. In contrast to Blair, the Conservative Party under William Hague attempted to distance himself and the party from Thatcher's economic policies in an attempt to gain public approval. Shortly after Thatcher died in 2013, Scottish first minister Alex Salmond argued that her policies had the "unintended consequence" of encouraging Scottish devolution. Lord Foulkes of Cumnock agreed on Scotland Tonight that she had provided "the impetus" for devolution. Writing for The Scotsman in 1997, Thatcher argued against devolution on the basis that it would eventually lead to Scottish independence. Reputation Thatcher's tenure of 11 years and 209 days as British prime minister was the longest since Lord Salisbury in the late 19th century (13 years and 252 days, in three spells) and the longest continuous period in office since Lord Liverpool in the early 19th century (14 years and 305 days). Having led the Conservative Party to victory in three consecutive general elections, twice in a landslide, she ranks among the most popular party leaders in British history regarding votes cast for the winning party; over 40 million ballots were cast in total for the party under her leadership. Her electoral successes were dubbed a "historic hat trick" by the British press in 1987. Thatcher ranked highest among living persons in the 2002 BBC poll 100 Greatest Britons. In 1999, Time deemed Thatcher one of the 100 most important people of the 20th century. In 2015 she topped a poll by Scottish Widows, a major financial services company, as the most influential woman of the past 200 years; and in 2016 topped BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour Power List of women judged to have had the biggest impact on female lives over the past 70 years. In 2020, Time magazine included Thatcher's name on its list of 100 Women of the Year. She was chosen as the Woman of the Year in 1982 when the Falklands War began under her command, resulting in the British victory. In contrast to her relatively poor average approval rating as prime minister, Thatcher has since ranked highly in retrospective opinion polling and, according to YouGov, is "see[n] in overall positive terms" by the British public. Just after her death in 2013, according to a poll by The Guardian, about half of the public viewed her positively while one third viewed her negatively. In a 2019 opinion poll by YouGov, most Britons rated her as Britain's greatest post-war leader (with Churchill coming second). According to the poll, more than four in ten Britons (44%) think that Thatcher was a "good" or "great" prime minister, compared to 29% who think she was a "poor" or "terrible" one. She was voted the fourth-greatest British prime minister of the 20th century in a 2011 poll of 139 academics organised by MORI. In a 2016 University of Leeds survey of 82 academics specialising in post-1945 British history and politics, she was voted the second-greatest British prime minister after the Second World War. Cultural depictions According to theatre critic Michael Billington, Thatcher left an "emphatic mark" on the arts while prime minister. One of the earliest satires of Thatcher as prime minister involved satirist John Wells (as writer and performer), actress Janet Brown (voicing Thatcher) and future Spitting Image producer John Lloyd (as co-producer), who in 1979 were teamed up by producer Martin Lewis for the satirical audio album The Iron Lady, which consisted of skits and songs satirising Thatcher's rise to power. The album was released in September 1979. Thatcher was heavily satirised on Spitting Image, and The Independent labelled her "every stand-up's dream". Thatcher was the subject or the inspiration for 1980s protest songs. Musicians Billy Bragg and Paul Weller helped to form the Red Wedge collective to support Labour in opposition to Thatcher. Known as "Maggie" by supporters and opponents alike, the chant song "Maggie Out" became a signature rallying cry among the left during the latter half of her premiership. Wells parodied Thatcher in several media. He collaborated with Richard Ingrams on the spoof "Dear Bill" letters, which ran as a column in Private Eye magazine; they were also published in book form and became a West End stage revue titled Anyone for Denis?, with Wells in the role of Thatcher's husband. It was followed by a 1982 TV special directed by Dick Clement, in which Thatcher was played by Angela Thorne. Since her premiership, Thatcher has been portrayed in a number of television programmes, documentaries, films and plays. She was portrayed by Patricia Hodge in Ian Curteis's long unproduced The Falklands Play (2002) and by Andrea Riseborough in the TV film The Long Walk to Finchley (2008). She is the protagonist in two films, played by Lindsay Duncan in Margaret (2009) and by Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady (2011), in which she is depicted as suffering from dementia or Alzheimer's disease. She is a main character in the fourth season of The Crown, played by Gillian Anderson. Thatcher has a supporting role in the 2024 biographical film Reagan, played by Lesley-Anne Down. Titles, awards and honours Thatcher became a privy counsellor (PC) on becoming a secretary of state in 1970. She was the first woman entitled to full membership rights as an honorary member of the Carlton Club on becoming Conservative Party leader in 1975. As prime minister, Thatcher received two honorary distinctions: 24 October 1979 (1979-10-24): Honorary Fellowship (Hon.) of the Royal Institute of Chemistry (FRIC), which was merged into the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC) the following year; 1 July 1983 (1983-07-01): Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS), a point of controversy among some of the then-existing Fellows. Two weeks after her resignation, Thatcher was appointed Member of the Order of Merit (OM) by the Queen. Her husband Denis was made a hereditary baronet at the same time; as his wife, Thatcher was entitled to use the honorific style "Lady", an automatically conferred title that she declined to use. She would be made Lady Thatcher in her own right on her subsequent ennoblement in the House of Lords. In the Falklands, Margaret Thatcher Day has been marked each 10 January since 1992, commemorating her first visit to the Islands in January 1983, six months after the end of the Falklands War in June 1982. Thatcher became a member of the House of Lords in 1992 with a life peerage as Baroness Thatcher, of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire. Subsequently, the College of Arms granted her use of a personal coat of arms; she was allowed to revise these arms on her appointment as Lady Companion of the Order of the Garter (LG) in 1995, the highest order of chivalry. In the US, Thatcher received the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award from the Reagan Presidential Foundation in 1998; she was designated a patron of the Heritage Foundation in 2006, where she established the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Published works See also Cadby Hall Economic history of the United Kingdom List of elected and appointed female heads of state and government Political history of the United Kingdom (1979–present) Social history of the United Kingdom (1979–present) References Explanatory notes Citations General bibliography External links Margaret Thatcher Centre at the Wayback Machine (archived 5 February 2020) Margaret Thatcher Foundation, with thousands of online documents and primary sources Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Margaret Thatcher Works by or about Margaret Thatcher at the Internet Archive Library resources in your library and in other libraries about Margaret Thatcher Works by Margaret Thatcher at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks) "Archival material relating to Margaret Thatcher". UK National Archives. Appearances on C-SPAN Margaret Thatcher at IMDb Margaret Thatcher collected news and commentary at The Guardian Margaret Thatcher collected news and commentary at The New York Times Portraits of Margaret Thatcher at the National Portrait Gallery, London Obituary (BBC News Online) at the Wayback Machine (archived 8 April 2013) History of Baroness Margaret Thatcher (Gov.uk) at the Wayback Machine (archived 5 October 2013)

Cotton_gin

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_gin

A cotton gin—meaning "cotton engine"—is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, enabling much greater productivity than manual cotton separation. The separated seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil. Handheld roller gins had been used in the Indian subcontinent since at earliest AD 500 and then in other regions. The Indian worm-gear roller gin was invented sometime around the 16th century and has, according to Lakwete, remained virtually unchanged up to the present time. A modern mechanical cotton gin was created by American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793 and patented in 1794. Whitney's gin used a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through, while brushes continuously removed the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. It revolutionized the cotton industry in the United States, but also inadvertently led to the growth of slavery in the American South. Whitney's gin made cotton farming more profitable and efficient so plantation owners expanded their plantations and used more of their slaves to pick cotton. Whitney never invented the machine to harvest cotton: it still had to be picked by hand. The invention has thus been identified as an inadvertent contributing factor to the outbreak of the American Civil War. Modern automated cotton gins use multiple powered cleaning cylinders and saws, and offer far higher productivity than their hand-powered precursors. Purpose Cotton fibers are produced in the seed pods ("bolls") of the cotton plant where the fibers ("lint") in the bolls are tightly interwoven with seeds. To make the fibers usable, the seeds and fibers must first be separated, a task which had been previously performed manually, with production of cotton requiring hours of labor for the separation. Many simple seed-removing devices had been invented, but until the innovation of the cotton gin, most required significant operator attention and worked only on a small scale. Mechanism The gin is made with two rotating cylinders. The first cylinder has lines of teeth around the circumference, and angled against this cylinder is a metal plate with small holes, "ginning ribs", through which the teeth can fit with minimal gaps. The teeth grip the cotton fibers as the mechanism rotates, dragging them through these small holes. The seeds are too big to fit through the holes, and are thus removed from the rotating cotton by the metal plate, before they fall into a collecting pot. On the other side of the first cylinder, there is a second cylinder, also rotating, with brushes attached. This second cylinder wipes the cotton from the first, and deposits it into the collecting bucket. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further processed into cottonseed oil and cottonseed meal. The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from the fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to 15 tonnes (33,000 lb) of cotton per hour. History A single-roller cotton gin came into use in India by the 5th century. An improvement invented in India was the two-roller gin, known as the "churka", "charki", or "wooden-worm-worked roller". Early cotton gins The earliest versions of the cotton gin consisted of a single roller made of iron or wood and a flat piece of stone or wood. The earliest evidence of the cotton gin is found in the fifth century, in the form of Buddhist paintings depicting a single-roller gin in the Ajanta Caves in western India. These early gins were difficult to use and required a great deal of skill. A narrow single roller was necessary to expel the seeds from the cotton without crushing the seeds. The design was similar to that of a mealing stone, which was used to grind grain. The early history of the cotton gin is ambiguous, because archeologists likely mistook the cotton gin's parts for other tools. Medieval and Early Modern India Between the 12th and 14th centuries, dual-roller gins appeared in India and China. The Indian version of the dual-roller gin was prevalent throughout the Mediterranean cotton trade by the 16th century. This mechanical device was, in some areas, driven by waterpower. The worm gear roller gin, which was invented in the Indian subcontinent during the early Delhi Sultanate era of the 13th to 14th centuries, came into use in the Mughal Empire sometime around the 16th century, and is still used in the Indian subcontinent through to the present day. Another innovation, the incorporation of the crank handle in the cotton gin, first appeared sometime during the late Delhi Sultanate or the early Mughal Empire. The incorporation of the worm gear and crank handle into the roller cotton gin led to greatly expanded Indian cotton textile production during the Mughal era. It was reported that, with an Indian cotton gin, which is half machine and half tool, one man and one woman could clean 28 pounds of cotton per day. With a modified Forbes version, one man and a boy could produce 250 pounds per day. If oxen were used to power 16 of these machines, and a few people's labor was used to feed them, they could produce as much work as 750 people did formerly. United States The Indian roller cotton gin, known as the churka or charkha, was introduced to the United States in the mid-18th century, when it was adopted in the southern United States. The device was adopted for cleaning long-staple cotton but was not suitable for the short-staple cotton that was more common in certain states such as Georgia. Several modifications were made to the Indian roller gin by Mr. Krebs in 1772 and Joseph Eve in 1788, but their uses remained limited to the long-staple variety, up until Eli Whitney's development of a short-staple cotton gin in 1793. Eli Whitney's patent Eli Whitney (1765–1825) applied for a patent of his cotton gin on October 28, 1793; the patent was granted on March 14, 1794, but was not validated until 1807. Whitney's patent was assigned patent number 72X. There is slight controversy over whether the idea of the modern cotton gin and its constituent elements are correctly attributed to Eli Whitney. The popular image of Whitney inventing the cotton gin is attributed to an article on the subject written in the early 1870s and later reprinted in 1910 in The Library of Southern Literature. In this article, the author claimed Catharine Littlefield Greene suggested to Whitney the use of a brush-like component instrumental in separating out the seeds and cotton. Greene's alleged role in the invention of the gin has not been verified independently. Whitney's cotton gin model was capable of cleaning 50 pounds (23 kg) of lint per day. The model consisted of a wooden cylinder covered by rows of slender wires which caught the fibers of the cotton bolls. Each row of wires then passed through the bars of a comb-like grid, pulling the cotton fibers through the grid as they did. The comb-like teeth of the grids were closely spaced, preventing the seeds, fragments of the hard dried calyx of the original cotton flower, or sticks and other debris attached to the fibers from passing through. A series of brushes on a second rotating cylinder then brushed the now-cleaned fibers loose from the wires, preventing the mechanism from jamming. Many contemporary inventors attempted to develop a design that would process short staple cotton, and Hodgen Holmes, Robert Watkins, William Longstreet, and John Murray had all been issued patents for improvements to the cotton gin by 1796. However, the evidence indicates Whitney did invent the saw gin, for which he is famous. Although he spent many years in court attempting to enforce his patent against planters who made unauthorized copies, a change in patent law ultimately made his claim legally enforceable – too late for him to make much money from the device in the single year remaining before the patent expired. McCarthy's gin While Whitney's gin facilitated the cleaning of seeds from short-staple cotton, it damaged the fibers of extra-long staple cotton (Gossypium barbadense). In 1840 Fones McCarthy received a patent for a "Smooth Cylinder Cotton-gin", a roller gin. McCarthy's gin was marketed for use with both short-staple and extra-long staple cotton but was particularly useful for processing long-staple cotton. After McCarthy's patent expired in 1861, McCarthy type gins were manufactured in Britain and sold around the world. McCarthy's gin was adopted for cleaning the Sea Island variety of extra-long staple cotton grown in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. It cleaned cotton several times faster than the older gins, and, when powered by one horse, produced 150 to 200 pounds of lint a day. The McCarthy gin used a reciprocating knife to detach seed from the lint. Vibration caused by the reciprocating motion limited the speed at which the gin could operate. In the middle of the 20th Century gins using a rotating blade replaced ones using a reciprocating blade. These descendants of the McCarthy gin are the only gins now used for extra-long staple cotton in the United States. Munger system gin For a decade and a half after the end of the Civil War in 1865, a number of innovative features became widely used for ginning in the United States. They included steam power instead of animal power, an automatic feeder to assure that the gin stand ran smoothly, a condenser to make the clean cotton coming out of the gin easier to handle, and indoor presses so that cotton no longer had to be carried across the gin yard to be baled. Then, in 1879, while he was running his father's gin in Rutersville, Texas, Robert S. Munger invented additional system ginning techniques. Robert and his wife, Mary Collett, later moved to Mexia, Texas, built a system gin, and obtained related patents. The Munger System Ginning Outfit (or system gin) integrated all the ginning operation machinery, thus assuring the cotton would flow through the machines smoothly. Such system gins use air to move cotton from machine to machine. Munger's motivation for his inventions included improving employee working conditions in the gin. However, the selling point for most gin owners was the accompanying cost savings while producing cotton both more speedily and of higher quality. By the 1960s, many other advances had been made in ginning machinery, but the manner in which cotton flowed through the gin machinery continued to be the Munger system. Economic Historian William H. Phillips referred to the development of system ginning as "The Munger Revolution" in cotton ginning. He wrote, "The Munger innovations were the culmination of what geographer Charles S. Aiken has termed the second ginning revolution, in which the privately owned plantation gins were replaced by large-scale public ginneries. This revolution, in turn, led to a major restructuring of the cotton gin industry, as the small, scattered gin factories and shops of the nineteenth century gave way to a dwindling number of large twentieth-century corporations designing and constructing entire ginning operations." One of the few (and perhaps only) examples of a Munger gin left in existence is on display at Frogmore Plantation in Louisiana. Effects in the United States Prior to the introduction of the mechanical cotton gin, cotton had required considerable labor to clean and separate the fibers from the seeds. With Eli Whitney's gin, cotton became a tremendously profitable business, creating many fortunes in the Antebellum South. Cities such as New Orleans, Louisiana; Mobile, Alabama; Charleston, South Carolina; and Galveston, Texas became major shipping ports, deriving substantial economic benefit from cotton raised throughout the South. Additionally, the greatly expanded supply of cotton created strong demand for textile machinery and improved machine designs that replaced wooden parts with metal. This led to the invention of many machine tools in the early 19th century. The invention of the cotton gin caused massive growth in the production of cotton in the United States, concentrated mostly in the South. Cotton production expanded from 750,000 bales in 1830 to 2.85 million bales in 1850. As a result, the region became even more dependent on plantations that used black slave labor, with plantation agriculture becoming the largest sector of its economy. While it took a single laborer about ten hours to separate a single pound of fiber from the seeds, a team of two or three slaves using a cotton gin could produce around fifty pounds of cotton in just one day. The number of slaves rose in concert with the increase in cotton production, increasing from around 700,000 in 1790 to around 3.2 million in 1850. The invention of the cotton gin led to increased demands for slave labor in the American South, reversing the economic decline that had occurred in the region during the late 18th century. The cotton gin thus "transformed cotton as a crop and the American South into the globe's first agricultural powerhouse". The invention of the cotton gin led to an increase in the use of slaves on Southern plantations. Because of that inadvertent effect on American slavery, which ensured that the South's economy developed in the direction of plantation-based agriculture (while encouraging the growth of the textile industry elsewhere, such as in the North), the invention of the cotton gin is frequently cited as one of the indirect causes of the American Civil War. Modern cotton gins In modern cotton production, cotton arrives at industrial cotton gins either in trailers, in compressed rectangular "modules" weighing up to 10 metric tons each or in polyethylene wrapped round modules similar to a bale of hay produced during the picking process by the most recent generation of cotton pickers. Trailer cotton (i.e. cotton not compressed into modules) arriving at the gin is sucked in via a pipe, approximately 16 inches (41 cm) in diameter, that is swung over the cotton. This pipe is usually manually operated but is increasingly automated in modern cotton plants. The need for trailers to haul the product to the gin has been drastically reduced since the introduction of modules. If the cotton is shipped in modules, the module feeder breaks the modules apart using spiked rollers and extracts the largest pieces of foreign material from the cotton. The module feeder's loose cotton is then sucked into the same starting point as the trailer cotton. The cotton then enters a dryer, which removes excess moisture. The cylinder cleaner uses six or seven rotating, spiked cylinders to break up large clumps of cotton. Finer foreign material, such as soil and leaves, passes through rods or screens for removal. The stick machine uses centrifugal force to remove larger foreign matter, such as sticks and burrs, while the cotton is held by rapidly rotating saw cylinders. The gin stand uses the teeth of rotating saws to pull the cotton through a series of "ginning ribs", which pull the fibers from the seeds which are too large to pass through the ribs. The cleaned seed is then removed from the gin via an auger conveyor system. The seed is reused for planting or is sent to an oil mill to be further processed into cottonseed oil and cottonseed meal. The lint cleaners again use saws and grid bars, this time to separate immature seeds and any remaining foreign matter from the fibers. The bale press then compresses the cotton into bales for storage and shipping. Modern gins can process up to 15 tonnes (33,000 lb) of cotton per hour. Modern cotton gins create a substantial amount of cotton gin residue (CGR) consisting of sticks, leaves, dirt, immature bolls, and cottonseed. Research is currently under way to investigate the use of this waste in producing ethanol. Due to fluctuations in the chemical composition in processing, there is difficulty in creating a consistent ethanol process, but there is potential to further maximize the utilization of waste in the cotton production. See also Prattville Gin Factory Cotton bale References Notes Bibliography Lakwete, Angela (2003). Inventing the Cotton Gin: Machine and Myth in Antebellum America. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 9780801873942. External links Overview of a Cotton Gin – USDA site The Story of Cotton – National Cotton Council of America site National Cotton Ginners Association US Cotton Gin Industry – EH.Net Encyclopedia of Economic History Invention of Cotton Gin – eHistory.com Cotton: the fiber of life – includes a schematic diagram illustrating the seed removal process Video of manual cotton gin in operation via YouTube "The Old Cotton-gin" By John Trotwood Moore · 1910 The Old Cotton-gin

Pneumatics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pneumatics

Pneumatics (from Greek πνεῦμα pneuma 'wind, breath') is the use of gas or pressurized air in mechanical systems. Pneumatic systems used in industry are commonly powered by compressed air or compressed inert gases. A centrally located and electrically-powered compressor powers cylinders, air motors, pneumatic actuators, and other pneumatic devices. A pneumatic system controlled through manual or automatic solenoid valves is selected when it provides a lower cost, more flexible, or safer alternative to electric motors, and hydraulic actuators. Pneumatics also has applications in dentistry, construction, mining, and other areas. Gases used in pneumatic systems Pneumatic systems in fixed installations, such as factories, use compressed air because a sustainable supply can be made by compressing atmospheric air. The air usually has moisture removed, and a small quantity of oil is added at the compressor to prevent corrosion and lubricate mechanical components. Factory-plumbed pneumatic-power users need not worry about poisonous leakage, as the gas is usually just air. Any compressed gas other than air is an asphyxiation hazard—including nitrogen, which makes up 78% of air. Compressed oxygen (approx. 21% of air) would not asphyxiate, but is not used in pneumatically-powered devices because it is a fire hazard, more expensive, and offers no performance advantage over air. Smaller or stand-alone systems can use other compressed gases that present an asphyxiation hazard, such as nitrogen—often referred to as OFN (oxygen-free nitrogen) when supplied in cylinders. Portable pneumatic tools and small vehicles, such as Robot Wars machines and other hobbyist applications are often powered by compressed carbon dioxide, because containers designed to hold it such as SodaStream canisters and fire extinguishers are readily available, and the phase change between liquid and gas makes it possible to obtain a larger volume of compressed gas from a lighter container than compressed air requires. Carbon dioxide is an asphyxiant and can be a freezing hazard if vented improperly. History Although the early history of pneumatics is murky, the field's founder is traditionally traced back to Ctesibius of Alexandria "who worked in the early 3rd century BCE and invented a number of mechanical toys operated by air, water, and steam under pressure." Though no documents written by Ctesibius survive, he is thought to have heavily influenced Philo of Byzantium while writing his work, Mechanical Syntaxis, as well as Vitruvius in De architectura. In the first century BC, the ancient Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria compiled recipes for dozens of contraptions in his work, Pneumatics. It has been speculated that much of this work can be attributed to Ctesibius. The pneumatic experiments described in these ancient documents later inspired the Renaissance inventors of the thermoscope and the air thermometer, devices which relied upon the heating and cooling of air to move a column of water up and down a tube.: 4–5  German physicist Otto von Guericke (1602-1686) invented the vacuum pump, a device that can draw out air or gas from the attached vessel. He demonstrated the vacuum pump to separate the pairs of copper hemispheres using air pressures. The field of pneumatics has changed considerably over the years. It has moved from small handheld devices to large machines with multiple parts that serve different functions. Comparison to hydraulics Both pneumatics and hydraulics are applications of fluid power. Pneumatics uses an easily compressible gas such as air or a suitable pure gas—while hydraulics uses relatively incompressible liquid media such as oil. Most industrial pneumatic applications use pressures of about 80 to 100 pounds per square inch (550 to 690 kPa). Hydraulics applications commonly use from 1,000 to 5,000 psi (6.9 to 34.5 MPa), but specialized applications may exceed 10,000 psi (69 MPa). Advantages of pneumatics Simplicity of design and control—Machines are easily designed using standard cylinders and other components, and operate via simple on-off control. Reliability—Pneumatic systems generally have long operating lives and require little maintenance. Because gas is compressible, equipment is less subject to shock damage. Gas absorbs excessive force, whereas fluid in hydraulics directly transfers force. Compressed gas can be stored, so machines still run for a while if electrical power is lost. Safety—There is a very low chance of fire compared to hydraulic oil. New machines are usually overload safe to a certain limit. Advantages of hydraulics Fluid does not absorb any of the supplied energy. Capable of moving much higher loads and providing much lower forces due to the incompressibility. The hydraulic working fluid is practically incompressible, leading to a minimum of spring action. When hydraulic fluid flow is stopped, the slightest motion of the load releases the pressure on the load; there is no need to "bleed off" pressurized air to release the pressure on the load. Highly responsive compared to pneumatics. Supply more power than pneumatics. Can also do many purposes at one time: lubrication, cooling and power transmission. Pneumatic logic Pneumatic logic systems (sometimes called air logic control) are sometimes used for controlling industrial processes, consisting of primary logic units like: And units Or units Relay or booster units Latching units Timer units Fluidics amplifiers with no moving parts other than the air itself Pneumatic logic is a reliable and functional control method for industrial processes. In recent years, these systems have largely been replaced by electronic control systems in new installations because of the smaller size, lower cost, greater precision, and more powerful features of digital controls. Pneumatic devices are still used where upgrade cost, or safety factors dominate. Examples of pneumatic systems and components See also Compressed air Ozone cracking - can affect pneumatic seals Pneudraulics History of pneumatic power Notes References Brian S. Elliott, Compressed Air Operations Manual, McGraw Hill Book Company, 2006, ISBN 0-07-147526-5. Heeresh Mistry, Fundamentals of Pneumatic Engineering, Create Space e-Publication, 2013, ISBN 1-49-372758-3. External links Four Ways to Boost Pneumatic Efficiency

Joseph_Gayetty

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Gayetty

Joseph C. Gayetty (c.1827 – May 2, 1895) was an American inventor credited with the invention of commercial toilet paper. It was the first and remained only one of the few commercial toilet papers from 1857 to 1890 remaining in common use until the invention of splinter-free toilet paper in 1935 by the Northern Tissue Company. Biography Joseph C. Gayetty's origins remain somewhat obscure. The first record with his name is the 1850 United States Census, which records that he was born in 1817 in Massachusetts. By 1850 he was living in New York City, had married Margaret Louisa Bogart and had two young children. That year he was working at a public house. Ten years later, on the 1860 Census, Gayetty had begun his toilet paper business and was listed as being in the "medicated paper" industry. By this time he and his wife had 5 children, a personal servant, and a modest personal estate valued at $1000. In the 1860 Census, however, he reports that he was born in 1827 in Pennsylvania. Additional records have not been able to clear up his exact birth date or place of birth. Additionally, Gayetty's date and place of death have not been located. Gayetty and his wife had one daughter and four sons. Their youngest son, Henry K. Gayetty, took over his father's business and was in control of the trademarks and licensing by 1891, when the trademark ownership came into question. Invention of Toilet Paper Joseph C. Gayetty first marketed toilet paper on December 9, 1857. Each sheet of pure Manila hemp paper was watermarked "J C Gayetty N Y". The original product contained aloe as a lubricant and was marketed as an anti-hemorrhoid medical product. Gayetty was attacked as a quack by at least one medical society. Yet his advertisement of the same year called his product "The Greatest Necessity of the Age" and warned against the perils of using toxic inked papers on sensitive body parts. A different advertisement, also printed in 1859, says his business was located at 41 Ann Street, and he was selling 1,000 sheets for one dollar. The Gayetty name and product were involved in a lawsuit that was filed in 1891, when B.T. Hoogland's Sons, toilet paper dealers, filed suit against the Gayetty Paper Company, specifically Harry K. Gayetty, for trademark infringement. B.T. Hoogland and Son's claim was that they were entitled to the use of the Gayetty name due to an unpaid debt. A paper dated December 5, 1866, was allegedly given to a creditor in lieu of $25 debt and subsequently sold to B.T. Hoogland (senior) for one dollar. However, on January 1, 1866, J.C. Gayetty had entered a ten-year contract for the exclusive right to sell and vend in his name with Demas Barnes and Company, which had taken out a copyright on the product on October 27, 1891. The suit was dismissed in 1894, but another suit was brought. B.T. Hoogland's Sons next sued to stop Harry K. Gayetty and the Diamond Mills Paper Company from using the Gayetty name, and in this case they were successful. Harry Gayetty appealed, but lost at the Appellate Court. Finally, in July 1900, the New York Supreme Court permanently enjoined the Diamond Mills Paper Company and Harry K. Gayetty from using the name on any similar paper product labels. In 1900, an advertisement shows that B.T. Hoogland's Sons of New York were distributing the watermarked "Papel Medicado De Gayetty" and giving credit to the invention of the paper in 1857 by Joseph C. Gayetty, Inventor. Nearly the same advertisement was run in English in 1907. The product continued to be marketed until the 1920s. == References ==

Walter_Hunt_(inventor)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Hunt_(inventor)

Walter Hunt (July 29, 1796 – June 8, 1859) was an American mechanical engineer. Through the course of his work he became known for being a prolific inventor. He first became involved with mechanical innovations in a linseed producing community in New York state that had flax mills. While in New York City to promote his inventions he got involved in inventing the streetcar gong that was used throughout the United States. This then led him to invent other useful items like the safety pin and sewing machine. He invented the precursor to the repeating rifle and fountain pen. About two dozen of his inventions are used today in basically the same form as he had patented them. In spite of his many useful innovative creations he never became wealthy since he sold off most of his patent rights to others at low prices with no future royalties. Others made millions of dollars from his safety pin device. Early life and education Walter Hunt was born July 29, 1796, in the town of Martinsburg, in Lewis County in the state of New York. He was the first born child of Sherman Hunt and Rachel Hunt. He had twelve siblings. Hunt received his childhood education in a one-room schoolhouse. Hunt was muscular, tall and slender with a ruddy complexion. He married Polly Loucks in 1814 and they had four children. Hunt went to college and earned a master's degree in masonry in 1817 at the age of 21. Mid life Hunt traveled to New York City in 1826 to get money for one of his inventions. While there he witnessed an accident where a horse-drawn carriage ran over a child. The accident event motivated him to come up with a metal bell that was operated with a hammer that could be controlled by one of driver's feet without letting go of the horse reins. Hunt patented his new innovation on July 30, 1827. He promoted his concept to many prospects and eventually was able to sell his foot operated coach alarm mechanism idea to the stagecoach operators Kipp and Brown. Hunt's innovation was soon adopted by most public horse-drawn vehicles throughout the city. Hunt's coach alarm was further developed and used throughout the United States. Inventions Hunt was a prolific inventor. From 1827 to 1830, while earning a living in the real estate field, he invented a fire engine, an improvement for hard coal-burning stoves, the first home knife sharpener, and a restaurant steam table apparatus. He also invented the precursor of the Winchester repeating rifle and the forerunner of the American fountain pen as used in the twentieth century. Additionally, Hunt invented a flax spinner, an improved oil lamp, artificial stone, the first rotary street sweeping machine, mail sorting machinery, velocipedes, and ice plows. He also made improvements to guns, cylindro-conoidal bullets, ice-breaking wooden hull boats, paraffin oil candles, velocipedes, machines for making rivets and nails, and self-closing inkwells. He also invented the Antipodean Performers suction-cup shoes claimed to be used by circus performers to ascend up solid side walls and walk upside down across high ceilings. He did not realize the significance of many of his inventions when he produced them and sold off most of his patent rights to others for low prices making little for himself in the long run. In the twentieth century many of his patented devices were widely used everyday common products. Sewing machine He developed the first modern feasible operating sewing machine sometime between the years 1835 and 1837 at his Amos Street shop that was up a narrow alley in Abingdon Square at the borough of Manhattan in the city of New York. He manufactured and sold a few of these machines at the time. He never initially patented the mechanical device he created that used a lockstitch for sewing. It had a characteristic of an eye-pointed needle and used two threads whereby one thread passed through a twisted loop in the other thread and then both interlocked. The uniqueness of this was that it was the initial time an engineer or technician inventor had not imitated a single stitch done by hand and used two interlocking threads at a seam. He used a technique for sewing which was revolutionary at the time. The eye opening was near the point of the needle and operated on a vibrating arm and a loop was formed under the cloth by this thread through which a shuttle, reeling off another thread, was forced back and forth making an interlocked stitch. Hunt completed his working model before he showed it to anyone. Hunt sold one-half the patent rights in 1834 to businessman and blacksmith George A. Arrowsmith who never manufactured it to sell. He instead had Hunt's wooden version duplicated in iron by Adoniram, Hunt's brother. Adoniram was a skilled mechanic and duplicated the original wooden version. It performed better because no splinters of wood impeded the passage of the cloth. Arrowsmith had no interest patenting the sewing machine then and had decided to postpone that step for a later time. He gave as reasons for not procuring a patent that 1) he was busy with other businesses then; 2) the expense of getting the appropriate drawings and paperwork together to register a patent was more than he could afford and; 3) the difficulty of introducing the new sewing machine into public use, saying it would have cost two thousand (equivalent to $61,040 in 2023) or three thousand (equivalent to $91,560 in 2023) dollars to start the sewing machine business. Had he seen the newspaper article titled Sewing by Machinery of December 1835 and January 1836 that was in many nationwide newspapers he may have applied for a patent right away, because it said that a mechanic of Rochester had invented a machine for making clothes which would thereafter take the place of fingers and thimbles. Hunt did not seek a patent for his sewing machine at the time because he worried it would create unemployment with seamstresses. History records show that his wife and daughter advised him against marketing his sewing apparatus. Hunt's daughter Caroline operated a corset-making shop with twelve seamstress ladies and was watching out for their interest and thousands of other seamstresses. This ultimately led to a court case in 1854 when the lockstitch sewing machine concept was applied for by Elias Howe in a patent application. Hunt submitted his initial application for his 1834 sewing machine on April 2, 1853. Records at the Supreme Court show Hunt's invention was made before Howe's machine and the Patent Office identified Hunt's preexistence but it did not issue a patent to him for this. The reason was because he had not filled out the proper paperwork for a patent before Howe's paperwork application and had abandoned the design experiment of the 1830s. Hunt acquired public acknowledgement for his invention, however Howe's official patent remained lawful because of the technicality of the timing of the paperwork. Isaac Singer arranged to give Hunt $50,000 (equivalent to $1,760,770 in 2023) in installments for his sewing machine design in 1858 in order to clear up the patent confusion about sewing machines, but Hunt died before Singer was able to consummate the agreement. Safety pin Hunt thought little of the safety pin, his best-known invention. He sold his patent of it for $400 (equivalent to $14,650 in 2023) to W R Grace and Company, to pay a draftsman he owed $15 to (equivalent to $550 in 2023). J.R. Chapin pressured Hunt to pay off what was due to him for the drafting work he had done on previous inventions that needed patent drawings for application submissions. Hunt came up with the safety pin ("C") in 1849 through experimentation with high tension wire. His invention was an improvement on the current way clothing items were attached together before because of a protective clasp ("D") at the end and a coiled wire design ("B") with a spring tension on the pointed end leg ("A") to keep it in the protective clasp even if the pin device was moved around. The basic design is the same in the twentieth century as when Hunt came up with the device in the nineteenth century and is manufactured inexpensively now. W R Grace and Company made millions of dollars profit off the product. Other inventions One of Hunt's popular inventions was a paper shirt collar. This time he sold the patented design and negotiated for royalty payments, but the item only became popular after he died. The unusual item was first put on sale in New York City in 1854 and used then mostly for stage purposes. In time it became fashionable and the general public then started using them. High production of the item came about and at one time there were as many as forty factories making paper collars in the United States. The manufactured output in 1868 became 400,000 that were sold to the general public. Hunt often used the legal services and patent research work of Charles Grafton Page, a certified patent lawyer who had worked at the Patent Office before, when seeking a potential patent for one of his inventions. His inventions covered a wide variety of fields and subjects. About two dozen of Hunt's inventions are still used in the form in which he created them over one hundred years ago. Some of Hunt's important inventions are shown below with the patent drawings. Later life and death Hunt created numerous usable everyday inventions in his lifetime, however he never became independently wealthy from them. He died of pneumonia at his place of business in New York City on June 8, 1859. He is interred in Green-Wood Cemetery at Brooklyn, New York. His grave is marked by a small red granite shaft about a hundred feet from Howe's massive bust monument. Legacy Hunt was inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame in 2006 for the safety pin invention. Many of Hunt's invention ideas are in actual use today and are basically the same device as when he patented them more than a hundred years ago. Some of those others besides the safety pin and sewing machine are a device which regulates the amount of liquid that comes from a bottle with each tilt, a bottle stopper, springy attachment for adjustments to belts and suspenders, and a nail making machine. See also Daniel Davis Jr. References Sources Abbot, Charles Greeley (1944). The Smithsonian series. Smithsonian Institution. OCLC 936943099. His second patent was for a coach alarm, and through the years he received patents for a variety of things including a knife sharpener, heating stove, ice boat, nail machine, inkwell, fountain; pen, safety pin, bottle stopper, sewing machine (1854), paper collars, and a reversible metallic heel. Ayres, Robert U. (2021). The history and future of technology : can technology save humanity from extinction?. Cham: Marshall Cavendish Corporation. ISBN 978-3-030-71393-5. OCLC 1262192914. Bowman, Hank Wieand (1958). Famous guns from the Winchester Collection. Arco Company. OCLC 2481891. Brandon, Ruth (1977). Singer and the sewing machine : a capitalist romance. London: Barrie & Jenkins. ISBN 0-214-20156-2. OCLC 3270495. Byrn, Edward Wright (1900). Progress of Invention in Nineteenth Century. Munn & Company. OCLC 84303615. Between 1832 and 1835 Walter Hunt made a lock-stitch sewing machine, but abandoned it. Cooper, Grace Rogers (1968). Invention of the Sewing machine. Smithsonian Institution. pp. 243 v. OCLC 453666. Sometime between 1832 and 1834 he produced at his shop in New York a machine that made a lockstitch. Fulton, Robert (2008). Inventors and Inventions. Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9780761477617. Hellstrom, Carl R. (1953). Smith & Waeeon. Pioneer publishing company. OCLC 775873942. Hunt, Clinton N. (1935). Walter Hunt, American inventor. C.N. Hunt. OCLC 250585694. Page 5 -1847, January13 - Foundation pen. The forerunner of the modern fountain pen. Kane, Joseph Nathan (1997). Necessity's child : the story of Walter Hunt, Americaʼs forgotten inventor (1st ed.). Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7864-0279-3. OCLC 35777327. 1847, January13 - Foundation pen. The forerunner of the modern fountain pen. Keeley, Joseph Charles (1950). Making inventions pay. Whittlesey House. OCLC 2618845. Hunt; obtained patents on many devices, among them the fountain pen, the breech-loading rifle, nail-making machines, and paper collars. ... Keiper, Frank (1924). Pioneer inventions + pioneer patents. Pioneer publishing company. OCLC 1382071. Klooster, John W. (2009). Icons of invention : the makers of the modern world from Gutenberg to Gates. Santa Barbara, California: Greenwood Press. ISBN 978-0-313-34744-3. OCLC 647903993. Lamphier, Peg A.; Welch, Rosanne (2019). Technical innovation in American history : an encyclopedia of science and technology. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO Publishing. ISBN 978-1-61069-093-5. OCLC 1054271035. Lewtin, Frederick Lewis (1930). Servant in the house - brief history of sewing machine. Publication ;3056. Washington DC Government Printing Office. United States National Museum / Curator, Division of Textiles. OCLC 45451578. Meyer, Jerome Sydney (1962). Great Inventions. Pocket Books. OCLC 655232775. Parton, James (1872). History of the sewing machine. The Howe machine company. OCLC 68784579. Post, Robert C. (1976). Physics, Patents, and Politics - Biography of Charles G. Page (1st ed.). New York: Science History Publications. ISBN 9780882020464. OCLC 2869290. Singer Sewing Machine (1897). Story of the Sewing Machine. Press of F. V. Strauss. OCLC 8998696. Thanhauser, Sofi (2022). Worn: a people's history of clothing (First ed.). New York: Doubleday Publishing. ISBN 9781524748395. OCLC 1248598617. Tonson, J and R (1848). The Tatler, Lucubrations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Volume 1. Buckland H. Woodfall. Walter Hunt City of New York January 13, 1847 - for improvement in the Fountain Pen. Wilson, Paul C. (2017). How Inventions Really Happened. Dog Ear Publishing. Hunt's fountain pen closely resembled the type universally used in the first half of the twentieth century. External links You Tube video on Walter Hunt's safety pin patent history Walter Hunt - The Man Who Invented Sewing Machine

Guildford_Four_and_Maguire_Seven

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guildford_Four_and_Maguire_Seven

The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven were two groups of people, mostly Northern Irish, who were wrongly convicted in English courts in 1975 and 1976 of the Guildford pub bombings of 5 October 1974 and the Woolwich pub bombing of 7 November 1974. All the convictions were eventually overturned after long campaigns for justice, and the cases, along with those of the Birmingham Six, diminished public confidence in the English criminal justice system. Background On 22 October 1975, at the Old Bailey in London, the Guildford Four were convicted of bombings carried out by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Subsequently, the Maguire Seven were convicted of handling explosives found during the investigation into the bombings. Both groups' convictions were eventually declared "unsafe and unsatisfactory" and reversed in 1989 and 1991, respectively, after they had served 15 to 16 years in prison. Along with the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, several other people faced charges relating to the bombings, six of whom were charged with murder, but these charges were dropped. In the wake of the scandal, in October 1989 the UK Government appointed Appeal Court Justice Sir John May to undertake a judicial inquiry into the suspect convictions of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven. The inquiry's findings criticised the trial judge, Lord Donaldson of Lymington. It unearthed improprieties in the handling of scientific evidence that were relevant to the other cases and declared the convictions unsound and recommended referral back to the Court of Appeal, but no action was taken. No one else has been charged with the Guildford and Woolwich bombings, or with supplying the material. Three police officers were charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the wake of the inquiry, but found not guilty in 1993. Over 700 documents, including secret testimony, were collected by the inquiry and were due to be unsealed for public access in The National Archives on 1 January 2020, but on 31 December 2019 the Home Office removed all the documents from the National Archive and took them back into government control. The files remain sealed for now. Guildford Four The Guildford Four were charged with direct involvement with the IRA attacks. They were: After their arrest, all four defendants confessed to the bombing under intense police interrogation. These confessions were later retracted but remained the basis of the case against them. They were later alleged to be the result of coercion by the police, ranging from intimidation to torture—including threats against family members—as well as the effects of drug withdrawal. Conlon wrote in his autobiography that a key factor in his coerced confession was that anti-terrorism laws passed in the early 1970s allowed the police to hold suspects without charges for up to a week, and that he might have been able to withstand the treatment he had received had a shorter time limit been in effect. The four were convicted on 22 October 1975 of murder and other crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment—mandatory for adults convicted of murder. Richardson, a minor at the time of the bombings, received an indeterminate "at Her Majesty's pleasure" sentence for murder and a life sentence for conspiracy. Justice Lord Donaldson of Lymington, who also presided over the Maguire Seven trial, expressed regret that the Four had not been charged with high treason, which still had a mandatory death penalty. Although no hangings had been carried out in the UK since 1964, treason still carried the death penalty until 1998. The usual practice was for judges to be consulted by the Home Secretary when considering release from a life sentence, rather than giving a tariff at trial, but the judge, believing he might be dead by the time they were released, recommended 30 years for Conlon, 35 for Armstrong, and until "great age" for Hill. The Guildford Four did not "fit the bill" of IRA involvement according to the way they lived. Paddy Armstrong and Carole Richardson, an Englishwoman, lived in a squat and were involved with drugs and petty crime. Conlon asserted at several points in his autobiography that the IRA would not have taken him due to his record for shoplifting and other petty crimes, and that he had been expelled from Fianna Éireann, an Irish republican youth organisation with strong ties to the Provisional IRA. Maguire Seven The Maguire Seven were charged with possessing nitroglycerine allegedly passed to the IRA to make bombs after the police raided the West Kilburn house of Anne Maguire (Conlon's aunt) on 3 December 1974. They were tried and convicted on 4 March 1976 and received the following sentences: Giuseppe Conlon had travelled from Belfast to help his son, Gerry Conlon, in the Guildford Four trial. Conlon, who had troubles with his lungs for many years, died in prison in January 1980, while the other six served their sentences and were released. Appeals The Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven sought leave to appeal their convictions immediately and were refused, but a growing body of disparate groups pressed for reexamination of the case. In February 1977, during the trial of the Balcombe Street ASU, the four IRA men instructed their lawyers to "draw attention to the fact that four totally innocent people were serving massive sentences", referring to the Guildford Four. Despite telling the police they were responsible, they were never charged with these offences and the Guildford Four remained in prison for another 12 years. The Guildford Four tried to obtain from the Home Secretary a reference to the Court of Appeal under Section 17 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1968 (later repealed), but were unsuccessful. In 1987, the Home Office issued a memorandum recognising that it was unlikely they were terrorists, but that this would not be sufficient evidence for appeal. Campaigns After the 1977 court appeal failed, a number of 'lone voices' publicly questioned the conviction; among them were David Martin in The Leveller, Gavin Esler and Chris Mullin in the New Statesman, and David McKittrick in the Belfast Telegraph. On 26 February 1980, BBC One Northern Ireland aired Spotlight: Giuseppe Conlon and the Bomb Factory, which contained an interview by Patrick Maguire and the BBC's Gavin Esler. Quashing of the Guildford Four verdict In 1989, detectives from Avon and Somerset Constabulary, investigating the handling of the case, found significant pieces of evidence in relation to Surrey Police's handling of the Guildford Four and their statements. Typed notes from Patrick Armstrong's police interviews had been extensively edited. Deletions and additions had been made and the notes had been rearranged. The notes and their amendments were consistent with handwritten and typed notes presented at the trial, which suggested that the handwritten notes were made after the interviews had been conducted. The notes presented had been described in court as contemporaneous records. Manuscript notes relating to an interview with Hill showed that Hill's fifth statement was taken in breach of Judges' Rules and may well have been inadmissible as evidence. The information was not made available to the DPP or the prosecution and the officers involved had denied under oath that such an interview had happened. Detention records were inconsistent with the times and durations of the claimed interviews, as reported by the Surrey police. An appeal was already under way on the basis of other evidence. Lord Gifford represented Paul Hill, and others were represented by human rights solicitor Gareth Peirce. The appeal hearing had been adjourned to January 1990 at the request of the Guildford Four but once the findings of the Somerset and Avon report were available, the hearing was resumed, with the Crown saying it did not wish to support the convictions. The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Lane, concluded that, regardless of the impact of the content of the material Avon and Somerset discovered or the alibis or additional evidence the appellants wished to introduce, the level of duplicity meant that all the police evidence was suspect, and the case for the prosecution was unsafe. Lane remarked: We have no doubt that these events make the convictions of all of these four appellants in respect of the Guildford and the Woolwich events unsafe, even though the latest revelations have no direct bearing on the evidence relating to the Woolwich bombing. The Four were released on 19 October 1989, after having their convictions quashed. Hill had also been convicted of the murder of a British soldier, Brian Shaw, based on his confession while in the custody of Surrey Police. This did not fall under the ambit of the Lane appeal, but he was released on bail pending his appeal against this conviction. In 1994, Her Majesty's Court of Appeal in Belfast quashed Hill's conviction for Shaw's murder. Quashing of the Maguire verdicts On 12 July 1990, the Home Secretary, David Waddington, published Interim Report on the Maguire Case: The Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the convictions arising out of the bomb attacks in Guildford and Woolwich in 1974, which criticised the trial judge, Donaldson, unearthed improprieties in the handling of scientific evidence, declared the convictions unsound, and recommended referral back to the Court of Appeal. The report "strongly criticise[d] the decision by the prosecution at the Guildford Four's trial not to disclose to the defence a statement supporting Mr Conlon's alibi." The Maguire Seven's convictions were quashed in 1991. Aftermath Guildford Four and Maguire Seven Neither the bombings nor the wrongful imprisonment resulted in convictions. The bombings were most likely the work of the Balcombe Street ASU, which claimed responsibility. They were already serving life sentences, but were released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. Three British police officers—Thomas Style, John Donaldson and Vernon Attwell—were charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, but each was found not guilty. On 9 February 2005, Prime Minister Tony Blair apologised to the families of the 11 people imprisoned for the bombings in Guildford and Woolwich and those related to those who were still alive. He said, in part, "I am very sorry that they were subject to such an ordeal and injustice... they deserve to be completely and publicly exonerated." The Roman Catholic Church awarded Anne Maguire a Benemerenti medal for her 'remarkable ability to forgive' and her community work. In 1993, Hill married Courtney Kennedy, a daughter of assassinated U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and a niece of assassinated president John F. Kennedy. They had a daughter, Saoirse, in 1997. Paul had a daughter, Cara, from a previous relationship with Gina Tohill. Paul and Courtney legally separated in 2006. Their daughter, Saoirse Kennedy Hill, died in 2019 at age 22. Hill had a televised meeting with the brother of murdered soldier Brian Shaw, who continued to accuse him. He travelled to Colombia to attend the trial of the Colombia Three. Gerry Conlon's autobiography Proved Innocent was adapted into the film In the Name of the Father, with actor Daniel Day-Lewis portraying Conlon. The film depicts Conlon's attempt to rebuild his shattered relationship with his father but is partly fictional; Conlon never shared a cell with his father. He is reported to have settled with the government for compensation in the region of £500,000. Conlon gave support to Tommy Sheridan in relation to the charges brought against him. Sarah Conlon, who spent 16 years campaigning to have the names of her husband and son cleared and helped secure the apology, died on 20 July 2008. Paddy Armstrong had problems with drinking and gambling. He eventually married and moved to Dublin. Carole Richardson married and had a daughter soon after her release. She kept out of the public eye and died in 2012 aged 55. The autobiography of the youngest member of the Maguire Seven, Patrick Maguire, My Father's Watch: The Story of a Child Prisoner in 70s Britain, was released in 2008. It tells his story before, during, and after his imprisonment and details its impact on his life and those of his family. Gerry Conlon later joined a campaign to free the "Craigavon Two", Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton, convicted of the murder of a police officer in Northern Ireland. Conlon died at home in Belfast on 21 June 2014. His family issued a statement: "He brought life, love, intelligence, wit and strength to our family through its darkest hours. He helped us to survive what we were not meant to survive. We recognise that what he achieved by fighting for justice for us had a far, far greater importance—it forced the world's closed eyes to be opened to injustice; it forced unimaginable wickedness to be acknowledged; we believe it changed the course of history". Sir John Donaldson went on to an illustrious judicial career and became Master of the Rolls, Head of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal. The appeal case itself for R v Maguire 1981, is now the leading case for disclosure to the defence. In 2018, the BBC broadcast the documentary A Great British Injustice: The Maguire Story, with the involvement of the Maguire family's surviving members. Key prosecution figures Many of the key figures in the British legal and criminal justice establishment who were responsible for the wrongful prosecution of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, while later facing public criticism, were never formally held accountable for their role in the scandal. In 2013, in what is believed to be the final media interview he gave before his premature death in 2014, Gerry Conlon told Italian documentary maker and photographer Lorenzo Moscia that every key British figure involved in his wrongful conviction had subsequently been promoted and reached the top of their respective profession. He contrasted this with the struggles and hardships he and the other wrongfully convicted people faced in the years after their release from prison. Lord Justice Donaldson (trial judge) Two months after Margaret Thatcher became British Prime Minister in 1979, the trial judge in the Guildford Four case, Lord Justice (John) Donaldson, was made a Lord Justice of Appeal and a Privy Counsellor. In 1982 he was appointed Master of the Rolls, the second-most-senior judicial office in England and Wales as head of the Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and Head of Civil Justice. In 1988 he was elevated to the House of Lords with a life peerage as Baron Donaldson of Lymington. Sir Peter Imbert (Police investigator) Peter Imbert, the then deputy head of the Metropolitan Police Anti-Terrorist Branch in 1974, was the police officer who oversaw the arrest and interrogation of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven. Lord Chief Justice Lane later called this investigation "a sequence of false confessions and police deceits." In late 1975 Imbert led the police operation that saw the arrest of the IRA's Balcombe Street ASU, members of which later confessed to being the real bombers in Guildford and Woolwich, a fact Imbert knew. In 1976 Imbert was appointed Assistant Chief Constable, and later Deputy Chief Constable of Surrey Constabulary (the police force that investigated the Guildford pub bombings). In 1979, he became Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, the youngest Chief Constable in the country at that time. He returned to the Metropolitan Police as Assistant Commissioner in 1985, and in 1987 he was appointed Commissioner of the Met (the seniormost police force position in the UK) by then Conservative Home Secretary Douglas Hurd. Imbert retired from the police in 1992 and in was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Greater London from 1998 until 2008. He was appointed to the House of Lords as a life peer as Baron Imbert, of New Romney in the County of Kent in 1999, sitting as a crossbencher. Sir Norman Skelhorn (Director of Public Prosecutions) Sir Norman Skelhorn was the Director of Public Prosecutions in England and Wales in 1974 oversaw the Crown's prosecution of Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, as well as the prosecution of the Birmingham Six. Skelhorn had a chequered history in relation to prosecution of terrorist offences related to the Troubles. He became entangled in the row that erupted around the use of torture in Northern Ireland. Edward Heath, Prime Minister since 1970, had banned sensory deprivation in light of the report by Sir Edmund Compton into internment and interrogation techniques used by the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. In October 1973, while being questioned at a meeting of the Harvard Law School Forum, Sir Norman did not deny that torture had taken place. On the contrary, he stated that "when dealing with "Irish terrorists" any methods were justified." Skelhorn retired as DPP before the publication of the critical report by Lord Devlin published in 1977 recommended statutory prosecution safeguards, on which the then Callaghan Government took no action. Lord (Michael) Havers (Prosecuting counsel) British barrister and Conservative politician Sir Michael Havers MP, was selected by DPP Norman Skelhorn to lead both the prosecution of the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven in 1974, and the Crown's case in opposing the subsequent appeals of both groups in the Court of Appeal. Havers was from a distinguished legal family. His father was High Court judge Sir Cecil Havers, and his sister was Baroness Butler-Sloss who in 1988 became the first woman named to the Court of Appeal and later President of the Family Division. Sir Michael was the father of the well-known English actor Nigel Havers. Havers was elected to the House of Commons in 1970 as Conservative MP for Wimbledon (a seat he held until 1987). He served as Solicitor General for England and Wales under Prime Minister Edward Heath from 1972 to 1974. By October 1974, with the Conservatives in opposition, Havers acted for the DPP in both prosecutions. In the case of the Guildford Four, the DPP was found to have suppressed alibi evidence that supported Gerry Conlon's and Paul Hill's claims of innocence. The DPP, for which Havers was acting, was also found to have suppressed confessions by Provisional IRA bombers in the Balcombe Street Gang, claiming responsibility for the Guildford and Woolwich bombings. While it was never directly shown that Havers knew of the evidence the DPP suppressed, many, including Labour MP Chris Mullin, cast doubt on his integrity in the matter in his submission to the May Inquiry into the wrongful convictions. In 1977, Havers became a member of the Privy Council. In 1979, Thatcher reappointed him as Attorney-General for England and Wales and as Attorney General for Northern Ireland. He held both posts until 1987. During the Falklands War in 1982, Havers was included in Thatcher's War Cabinet, to which he provided advice on international law and rules of engagement. After Havers retired from the House of Commons in the 1987 UK general election, Thatcher appointed him Lord Chancellor, and he consequently became a life peer as Baron Havers, of St Edmundsbury in the County of Suffolk. At the time, this made him a senior Minister of the Crown, the most senior judicial officer holder in the UK, as well as presiding officer of the House of Lords. In popular culture In March 1991 Paul Hill appeared on the Channel 4 discussion programme After Dark with, among others, Patrick Cosgrave, J. P. Donleavy, David Norris, Emily O'Reilly and Francis Stuart. In May 1994 Paul Hill gave a half-hour Opinions lecture televised on Channel 4 and subsequently published in The Independent as "Prisoners on the Outside". The film In the Name of the Father starring Daniel Day-Lewis was based on the story of the Guildford Four. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards. The Guildford Four are mentioned in the track "Fifty in Five" from the Australian hip-hop album State of the Art which compiles major events of the past fifty years condensed into a five-minute song. The song "The Guildford Four" on the album "Himself" by Northern Irish singer-songwriter Andy White tells the story of their wrongful conviction. It was released in 1990 on Cooking Vinyl. See also Good Friday Agreement Birmingham Six Maamtrasna trial References External links Life for a life sentences to warn the IRA – A report on the sentencing phase of the original trial, The Guardian, 23 October 1975 Miscarriages of justice Summary of the cases from the BBC Justice:Denied's review of the book and movie version of In the Name of the Father Background to the Irish cases

Birmingham_Six

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birmingham_Six

The Birmingham Six were six Northern Irishmen who were each sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 following their false convictions for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and quashed by the Court of Appeal on 14 March 1991. The six men were later awarded financial compensation ranging from £840,000 to £1.2 million. Birmingham pub bombings The Birmingham pub bombings took place on 21 November 1974 and were attributed to the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA). Improvised explosive devices were placed in two central Birmingham pubs: the Mulberry Bush at the foot of the Rotunda, and the Tavern in the Town – a basement pub in New Street. The resulting explosions, at 20:25 and 20:27, collectively were the deadliest attacks in the UK since World War II (until surpassed by the Denmark Place fire in 1980); 21 people were killed (ten at the Mulberry Bush and eleven at the Tavern in the Town) and 182 people were injured. Arrests and questioning Six men were arrested: Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker. Five were Belfast-born, while John Walker was born in Derry. All six had lived in Birmingham since the 1960s. All the men except for Callaghan had left the city early on the evening of 21 November from New Street Station, shortly before the explosions. They were travelling to Belfast to attend the funeral of James McDade, an IRA member whom they all knew. McDade had accidentally killed himself on 14 November when his bomb detonated prematurely while he was planting it at a telephone exchange in Coventry. When they reached Heysham, Lancashire, they and others were subject to a Special Branch stop and search. The men did not tell the police of the true purpose of their visit to Belfast, a fact that was later held against them. While the search was in progress the police were informed of the Birmingham bombings. The men agreed to be taken to Morecambe, Lancashire, police station for forensic tests. On the morning of 22 November, after the forensic tests and questioning by the Morecambe police, the men were transferred to the custody of West Midlands Serious Crime Squad police unit. Callaghan was taken into custody on the evening of 22 November. While the men were in the custody of the West Midlands Police they were allegedly deprived of food and sleep, and were sometimes interrogated for as much as 12 hours without a break. Threats were made against them and they suffered abuse: punches, dogs being let loose within a foot of them, and a mock execution. William Power said that officers from Birmingham police Criminal Investigation Department assaulted him. Richard McIlkenny's daughter said, "When they (the family) saw him the next day, he had been so badly beaten he was unrecognisable." Power confessed while in Morecambe while Callaghan, Walker and McIlkenny confessed at Queens Road in Aston, Birmingham. Trial On 12 May 1975, the six men were charged with murder. Three other men, James Kelly, Mick Murray and Michael Sheehan, were charged with conspiracy. The trial began on 9 June 1975 at the Crown Court sitting at Lancaster Castle, before Mr Justice Bridge and a jury. After legal arguments the statements made in November were deemed admissible as evidence. The unreliability of these statements was later established. Thomas Watt provided circumstantial evidence about John Walker's association with Provisional IRA members. Forensic scientist Dr Frank Skuse used positive Griess test results to claim that Hill and Power had handled explosives. Callaghan, Hunter, McIlkenny and Walker all had tested negative. GCMS tests at a later date were negative for Power and contradicted the initial results for Hill. Skuse's claim that he was 99% certain that Power and Hill had explosives traces on their hands was opposed by defence expert Dr Hugh Kenneth Black of the Royal Institute of Chemistry, the former HM Chief Inspector of Explosives, Home Office. Skuse's evidence was clearly preferred by Bridge. The jury found the six men guilty of murder. On 15 August 1975, they were each sentenced to 21 life sentences. Criminal charges against prison officers and civil actions against police On 28 November 1975, the men appeared in court for the second time after they had been remanded into custody at HM Prison Winson Green. All showed bruising and other signs of ill-treatment. Fourteen prison officers were charged with assault in June 1975, but were all acquitted at a trial presided over by Mr. Justice Swanwick. The Six brought a civil claim for damages against the West Midlands Police in 1977, which was struck out on 17 January 1980 by the Court of Appeal (Civil Division), constituted by the Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, Goff LJ and Sir George Baker, under the principle of estoppel. Appeals In March 1976 their first application for leave to appeal was dismissed by the Court of Appeal, presided over by Lord Widgery CJ. Journalist Chris Mullin investigated the case for Granada TV's World in Action series. In 1985, the first of several World in Action programmes casting doubt on the men's convictions was broadcast. In 1986, Mullin's book, Error of Judgment: The Truth About the Birmingham Pub Bombings, set out a detailed case supporting the men's claims that they were innocent. It included his claim to have met some of those who were actually responsible for the bombings. The Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd, referred the case back to the Court of Appeal. In January 1988, after a six-week hearing (at that time the longest criminal appeal hearing ever held), the convictions were ruled to be safe and satisfactory. The Court of Appeal, presided over by the Lord Chief Justice Lord Lane, dismissed the appeals. Over the next three years, newspaper articles, television documentaries and books brought forward new evidence to question the safety of the convictions. Their second full appeal, in 1991, was allowed. Hunter was represented by Lord Gifford QC, the others by Michael Mansfield QC. The Crown decided not to resist the appeals on the basis of new evidence of police fabrication and suppression of evidence, the successful attacks on both the confessions, and the 1975 forensic evidence. The Court of Appeal, constituted by Lord Justices Lloyd, Mustill and Farquharson, stated that "in the light of the fresh scientific evidence, which at least throws grave doubt on Dr. Skuse's evidence, if it does not destroy it altogether, these convictions are both unsafe and unsatisfactory." On 14 March 1991 the six walked free. In 2001, a decade after their release, the six men were awarded compensation ranging from £840,000 to £1.2 million. Richard McIlkenny, one of the six men wrongly convicted of the Birmingham pub bombings, died of cancer on 21 May 2006, aged 73. He had returned to Ireland shortly after he was freed from prison, and died in hospital with his family at his bedside. McIlkenny was buried on 24 May in Celbridge, County Kildare. The other members of the Birmingham Six were present at his wake and funeral. Hugh Callaghan died on 27 May 2023, aged 93. Of the four surviving members of the Birmingham Six, Patrick Hill currently resides in Ayrshire; Gerard Hunter in Portugal; John Walker in Donegal; William Power in London. Consequences The success of the appeals and other miscarriages of justice caused the Home Secretary to set up a Royal Commission on Criminal Justice in 1991. The commission reported in 1993 and led to the Criminal Appeal Act 1995 which established the Criminal Cases Review Commission in 1997. Superintendent George Reade and two other police officers were charged with perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice but were never prosecuted. During the inquest into the bombings in 2016, Hill stated that he knew the identities of three of the bombers who were still "free men" in Ireland. Granada Television productions On 28 March 1990, ITV broadcast the Granada Television docudrama, Who Bombed Birmingham?, which re-enacted the bombings and subsequent key events in Chris Mullin's campaign. Written by Rob Ritchie and directed by Mike Beckham, it starred John Hurt as Mullin, Martin Shaw as World in Action producer Ian McBride, Ciarán Hinds as Richard McIlkenny, one of the Six, and Patrick Malahide as Michael Mansfield (QC). It was repackaged for export as The Investigation – Inside a Terrorist Bombing, and first shown on American television on 22 April 1990. Granada's BAFTA-nominated follow-up documentary after the release of the six men, World in Action Special: The Birmingham Six – Their Own Story, was telecast on 18 March 1991. It was released on DVD in 2007 in Network's first volume of World in Action productions. In 1994, Frank Skuse brought libel proceedings against Granada, contending that World in Action had falsely portrayed him as negligent. His counsel asserted in the High Court that scientific tests performed in 1992, after the Crown's substantive concession of the accused men's third appeal, showed that traces of nitroglycerine were detected on swabs taken after the bombings from the hands of Hunter and Hill, and on rail tickets handled by McIlkenny and Power. Granada maintained there were never any traces of explosives on the six men. Skuse abandoned the action later that year. Freedom of speech In December 1987, the Court of Appeal granted an injunction which prevented Channel 4 from re-enacting portions of a hearing in the litigation, as it was "likely to undermine public confidence in the administration of justice" if shown during the appeal, in violation of the Contempt of Court Act 1981. In their book The Three Pillars of Liberty (1996) Keir Starmer, Francesca Klug, and Stuart Weir said the decision had had a "chilling effect" on other news and current affairs programmes. In January 1988 after their first appeal failed, The Sun published an article with the headline "Loony MP Backs Bomb Gang" and an editorial said, "If The Sun had its way, we would have been tempted to string 'em up years ago". In 1993 and 1994, the Birmingham Six received an undisclosed amount from both The Sunday Telegraph and The Sun in an action for libel for the newspapers' reporting of police statements. The New York Times reported in 1997 that the Six had brought libel actions against publications for reporting slurs against them, and that a libel law that usually favours plaintiffs was sending a chill through the British press. The Conservative MP David Evans was sued by them in March 1997 for saying that they were guilty of killing hundreds of people before they were caught. Evans apologised 16 months later. He paid both damages and costs and promised he would never repeat the allegation again. Attempt to force journalist to reveal sources During his investigation, which proved crucial in establishing the innocence of the Six, Chris Mullin located one of the actual bombers and persuaded him to provide information which helped the men falsely convicted. Mullin promised that he would never reveal his source. At the time the police were not interested, as they believed that they had already arrested the culprits. However, in 2018 the West Midlands police reopened the investigation, almost 50 years after the event. Two of the four bombers had died. Mullin cooperated with the investigation as far as he felt was possible, for example providing notes of interviews with dead bomber Michael Murray and a redacted copy of notes of other interviews. But Mullin refused to name other people interviewed. The West Midlands police applied for an order under the Terrorism Act 2000 to compel Mullin to reveal his sources; he refused, later saying that source protection is a cornerstone of the free press in a democracy. In March 2022 Judge Lucraft ruled that it was not in the public interest to oblige Mullin to identify the living perpetrator. Mullin's legal team later said, hailing the ruling, that the right of a journalist to protect their sources was fundamental to a free press in a democracy. See also Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, two sets of people falsely convicted of the Guildford pub bombings which were carried out by the Provisional IRA's Balcombe Street Gang in 1974. Reykjavik Six, a gang of youths falsely accused of the murder of two disappeared people in Iceland in 1974. Maamtrasna trial "Streets of Sorrow/Birmingham Six", a song by The Pogues in support of the Birmingham Six and Guildford Four List of miscarriage of justice cases References Further reading Transcript of Appeal Hearing: McIlkenny & Ors, R. v, 1991, EWCA Crim 2 (27 March 1991) Criminal Cases Review Commission House of Commons Debate BBC – On This Day Innocence Network UK (INUK) Birmingham Pub Bombings The Birmingham Framework Cain Conflict Chronology Miscarriages of Justice Organisation Birmingham Six Error of Judgment: The Truth About the Birmingham Bombings; Chris Mullin The Birmingham Six and Other Cases; Louis Blom-Cooper; ISBN 0-7156-2813-5. Forever Lost, Forever Gone; Paddy Joe Hill

Northern_Ireland

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_Ireland

Northern Ireland (Irish: Tuaisceart Éireann [ˈt̪ˠuəʃcəɾˠt̪ˠ ˈeːɾʲən̪ˠ] ; Ulster Scots: Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland that is variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares an open border to the south and west with the Republic of Ireland. At the 2021 census, its population was 1,903,175, making up around 3% of the UK's population and 27% of the population on the island of Ireland. The Northern Ireland Assembly, established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998, holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters, while other areas are reserved for the UK Government. The government of Northern Ireland cooperates with the government of Ireland in several areas under the terms of the Belfast Agreement. The Republic of Ireland also has a consultative role on non-devolved governmental matters through the British–Irish Governmental Conference (BIIG). Northern Ireland was created in 1921, when Ireland was partitioned by the Government of Ireland Act 1920, creating a devolved government for the six northeastern counties. As was intended by unionists and their supporters in Westminster, Northern Ireland had a unionist majority, who wanted to remain in the United Kingdom; they were generally the Protestant descendants of colonists from Britain. Meanwhile, the majority in Southern Ireland (which became the Irish Free State in 1922), and a significant minority in Northern Ireland, were Irish nationalists (generally Catholics) who wanted a united independent Ireland. Today, the former generally see themselves as British and the latter generally see themselves as Irish, while a Northern Irish or Ulster identity is claimed by a significant minority from all backgrounds. The creation of Northern Ireland was accompanied by violence both in defence of and against partition. During the conflict of 1920–22, the capital Belfast saw major communal violence, mainly between Protestant unionist and Catholic nationalist civilians. More than 500 were killed and more than 10,000 became refugees, mostly Catholics. For the next fifty years, Northern Ireland had an unbroken series of Unionist Party governments. There was informal mutual segregation by both communities, and the Unionist governments were accused of discrimination against the Irish nationalist and Catholic minority. In the late 1960s, a campaign to end discrimination against Catholics and nationalists was opposed by loyalists, who saw it as a republican front. This unrest sparked the Troubles, a thirty-year conflict involving republican and loyalist paramilitaries and state forces, which claimed over 3,500 lives and injured 50,000 others. The 1998 Good Friday Agreement was a major step in the peace process, including paramilitary disarmament and security normalisation, although sectarianism and segregation remain major social problems, and sporadic violence has continued. The economy of Northern Ireland was the most industrialised in Ireland at the time of partition, but soon began to decline, exacerbated by the political and social turmoil of the Troubles. Its economy has grown significantly since the late 1990s. Unemployment in Northern Ireland peaked at 17.2% in 1986, but dropped back down to below 10% in the 2010s, similar to the rate of the rest of the UK. Cultural links between Northern Ireland, the rest of Ireland, and the rest of the UK are complex, with Northern Ireland sharing both the culture of Ireland and the culture of the United Kingdom. In many sports, there is an All-Ireland governing body or team for the whole island; the most notable exception is association football. Northern Ireland competes separately at the Commonwealth Games, and people from Northern Ireland may compete for either Great Britain or Ireland at the Olympic Games. History The region that is now Northern Ireland was long inhabited by native Gaels who were Irish-speaking and predominantly Catholic. It was made up of several Gaelic kingdoms and territories and was part of the province of Ulster. In 1169, Ireland was invaded by a coalition of forces under the command of the English crown that quickly overran and occupied most of the island, beginning 800 years of foreign central authority. Attempts at resistance were swiftly crushed everywhere outside of Ulster. Unlike in the rest of the country, where Gaelic authority continued only in scattered, remote pockets, the major kingdoms of Ulster would mostly remain intact with English authority in the province contained to areas on the eastern coast closest to Great Britain. English power gradually eroded in the face of stubborn Irish resistance in the centuries that followed; eventually being reduced to only the city of Dublin and its suburbs. When Henry VIII launched the 16th century Tudor re-conquest of Ireland, Ulster once again resisted most effectively. In the Nine Years' War (1594–1603), an alliance of Gaelic chieftains led by the two most powerful Ulster lords, Hugh Roe O'Donnell and the Earl of Tyrone fought against the English government in Ireland. The Ulster-dominated alliance represented the first Irish united front; prior resistance had always been geographically localized. Despite being able to cement an alliance with Spain and major victories early on, defeat was virtually inevitable following England's victory at the siege of Kinsale. In 1607, the rebellion's leaders fled to mainland Europe alongside much of Ulster's Gaelic nobility. Their lands were confiscated by the Crown and colonized with English-speaking Protestant settlers from Britain, in the Plantation of Ulster. This led to the founding of many of Ulster's towns and created a lasting Ulster Protestant community with ties to Britain. The Irish Rebellion of 1641 began in Ulster. The rebels wanted an end to anti-Catholic discrimination, greater Irish self-governance, and to roll back the Plantation. It developed into an ethnic conflict between Irish Catholics and British Protestant settlers and became part of the wider Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–53), which ended with the English Parliamentarian conquest. Further Protestant victories in the Williamite-Jacobite War (1688–91) solidified Anglican Protestant rule in the Kingdom of Ireland. The Williamite victories of the siege of Derry (1689) and Battle of the Boyne (1690) are still celebrated by some Protestants in Northern Ireland. Many more Scots Protestants migrated to Ulster during the Scottish famine of the 1690s. Following the Williamite victory, and contrary to the Treaty of Limerick (1691), a series of Penal Laws were passed by the Anglican Protestant ruling class in Ireland. The intention was to disadvantage Catholics and, to a lesser extent, Presbyterians. Some 250,000 Ulster Presbyterians emigrated to the British North American colonies between 1717 and 1775. It is estimated that there are more than 27 million Scotch-Irish Americans now living in the United States, along with many Scotch-Irish Canadians in Canada. In the context of institutional discrimination, the 18th century saw secret, militant societies develop in Ulster and act on sectarian tensions in violent attacks. This escalated at the end of the century, especially during the County Armagh disturbances, where the Protestant Peep o' Day Boys fought the Catholic Defenders. This led to the founding of the Protestant Orange Order. The Irish Rebellion of 1798 was led by the United Irishmen; a cross-community Irish republican group founded by Belfast Presbyterians, which sought Irish independence. Following this, the government of the Kingdom of Great Britain pushed for the two kingdoms to be merged, in an attempt to quell violent sectarianism, remove discriminatory laws, and prevent the spread of French-style republicanism. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was formed in 1801 and governed from London. During the 19th century, legal reforms known as the Catholic emancipation continued to remove discrimination against Catholics, and progressive programs enabled tenant farmers to buy land from landlords. Home Rule Crisis By the late 19th century, a large and disciplined cohort of Irish Nationalist MPs at Westminster committed the Liberal Party to "Irish Home Rule"—self-government for Ireland, within the United Kingdom. This was bitterly opposed by Irish Unionists, most of whom were Protestants, who feared an Irish devolved government dominated by Irish nationalists and Catholics. The Government of Ireland Bill 1886 and Government of Ireland Bill 1893 were defeated. However, Home Rule became a near-certainty in 1912 after the Government of Ireland Act 1914 was first introduced. The Liberal government was dependent on Nationalist support, and the Parliament Act 1911 prevented the House of Lords from blocking the bill indefinitely. In response, unionists vowed to prevent Irish Home Rule, from Conservative and Unionist Party leaders such as Bonar Law and Dublin-based barrister Edward Carson to militant working class unionists in Ireland. This sparked the Home Rule Crisis. In September 1912, more than 500,000 unionists signed the Ulster Covenant, pledging to oppose Home Rule by any means and to defy any Irish government. In 1914, unionists smuggled thousands of rifles and rounds of ammunition from Imperial Germany for use by the Ulster Volunteers (UVF), a paramilitary organisation formed to oppose Home Rule. Irish nationalists had also formed a paramilitary organisation, the Irish Volunteers. It sought to ensure Home Rule was implemented, and it smuggled its own weapons into Ireland a few months after the Ulster Volunteers. Ireland seemed to be on the brink of civil war. Unionists were in a minority in Ireland as a whole, but a majority in the province of Ulster, especially the counties Antrim, Down, Armagh and Londonderry. Unionists argued that if Home Rule could not be stopped then all or part of Ulster should be excluded from it. In May 1914, the UK Government introduced an Amending Bill to allow for 'Ulster' to be excluded from Home Rule. There was then debate over how much of Ulster should be excluded and for how long. Some Ulster unionists were willing to tolerate the 'loss' of some mainly-Catholic areas of the province. The crisis was interrupted by the outbreak of the First World War in August 1914, and Ireland's involvement in it. The UK government abandoned the Amending Bill, and instead rushed through a new bill, the Suspensory Act 1914, suspending Home Rule for the duration of the war, with the exclusion of Ulster still to be decided. Partition of Ireland By the end of the war (during which the 1916 Easter Rising had taken place), most Irish nationalists now wanted full independence rather than home rule. In September 1919, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George tasked a committee with planning another home rule bill. Headed by English unionist politician Walter Long, it was known as the 'Long Committee'. It decided that two devolved governments should be established—one for the nine counties of Ulster and one for the rest of Ireland—together with a Council of Ireland for the "encouragement of Irish unity". Most Ulster unionists wanted the territory of the Ulster government to be reduced to six counties so that it would have a larger Protestant unionist majority, which they believed would guarantee its longevity. The six counties of Antrim, Down, Armagh, Londonderry, Tyrone and Fermanagh comprised the maximum area unionists believed they could dominate. The area that was to become Northern Ireland included counties Fermanagh and Tyrone, even though they had nationalist majorities in the 1918 Irish general election. Events overtook the government. In the 1918 Irish general election, the pro-independence Sinn Féin party won the overwhelming majority of Irish seats. Sinn Féin's elected members boycotted the British parliament and founded a separate Irish parliament (Dáil Éireann), declaring an independent Irish Republic covering the whole island. Many Irish republicans blamed the British establishment for the sectarian divisions in Ireland, and believed that Ulster unionism would fade once British rule was ended. The British authorities outlawed the Dáil in September 1919, and a guerrilla conflict developed as the Irish Republican Army (IRA) began attacking British forces. This became known as the Irish War of Independence. Meanwhile, the Government of Ireland Act 1920 passed through the British parliament in 1920. It would divide Ireland into two self-governing UK territories: the six northeastern counties (Northern Ireland) being ruled from Belfast, and the other twenty-six counties (Southern Ireland) being ruled from Dublin. Both would have a shared Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who would appoint both governments and a Council of Ireland, which the UK government intended to evolve into an all-Ireland parliament. The Act received royal assent that December, becoming the Government of Ireland Act 1920. It came into force on 3 May 1921, partitioning Ireland and creating Northern Ireland. the 1921 Irish elections were held on 24 May, in which unionists won most seats in the Northern Ireland parliament. It first met on 7 June and formed its first devolved government, headed by Ulster Unionist Party leader James Craig. Irish nationalist members refused to attend. King George V addressed the ceremonial opening of the Northern parliament on 22 June. During 1920–22, in what became Northern Ireland, partition was accompanied by violence "in defence or opposition to the new settlement" during The Troubles (1920–1922). The IRA carried out attacks on British forces in the north-east but was less active than in the rest of Ireland. Protestant loyalists attacked Catholics in reprisal for IRA actions. In the summer of 1920, sectarian violence erupted in Belfast and Derry, and there were mass burnings of Catholic property in Lisburn and Banbridge. Conflict continued intermittently for two years, mostly in Belfast, which saw "savage and unprecedented" communal violence between Protestants and Catholics, including rioting, gun battles, and bombings. Homes, businesses, and churches were attacked and people were expelled from workplaces and mixed neighbourhoods. More than 500 were killed and more than 10,000 became refugees, most of them Catholics. The British Army was deployed and the Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) was formed to help the regular police. The USC was almost wholly Protestant. Members of the USC and regular police were involved in reprisal attacks on Catholic civilians. A truce between British forces and the IRA was established on 11 July 1921, ending the fighting in most of Ireland. However, communal violence continued in Belfast, and in 1922 the IRA launched a guerrilla offensive along the new Irish border. The Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed between representatives of the governments of the UK and the Irish Republic on 6 December 1921, laying out the process for the creation of the Irish Free State. Under the terms of the treaty, Northern Ireland would become part of the Free State unless its government opted out by presenting an address to the king, although in practice partition remained in place. The Irish Free State came into existence on 6 December 1922, and on the following day, the Parliament of Northern Ireland resolved to exercise its right to opt out of the Free State by making an address to King George V. The text of the address was: Most Gracious Sovereign, We, your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Senators and Commons of Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled, having learnt of the passing of the Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922, being the Act of Parliament for the ratification of the Articles of Agreement for a Treaty between Great Britain and Ireland, do, by this humble Address, pray your Majesty that the powers of the Parliament and Government of the Irish Free State shall no longer extend to Northern Ireland. Shortly afterwards, the Irish Boundary Commission was established to decide on the border between the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland. Owing to the outbreak of the Irish Civil War, the work of the commission was delayed until 1925. The Free State government and Irish nationalists hoped for a large transfer of territory to the Free State, as many border areas had nationalist majorities. Many believed this would leave the remaining Northern Ireland territory too small to be viable. However, the commission's final report recommended only small transfers of territory, and in both directions. The Free State, Northern Ireland, and UK governments agreed to suppress the report and accept the status quo, while the UK government agreed that the Free State would no longer have to pay a share of the UK national debt. 1925–1965 Northern Ireland's border was drawn to give it "a decisive Protestant majority". At the time of its creation, Northern Ireland's population was two-thirds Protestant and one-third Catholic. Most Protestants were unionists/loyalists who sought to maintain Northern Ireland as a part of the United Kingdom, while most Catholics were Irish nationalists/republicans who sought an independent United Ireland. There was mutual self-imposed segregation in Northern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics such as in education, housing, and often employment. For its first fifty years, Northern Ireland had an unbroken series of Ulster Unionist Party governments. Every prime minister and almost every minister of these governments were members of the Orange Order, as were all but 11 of the 149 Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MPs elected during this time. Almost all judges and magistrates were Protestant, many of them closely associated with the UUP. Northern Ireland's new police force was the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), which succeeded the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC). It too was almost wholly Protestant and lacked operational independence, responding to directions from government ministers. The RUC and the reserve Ulster Special Constabulary (USC) were militarized police forces due to the perceived threat of militant republicanism. In 1936 the British advocacy group - the National Council for Civil Liberties characterised the USC as "nothing but the organised army of the Unionist party". They "had at their disposal the Special Powers Act, a sweeping piece of legislation which allowed arrests without warrant, internment without trial, unlimited search powers, and bans on meetings and publications". This 1922 Act was made permanent in 1933 and was not repealed until 1973. The Nationalist Party was the main political party in opposition to the UUP governments. However, its elected members often protested by abstaining from the Northern Ireland parliament, and many nationalists did not vote in parliamentary elections. Other early nationalist groups which campaigned against partition included the National League of the North (formed in 1928), the Northern Council for Unity (formed in 1937) and the Irish Anti-Partition League (formed in 1945). The Local Government Act (Northern Ireland) of 1922 allowed for the altering of municipal and rural boundaries. This Act led to the gerrymandering of local election boundaries in the Nationalists majority cities of Derry City, Enniskillen, Omagh, Armagh and many other towns and rural districts. That action ensured Unionist control over local councils in areas where they were a minority. The UUP governments, and some UUP-dominated local authorities, discriminated against the Catholic and Irish nationalist minority; especially by the gerrymandering of local electoral boundaries, the allocation of public housing, public sector employment, and policing, showing "a consistent and irrefutable pattern of deliberate discrimination against Catholics". Many Catholics/Nationalists saw the gerrymandered local electoral boundaries and the abolishing of proportional representation as proof of government-sponsored discrimination. Until 1969 a system was in place called plural voting which was a practice whereby one person might be able to vote multiple times in an election. Property and business owners could vote both in the constituency where their property lay and that in which they lived, if the two were different. This system often resulted in one person being able to cast multiple votes. Decades later, UUP First Minister of Northern Ireland, David Trimble, said that Northern Ireland under the UUP had been a "cold house" for Catholics. During World War II, recruitment to the British military was noticeably lower than the high levels reached during World War I. In June 1940, to encourage the neutral Irish state to join with the Allies, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill indicated to Taoiseach Éamon de Valera that the British government would encourage Irish unity, but believing that Churchill could not deliver, de Valera declined the offer. The British did not inform the government of Northern Ireland that they had made the offer to the Dublin government, and de Valera's rejection was not publicised until 1970. Belfast was a key industrial city in the UK's war effort, producing ships, tanks, aircraft, and munitions. The unemployment that had been so persistent in the 1930s disappeared, and labour shortages appeared, prompting migration from the Free State. The city was thinly defended, and had only 24 anti-aircraft guns. Richard Dawson Bates, the Minister for Home Affairs, had prepared too late, assuming that Belfast was far enough away to be safe. The city's fire brigade was inadequate, and as the Northern Ireland government had been reluctant to spend money on air raid shelters, it only started to build them after the Blitz in London during the autumn of 1940. There were no searchlights in the city, which made shooting down enemy bombers more difficult. In April–May 1941, the Belfast Blitz began when the Luftwaffe launched a series of raids that were the most deadly seen outside London. Working-class areas in the north and east of the city were particularly hard hit, and over 1,000 people were killed and hundreds were seriously injured. Tens of thousands of people fled the city in fear of future attacks. In the final raid, Luftwaffe bombs inflicted extensive damage to the docks and the Harland & Wolff shipyard, closing it for six months. Half of the city's houses had been destroyed, highlighting the terrible slum conditions in Belfast, and about £20 million worth of damage was caused. The Northern Ireland government was criticised heavily for its lack of preparation, and Northern Ireland Prime Minister J. M. Andrews resigned. There was a major munitions strike in 1944. The Ireland Act 1949 gave the first legal guarantee that the region would not cease to be part of the United Kingdom without the consent of the Parliament of Northern Ireland. From 1956 to 1962, the Irish Republican Army (IRA) carried out a limited guerrilla campaign in border areas of Northern Ireland, called the Border Campaign. It aimed to destabilize Northern Ireland and bring about an end to partition but failed. In 1965, Northern Ireland's Prime Minister Terence O'Neill met the Taoiseach, Seán Lemass. It was the first meeting between the two heads of government since partition. The Troubles The Troubles, which started in the late 1960s, consisted of about 30 years of recurring acts of intense violence during which 3,254 people were killed with over 50,000 casualties. From 1969 to 2003 there were over 36,900 shooting incidents and over 16,200 bombings or attempted bombings associated with The Troubles. The conflict was caused by escalating tensions between the Irish nationalist minority and the dominant unionist majority; Irish nationalists object to Northern Ireland staying within the United Kingdom. From 1967 to 1972 the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA), which modelled itself on the US civil rights movement, led a campaign of civil resistance to anti-Catholic discrimination in housing, employment, policing, and electoral procedures. The franchise for local government elections included only rate-payers and their spouses, and so excluded over a quarter of the electorate. While the majority of disenfranchised electors were Protestant, Catholics were over-represented since they were poorer and had more adults still living in the family home. NICRA's campaign, seen by many unionists as an Irish republican front, and the violent reaction to it proved to be a precursor to a more violent period. As early as 1969, armed campaigns of paramilitary groups began, including the Provisional IRA campaign of 1969–1997 which was aimed at the end of British rule in Northern Ireland and the creation of a United Ireland, and the Ulster Volunteer Force, formed in 1966 in response to the perceived erosion of both the British character and unionist domination of Northern Ireland. The state security forces – the British Army and the police (the Royal Ulster Constabulary) – were also involved in the violence. The UK Government's position is that its forces were neutral in the conflict, trying to uphold law and order in Northern Ireland and the right of the people of Northern Ireland to democratic self-determination. Republicans regarded the state forces as combatants in the conflict, pointing to the collusion between the state forces and the loyalist paramilitaries as proof of this. The "Ballast" investigation by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland has confirmed that British forces, and in particular the RUC, did collude with loyalist paramilitaries, were involved in murder, and did obstruct the course of justice when such claims had been investigated, although the extent to which such collusion occurred is still disputed. As a consequence of the worsening security situation, the autonomous regional government for Northern Ireland was suspended in 1972. Alongside the violence, there was a political deadlock between the major political parties in Northern Ireland, including those who condemned the violence, over the future status of Northern Ireland and the form of government there should be within Northern Ireland. In 1973, Northern Ireland held a referendum to determine if it should remain in the United Kingdom, or be part of a united Ireland. The vote went heavily in favour (98.9%) of maintaining the status quo. Approximately 57.5% of the total electorate voted in support, but only 1% of Catholics voted following a boycott organised by the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). Peace process The Troubles were brought to an uneasy end by a peace process that included the declaration of ceasefires by most paramilitary organisations and the complete decommissioning of their weapons, the reform of the police, and the corresponding withdrawal of army troops from the streets and sensitive border areas such as South Armagh and Fermanagh, as agreed by the signatories to the Belfast Agreement (commonly known as the "Good Friday Agreement"). This reiterated the long-held British position, which had never before been fully acknowledged by successive Irish governments, that Northern Ireland will remain within the United Kingdom until a majority of voters in Northern Ireland decides otherwise. The Constitution of Ireland was amended in 1999 to remove a claim of the "Irish nation" to sovereignty over the entire island (in Article 2). The new Articles 2 and 3, added to the Constitution to replace the earlier articles, implicitly acknowledge that the status of Northern Ireland, and its relationships within the rest of the United Kingdom and with the Republic of Ireland, would only be changed with the agreement of a majority of voters in each jurisdiction. This aspect was also central to the Belfast Agreement which was signed in 1998 and ratified by referendums held simultaneously in both Northern Ireland and the Republic. At the same time, the UK Government recognised for the first time, as part of the prospective, the so-called "Irish dimension": the principle that the people of the island of Ireland as a whole have the right, without any outside interference, to solve the issues between North and South by mutual consent. The latter statement was key to winning support for the agreement from nationalists. It established a devolved power-sharing government, the Northern Ireland Assembly, located on the Stormont Estate, which must consist of both unionist and nationalist parties. These institutions were suspended by the UK Government in 2002 after Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) allegations of spying by people working for Sinn Féin at the Assembly (Stormontgate). The resulting case against the accused Sinn Féin member collapsed. On 28 July 2005, the Provisional IRA declared an end to its campaign and has since decommissioned what is thought to be all of its arsenal. This final act of decommissioning was performed under the watch of the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning (IICD) and two external church witnesses. Many unionists, however, remained sceptical. The IICD later confirmed that the main loyalist paramilitary groups, the Ulster Defence Association, UVF, and the Red Hand Commando, had decommissioned what is thought to be all of their arsenals, witnessed by former archbishop Robin Eames and a former top civil servant. Politicians elected to the Assembly at the 2003 Assembly election were called together on 15 May 2006 under the Northern Ireland Act 2006 to elect a First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland and choose the members of an Executive (before 25 November 2006) as a preliminary step to the restoration of devolved government. Following the election on 7 March 2007, the devolved government returned on 8 May 2007 with Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Ian Paisley and Sinn Féin deputy leader Martin McGuinness taking office as First Minister and deputy First Minister, respectively. In its white paper on Brexit the United Kingdom government reiterated its commitment to the Belfast Agreement. Concerning Northern Ireland's status, it said that the UK Government's "clearly-stated preference is to retain Northern Ireland's current constitutional position: as part of the UK, but with strong links to Ireland". Executive crisis 2022–2024 On 3 February 2022, Paul Givan resigned as first minister, which automatically resigned Michelle O'Neill as deputy first minister and collapsed the executive of Northern Ireland. On 30 January 2024, leader of the DUP Jeffrey Donaldson announced that the DUP would restore an executive government on the condition that new legislation was passed by the UK House of Commons. Politics Background The main political divide in Northern Ireland is between unionists, who wish to see Northern Ireland continue as part of the United Kingdom, and nationalists, who wish to see Northern Ireland unified with the Republic of Ireland, independent from the United Kingdom. These two opposing views are linked to deeper cultural divisions. Unionists are predominantly Ulster Protestant, descendants of mainly Scottish, English, and Huguenot settlers as well as Gaels who converted to one of the Protestant denominations. Nationalists are overwhelmingly Catholic and descend from the population predating the settlement, with a minority from the Scottish Highlands as well as some converts from Protestantism. Discrimination against nationalists under the Stormont government (1921–1972) gave rise to the civil rights movement in the 1960s. While some unionists argue that discrimination was not just due to religious or political bigotry, but also the result of more complex socio-economic, socio-political and geographical factors, its existence, and the manner in which nationalist anger at it was handled, were a major contributing factor to the Troubles. The political unrest went through its most violent phase between 1968 and 1994. In 2007, 36% of the population defined themselves as unionist, 24% as nationalist, and 40% defined themselves as neither. According to a 2015 opinion poll, 70% express a long-term preference of the maintenance of Northern Ireland's membership of the United Kingdom (either directly ruled or with devolved government), while 14% express a preference for membership of a united Ireland. This discrepancy can be explained by the overwhelming preference among Protestants to remain a part of the UK (93%), while Catholic preferences are spread across several solutions to the constitutional question including remaining a part of the UK (47%), a united Ireland (32%), Northern Ireland becoming an independent state (4%), and those who "don't know" (16%). Official voting figures, which reflect views on the "national question" along with issues of the candidate, geography, personal loyalty, and historic voting patterns, show 54% of Northern Ireland voters vote for unionist parties, 42% vote for nationalist parties, and 4% vote "other". Opinion polls consistently show that the election results are not necessarily an indication of the electorate's stance regarding the constitutional status of Northern Ireland. Most of the population of Northern Ireland is at least nominally Christian, mostly Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations. Many voters (regardless of religious affiliation) are attracted to unionism's conservative policies, while other voters are instead attracted to the traditionally leftist Sinn Féin and SDLP and their respective party platforms for democratic socialism and social democracy. For the most part, Protestants feel a strong connection with Great Britain and wish for Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom. Many Catholics however, generally aspire to a United Ireland or are less certain about how to solve the constitutional question. Catholics have a slight majority in Northern Ireland, according to the latest Northern Ireland census. The make-up of the Northern Ireland Assembly reflects the appeals of the various parties within the population. Of the 90 Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), 37 are unionists and 35 are nationalists (the remaining 18 are classified as "other"). The 1998 Good Friday Agreement acts as a de facto constitution for Northern Ireland. Local government in Northern Ireland since 2015 has been divided between 11 councils with limited responsibilities. The First Minister and deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland are the joint heads of government of Northern Ireland. Governance Since 1998, Northern Ireland has had devolved government within the United Kingdom, presided over by the Northern Ireland Assembly and a cross-community government (the Northern Ireland Executive). The UK Government and UK Parliament are responsible for reserved and excepted matters. Reserved matters comprise listed policy areas (such as civil aviation, units of measurement, and human genetics) that Parliament may devolve to the Assembly some time in the future. Excepted matters (such as international relations, taxation and elections) are never expected to be considered for devolution. On all other governmental matters, the Executive together with the 90-member Assembly may legislate for and govern Northern Ireland. Devolution in Northern Ireland is dependent upon participation by members of the Northern Ireland executive in the North/South Ministerial Council, which coordinates areas of cooperation (such as agriculture, education, and health) between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Additionally, "in recognition of the Irish Government's special interest in Northern Ireland", the Government of Ireland and Government of the United Kingdom co-operate closely on non-devolved matters through the British–Irish Intergovernmental Conference. Elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly are by single transferable vote with five Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) elected from each of 18 parliamentary constituencies. In addition, eighteen representatives (Members of Parliament, MPs) are elected to the lower house of the UK parliament from the same constituencies using the first-past-the-post system. However, not all of those elected take their seats. Sinn Féin MPs, currently seven, refuse to take the oath to serve the King that is required before MPs are allowed to take their seats. In addition, the upper house of the UK parliament, the House of Lords, currently has some 25 appointed members from Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Office represents the UK Government in Northern Ireland on reserved matters and represents Northern Ireland's interests within the UK Government. Additionally, the Republic's government also has the right to "put forward views and proposals" on non-devolved matters about Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland Office is led by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who sits in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland is a distinct legal jurisdiction, separate from the two other jurisdictions in the United Kingdom (England and Wales, and Scotland). Northern Ireland law developed from Irish law that existed before the partition of Ireland in 1921. Northern Ireland is a common law jurisdiction and its common law is similar to that in England and Wales. However, there are important differences in law and procedure between Northern Ireland and England and Wales. The body of statute law affecting Northern Ireland reflects the history of Northern Ireland, including Acts of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the Northern Ireland Assembly, the former Parliament of Northern Ireland and the Parliament of Ireland, along with some Acts of the Parliament of England and of the Parliament of Great Britain that were extended to Ireland under Poynings' Law between 1494 and 1782. Descriptions There is no generally accepted term to describe what Northern Ireland is. It has been described as a country, province, region, and other terms officially, by the press, and in common speech. The choice of term can be controversial and can reveal one's political preferences. This has been noted as a problem by several writers on Northern Ireland, with no generally recommended solution. ISO 3166-2:GB defines Northern Ireland as a province. The UK's submission to the 2007 United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names defines the UK as being made up of two countries (England and Scotland), one principality (Wales) and one province (Northern Ireland). However, this term can be controversial, particularly for nationalists for whom the title province is properly reserved for the traditional province of Ulster, of which Northern Ireland comprises six out of nine counties. Some authors have described the meaning of this term as being equivocal: referring to Northern Ireland as being a province both of the United Kingdom and the traditional country of Ireland. The UK Office for National Statistics and the website of the Office of the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom describe the United Kingdom as being made up of four countries, one of these being Northern Ireland. Some newspaper style guides also consider country as an acceptable term for Northern Ireland. However, some authors reject the term. "Region" has also been used by UK government agencies and newspapers. Some authors choose this word but note that it is "unsatisfactory". Northern Ireland can also be simply described as "part of the UK", including by the UK government offices. Alternative names Many people inside and outside Northern Ireland use other names for Northern Ireland, depending on their point of view. Disagreement on names, and the reading of political symbolism into the use or non-use of a word, also attaches itself to some urban centres. The most notable example is whether Northern Ireland's second-largest city should be called "Derry" or "Londonderry". Choice of language and nomenclature in Northern Ireland often reveals the cultural, ethnic, and religious identity of the speaker. Those who do not belong to any group but lean towards one side often tend to use the language of that group. Supporters of unionism in the British media (notably The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express) regularly call Northern Ireland "Ulster". Many media outlets in the Republic use "North of Ireland" (or simply "the North"), as well as the "Six Counties". The New York Times has also used "the North". Government and cultural organisations in Northern Ireland often use the word "Ulster" in their title; for example, the University of Ulster, the Ulster Museum, the Ulster Orchestra, and BBC Radio Ulster. Although some news bulletins since the 1990s have opted to avoid all contentious terms and use the official name, Northern Ireland, the term "the North" remains commonly used by broadcast media in the Republic. Unionist Ulster, strictly speaking, refers to the province of Ulster, of which six of nine historical counties are in Northern Ireland. The term "Ulster" is widely used by unionists and the British press as shorthand for Northern Ireland, and is also favoured by Ulster nationalists. In the past, calls have been made for Northern Ireland's name to be changed to Ulster. This proposal was formally considered by the Government of Northern Ireland in 1937 and by the UK Government in 1949 but no change was made. The Province refers to the historic Irish province of Ulster but today is used by some as shorthand for Northern Ireland. The BBC, in its editorial guidance for Reporting the United Kingdom, states that "the Province" is an appropriate secondary synonym for Northern Ireland, while "Ulster" is not. It also suggests that "people of Northern Ireland" is preferred to "British" or "Irish", and the term "mainland" should be avoided in reporting about Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Nationalist North of Ireland – used to avoid using the name given by the British-enacted Government of Ireland Act 1920. The Six Counties (na Sé Chontae) – the Republic of Ireland is similarly described as the Twenty-Six Counties. Some of the users of these terms contend that using the official name of the region would imply acceptance of the legitimacy of the Government of Ireland Act. The Occupied Six Counties – used by some republicans. The Republic, whose legitimacy is similarly not recognised by republicans opposed to the Belfast Agreement, is described as the "Free State", referring to the Irish Free State, which gained independence (as a Dominion) in 1922. British-Occupied Ireland – Similar in tone to the Occupied Six Counties, this term is used by more dogmatic republicans, such as Republican Sinn Féin, who still hold that the Second Dáil was the last legitimate government of Ireland and that all governments since have been foreign-imposed usurpations of Irish national self-determination. Other Norn Iron or "Norniron" – is an informal and affectionate local nickname used to refer to Northern Ireland, derived from the pronunciation of the words "Northern Ireland" in an exaggerated Ulster accent (particularly one from the greater Belfast area). The phrase is seen as a lighthearted way to refer to Northern Ireland, based as it is on regional pronunciation. It often refers to the Northern Ireland national football team. Geography and climate The volcanic activity which created the Antrim Plateau also formed the geometric pillars of the Giant's Causeway on the north Antrim coast. Also in north Antrim are the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge, Mussenden Temple and the Glens of Antrim. Northern Ireland was covered by an ice sheet for most of the last ice age and on numerous previous occasions, the legacy of which can be seen in the extensive coverage of drumlins in Counties Fermanagh, Armagh, Antrim and particularly Down. The centrepiece of Northern Ireland's geography is Lough Neagh, at 151 square miles (391 km2) the largest freshwater lake both on the island of Ireland and in the British Isles. A second extensive lake system is centred on Lower and Upper Lough Erne in Fermanagh. The largest island of Northern Ireland is Rathlin, off the north Antrim coast. Strangford Lough is the largest inlet in the British Isles, covering 150 km2 (58 sq mi). There are substantial uplands in the Sperrin Mountains (an extension of the Caledonian mountain belt) with extensive gold deposits, the granite Mourne Mountains and the basalt Antrim Plateau, as well as smaller ranges in South Armagh and along the Fermanagh–Tyrone border. None of the hills are especially high, with Slieve Donard in the dramatic Mournes reaching 850 metres (2,789 ft), Northern Ireland's highest point. Belfast's most prominent peak is Cavehill. The Lower and Upper River Bann, River Foyle and River Blackwater form extensive fertile lowlands, with excellent arable land also found in North and East Down, although much of the hill country is marginal and suitable largely for animal husbandry. The valley of the River Lagan is dominated by Belfast, whose metropolitan area includes over a third of the population of Northern Ireland, with heavy urbanisation and industrialisation along the Lagan Valley and both shores of Belfast Lough. Climate The vast majority of Northern Ireland has a temperate maritime climate, (Cfb in the Köppen climate classification) rather wetter in the west than the east, although cloud cover is very common across the region. The weather is unpredictable at all times of the year, and although the seasons are distinct, they are considerably less pronounced than in interior Europe or the eastern seaboard of North America. Average daytime maximums in Belfast are 6.5 °C (43.7 °F) in January and 17.5 °C (63.5 °F) in July. The highest maximum temperature recorded was 31.4 °C (88.5 °F), registered in July 2021 at Armagh Observatory's weather station. The lowest minimum temperature recorded was −18.7 °C (−1.7 °F) at Castlederg, County Tyrone on 23 December 2010. Flora and fauna Until the end of the Middle Ages, the land was heavily forested. Native species include deciduous trees such as oak, ash, hazel, birch, alder, willow, aspen, elm, rowan and hawthorn, as well as evergreen trees such Scots pine, yew and holly. Today, only 8% of Northern Ireland is woodland, and most of this is non-native conifer plantations. As of the 21st century, Northern Ireland is the least forested part of the United Kingdom and Ireland, and one of the least forested countries in Europe. The only native reptile in Northern Ireland is the viviparous lizard, or common lizard, which is widely distributed, particularly in heaths, bogs and sand dunes. The common frog is a very widespread species. Some lakes support internationally important bird populations, Lough Neagh and Lough Beg hold up to 80,000 wintering waterfowl of some 20 species, including ducks, geese, swans and gulls. The otter is the fourth largest land mammal in Northern Ireland. It can be found along the river systems, although it is seldom seen and will avoid contact with humans. 356 species of marine algae have been recorded in the northeast of Ireland; 77 species are considered rare. Demographics Counties Northern Ireland consists of six historic counties: County Antrim, County Armagh, County Down, County Fermanagh, County Londonderry, and County Tyrone. These counties are no longer used for local government purposes; instead, there are eleven districts of Northern Ireland which have different geographical extents. These were created in 2015, replacing the twenty-six districts which previously existed. Although counties are no longer used for local governmental purposes, they remain a popular means of describing where places are. They are officially used while applying for an Irish passport, which requires one to state one's county of birth. The name of that county then appears in both Irish and English on the passport's information page, as opposed to the town or city of birth on the United Kingdom passport. The Gaelic Athletic Association still uses the counties as its primary means of organisation and fields representative teams of each GAA county. The original system of car registration numbers largely based on counties remains in use. In 2000, the telephone numbering system was restructured into an 8-digit scheme with (except for Belfast) the first digit approximately reflecting the county. The county boundaries still appear on Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland Maps and the Philip's Street Atlases, among others. With their decline in official use, there is often confusion surrounding towns and cities which lie near county boundaries, such as Belfast and Lisburn, which are split between counties Down and Antrim (the majorities of both cities, however, are in Antrim). In March 2018, The Sunday Times published its list of Best Places to Live in Britain, including the following places in Northern Ireland: Ballyhackamore near Belfast (overall best for Northern Ireland), Holywood, County Down, Newcastle, County Down, Portrush, County Antrim, Strangford, County Down. Cities and major towns Population The population of Northern Ireland has risen yearly since 1978. The population at the time of the 2021 census was 1.9 million, having grown 5% over the previous decade. The population in 2011 was 1.8 million, a rise of 7.5% over the previous decade. The current population makes up 2.8% of the UK's population (67 million) and 27% of the island of Ireland's population (7.03 million). The population density is 135 inhabitants / km2. As of the 2021 census, the population of Northern Ireland is almost entirely white (96.6%). In 2021, 86.5% of the population were born in Northern Ireland, with 4.8% born in Great Britain, 2.1% born in the Republic of Ireland, and 6.5% born elsewhere (more than half of them in another European country). In 2021 the largest non-white ethnic groups were black (0.6%), Indian (0.5%), and Chinese (0.5%). In 2011, 88.8% of the population were born in Northern Ireland, 4.5% in Great Britain, and 2.9% in the Republic of Ireland. 4.3% were born elsewhere; triple the amount there were in 2001. As of the 2021 Census 1,165,168 (61.2%) residents lived in an urban environment and 738,007 (38.8%) lived in a non-urban environment. Identity and citizenship In Northern Ireland censuses, respondents can choose more than one national identity. In 2021: 42.8% identified as British, solely or along with other national identities 33.3% identified as Irish, solely or along with other national identities 31.5% identified as Northern Irish, solely or along with other national identities The main national identities given in recent censuses were: As of the 2021 census, regarding national identity, four of the six traditional counties had an Irish plurality and two had a British plurality. Religion At the 2021 census, 42.3% of the population identified as Roman Catholic, 37.3% as Protestant/other Christian, 1.3% as other religions, while 17.4% identified with no religion or did not state one. The biggest of the Protestant/other Christian denominations were the Presbyterian Church (16.6%), the Church of Ireland (11.5%) and the Methodist Church (2.3%). At the 2011 census, 41.5% of the population identified as Protestant/other Christian, 41% as Roman Catholic, 0.8% as other religions, while 17% identified with no religion or did not state one. In terms of background (i.e. religion or religion brought up in), at the 2021 census 45.7% of the population came from a Catholic background, 43.5% from a Protestant background, 1.5% from other religious backgrounds, and 5.6% from non-religious backgrounds. This was the first time since Northern Ireland's creation that there were more people from a Catholic background than Protestant. At the 2011 census, 48% came from a Protestant background, 45% from a Catholic background, 0.9% from other religious backgrounds, and 5.6% from non-religious backgrounds. In recent censuses, respondents gave their religious identity or religious upbringing as follows: As of the 2021 census, regarding religious background, four of the six traditional counties had a Catholic majority, one had a Protestant plurality, and one had a Protestant majority. Several studies and surveys carried out between 1971 and 2006 have indicated that, in general, most Protestants in Northern Ireland see themselves primarily as British, whereas most Catholics see themselves primarily as Irish. This does not, however, account for the complex identities within Northern Ireland, given that many of the population regard themselves as "Ulster" or "Northern Irish", either as a primary or secondary identity. A 2008 survey found that 57% of Protestants described themselves as British, while 32% identified as Northern Irish, 6% as Ulster, and 4% as Irish. Compared to a similar survey in 1998, this shows a fall in the percentage of Protestants identifying as British and Ulster and a rise in those identifying as Northern Irish. The 2008 survey found that 61% of Catholics described themselves as Irish, with 25% identifying as Northern Irish, 8% as British, and 1% as Ulster. These figures were largely unchanged from the 1998 results. People born in Northern Ireland are, with some exceptions, deemed by UK law to be citizens of the United Kingdom. They are also, with similar exceptions, entitled to be citizens of Ireland. This entitlement was reaffirmed in the 1998 Good Friday Agreement between the British and Irish governments, which provides that: ...it is the birthright of all the people of Northern Ireland to identify themselves and be accepted as Irish or British, or both, as they may so choose, and accordingly [the two governments] confirm that their right to hold both British and Irish citizenship is accepted by both Governments and would not be affected by any future change in the status of Northern Ireland. As a result of the Agreement, the Constitution of the Republic of Ireland was amended. The current wording provides that people born in Northern Ireland are entitled to be Irish citizens on the same basis as people from any other part of the island. Neither government, however, extends its citizenship to all persons born in Northern Ireland. Both governments exclude some people born in Northern Ireland, in particular persons born without one parent who is a British or Irish citizen. The Irish restriction was given effect by the twenty-seventh amendment to the Irish Constitution in 2004. The position in UK nationality law is that most of those born in Northern Ireland are UK nationals, whether or not they so choose. Renunciation of British citizenship requires the payment of a fee, currently £372. In recent censuses, residents said they held the following passports: Languages Irish is an official language of Northern Ireland as of 6 December 2022 when the Irish Language Act (Identity and Language (Northern Ireland) Act 2022) became law. The Irish Language Act officially repealed legislation from 1737 that banned the use of Irish in courts. English is a de facto official language. English is also spoken as a first language by 95.4% of the Northern Ireland population. Under the Good Friday Agreement, Irish and Ulster Scots (an Ulster dialect of the Scots language, sometimes known as Ullans), are recognised as "part of the cultural wealth of Northern Ireland". The Irish Language Act of 2022 also legislated commissioners for both Irish and Ulster Scots. Two all-island bodies for the promotion of these were created under the Agreement: Foras na Gaeilge, which promotes the Irish language, and the Ulster Scots Agency, which promotes the Ulster-Scots dialect and culture. These operate separately under the aegis of the North/South Language Body, which reports to the North/South Ministerial Council. The UK Government in 2001 ratified the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. Irish (in Northern Ireland) was specified under Part III of the Charter, with a range of specific undertakings about education, translation of statutes, interaction with public authorities, the use of placenames, media access, support for cultural activities, and other matters. A lower level of recognition was accorded to Ulster-Scots, under Part II of the Charter. English According to the 2021 census, in 94.74% of households, all people aged 16 and above spoke English as their main language. The dialect of English spoken in Northern Ireland shows influence from the lowland Scots language. There are supposedly some minute differences in pronunciation between Protestants and Catholics, for instance; the name of the letter h, which Protestants tend to pronounce as "aitch", as in British English, and Catholics tend to pronounce as "haitch", as in Hiberno-English. However, geography is a much more important determinant of dialect than religious background. Irish The Irish language (Irish: an Ghaeilge), or Gaelic, is the second most spoken language in Northern Ireland and is a native language of Ireland. It was spoken predominantly throughout what is now Northern Ireland before the Ulster Plantations in the 17th century and most place names in Northern Ireland are anglicised versions of a Gaelic name. Today, the language is often associated with Irish nationalism (and thus with Catholics). However, in the 19th century, the language was seen as a common heritage, with Ulster Protestants playing a leading role in the Gaelic revival. In the 2021 census, 12.4% (compared with 10.7% in 2011) of the population of Northern Ireland claimed "some knowledge of Irish" and 3.9% (compared with 3.7% in 2011) reported being able to "speak, read, write and understand" Irish. In another survey, from 1999, 1% of respondents said they spoke it as their main language at home. The dialect spoken in Northern Ireland, Ulster Irish, has two main types, East Ulster Irish and Donegal Irish (or West Ulster Irish), is the one closest to Scottish Gaelic (which developed into a separate language from Irish Gaelic in the 17th century). Some words and phrases are shared with Scots Gaelic, and the dialects of east Ulster – those of Rathlin Island and the Glens of Antrim – were very similar to the dialect of Argyll, the part of Scotland nearest to Ireland. The dialects of Armagh and Down were also very similar to the dialects of Galloway. The use of the Irish language in Northern Ireland today is politically sensitive. The erection by some district councils of bilingual street names in both English and Irish, invariably in predominantly nationalist districts, is resisted by unionists who claim that it creates a "chill factor" and thus harms community relationships. Efforts by members of the Northern Ireland Assembly to legislate for some official uses of the language have failed to achieve the required cross-community support. In May 2022, the UK Government proposed a bill in the House of Lords to make Irish an official language (and support Ulster Scots) in Northern Ireland and to create an Irish Language Commissioner. The bill has since been passed, and received royal assent in December 2022. There has recently been an increase in interest in the language among unionists in East Belfast. Ulster Scots Ulster Scots comprises varieties of the Scots language spoken in Northern Ireland. For a native English speaker, "[Ulster Scots] is comparatively accessible, and even at its most intense can be understood fairly easily with the help of a glossary." Along with the Irish language, the Good Friday Agreement recognised the dialect as part of Northern Ireland's unique culture and the St Andrews Agreement recognised the need to "enhance and develop the Ulster Scots language, heritage and culture". At the time of the 2021 census, approximately 1.1% (compared to 0.9% in 2011) of the population claimed to be able to speak, read, write and understand Ulster-Scots, while 10.4% (compared to 8.1% in 2011) professed to have "some ability". Sign languages The most common sign language in Northern Ireland is Northern Ireland Sign Language (NISL). However, because in the past Catholic families tended to send their deaf children to schools in Dublin where Irish Sign Language (ISL) is commonly used, ISL is still common among many older deaf people from Catholic families. Irish Sign Language (ISL) has some influence from the French family of sign language, which includes American Sign Language (ASL). NISL takes a large component from the British family of sign language (which also includes Auslan) with many borrowings from ASL. It is described as being related to Irish Sign Language at the syntactic level while much of the lexicon is based on British Sign Language (BSL). As of March 2004 the UK Government recognises only British Sign Language and Irish Sign Language as the official sign languages used in Northern Ireland. Education Unlike most areas of the United Kingdom, in the last year of primary school, many children sit entrance examinations for grammar schools. Integrated schools, which attempt to ensure a balance in enrolment between pupils of Protestant, Roman Catholic, and other faiths (or none), are becoming increasingly popular, although Northern Ireland still has a primarily de facto religiously segregated education system. In the primary school sector, 40 schools (8.9% of the total number) are integrated schools and 32 (7.2% of the total number) are Gaelscoileanna (Irish language-medium schools). As with the island of Ireland as a whole, Northern Ireland has one of the youngest populations in Europe and, among the four UK nations, it has the highest proportion of children aged under 16 years (21% in mid-2019). In the most recent full academic year (2021–2022), the region's school education system comprised 1,124 schools (of all types) and around 346,000 pupils, including: 796 primary schools with 172,000 pupils; 192 post-primary schools with 152,000 pupils; 126 non-grammar post-primary schools with 86,000 pupils; 66 grammar schools with 65,000 pupils; 94 nursery schools with 5,800 pupils; 39 special schools with 6,600 pupils (specifically for children with special educational needs); and 14 independent schools with 700 children. Enrolments in further and higher education were as follows (in 2019–2020) before disruption to enrolments and classes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic: six regional further education colleges with 132,000 students; two universities – Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University – with 53,000 students; two teacher training colleges – Stranmillis University College and St Mary's University College, Belfast – with 2,200 students; the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise with 1,700 students on three campuses; and the Open University with 4,200 students. Statistics on education in Northern Ireland are published by the Department of Education and the Department for the Economy. The main universities in Northern Ireland are Queen's University Belfast and Ulster University, and the distance learning Open University which has a regional office in Belfast. Health care Since 1948 Northern Ireland has a health care system similar to England, Scotland and Wales, though it provides not only health care, but also social care. Health care performance has been decreasing since the mid-2010s and reached crisis levels since 2022. Economy Northern Ireland traditionally had an industrial economy, most notably featuring shipbuilding, rope manufacture, and textiles. In 2019, 53% of GVA was generated by services, 22% by the public sector, 15% by production, 8% by construction and 2% by agriculture. Belfast is the United Kingdom's second largest tech hub outside of London with more than 25% of their jobs being technology related. Many established multinational tech companies such as Fujitsu, SAP, IBM and Microsoft have a presence here. It is regarded an appealing place to live for tech professionals and has a low cost of living compared to other cities. In 2019 Northern Ireland welcomed 5.3m visitors, who spent over £1billion. A total of 167 cruise ships docked at Northern Ireland ports in 2019. Tourism in recent years has been a major growth area with key attractions including the Giants Causeway and the many castles in the region with the historic towns and cities of Belfast, Derry, Armagh and Enniskillen being popular with tourists. Entertainment venues include the SSE Arena, Waterfront Hall, the Grand Opera House and Custom House Square. Tourists use various means of transport around Northern Ireland such as vehicle hire, guided tours, taxi tours, electric bikes, electric cars and public transport. Belfast currently has an 81-acre shipyard which was purposely developed to be able to take some of the world's largest vessels. It has the largest dry dock for ships in Europe measuring 556m x 93m and has 106m high cranes, it is ideally situated between the Atlantic Ocean and the North Sea. The shipyard can build ships and complete maintenance contracts such as the contracts awarded by P&O and Cunard cruise ships in 2022. Northern Ireland feeds around 10 million people when their population is only 1.8 million. The predominant activity on Northern Ireland farms in 2022 was cattle and sheep. 79 per cent of farms in Northern Ireland have some cattle, 38 per cent have some sheep. Over three-quarters of farms in Northern Ireland are very small, in 2022 there were 26,089 farms in Northern Ireland with approximately one million hectares of land farmed. Northern Ireland is in a unique position where it can sell goods to the rest of the United Kingdom and the European Union tariff-free, free from customs declarations, rules of origin certificates and non-tariff barriers on the sale of goods to both regions. Below is a comparison of the goods being sold and purchased between Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, compared with the goods being exported and imported between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland: Infrastructure and transportation Northern Ireland has underdeveloped transport infrastructure, with most infrastructure concentrated around Greater Belfast, Greater Derry, and Craigavon. Northern Ireland is served by three airports—Belfast International near Antrim, George Best Belfast City integrated into the railway network at Sydenham in East Belfast, and City of Derry in County Londonderry. There are upgrade plans to transform the railway network in Northern Ireland including new lines from Derry to Portadown and Belfast to Newry, though it will take the best part of 25 years to deliver. There are major seaports at Larne and Belfast which carry passengers and freight between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Passenger railways are operated by NI Railways. With Iarnród Éireann (Irish Rail), NI Railways co-operates in providing the joint Enterprise service between Dublin Connolly and Belfast Grand Central. The whole of Ireland has a mainline railway network with a gauge of 5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm), which is unique in Europe and has resulted in distinct rolling stock designs. The only preserved line of this gauge on the island is the Downpatrick and County Down Railway, which operates heritage steam and diesel locomotives. Main railway lines linking to and from Belfast Grand Central Station and Lanyon Place railway station are: The Derry Line and the Portrush Branch. The Larne Line The Bangor Line The Newry/Portadown Line The Derry line is the busiest single-track railway line in the United Kingdom, carrying 3 million passengers per annum, the Derry-Londonderry Line has also been described by Michael Palin as "one of the most beautiful rail journeys in the world". Main motorways are: M1 connecting Belfast to the south and west, ending in Dungannon M2 connecting Belfast to the north. An unconnected section of the M2 also by-passes Ballymena Additional short motorway spurs include: M12 connecting the M1 to Portadown M22 connecting the M2 to near Randalstown M3 connecting the M1 (via the A12) and M2 in Belfast with the A2 dual carriageway to Bangor M5 connecting Belfast to Newtownabbey The cross-border road connecting the ports of Larne in Northern Ireland and Rosslare Harbour in the Republic of Ireland is being upgraded as part of an EU-funded scheme. European route E01 runs from Larne through the island of Ireland, Spain, and Portugal to Seville. Culture Northern Ireland shares both the culture of Ulster and the culture of the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland has witnessed rising numbers of tourists. Attractions include concert venues, cultural festivals, musical and artistic traditions, countryside and geographical sites of interest, public houses, welcoming hospitality, and sports (especially golf and fishing). Since 1987 public houses have been allowed to open on Sundays, despite some opposition. Parades are a prominent feature of Northern Ireland society, more so than in the rest of Ireland or the United Kingdom. Most are held by Protestant fraternities such as the Orange Order, and Ulster loyalist marching bands. Each summer, during the "marching season", these groups have hundreds of parades, deck streets with British flags, bunting and specially-made arches, and light large towering bonfires in the "Eleventh Night" celebrations. The biggest parades are held on 12 July (The Twelfth). There is often tension when these activities take place near Catholic neighbourhoods, which sometimes leads to violence. The Ulster Cycle is a large body of prose and verse centring on the traditional heroes of the Ulaid in what is now eastern Ulster. This is one of the four major cycles of Irish mythology. The cycle centres on the reign of Conchobar mac Nessa, who is said to have been the king of Ulster around the 1st century. He ruled from Emain Macha (now Navan Fort near Armagh), and had a fierce rivalry with queen Medb and king Ailill of Connacht and their ally, Fergus mac Róich, former king of Ulster. The foremost hero of the cycle is Conchobar's nephew Cúchulainn, who features in the epic prose/poem An Táin Bó Cúailnge (The Cattle Raid of Cooley, a casus belli between Ulster and Connaught). Symbols Northern Ireland comprises a patchwork of communities whose national loyalties are represented in some areas by flags flown from flagpoles or lamp posts. The Union Jack and the former Northern Ireland flag are flown in many loyalist areas, and the Tricolour, adopted by republicans as the flag of Ireland in 1916, is flown in some republican areas. Even kerbstones in some areas are painted red-white-blue or green-white-orange, depending on whether local people express unionist/loyalist or nationalist/republican sympathies. The official flag is that of the state having sovereignty over the territory, i.e. the Union Flag. The former Northern Ireland flag, also known as the "Ulster Banner" or "Red Hand Flag", is a banner derived from the coat of arms of the Government of Northern Ireland until 1972. Since 1972, it has had no official status. The Union Flag and the Ulster Banner are used exclusively by unionists. The UK flags policy states that in Northern Ireland, "The Ulster flag and the Cross of St Patrick have no official status and, under the Flags Regulations, are not permitted to be flown from Government Buildings." The Irish Rugby Football Union and the Church of Ireland have used the Saint Patrick's Saltire or "Cross of St Patrick". This red saltire on a white field was used to represent Ireland in the flag of the United Kingdom. It is still used by some British Army regiments. Foreign flags are also found, such as the Palestinian flags in some nationalist areas and Israeli flags in some unionist areas. The United Kingdom national anthem of "God Save the King" is often played at state events in Northern Ireland. At the Commonwealth Games and some other sporting events, the Northern Ireland team uses the Ulster Banner as its flag—notwithstanding its lack of official status—and the Londonderry Air (usually set to lyrics as Danny Boy), which also has no official status, as its national anthem. The Northern Ireland national football team also uses the Ulster Banner as its flag but uses "God Save The King" as its anthem. Major Gaelic Athletic Association matches are opened by the national anthem of the Republic of Ireland, "Amhrán na bhFiann (The Soldier's Song)", which is also used by most other all-Ireland sporting organisations. Since 1995, the Ireland rugby union team has used a specially commissioned song, "Ireland's Call" as the team's anthem. The Irish national anthem is also played at Dublin home matches, being the anthem of the host country. Northern Irish murals have become well-known features of Northern Ireland, depicting past and present events and documenting peace and cultural diversity. Almost 2,000 murals have been documented in Northern Ireland since the 1970s. Media and communications The BBC has a division called BBC Northern Ireland with headquarters in Belfast and operates BBC One Northern Ireland and BBC Two Northern Ireland. As well as broadcasting standard UK-wide programmes, BBC NI produces local content, including a news break-out called BBC Newsline. The ITV franchise in Northern Ireland is UTV. The state-owned Channel 4 and the privately owned Channel 5 also broadcast in Northern Ireland. Access is also available to satellite and cable services. All Northern Ireland viewers must obtain a UK TV licence to watch live television transmissions or use BBC iPlayer. RTÉ, the national broadcaster of the Republic of Ireland, is available over the air to most parts of Northern Ireland via reception overspill of the Republic's Saorview service, or via satellite and cable. Since the digital TV switchover, RTÉ One, RTÉ2 and the Irish-language channel TG4, are now available over the air on the UK's Freeview system from transmitters within Northern Ireland. Although they are transmitted in standard definition, a Freeview HD box or television is required for reception. As well as the standard UK-wide radio stations from the BBC, Northern Ireland is home to many local radio stations, such as Cool FM, Q Radio, Downtown Radio and U105. The BBC has two regional radio stations which broadcast in Northern Ireland, BBC Radio Ulster and BBC Radio Foyle. Besides the UK and Irish national newspapers, there are three main regional newspapers published in Northern Ireland. These are the Belfast Telegraph, The Irish News and The News Letter. According to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (UK) the average daily circulation for these three titles in 2018 was: Northern Ireland uses the same telecommunications and postal services as the rest of the United Kingdom at standard domestic rates and there are no mobile roaming charges between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. People in Northern Ireland who live close to the border with the Republic of Ireland may inadvertently switch over to the Irish mobile networks, causing international roaming fees to be applied. Calls from landlines in Northern Ireland to numbers in the Republic of Ireland are charged at the same rate as those to numbers in Great Britain, while landline numbers in Northern Ireland can similarly be called from the Republic of Ireland at domestic rates, using the 048 prefix. Sports Many sports are organised on an all-Ireland basis, with a single governing body or team for the whole island. The most notable exception is association football (soccer), which has a separate governing body, league and national team for Northern Ireland. The Irish Football Association (IFA) serves as the organising body for men's domestic and national association football in Northern Ireland, it is a member of the International Football Association Board which sets the rules for association football. The NIWFA are responsible for women's domestic and national association football in Northern Ireland. The NIFL Premiership is a professional men's football league which operates at the highest division of the Northern Ireland Football League, the current format has been organised with 12 clubs. The winners will enter the first qualifying round of the Champions League, if they do not progress they will enter the Europa League or Europa Conference League depending on performance. The two runners-up progress to the Europa Conference League with play-offs for another Europa Conference League position. The NLFL Women's Premiership is a professional women's football league which operates at the highest division in Northern Ireland with 10 clubs. The winner qualifies for a spot in the UEFA Women's Champions League. The men's Northern Ireland national football team qualified for the 1958 FIFA World Cup, 1982 FIFA World Cup and 1986 FIFA World Cup, making it to the quarter-finals in 1958 and 1982 and made it the first knockout round in the European Championships in 2016. The IRFU is the governing body for the sport of Rugby Union on the island of Ireland (Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland). Rugby in Northern Ireland is run within the historic province of Ulster which includes Northern Ireland plus 3 counties from the Republic of Ireland - Donegal, Cavan and Monaghan. The Ireland national rugby league team has participated in the Emerging Nations Tournament (1995), the Super League World Nines (1996), the World Cup (2000, 2008, 2013, 2017, 2021), European Nations Cup (since 2003) and Victory Cup (2004). The Ireland A rugby league team competes annually in the Amateur Four Nations competition (since 2002) and the St Patrick's Day Challenge (since 1995). The Ireland cricket team represents both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. It is a full member of the International Cricket Council, having been granted Test status and full membership by the ICC in June 2017. The side competes in Test cricket, the highest level of competitive cricket in the international arena, and is one of the 12 full-member countries of the ICC. Ireland men's side has played in the Cricket World Cup and T20 World Cup and has won the ICC Intercontinental Cup four times. The women's side has played in the Women's World Cup. One of the men's side's regular international venues is Stormont in Belfast. The governing body for golf on the island of Ireland is Golf Ireland, it is the successor to the Golfing Union of Ireland, governing body for men's and boy's amateur golf, and the oldest golfing union in the world, which was founded in Belfast in 1891, and the Irish Ladies Golf Union. Northern Ireland's golf courses include the Royal Belfast Golf Club (the earliest, formed in 1881), Royal Portrush Golf Club, which is the only course outside Great Britain to have hosted The Open Championship, and Royal County Down Golf Club (Golf Digest magazine's top-rated course outside the United States). Northern Ireland had three major champions in the space of just 14 months from the U.S. Open in 2010 to The Open Championship in 2011. Notable golfers include Fred Daly (winner of The Open in 1947), Ryder Cup players Ronan Rafferty and David Feherty, leading European Tour professionals David Jones, Michael Hoey (a five-time winner on the tour) and Gareth Maybin, as well as three recent major winners Graeme McDowell (winner of the U.S. Open in 2010, the first European to do so since 1970), Rory McIlroy (winner of four majors) and Darren Clarke (winner of The Open in 2011). Northern Ireland has also contributed several players to the Great Britain and Ireland Walker Cup team, including Alan Dunbar and Paul Cutler who played on the victorious 2011 team in Scotland. Dunbar also won The Amateur Championship in 2012, at Royal Troon. See also List of Ulster-related topics Outline of Northern Ireland Outline of the United Kingdom Notes References Sources Lynch, Robert (2019). The Partition of Ireland: 1918–1925. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107007734. Further reading Jonathan Bardon, A History of Ulster (Blackstaff Press, Belfast, 1992), ISBN 0-85640-476-4 Brian E. Barton, The Government of Northern Ireland, 1920–1923 (Athol Books, 1980) Paul Bew, Peter Gibbon and Henry Patterson The State in Northern Ireland, 1921–72: Political Forces and Social Classes, Manchester (Manchester University Press, 1979) Tony Geraghty (2000). The Irish War. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-7117-7. Robert Kee, The Green Flag: A History of Irish Nationalism (Penguin, 1972–2000), ISBN 0-14-029165-2 Osborne Morton, Marine Algae of Northern Ireland (Ulster Museum, Belfast, 1994), ISBN 0-900761-28-8 Henry Patterson, Ireland Since 1939: The Persistence of Conflict (Penguin, 2006), ISBN 978-1-84488-104-8 P. Hackney (ed.) Stewart's and Corry's Flora of the North-east of Ireland 3rd edn. (Institute of Irish Studies, Queen's University of Belfast, 1992), ISBN 0-85389-446-9(HB) External links Northern Ireland Executive (Northern Ireland devolved government) Discover Northern Ireland (Northern Ireland Tourist Board) Geographic data related to Northern Ireland at OpenStreetMap

Terrorism_in_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States

In the United States, a common definition of terrorism is the systematic or threatened use of violence in order to create a general climate of fear to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideological change. This article serves as a list and a compilation of acts of terrorism, attempts to commit acts of terrorism, and other such items which pertain to terrorist activities which are engaged in by non-state actors or spies who are acting in the interests of state actors or persons who are acting without the approval of foreign governments within the domestic borders of the United States. During the American Civil War, pro-Confederate Bushwhackers and pro-Union Jayhawkers in Missouri and Kansas respectively engaged in cross border raids, committed acts of violence against civilians and soldiers, stole goods and burned down farms. The most infamous event occurred in Lawrence, Kansas on August 21, 1863, when Quantrill's Raiders led by William Quantrill ransacked the town and murdered about 190 civilians because of the town's anti-slavery sentiment. Other acts of terrorism occurred during the war included the 1863 Chesapeake Affair and the 1864 St. Albans Raid, the former being committed by British subjects. Since the end of the Civil War, organized groups or lone wolf white supremacists have committed many acts of domestic terrorism against African-Americans. This form of terrorism has consisted of lynchings, hate crimes, shootings, bombings and other acts of violence. Such acts of violence overwhelmingly occurred in the Southern United States, and they included acts of violence which were committed by the Ku Klux Klan (KKK). White supremacist terrorist incidents include the Tulsa race massacre of 1921, the Rosewood massacre of 1923, and the Wilmington insurrection of 1898. On November 19, 2019, according to remarks which were made by Matthew Alcoke, Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI Counterterrorism Division, Alcoke defines domestic terrorists as "individuals who commit violent criminal acts in furtherance of ideological goals stemming from domestic issues." Although acts of violence by domestic extremists consistently meet the definition, no US criminal charge for domestic terror exists. Rather, the phrase is an FBI investigative category which is used to classify four types of extremism: "racially motivated violent extremism, anti-government/anti-authority extremism, animal rights/environmental extremism, and abortion extremism." A 2017 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that out of the 85 deadly extremist incidents which had occurred since September 11, 2001, white supremacist extremist groups were responsible for 73%, while radical Islamist extremists were responsible for 27%. The total number of deaths which was caused by each group was about the same. However, 41% of the deaths were attributable to radical Islamists and they all occurred in a single event — the 2016 Orlando nightclub shooting in which 49 people were killed by a lone gunman. No deaths were attributed to left-wing groups. A 2017 report by Type Media Center and The Center for Investigative Reporting analyzed a list of the terrorist incidents which occurred in the US between 2008 and 2016 and included the 2014 killings of NYPD officers and the 2016 shooting of Dallas police officers (a total of seven deaths saying that they could "plausibly be attributed to a perpetrator with such sympathies"). In 2018, most ideologically motivated murders in the United States of America were linked to right-wing extremism. As of 2020, right-wing extremist terrorism accounted for the majority of terrorist attacks and plots in the US and has killed more people in the continental United States since the September 11 attacks than Islamic terrorism. The United States Department of Homeland Security reported in October 2020 that white supremacists posed the top domestic terrorism threat, which FBI director Christopher Wray confirmed in March 2021, noting that the bureau had elevated the threat to the same level as ISIS. Totals in the U.S. A 2017 report by The Nation Institute and the Center for Investigative Reporting analyzed a list of the terrorist incidents which occurred in the US between 2008 and 2016. It found: 115 far-right inspired terrorist incidents. 35% of these incidents were foiled (this number means that no terrorist attacks occurred) and 29% of them resulted in fatalities. These incidents caused 79 deaths. 63 Islamist inspired terrorist incidents. 76% of these terrorist incidents were foiled (this number means that no terrorist attacks occurred) and 13% of them resulted in fatalities. These incidents caused 90 deaths. 19 far-left inspired terrorist incidents. 20% of these terrorist incidents were foiled (this number means that no terrorist attacks occurred) and 10% of them resulted in fatalities. Two of these incidents were described as "plausibly" attributed to a perpetrator with left-wing sympathies and caused 7 deaths. These are not included in the official government database. According to a report which is based on Justice Department figures which were released by the U.S. government in January 2018, about three out of four people who were convicted on charges of international terrorism between September 11, 2001, to December 31, 2016, were foreign-born. According to the Justice Department, 549 people were convicted on charges of international terrorism, including 254 people who were citizens of other countries, 148 people were naturalized citizens and 148 people were natural-born-citizens. In a speech which he made before a joint session of Congress on February 28, 2017, President Donald Trump incorrectly attributed these findings to domestic terrorism, in actuality, these findings were based on cases in which international terrorists may have been brought to the United States for prosecution. In 2015, the Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security and the Police Executive Research Forum conducted a nationwide survey of 382 police and sheriff departments. Nearly 74% of respondents stated that anti-government violence was their top concern with regard to threats from violent extremists, while about 39% of respondents stated that "Al Qaeda-inspired" violence was their top concern. For the past decade, the national conversation on terrorism has largely focused on Islamic extremist acts, however, law enforcement groups have made it clear that Muslim extremists perpetrate a minute percentage of the ideologically based terrorist attacks which are perpetrated in the United States. Since November 9, 2001, only about 9 American Muslims per year have taken part in terrorist plots in the United States, in total, 20 incidents resulted in about 50 deaths. A 2012 study showed that in about the same time period right-wing extremists were responsible for about 337 attacks per year, in total, they killed more than 5 times the number of people killed by Muslims in the United States. The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism maintains Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States, a database which contains over 1,800 profiles of individuals who have been radicalized by ideologies since 1948. The database shows that from 1948 through 2016, 40.0% of identified extremists were far-right, 24.5% of identified extremists were Islamist and 17.4% of identified extremists were far-left, while 18.2% of identified extremists were "single issue" individuals. In May 2019 and for the first time in its history, the FBI identified fringe conspiracy theories as a potential source of domestic terrorism, it specifically cited QAnon. A June 2020 study of domestic terrorist incidents by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) reported that during the previous 25 years, the majority of attacks and plots were perpetrated and hatched by far-right attackers. This trend has accelerated in recent years, with this sector being responsible for about 66% of all of the attacks and plots which were perpetrated in 2019, and it was also responsible for 90% of all of those attacks which were perpetrated in 2020. The next most potentially dangerous group has been "religious extremists", the majority "Salafi jihadists inspired by the Islamic State and al-Qaeda", while the number planned by the far left has reduced to a minute fraction since the mid-2000s. In October 2020, the Department of Homeland Security released the Homeland Threat Assessment, a report detailing various domestic threats to US national security. It states that, out of all domestic terror attacks resulting in lethal threats to life between 2018 and 2019, "WSEs [white supremacist extremists] conducted half of all lethal attacks (8 of 16), resulting in the majority of deaths (39 of 48)". Attacks by type Anti-abortion violence Since 1997, there have been 8 murders, 17 attempted murders, 42 bombings, and 186 arson attacks aimed at abortion clinics and multiple providers across the US. In some cases small groups of clinics have been attacked multiple times. 1993: David Gunn was murdered by anti-abortion activist Michael F. Griffin 1994: Abortion provider John Britton and James Barrett (both killed) and his wife June (shot but not killed) became victims of Reverend Paul Jennings Hill. 1996–1998: anti-abortion extremist Eric Rudolph cited biblical passages as his motivation for a series of bombings, including Atlanta's Olympic Centennial Park, a lesbian bar, and several abortion clinics. Rudolph acknowledges his attacks were religiously motivated, but denies that his brief association with the racist Christian Identity movement was a motivation for his attacks. 1996: Dr. Calvin Jackson of New Orleans, Louisiana was stabbed 15 times, losing 4 pints of blood. Donald Cooper was charged with second degree attempted murder and was sentenced to 20 years. "Donald Cooper's Day of Violence", by Kara Lowentheil, Choice! Magazine, December 21, 2004 1998: James Kopp killed at least one and went on a series of anti-abortion shooting sprees, both in the U.S. and Canada. 2006: David McMenemy of Rochester Hills, Michigan, crashed his car into the Edgerton Women's Care Center in Davenport, Iowa. He then doused the lobby in gasoline and started a fire. McMenemy committed these acts in the belief that the center was performing abortions; however, Edgerton is not an abortion clinic. Time magazine listed the incident in a "Top 10 Inept Terrorist Plots" list. 2009: Anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder killed George Tiller in Kansas. 2015: Robert Lewis Dear killed three people in a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado. At his court hearings Dear declared himself a "warrior for the babies". Antisemitism October 12, 1958: Bombing of the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation Temple of Atlanta, Georgia. The acts were carried out by white supremacists. June 18, 1984: Alan Berg, a Jewish lawyer-talk show host was shot and killed in the driveway of his home on Capitol Hill, Denver, Colorado, by members of a neo-Nazi group called The Order. Earlier and on the show, Berg had stridently argued with a member of the group who was later convicted of his murder. 1977 Washington, D.C. attack and hostage taking of Jewish hostages at the B'nai B'rith by members of a black Muslim group that had split away from the Nation of Islam. August 10, 1999: Los Angeles Jewish Community Center shooting in Granada Hills, California of Los Angeles. 5 people were wounded in the Jewish community center and its daycare facility. The gunman, Buford O. Furrow had antisemitic and anti-government views. Shortly thereafter, Furrow murdered a mail carrier, fled the state, and finally surrendered to authorities. June 10, 2009: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum shooting: 88-year-old James Wenneker von Brunn, a white supremacist and neo-Nazi, walked into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., shooting and mortally wounding Stephen Tyrone Johns, a security guard. Von Brunn was wounded when other museum guards immediately returned fire and on January 6, 2010, while he was awaiting trial, von Brunn died of natural causes in a hospital which was located near the prison where he was being held. During the investigation it was discovered that von Brunn had planned to target White House senior adviser David Axelrod leading to increased protection for Axelrod and other steps. April 13, 2014: Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting: 3 killed and 1 critically injured in shootings at Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and Village Shalom in Overland Park, Kansas. Suspect is 74-year-old Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. On April 27, 2015, Miller told the Associated Press that he planned to plead guilty and he also stated that his motivation was to "put the Jews on trial where they belong". January 10, 2018: Murder of Blaze Bernstein: A 19 year old gay Jewish student from the University of Pennsylvania was killed by a former classmate and member of the neo-Nazi terrorist organization Atomwaffen Division in Orange County, California. October 27, 2018: Pittsburgh synagogue shooting: A mass shooting occurred at Tree of Life – Or L'Simcha Congregation in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 27, 2018, while a service was being held. Eleven people were killed, and six were injured. The sole suspect, 46-year-old Robert Gregory Bowers, was arrested and charged with 29 federal crimes and 36 state crimes. April 27, 2019: Poway synagogue shooting: A 19 year old nursing student, inspired by the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and the Christchurch mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, announced his plans to shoot up the synagogue on 8chan by posting an open letter. One woman was killed, and three were injured. Environmental terrorism University of Washington firebombing incident 1989 California medfly attack Islamic extremism September 11, 2001: (New York City): Hijackers take control of two commercial jets containing passengers and fuel, flying them into the World Trade Center, killing hundreds on impact and an additional 2,606 when the towers subsequently collapsed. More than 6,000 people were injured. (Arlington County, Virginia): 5 Hijackers fly a Boeing 757-223 containing 53 passengers and 6 crew into the Pentagon, killing all 64 aboard and an additional 125 people on the ground. (Stonycreek Township, Somerset County, Pennsylvania): 33 passengers and 7 crew are killed after attempting to regain control from four hijackers that planned to fly the Boeing 757 into either the U.S. Capitol building or the White House. All 44 occupants died on impact after hijackers forced the plane into a nose dive. June 1, 2009: Little Rock recruiting office shooting, (Little Rock, AR): A man shoots a local soldier to death inside a recruiting center explicitly in the name of Allah. November 5, 2009: Fort Hood shooting, Ft. Hood, Texas: A Muslim psychiatrist guns down thirteen unarmed soldiers while yelling praises to Allah. April 15, 2013: Boston Marathon bombing (Boston, MA): Foreign-born Muslims detonate two bombs packed with ball bearings at the Boston Marathon, killing three people and causing several more to lose limbs. September 25, 2014: Vaughan Foods beheading incident, (Moore, OK): A Sharia advocate beheads a woman after calling for Islamic terror and posting an Islamist beheading photo. July 16, 2015: Chattanooga shootings, Chattanooga, Tennessee: A Muslim commits a shooting spree at a recruiting center at a strip mall and a naval center, leaving five soldiers dead at the latter location. November 4, 2015: University of California, Merced stabbing attack by Islamist extremist December 2, 2015: San Bernardino attack, San Bernardino, California: A couple opens fire at a Christmas party, leaving fourteen dead. January 7, 2016: Shooting of Jesse Hartnett, Philadelphia police officer Jesse Hartnett is ambushed by a gunman who later pledged allegiance to ISIS. February 11, 2016: Ohio restaurant machete attack by Islamist extremist June 12, 2016: Orlando nightclub shooting, Orlando, Florida: Omar Mateen shoots and kills 49 people and injures 58 more at a gay bar, the largest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time. November 28, 2016: Ohio State University attack, Columbus, Ohio: A Somali student, Abdul Artan, who came to the U.S. as a refugee, intentionally rammed a car into pedestrians on a busy campus sidewalk on Monday morning and then began slashing passers-by with a butcher knife, the authorities said, injuring 11 students and faculty and staff members. October 31, 2017: 2017 New York City truck attack, New York City: 29-year-old Sayfullo Habibullaevich Saipov rented a Home Depot pickup truck and intentionally drove it through a bicycle path. He crashed into a school bus and then exited the vehicle wielding look-a-like weapons. He was shot by NYPD. 8 people were killed and 12 were injured. December 6, 2019: Naval Air Station Pensacola shooting, Pensacola, Florida: A second lieutenant of the Saudi Royal Air Force training at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola opened fire in one of the classroom buildings killing 3 and wounding 8 others before being shot dead by responding police officers. May 21, 2020: Corpus Christi, Texas: At the Naval Air Station Corpus Christi, Adam Alsahi crashed through a northern perimeter gate at NAS Corpus Christi, activating vehicle barriers. The driver then got out and opened fire before being shot and killed. A Navy police officer was shot but was protected by a ballistic vest. Alsahi had expressed support for terrorist networks including ISIS. The FBI announced the incident as terrorism-related. Left-wing and anti-government extremism September 6, 1901: President William McKinley assassinated by Michigan born Russian-Polish anarchist, Leon Czolgosz, in Buffalo, New York. October 1, 1910: Los Angeles Times bombing. The Los Angeles Times building in Los Angeles was destroyed by dynamite, killing 21 workers. The bomb was apparently placed due to the paper's opposition to unionization of its employees; the McNamara brothers were found guilty. November 24, 1917: A bomb explodes in a Milwaukee police station, killing nine officers and a civilian. Anarchists were suspected. 1919 United States anarchist bombings September 16, 1920: Wall Street bombing 1969–1977: Weather Underground, a radical socialist movement, committed dozens of bombings and other terrorist activities over this time period. List of Weatherman actions August 7, 1969: Twenty were injured by radical leftist Sam Melville in a bombing of the Marine Midland Building in New York City. September 18, 1969: The Federal Building in New York City was bombed by radical leftist Jane Alpert. October 7, 1969: Fifth floor of the Armed Forces Induction Center in New York City was devastated by explosion attributed to radical leftist Jane Alpert. November 12, 1969: A bomb was detonated in the Manhattan Criminal Court building in New York City. Jane Alpert, Sam Melville, and 3 other militant radical leftists were arrested hours later. August 24, 1970: Sterling Hall bombing by anti-war activists, making 1 dead and 3 wounded. 1971–1975: The New World Liberation Front was a radical left-wing group in the San Francisco area in the 1970s that conducted multiple bombings in the Bay area over a 3-year period. They claim nearly 50 successful bombings. March 1, 1971: The radical leftist group Weather Underground exploded a bomb in the United States Capitol to protest the U.S. invasion of Laos. January 2–4, 1973: A bomb exploded at a United States Navy recruiting center in Portland, Oregon and two days later an Army recruiting center in the same city was dynamited by a group of anti-war activists in a conspiracy which included academic and bookseller Frank Stearns Giese. June 13, 1974: The 29th floor of the Gulf Tower in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, was bombed with dynamite at 9:41 pm resulting in no injuries. The radical leftist group Weather Underground took credit, but no suspects have ever been identified. May 31, 1975 – 1978: George Jackson Brigade bombings January 26, 1980: The home and car of Nguyen Thanh Hoang, a Vietnamese anti-communist journalist, were firebombed, while Hoang and his family were asleep in Arlington, Virginia. The attack only left several material damages. Prior to the attack, Hoang had received letters urging him to stop his anti-communist propaganda. Additionally, after the incident, two letters which claimed responsibility for the bombings, were signed by a group calling itself the Action Squad. November 7, 1983: U.S. Senate bombing. The Armed Resistance Unit, a militant leftist group, bombed the United States Capitol in response to the U.S. invasion of Grenada. May and June 1984: Earl Steven Karr planted over 20 pipe-bombs all around Minnesota, Illinois and Wisconsin. He was arrested in Mason City, Iowa after a pipe-bomb he was transporting detonated in the trunk of his car. Karr suffered second degree burns in the explosion. Only one person is known to have been injured by his explosives. Karr, a man with mental problems who stated he was a "former homosexual", left notes near the bombs which named the "North Central Gay Strike Force Against Public and Police Oppression" as the responsible party. A motive could not be determined other than a dislike of the towns the bombs were placed in. 19 May 2012: Three men were arrested after a raid an apartment, seized pipe bomb instructions, an improvised mortar made of PVC piping, a crossbow, knives, Shurikens, a map of Chicago and four fire bombs, authorities confirmed. On April 25, 2014, the three men were sentenced to eight to five years in prison, considerably reducing initial penalties of up to thirty years. June 14, 2017: Congressional baseball shooting. James T. Hodgkinson was distraught over the 2016 election of President Donald J. Trump, and opened fire on an Alexandria, Virginia, baseball field where the Republican congressional team was practicing for the following day's Congressional Baseball Game. Majority whip Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana was one of four who were wounded. Hodgkinson was fatally shot by police who arrived at the scene within a few minutes of the shooting. Palestinian and anti-Israel militancy June 5, 1968: Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian with Jordanian citizenship, assassinated Democratic presidential nominee, Robert F. Kennedy, in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California, because of Kennedy's strong support of Israel. Some scholars believe the assassination was one of the first major incidents of political violence in the United States stemming from the Arab–Israeli conflict in the Middle East. March 4, 1973: A failed terrorist attack by Palestinian group Black September, with car bombings in New York City while Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was visiting the city June 1, 1973: Yosef Alon, the Israeli Air Force attache in Washington, D.C., was shot and killed outside his home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. Palestinian militant group Black September is suspected, though the case remains unsolved. July 1, 1973: In Montgomery County, Maryland, an Israeli diplomat is gunned down in his driveway by Palestinian activist. February 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing, (New York City): Ramzi Yousef detonates a massive truck bomb under the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring over 1,000 in an effort to collapse the towers. 1994 Brooklyn Bridge shooting a van filled with Jewish schoolboys to avenge of Cave of the Patriarchs massacre. February 23, 1997: A Palestinian teacher, Ali Hassan Abu Kamal traveled to the top of the Empire State building where he shot seven people before killing himself. January 5, 2002: Charlie J. Bishop stole a Cessna 172, and crashed into the Bank of America Tower in downtown Tampa, Florida. Bishop was the sole fatality and no one else was injured. Bishop wrote a letter, saying that he was inspired by Osama bin Laden and 9/11 and praised the attacks as a "justified response to actions against Palestinians and Iraqis", and was acting on behalf of Al-Qaeda July 4, 2002: Los Angeles International Airport shooting: Two people were killed and four others injured by a terrorist who opened fire at the El Al ticket counter. July 28, 2006: Seattle Jewish Federation shooting, (Seattle, WA): An "angry" Pakistani-American who converted to Christianity uses a young girl as a hostage in an attempt to enter a local Jewish center, where he shoots six women, one of whom dies. Puerto Rican nationalism March 1, 1954: United States Capitol shooting incident. Four Puerto Rican nationalists shoot and wound five members of the United States Congress during an immigration debate. October 14, 1969: The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional (FALN), a Puerto Rican nationalist group, claims responsibility for a small bomb explosion at Macy's Herald Square January 24, 1975: FALN bombs Fraunces Tavern in New York City, killing four and injuring more than 50. December 29, 1975: A bomb set off by FALN in East Harlem, New York, permanently disables a police officer while causing him to lose an eye. August 3, 1977: FALN bombs exploded on the twenty-first floor of 342 Madison Avenue in New York City, which housed United States Department of Defense security personnel, as well as the Mobil Building at 150 East Forty-Second Street, killing one. In addition the group warned that bombs were located in thirteen other buildings, including the Empire State Building and the World Trade Center resulting in the evacuation of one hundred thousand people. Five days later a bomb attributed to the group was found in the AMEX building. May 3, 1979: FALN exploded a bomb outside of the Shubert Theatre in Chicago, injuring five people. March 15, 1980: Armed members of FALN raided the campaign headquarters of President Jimmy Carter in Chicago and the campaign headquarters of George H. W. Bush in New York City. Seven people in Chicago and ten people in New York were tied up as the offices were vandalized before the FALN members fled. A few days later, Carter delegates in Chicago received threatening letters from FALN. May 16, 1981: One was killed in an explosion in the toilets at the Pan Am terminal at New York's JFK airport. The bombing is claimed by the Puerto Rican Resistance Army. December 31, 1982: FALN explodes bombs outside of the 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan, Federal Bureau of Investigation Headquarters and a United States courthouse in Brooklyn. Three New York Police Department police officers are blinded with one officer losing both eyes. All three officers sustained other serious injuries trying to defuse a second Federal Plaza bomb. Right-wing and anti-government extremism August 21, 1863: Lawrence Massacre: The Confederate guerrilla group Quantrill's Raiders led by William Quantrill raided and committed a massacre on the Unionist town of Lawrence, Kansas due to the town's long support of abolition, killing about 190 civilians. December 7, 1863: Chesapeake affair: Pro-Confederate British subjects from the Maritime Provinces hijacked the American steamer Chesapeake off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, killing a crew member and wounding three others in the ensuing gunfight. The intent of this hijacking was to use the ship as a blockade runner for the Confederacy under the belief that they had an official Confederate letter of marque. October 19, 1864: St. Albans Raid: Confederate soldiers without proper uniform raided the border town of St. Albans, Vermont from the Province of Canada, robbing $208,000 from three banks, holding hostages, killing a civilian and wounding two others, and attempting to burn the entire town with Greek fire. April 19, 1995: Oklahoma City bombing: A truck bomb destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. Far-right terrorists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were convicted in the bombing; McVeigh was executed by lethal injection in 2001. July 27, 1996: Centennial Olympic Park bombing by Eric Robert Rudolph occurred in Atlanta, Georgia, during the Atlanta Olympics. One person was killed and 111 injured. In a statement released in 2005 Rudolph said the motive was to protest abortion and the "global socialist" Olympic Movement. July 27, 2008: Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church shooting: Jim David Adkisson enters the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee with a shotgun, killing two and injuring several congregants before being tackled to the ground. Adkisson stated to the police and in a manifesto that he desired to kill Democrats, liberals, African Americans and homosexuals. Adkisson pleaded guilty to the crime in February 2009 and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. November 1, 2013: 2013 Los Angeles International Airport shooting: 23-year-old Paul Ciancia kills a Transportation Security Administration agent and wounds 7 others, 3 of them TSA agents. Ciancia was shot and taken into custody. A note found in Ciancia's pocket said he believed he was a "patriot" upset at former Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and that he wanted to kill "TSA and pigs". March 14, 2014: Robert James Talbot Jr, from Katy, Texas was arrested,after a nearly eight-month operation by the FBI, Secret Service, Houston Police and Harris Sheriff's Office, investigated after creating a Facebook page called "American Insurgent Movement", with the aim of recruiting five of six persons for tried to theft of a stock car and banks, and start a ring of attacks against government buildings and law enforcements in the Greater Houston zone. June 8, 2014: 2014 Las Vegas shootings: Two Las Vegas police officers while eating pizza in a restaurant and one civilian were shot to death by Jerad and Amanda Miller, a married couple, in a suicide attack. A Gadsden flag, swastika and a note promising "revolution," was placed on the deceased officers bodies. The couple were thrown out of a patriot group defending rancher Cliven Bundy. The Millers were both killed in a shootout with police on the same day. October 22 – November 1, 2018: October 2018 United States mail bombing attempts: At least twelve confirmed packages containing pipe bombs were mailed within the U.S. Postal Service system to several prominent critics of U.S. President Donald Trump, including various Democratic Party politicians (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Eric Holder, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Maxine Waters, Cory Booker), actor Robert De Niro, billionaire investor George Soros, former CIA Director John O. Brennan, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. On October 26, a 56-year-old man named Cesar Altieri Sayoc Jr. was arrested by authorities in Plantation, Florida in connection with the explosive devices. The suspect has a criminal history. A white van covered in stickers (several showing support for Donald Trump) was also seized by authorities. January 6, 2021: Supporters of President Donald Trump, some of whom were armed, stormed the Capitol building after a rally held in Washington D.C by the President, his sons, and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani. They broke through barriers, broke down doors, smashed through windows, and stole public property. The supporters obtained access to the Senate Floor, balconies, and offices; and sat at the Senate President's desk. White nationalism and white supremacy June 1, 1921: The Tulsa race massacre, the destruction of the city's prosperous African-American community by white supremacists. The European-American authorities tolerated and frequently participated in the destruction of the Greenwood District, the wealthy area of Black-owned businesses which was known as "Black Wall Street". Airplanes were reported to have dropped incendiary devices on the city, contributing to a firestorm. 1951: Wave of hate related terrorist attacks in Florida. As well as Black people being dragged and beaten to death, there were 11 race related bombings, dynamiting of synagogues and a Jewish School in Miami. Explosives were found outside Catholic churches in Miami. 1963: The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was a terrorist bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama on September 15, 1963. The bombing was committed by a white supremacist terrorist group. 1988: Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. a Vietnam War veteran and the founder of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan/White Patriot Party in the early 1980s served three years in Federal penitentiary for trying to assassinate Morris Dees founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center. The FBI found a cache of weapons in his home after they used tear gas to drive him out and arrest him. He testified against 14 White Supremacists as part of a plea bargain deal. January 17, 2011: 2011 Spokane bombing attempt: Kevin William Harpham attempted to bomb a Martin Luther King Day parade in Spokane, Washington but failed. August 5, 2012: Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting: Wade Michael Page killed six people at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin before being killed by police officers. During the investigation of the crime, police found out that Page was a member of white supremacist and neo-Nazi organizations such as the Hammerskin Nation/Hammerskins. The police concluded that racism and ethnic hatred was the main cause of the murders. April 13, 2014: Overland Park Jewish Community Center shooting: Klansman and Neo-Nazi Frazier Glenn Miller killed three people at Jewish community centers in Overland Park, Kansas. June 17, 2015: Charleston church shooting: Dylann Roof carried out a mass shooting at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. The church is one of the United States' oldest black churches and has long been a site for community organization around civil rights. Nine people were killed, including the senior pastor, Clementa C. Pinckney, a state senator. A tenth victim was also shot, but survived. The FBI has not officially classified the act as terrorism, which was met with controversy. March 20, 2017: Murder of Timothy Caughman: James Harris Jackson, a 28-year-old War in Afghanistan veteran, traveled to New York City from his hometown of Baltimore with the intention of killing black men there. Three days after arriving at New York City, Jackson stabbed Caughman, a black man, to death with an 18-inch sword. He then turned himself in to authorities. Jackson was charged with one count each of murder in the first and second degrees as an act of terrorism, second-degree murder as a hate crime, and three counts of criminal possession of a weapon. August 12, 2017: 2017 Charlottesville attack: James Alex Fields of the neo-Nazi group Vanguard America (VA) drove into the front of a crowd of marchers on the street, who witnesses say were counter-protesting the "Unite the Right" rally which began the night before. One person died and 19 were injured. August 3, 2019: 2019 El Paso shooting: Patrick Crusius committed a violent domestic terrorist attack/mass shooting targeting Latinos at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, killing 23 people and injuring 22 others. May 14, 2022: 2022 Buffalo shooting: Payton S. Gendron committed a mass shooting targeting African-Americans at a Tops Friendly Markets supermarket in Buffalo, New York, killing 10 people and injuring 3 others. Eleven of the 13 victims shot were Black while two others were White. Organized KKK violence Deadliest attacks The following is a list of the deadliest known single-day terrorist attacks in the United States to date. Only incidents with ten or more deaths, excluding those of the perpetrators, are included. † Was previously the deadliest terrorist attack. Failed attacks November 25, 1864: Confederate Army of Manhattan Fires were set at 19 New York City hotels, P.T. Barnum's Museum, and 2 hay barges resulting in minor damage. Plot to burn down New York City organized by Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Robert Martin failed because the Greek fire incendiary devices were defective and the Lincoln Administration had been tipped off by a double agent and intercepted telegraph messages. After the conspirators found out the plot had been discovered they escaped to Canada. Confederate Captain Robert C. Kennedy became the only conspirator apprehended when he was arrested following his return to the U.S. Kennedy was tried by a military tribunal and hanged. June 1940: Two dynamite bombs were discovered outside of the Philadelphia Convention Hall during the Republican National Convention. A total of seven bombs were discovered in the greater Philadelphia area during this period. November 1, 1950: Attempted assassination of Harry S. Truman by members of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party at the Blair House in Washington, D.C. 1965 The Monumental Plot – New York Police thwart an attempt to dynamite the Statue of Liberty, Liberty Bell, and the Washington Monument by three members of the pro-Castro Black Liberation Front and a Quebec Separatist. March 6, 1970: Three members of the Weather Underground were killed when their "bomb factory" located in New York's Greenwich Village accidentally exploded. WUO members Theodore Gold, Diana Oughton, and Terry Robbins died in this accident. The bomb was intended to be planted at a non-commissioned officer's dance at Fort Dix, New Jersey. The bomb was packed with nails to inflict maximum casualties upon detonation. See Greenwich Village townhouse explosion. April 1971: Pipe bombs found at the embassies of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in Washington, D.C. 1972: Two Jewish Defense League members were arrested and charged with bomb possession and burglary in a conspiracy to blow up the Long Island residence of the Soviet mission to the United Nations. March 6, 1973: 1973 New York bomb plot Explosives found in the trunks of cars were defused at the El Al air terminal at Kennedy Airport, the First Israel Bank and Trust Company, and the Israel Discount Bank, in New York City. The plot was foiled when the National Security Agency intercepted an encrypted message sent to the Iraqi foreign ministry in Baghdad to the Palestine Liberation Organization's office. The attacks were meant to coincide with visit of Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir. Khalid Duhham al-Jawary of the Black September was convicted on charges relating to the attacks in 1993 and was released to immigration authorities in 2009. September 22, 1975: Sarah Jane Moore tries to assassinate President Gerald Ford outside of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. The attempt fails when a bystander grabs her arm and deflects the shot. Moore has stated the motive was to create chaos to bring "the winds of change" because the government had declared war on the left wing. 1984: According to Oregon law enforcement there was an abortive plot by the Rajneeshee cult to murder United States Attorney for Oregon, Charles Turner. April 1985: The FBI arrested several members of a Sikh terrorist group who were plotting to kill Indian PM Rajiv Gandhi when he visited New York in June. April 12, 1988: Yū Kikumura, a member of the Japanese Red Army, is arrested with three pipe bombs on the New Jersey Turnpike. According to prosecutors, Kikumura planned to bomb a military recruitment office in the Veteran's Administration building in lower Manhattan on April 14, the anniversary of the U.S. raid on Libya. February 26, 1993: 1993 World Trade Center bombing: Ramzi Yousef, a member of Al Qaeda, masterminds the truck-bombing of the World Trade Center. The bomb is meant to destabilize the foundation of the building, causing it to collapse and destroy surrounding buildings, leading to mass casualties. It failed to do so, but the detonation killed 6 people and injured more than 1000. June 1993: New York City landmark bomb plot. Followers of radical cleric Omar Abdel-Rahman were arrested while planning to bomb landmarks in New York City, including the UN headquarters. August 1994: Two far-right extremists, Douglas Baker & Leroy Wheeler, both members of the Minnesota Patriots Council, are arrested for making ricin, a deadly toxin. The two will later be convicted of attempting to poison federal agents. March 1995: Charles Ray Polk is arrested while attempting to buy plastic explosives and machine guns in order to assassinate four police officers and a female judge, and to bomb the IRS offices in Tyler, Texas. November 9, 1995: Willie Ray Lampley, a self-proclaimed Prophet, along with his wife Cecilia and a family friend John Dare Baird, were arrested for a plot to bomb numerous targets, including the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama, the Anti-Defamation League offices in Dallas and Houston, Texas, as well as a number of gay bars & abortion clinics. December 1995: Tax protesters Joseph Martin Bailie and Ellis Edward Hurst attempt to blow up the Internal Revenue Service building in Reno, Nevada with a 100-pound ANFO bomb. April 1996: Anti-government activist & survivalist Ray Hamblin is arrested after authorities find 460 pounds of the high explosive Tovex, 746 pounds of ANFO blasting agent, and 15 homemade hand grenades on his property in Hood River, Oregon during an investigation into a series of explosions in his storage sheds. July 1996: Twelve members of an Arizona militia group called the Viper Team are arrested on federal conspiracy, weapons and explosive charges after planning to bomb a number of Federal office buildings, including one that houses the office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI. July 1996: Washington State Militia leader John Pitner and seven others are arrested on weapons and explosives charges in connection with a plot to build pipe bombs for a confrontation with the federal government. Pitner and four others will be convicted on weapons charges, while conspiracy charges against all eight will end in a mistrial. Pitner will later be retried on that charge, convicted and sentenced to four years in prison. October 1996: Seven members of the Mountaineer Militia are arrested in a plot to blow up the FBI's national Criminal Justice Information Services Division in Clarksburg, West Virginia. In 1998, leader Floyd "Ray" Looker, will be sentenced to 18 years in prison. March 17, 1997: anti-abortion extremist Peter Howard puts 13 gas cans and three propane tanks in his truck, and drives it through the door of a California women's clinic in a failed attempt to fire bomb the clinic. September 1999: anti-abortion extremist Clayton Lee Waagner was pulled over by the Pennsylvania State Police, but fled into the woods and evaded capture, leaving behind a stolen car that contained firearms, explosives, fake ID, and a list of abortion clinics. Later in September 1999, while on a self-described "Mission from God", he took his wife and their nine children on a cross-country road trip headed west in a stolen Winnebago, planning to murder various abortion doctors, beginning with one in Seattle, Washington. However, after crossing into Illinois his vehicle broke down, and Waagner was arrested when Illinois State Police stopped to investigate. Waagner was convicted on charges of interstate transportation of a stolen motor vehicle and for being a convicted felon in possession of firearms. Waagner later escaped and used a cross country crime spree to continue to fund his anti-abortion mission. January 1, 2000: 2000 millennium attack plots, plan to bomb LAX Airport in Los Angeles December 5, 2001: anti-abortion extremist Clayton Lee Waagner is arrested in a Kinko's while he was preparing to fax bomb threats to a mass list of abortion clinics. December 12, 2001: Jewish Defense League plot by Chairman Irv Rubin and follower Earl Krugel to blow up the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City, California and the office of Lebanese-American Congressman Darrell Issa foiled. December 22, 2001: British citizen and self-proclaimed Al Qaeda member Richard Reid attempted to detonate the C-4 explosive PETN concealed in his shoes while on a flight from Paris to Miami. He was subdued by crew and passengers with the plane landing safely in Boston. 2004 financial buildings plot: Al-Qaeda plan to bomb the International Monetary Fund, New York Stock Exchange, Citigroup and Prudential buildings broken up after arrest of computer expert in Pakistan and plotters in Britain. 2004 Columbus Shopping Mall bombing plot: A loosely organized group of young men planned to carry out an attack on an unnamed shopping mall. September 11, 2006: A man rammed his car into a women's clinic that he thought was an abortion clinic and set it ablaze in Davenport, Iowa causing $20,000 worth of damage to the building. April 25, 2007: A bomb was left in a women's clinic in Austin, Texas but failed to explode. 2009: 2009 New York bomb plot December 25, 2009: British and Nigerian citizen and self-described Al-Qaeda member Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab allegedly attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in flight over Detroit by igniting his underpants which were filled with the C-4 explosive PETN. He has been indicted in a U.S. federal court; charges include the attempted murder of 289 people. Several days later, Al Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen and Saudi Arabia claimed responsibility for the attempted attack. Addressing America, the group threatened to "come for you to slaughter." On January 24, 2010, an audio tape that US intelligence believes is authentic was broadcast in which Osama bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attempted bombing. The intelligence officials expressed doubt about the veracity of bin Laden's claim. On October 12, 2011, Abdulmutallab pled guilty to all counts against him and read a statement to the court saying "I attempted to use an explosive device which in the U.S. law is a weapon of mass destruction, which I call a blessed weapon to save the lives of innocent Muslims, for U.S. use of weapons of mass destruction on Muslim populations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen and beyond". May 1, 2010 2010 Times Square car bomb attempt and plot: An attempted evening car bombing in crowded Times Square in New York City failed when a street vendor saw smoke emanating from an SUV and called police. The White House has blamed Tehrik-e-Taliban the Pakistani Taliban for the failed attack and said Faisal Shahzad aged 30, an American of Pakistani origin who has been arrested in relation to the incident was working for the group. In July 2010, the Pakistani Taliban released a video featuring Shahzad in which he urged other Muslims in the West to follow his example and to wage similar attacks. On May 3, Shahzad was arrested at Kennedy Airport as he was preparing to fly to Dubai. The device was described as crude and amateurish but potent enough to cause casualties. On May 13 the F.B.I. raided several locations in the Northeast and arrested 3 on alleged immigration violations. Several suspects were arrested in Pakistan including the co-owner of a prominent catering firm used by the US embassy. On June 21 Shahzad pled guilty to 10 counts saying he created the bomb to force the US military to withdraw troops and stop drone attacks in a number of Muslim countries. Shahzad said he chose the location to cause mass civilian casualties because the civilians elected the government that carried out the allegedly anti Muslim policies. On October 4, 2010, Shahzad was sentenced to life in prison. During his sentencing, he threatened that "the defeat of the U.S. is imminent" and that "we will keep on terrorizing you until you leave our lands." Shahzad planned on detonating a second bomb in Times Square two weeks later. July 21, 2010: Bryon Williams captured after shootout with California Highway Patrol with guns strapped on his body armor alleged to have confessed that he was on his way to kill workers at the American Civil Liberties Union and follow it up with and attack on Tides Center allegedly was angry with left-wing politics and inspired by conspiracy theories of Glenn Beck and hoped the attack would ignite a revolution. January 17, 2011: Spokane bombing attempt: A small pipe bomb in a backpack designed to be detonated by remote control and spread shrapnel in a specific direction was discovered during a Martin Luther King Day parade in Spokane, Washington. White supremacist Kevin Harpham is convicted and sentenced to 32 years in federal prison. April 8, 2013: Letters believed to contain the poison Ricin were sent to President Barack Obama and Mississippi Republican Senator Roger Wicker and a Mississippi Justice official. Tests on the granular substance found in the letters tested positive for "low grade" ricin. April 25, 2013: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, told investigators that he and his brother discussed using leftover explosives to attack Times Square. According to NYC Police commissioner Raymond Kelly the plan was conceived after they attacked Boston and was foiled when their SUV ran out of gas as they tried to escape from the Boston marathon bombing manhunt. January 15, 2015: Washington, DC. A 20-year-old Ohio man was arrested by the FBI for wanting to set off pipe bombs at the U.S. Capitol as a way of supporting ISIS. Federal authorities identified the man as Christopher Lee Cornell, also known as Raheel Mahrus Ubaydah. Cornell, who lived in the Cincinnati area, allegedly told an FBI informant they should "wage jihad," and showed his plans for bombing the Capitol and shooting people, according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court. The FBI said Cornell expressed his desire to support the Islamic State. Authorities say Cornell was arrested Wednesday after buying two semi-automatic rifles and about 600 rounds of ammunition, but an FBI agent says the public was never in danger. May 3, 2015: Garland, Texas. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, roommates from North Phoenix, Arizona, were killed by a security guard when they started shooting at a building holding a Mohammad cartoon contest sponsored by Stop Islamization of America. A school security officer helping with security at the event was shot in the leg. October 14, 2016: Three men were arrested in Garden City, Kansas, for plotting a car bomb attack against an apartment complex were Somali and Muslim migrants live. The three attackers were part of a group called "The Crusaders". October 22–26, 2018: At least twelve packages containing pipe bombs were mailed within the U.S. Postal Service system to several prominent critics of U.S. President Donald Trump, including various Democratic Party politicians (Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Eric Holder, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Maxine Waters, Cory Booker), actor Robert De Niro, billionaire investor George Soros, former CIA Director John O. Brennan, and former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper. October 8, 2020: The FBI announced the arrests of 13 people for attempting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and overthrow the state government. May 22, 2023: A Missouri man allegedly attempted to crash a U-Haul truck into the White House, but instead hit a nearby security barrier. Sai Varshith Kandula, 19, who had a Nazi flag with him and made verbal threats against President Biden and Vice President Harris, was arrested. He told police he wanted to "seize power" and kill the president, and that he admired Nazi authoritarianism and eugenics. Conspiracy theorists on Twitter began labeling the attack a false flag, in part due to Kandula's ethnicity, which reportedly is Telugu. Kandula is not a U.S. citizen but he does have a green card; if convicted, he will likely be deported. Alleged and proven plots November 1864: Plan by Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Robert Martin and the Copperheads organization Sons of Liberty to attack New York City and disrupt elections collapsed when the Sons of Liberty backed out upon seeing large numbers of Union troops. February 28, 1865 Dahlgren Affair: Alleged plot by Union General Judson Kilpatrick to burn down Richmond, Virginia and kill Confederate President Jefferson Davis and his Cabinet. Allegations based on papers recovered by a 13-year-old member of the Confederate home guard. The authenticity of the papers have been a matter of dispute. January 1940: The FBI shuts down the Christian Front after discovering that its members were arming themselves for a plot to "murder Jews, communists, and 'a dozen Congressmen'" and establishing a government modeled after Nazi Germany. March 31, 1943: Clarence Cull arrested and charged with attempting to assassinate President Franklin D. Roosevelt by suicide bombing. Cull blamed Roosevelt for lost convoys of merchant ships. November 9, 1995: Oklahoma Constitutional Militia members arrested while in the planning stages for bombings of Southern Poverty Law Center, gay bars and abortion clinics. January 1, 1996: Members of the Viper Militia are arrested after they caught surveying government buildings in Arizona. July 13, 1996: John J. Ford, 47, of Bellport, Long Island, a former court officer and president of the Long Island U.F.O. Network, and Joseph Mazzachelli plotted to poison local politicians with radium and shoot them if that did not work. They believed the government was covering up knowledge of UFO landings. November 11, 1996: Seven members of the Mountaineer Militia are arrested in a plot to blow up the FBI fingerprint records center in West Virginia. July 4, 1997: Members of the splinter militia group the Third Continental Congress are arrested while planning attacks on military bases which they believed were being used to train United Nations troops to attack U.S. citizens. July 30, 1997: Two men who were planning to bomb the New York City subway the next day were arrested. A resident of their apartment informed police after he overheard the men discussing the plot. March 18, 1998: Members of the North American Militia are arrested in plot to bomb Federal Buildings in Michigan, a television station and an interstate highway intersection. December 5, 1999: Members of the San Joaquin Militia are arrested on charges of plotting to bomb critical infrastructure locations in hopes of sparking an insurrection. The leaders of the group pled guilty to charges of plotting to kill a Federal judge. December 8, 1999: The leader of the Southeastern States Alliance militia group is arrested in plot to bomb energy faculties with the goal of causing power outages in Florida and Georgia. March 9, 2000: The former leader of the Texas Militia is arrested in a plot to attack the Federal Building in Houston. February 8, 2002: Two members of Project 7 are arrested plotting to kill judges and law enforcement officials in order to kick off a revolution. May 8, 2002: José Padilla, accused by John Ashcroft of plotting to attack the United States with a dirty bomb, declared as an enemy combatant, and denied habeas corpus. No material evidence has been produced to support the allegation. July 26, 2002: 2002 White supremacist terror plot: Two white supremacists were convicted of conspiring to start a race war by bombing landmarks associated with Jews and Blacks. September 3, 2002: An Idaho Mountain Militia Boys plot to kill a judge and a police officer and break a friend out of jail is uncovered. April 24, 2003: William Krar is charged for his part in the Tyler poison gas plot, a white supremacist related plan. A sodium cyanide bomb was seized with at least 100 other bombs, bomb components, machine guns, and 500,000 rounds of ammunition. He faces up to 10 years in prison. May 1, 2003: Iyman Faris pleads guilty to providing material support to al-Qaeda and plotting to bring down the Brooklyn Bridge by cutting through cables with blowtorches. He had been working as a double for the FBI since March, but in October was sentenced to 20 years in prison. August 31, 2005 2005 Los Angeles bomb plot: Kevin James, Hammad Samana, Gregory Patterson, and Levar Washington were indicted on charges to wage war against the U.S. government through terrorism in California. The men planned attacks against Jewish institutions and American military locations in Los Angeles during the Yom Kippur holiday. February 21, 2006: The Toledo terror plot where three men were accused of conspiring to wage a "holy war" against the United States, supply help to the terrorist in Iraq, and threatening to kill the US president. June 23, 2006: The Miami bomb plot to attack the Sears Tower where seven men were arrested after an FBI agent infiltrated a group while posing as an al-Qaeda member. No weapons or other materials were found. On May 12, 2009, after two mistrials due to hung juries five men were convicted and one acquitted on charges related to the plot. Narseal Batiste, the group's ringleader, was convicted on four charges, the only defendant to be convicted on all four charges brought against the defendants. July 7, 2006: Three suspects arrested in Lebanon for plotting to blow up a Hudson River tunnel and flood the New York financial district. November 29, 2006: Demetrius Van Crocker a white supremacist from rural Tennessee was sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to acquire Sarin nerve gas and C-4 explosives that he planned to use to destroy government buildings. December 8, 2006: Derrick Shareef, 22, a Muslim convert who talked about his desire to wage jihad against civilians was charged in a plot to set off four hand grenades in garbage cans December 22 at the Cherryvale Mall in Rockford, Illinois. March 5, 2007: A Rikers Island inmate offered to pay an undercover police officer posing as a hit man to behead New York City police commissioner Raymond Kelly and bomb police headquarters in retaliation for the controversial police shooting of Sean Bell. The suspect wanted the bombing to be considered a terrorist act. May 1, 2007: Five members of a self-styled Birmingham, Alabama area anti-immigration militia were arrested for planning a machine gun attack on Mexicans. May 7, 2007: Fort Dix attack plot. Six men inspired by Jihadist videos arrested in a failed homegrown terrorism plot to kill soldiers. Plot unravels when Circuit City clerk becomes suspicious of the DVDs the men had created and report it to authorities who place an informant in the group. In October 2008 one man pleaded guilty to charges related to the plot. On December 22, 2008, five other men were convicted with conspiracy to kill American soldiers but were acquitted of attempted murder. Dritan, Shain and Eljvir Duka were sentenced to life in prison. June 3, 2007: John F. Kennedy International Airport terror plot. Four men indicted in plot to blow up jet-fuel supply tanks at JFK Airport and a 40-mile (64 km) connecting pipeline. One suspect is a U.S. citizen and one, Abdul Kadir, a former member of parliament in Guyana. The airport was targeted because one of the suspects saw arms shipments and missiles being shipped to Israel from that locale. In a recorded conversation one of the suspects allegedly told an informant that "Anytime you hit Kennedy, it is the most hurtful thing to the United States. To hit John F. Kennedy, wow.... They love JFK – he's like the man". Plot unraveled when a person from law enforcement was recruited. On June 29, 2010, Abdel Nur pled guilty to material support charges. Due to health reasons Kareem Ibrahim was removed from the case and will be tried separately. On August 2 Russell M. Defreitas and Abdul Kadir were convicted for their role in the plot. March 26, 2008: Michael S. Gorbey who was detained in January 2008 for carrying a loaded shotgun two blocks from the Capitol Building has been charged planning to set off a bomb after a device containing can of gunpowder duct-taped to a box of shotgun shells and a bottle containing buckshot or BB pellets was found in the pickup truck he was driving. The pickup truck was moved to a government parking lot where for a three-week period the device inside it went unnoticed. Michael Gorbey gets 22 years prison, but he insisted that police planted weapons. October 27, 2008: Federal agents claim to thwarted a plot by two white power skinheads to target an African American High School and kill 88 blacks and decapitate 14 more (the numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic to white supremacists) and although expecting to fail try to assassinate Barack Obama. May 20, 2009: 2009 New York City bomb plot Three U.S. citizens and one Haitian from Newburgh, New York were arrested in a plot to bomb a Riverdale Temple and a Riverdale Jewish Center in The Bronx, New York City in an alleged homegrown terrorist plot. It was also alleged that they planned to shoot down military planes operating out of Stewart Air National Guard Base also in Newburgh. One of the suspects whose parents are from Afghanistan was said to be "unhappy that many Muslim people were being killed in Afghanistan and Pakistan by the United States Military forces." On October 18, 2010, the four were convicted on most of the charges brought against them. On June 29, 2011, three of the men were sentenced to 25 years imprisonment by a judge who criticized the governments handling of the case. A 2014 award-winning HBO documentary about the four, The Newburgh Sting, claimed that it was a clear case of entrapment and an egregious miscarriage of justice. September: 2009 New York City Subway and United Kingdom plot: Najibullah Zazi of Denver was indicted on charges of trying to build and detonate a weapon of mass destruction by purchasing hydrogen peroxide, acetone and other chemicals. He and two others allegedly planned to detonate the homemade explosives on the New York City subway system. On February 22, 2010, Zazi pled guilty to conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support for a terrorist organization. Zazi said he was recruited by al-Qaeda as part of a "martyrdom plan". Zazi agreed to cooperate with authorities and has told them that the groups planned to walk into the Times Square and Grand Central stations with backpack bombs at rush hour and then choose which subway lines to attack. Several days later Adis Medunjanin and Zarein Ahmedzay high school classmates of Zazi were indicted and pled not guilty to charges of conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to commit murder in a foreign country and providing material support for a terrorist organization. On April 12 a fourth man was arrested in Pakistan. On April 23 Prosecutors said that two Senior Al Queda officials who were reportedly later killed in drone attacks ordered the attacks and Zarein Ahmedzay pleaded guilty to plot related charges. On July 7 five others were indicted including al-Qaeda leader Adnan Shukrijumah, and it was alleged the United Kingdom was also a target of the plot. While in Pakistan, Zazi, Ahmedzay and Medunjanin were allegedly recruited and directed by Shukrijumah, a former Florida student who is designated as one of the FBI's most wanted terrorists, to conduct a terrorist attack in the U.S. On August 6 new charges were brought against Medunjanin and 4 others including Shukrijumah. Medunjanin pleaded not guilty. August – September 2009: On September 24, William Boyd and Hysen Sherifi charged with "conducting reconnaissance of the Marine Corps base at Quantico, Virginia and obtaining armor-piercing ammunition with the intent to attack Americans". Boyd, two of his sons and several other suspects had been charged on international terrorism charges in August, but at the time there was no indication that they wanted to plot a United States attack. An audio tape of Boyd decrying the U.S. military, discussing the honor of martyrdom, and bemoaning the struggle of Muslims was played at an August hearing. It is the first case of a ring of homegrown terrorists having specific targets. September 24, 2009: Michael Finton/Talib Islam a 29-year-old man from Illinois charged with trying to kill federal employees by detonating a car bomb at the federal building in Springfield, Illinois. Charges based on F.B.I. sting operation. He is said to idolize American-born Taliban soldier John Walker Lindh. September 24, 2009: Hosam Maher Husein Smadi a 19-year-old illegal immigrant from Jordan charged with trying the bomb the 60 story Fountain Place office tower in Dallas, Texas. Charges are based on an FBI sting operation in which agents posed as members of an al-Qaeda sleeper cell. January 7, 2010: Adis Medunjanin, an alleged 2009 New York City Subway plotter, attempts a suicide attack by intentionally crashing his car on the Whitestone Bridge in New York City. He is indicted for this on July 7. Medunjanin has since been charged for his role in an Al Qaeda plot to conduct coordinated suicide bombings on New York's subway system. May 2010: Paul Rockwood Jr. a meteorologist who took official weather observations and his pregnant wife Nancy from King Salmon, Alaska compiled a list of 20 targets, including members of the military and media and had moved to the operational phase of their plan pled guilty to lying to FBI about the list and making false statements to the FBI. Under a plea agreement Mr. Rockwood will serve eight years in prison and three years probation while Ms. Rockwood will serve probation. Motive was revenge for alleged descecration of Islam. September 20, 2010: Sami Samir Hassoun, 22, a Lebanese citizen living in Chicago, was charged with one count each of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and attempted use of an explosive device after placing a backpack with what he thought was a bomb near Wrigley Field. Alleged plot was foiled by FBI informant. Hassoun discussed other ideas for mass destruction attacks with informant. October 27, 2010: Farooque Ahmed, 34, a naturalized U.S. citizen indicted for conspiracy to bomb four Washington Metro stations with people he thought were al-Qaeda. November 26, 2010: Mohamed Osman Mohamud, a 19-year-old Somali-American, is alleged to have attempted a car bombing at a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon. The device was a dud created by the FBI. Motive is reported to be Jihad. On January 31, 2013, a jury found Mohamud guilty of the charge of trying to use a weapon of mass destruction. December 8, 2010: Antonio Martinez, also known as Muhammad Hussain, was arrested after a sting operation in an alleged plot to bomb a military recruiting center in Catonsville, Maryland. The 21-year-old suspect is an American who converted to Islam. The suspect was reported to be upset that the military continues to kill Muslims. December 21, 2010: Internet radio broadcaster Hal Turner sentenced to 33 months in prison after he published the work addresses and photographs of three judges who had upheld gun control laws and advocated for their assassination. February 24, 2011: Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari, a 20-year-old Saudi Arabian student, was arrested for building bombs to use in alleged terrorist attacks. Targets allegedly were the home of George W. Bush, hydroelectric dams, nuclear power plants, nightclubs and the homes of soldiers who were formerly stationed at the Abu Ghraib prison. In Aldawsari's journal he wrote he was inspired by the speeches of Osama bin Laden. Alleged plot uncovered when a supplier noticed suspicious purchases. May 11, 2011: In the 2011 Manhattan terrorism plot, Ahmed Ferhani, a resident of Queens, New York and native of Algeria, and Mohamed Mamdouh, aged 20, also from Queens and a Moroccan native, were arrested in a Lone Wolf plot against a New York Synagogue that had yet to be chosen. It also alleged that they hoped to attack the Empire State Building. The pair were arrested after buying two Browning semi-automatic pistols, one Smith & Wesson revolver, ammunition and one grenade. The pair disguised themselves as Jewish temple goers and pretended to pray. The suspects were said to be "committed to violent jihad". June 23, 2011: Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif and Walli Mujahidh of Long Beach, California are arrested on charges of buying machine guns and grenades and conspiring to attack a federal building housing a Military Entrance Processing Station in Seattle, Washington. The plot was uncovered by an informant. His motive was to send a message in protest of US action abroad. On April 8, 2013, Walli Mujahidh apologized and was sentenced to 17 years for his role in the plot. July 27, 2011: AWOL U.S. Army Private, and conscientious objector, Naser Jason Abdo from Garland, Texas was arrested in an alleged plot against Fort Hood, Texas. Materials for up to two bombs were found with jihadist materials in Abdo's motel room. An investigation began when the owner of a local gun store called police after becoming suspicious when Abdo asked questions indicating he did not know about the items he was purchasing. September 28, 2011: Rezwan Ferdaus, a US citizen, was indicted for allegedly plotting to use remote-controlled aircraft carrying explosives to bomb the Pentagon and the US Capitol. He also allegedly planned to hire people to shoot at people fleeing the Pentagon. Ferdaus was said to be motivated by Al Queada videos and the alleged plot was uncovered by an FBI sting operation. In July 2012 he pleaded guilty to plotting an attack on the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol and attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Under a plea bargain, he was sentenced to 17 years in prison and then 10 years of supervised release. October 11, 2011: Operation Red Coalition. Alleged plot that was "conceived, sponsored and was directed from Iran" to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Adel al-Jubeir, with a bomb and bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington, D.C. It is not known if Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei or President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had knowledge of the plot. The alleged plot was disrupted by an FBI and DEA investigation. The investigation began in May 2011 when an Iranian-American approached a DEA informant seeking the help of a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador. Iran has denied the allegations. October–November 2011: Georgia terrorist plot. Four elderly men from a Georgia militia arrested for plotting to buy ricin in preparation for an attack they claimed would "save the Constitution". They allegedly discussed blowing up IRS and ATF buildings, dispensing ricin from a plane over Atlanta and other cities, and assassinating "un-American" politicians. Informant used to break up alleged plot. November 20, 2011: Jose Pimentel, aged 27, an American citizen and a convert to Islam from New York City, is arrested and accused of being in the process of building pipe bombs (and one hour away from building his first bomb) to target Post Offices, police cars and U.S. military personnel returning from abroad in New York City and Bayonne, New Jersey. He was said to be a follower of the late al-Qaeda leader Anwar al-Awlaki. The FBI did not consider Pimentel, who was said to be radicalized via the internet, enough of a threat to investigate, but NYC police considered him a 2 on a threat scale of 1 to 5. January 7, 2012: Sami Osmakac, a naturalized American from Kosovo, was arrested in a plot to create mayhem in Tampa, Florida by car bombing, hostage taking and exploding a suicide belt. Alleged bomb targets included nightclubs in Ybor City, a bar, the operations center of the sheriff's office and South Tampa businesses. Osmakac allegedly told an FBI undercover agent "We all have to die, so why not die the Islamic way?". Osmakac pled not guilty on February 8. February 17, 2012: Amine El Khalifi a Moroccan man from Alexandria, Virginia was arrested in an alleged suicide bombing plot of the U.S. Capitol. He was arrested as a result of an FBI sting operation. As a result of a plea agreement El Khalifi was sentenced to 30 years in prison on September 14. May 1, 2012: Five self-described anarchists were arrested in an alleged plot to blow up a bridge in Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Brecksville, Ohio. The group was being monitored as part of an FBI undercover operation and had considered other plots previously. One of the suspects expressed a desire to cause financial damage to companies while avoiding casualties. August 27, 2012: Four non-commissioned officers from Fort Stewart in Georgia, along with five other men, were charged in an alleged plot to poison an apple orchard and blow up a dam in Washington State, seize control of Fort Stewart, set off explosives in a park in Savannah, Georgia, and assassinate President Barack Obama. The alleged plot was on behalf of the "FEAR" militia for the long term purpose of overthrowing the government. October 17, 2012: Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, aged 21, was arrested in a plot to bomb the Manhattan office of the Federal Reserve Bank on behalf of "our beloved Sheikh Osama bin Laden". His motive was to destroy the economy and possibly force the cancellation of the Presidential election. The suspect, who had a student visa, was a Bangladeshi national who came to the U.S. to launch a terrorist attack. His arrest was the result of a joint FBI-New York City Police sting operation. The suspect was pulling the detonator on a disabled 1000-pound van bomb when he was arrested. On August 9, 2013, Nafis was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Prior to his sentencing Nafis wrote a letter apologizing to the people of America and New York for his actions, which he said were caused by personal and family problems and said he is now pro-American. November 29, 2012: Raees Alam Qazi and his brother Sheheryar Alam Qazi of Florida, naturalized citizens of Pakistani descent, were arrested for being in the aspirational stages of a plot to attack New York City. Raees Alam Qazi is alleged to be inspired by Al Queda and of trying to contact terrorists abroad. On June 11, 2015, Raees and Sheheryar were sentenced to 35 and 20 years respectively for the plot and attacking federal officials while in custody. June 19, 2013: Two middle aged upstate New York men, Scott Crawford and Eric J. Feight, were arrested by the FBI in an alleged plot to target a political figure, reported to be President Obama, and a Muslim group deemed enemies of Israel, by constructing and using an X-Ray Gun that was described by the FBI as "useful and "functional". Obama was believed by the pair to be allowing Muslims into the country without background checks. An investigation was launched when a synagogue and the Ku Klux Klan, whom Crawford was a member of, told authorities that Crawford tried to recruit them to take part in the alleged plot. December 13, 2013: Terry Lee Loewen, an Avionics Technician, was arrested for attempting to bomb the Wichita Mid-Continent Airport. A Muslim-convert inspired by Anwar Al-Awlaki, he is alleged to have spent several months planning a suicide attack with a car-load of explosives. 2014: Brandon Orlando Baldwin and Olajuwon Ali Davis allegedly plotted to kill St. Louis County, Missouri Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch and Ferguson, Missouri Police Chief Tom Jackson as well as bomb the Gateway Arch in reaction to the shooting of Michael Brown. The suspects were caught as a result of an undercover operation. March 26, 2015: Hasan R. Edmonds, an Illinois National Guardsman, and his cousin, Jonas M. Edmonds, arrested in an alleged terrorist plot against a Northern Illinois military base. The alleged plot involved Hasan leaving the country and Jones using Hasan's uniform to gain access. The motive was to bring "the flames of war to the heart" of America. Alleged plot broken up by sting operation. April 2, 2015: Two women from Queens, New York, 28-year-old Noelle Velentzas and 31-year-old Asia Siddiqui, arrested on charges of trying to detonate explosives in the US. They had purchased propane tanks. It is believed to be first case of a women-only conceived terror plot in the US. Suspects caught in a sting operation. Siddiqui was alleged to have Al-Qaeda contact. On May 7, the two pled not guilty. April 10, 2015: The FBI arrested 20 year old John Booker Jr. (aka Mohammad Abdullah Hassan) and a co-conspirator, 28 year old Alexander Evan Blair, after Booker made the final connections to arm a 1,000 pound bomb inside a mini-van near Fort Riley, Kansas. Booker intended the inert device, built by undercover FBI agents that Booker had solicited to assist him with his attack, to be detonated at the base hospital. Prior to his attack, Booker made several martyrdom videos in which he stated that he was conducting the suicide attack against a military target in support of the Islamic State. Booker received a 30-year sentence as part of a plea agreement in which he pled guilty to attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempting to destroy government property by an explosive device. His accomplice, Alexander Blair, pled guilty to Conspiracy and was sentenced to 15 months, admitting to providing Booker with money to fund the attack knowing what was planned. April 10, 2015: the FBI arrested 63-year old Robert Rankin Doggart, of Signal Mountain, Tennessee, who ran as a congressional candidate in 2014. He was wiretapped explaining plans to raise a militia to burn down a mosque, school and cafeteria and gun down Muslims in an enclave called Islamberg in New York. He planned to amass M4 carbines, pistols, Molotov cocktails and machetes, saying "We will offer [our] lives as collateral to prove our commitment to our God," and "We shall be Warriors who inflict horrible numbers of casualties upon the enemies," and "If it gets down to the machete, we will cut them to shreds." He has a Ph.D. from a diploma mill and an ordination from an ordination mill. He pled guilty on May 15, 2015. June 17, 2015: Fareed Mumuni, 21 of Staten Island and Munther Omar Saleh, 20 of Queens arrested for allegedly trying to conspire to assist ISIS in committing an attack in the New York area. Both suspects allegedly charged at law enforcement trying to arrest them with a knife. July 3–5, 2015: FBI Director James Comey said his agency disrupted multiple July 4 weekend terror plots. July 13, 2015: Alexander Ciccolo, 23, of Adams, Massachusetts, the son of a Boston Police Captain, is arrested in a plot to attack a state college and broadcast executions of students on the internet. The suspect, who was turned in by his father, was said to be inspired by ISIS and reportedly characterized America as "Satan" and "disgusting". Ciccolo had guns and possible bomb making equipment. August 22, 2015: Kevin Norton, 18, and James Stumbo, 27 of Iowa were arrested in a plot to shoot up the 2015 Pokémon World Championships. The two posted status updates and images of their weaponry on social media, which were noticed by various Pokémon fans who treated them as supposed threats against the tournament. The two were arrested on charges of unlicensed possession of firearms and ammunition. The weapons recovered were a recently purchased Remington shotgun, an AR-15, a hunting knife and several hundred rounds of ammunition. November 11, 2015: Robert Curtis Doyle, Ronald Beasley Chaney III and Charles Daniel Halderman from Virginia were arrested trying to buy weapons and explosives from an undercover agent, The attackers plot assault and kill a silver and coin dealer and use the money to finance a ring of attacks against black churches and synagogues. In June 2016, Ronald Chaney was sentenced to 105 months in prison, Robert Curtis Doyle to 17 ½ years and Charles Halrderman was sentenced the following month to 7 years. October 14, 2016: Curtis Wayne Allen, 49; Patrick Eugene Stein, 47; and Gavin Wayne Wright, 49 are arrested in Garden City, Kansas after an eight month long investigation conducted by the FBI finds that the men were plotting to use explosives to kill an estimated 120 persons at an apartment complex inhabited by Somali immigrants. The men claimed allegiance to a far right nationalist group called "The Crusaders". Stein was sentenced to 30 years, Wright to 26 years, and Allen to 25 years for conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction. March 2020: Timothy Wilson, a member of the Atomwaffen Division was planning on bombing a COVID-19 hospital with a car bomb. He was killed in a shootout with the FBI on the March 24. January 2024: Two brothers from Astoria, Queens, Andrew and Angelo Hatziagelis, were arrested and charged on over 130 counts after allegedly hoarding explosives and ghost guns and maintaining a “hit list” that targeted celebrities and authority figures. The brothers, who police described as having “evil intent” and “anti-society” views with an admiration for Charles Manson, reportedly had eight fully operable bombs. See also Antisemitism in the United States, a form of racism in the United States and a form of religious discrimination in the United States Crime in the United States American Mafia Hate crime laws in the United States Definition of terrorism Domestic terrorism#United States Domestic terrorism in the United States Ethnic violence Global Terrorism Database Global Terrorism Index Hindu terrorism, a form of religious violence in India Violence against Christians in India Violence against Muslims in independent India History of terrorism, worldwide Islamic terrorism in Europe, a form of terrorism in Europe Islamophobia in the United States, another form of religious discrimination in the United States Left-wing terrorism Communist terrorism List of terrorist incidents in New York City List of terrorist incidents in Seattle List of white nationalist organizations Fascism in North America#United States List of fascist movements#United States List of fascist movements by country#United States of America List of Ku Klux Klan organizations List of neo-Nazi organizations Nazism in the Americas#United States List of organizations designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as hate groups List of organizations designated by the Southern Poverty Law Center as anti-LGBTQ hate groups Lynching in the United States List of lynching victims in the United States Lynching of American Jews Mass racial violence in the United States List of expulsions of African Americans Nationalist terrorism Misogynist terrorism Outline of terrorism in the United States Political violence Radicalism in the United States Radical right (United States) Religious terrorism, a form of religious violence Right-wing terrorism Sectarian violence, another form of religious violence]] Stochastic terrorism Terrorism in Europe Timeline of terrorist attacks in the United States United States and state terrorism United States and state-sponsored terrorism Explanatory notes References External links Southern Poverty Law Center List of U.S. Ecoterror incidents 1984–2002 Archived December 28, 2005, at the Wayback Machine Anti-Defamation League's Criminal Proceedings: A Timeline of U.S. Terror Cases Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States — Interactive database of over 2,000 profiles of individuals radicalized by ideologies in the United States since 1948 U.S. laws aren't keeping up with spread of hate online, says civil rights advocate on YouTube published on April 9, 2019 PBS NewsHour West Point Combating Terrorism Center - Challengers from the sidelines understanding Americas violent far right Challengers from the sidelines

Supreme_Council_of_State_of_Siam

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Council_of_State_of_Siam

The Supreme Council of State of Siam (Thai: อภิรัฐมนตรีสภา) was an advisory and legislative council established by King Prajadhipok of Siam (Rama VII) that existed from 1925 to 1932. The Eton- and Sandhurst-educated monarch wished to create a council similar to a cabinet, where the most important government officials could meet to decide on state affairs. The council was founded on 28 November 1925 by royal command. Prajadhipok only succeeded to the throne three days earlier, after the death of his brother Vajiravudh on 25 November 1925. Members The council was composed of five members, each a prince of the Chakri dynasty who had held ministerial positions during the reigns of King Rama V and Rama VI (Prajadhipok's father and older brother). The councillors were: The council was not the only organ of government at the time. The king also had a Privy Council (Thai: สภากรรมการองคมนตรี) and a Council of Secretaries (Thai: เสนาบดีสภา). However, the Supreme Council was regarded as the most important. Prince Paribatra was the most dominant member of the Council of State, since he was then regent and Minister of the Interior. History Prajadhipok was the youngest son of King Chulalongkorn, the youngest prince of his generation. Senior princes (Prajadhipok's uncles and older brothers) had dominated the running of the government since the end of the 19th century, and were unwilling to lessen their grip on their power. Prajashipok acquiesced to most of their demands and were willing to pass off many responsibilities to the council. The appointment of Prince Damrong Rajanubhab to the council also signalled his return to government, after his removal by Vajiravudh from all of his offices in 1915. During its existence the council took many initiatives. For example, in 1929 the council decided to cut public spending on the government including civil servant's pay and defence spending, an action which was one of the main justifications the Khana Ratsadon (the People's Party) gave for the Revolution of 1932. The council filled many civil service and military positions with their own relatives from the dynasty, replacing many commoners appointed under King Vajiravudh (Rama VI), which also created discontent in the country. The council increased taxes on the populace to try to stem the economic downturn the country faced after the British Empire, Siam's largest trading partner, abandoned the gold standard. The most important action by the council was the rejection of King Prajadhipok's draft Constitution for the Kingdom of Siam in early 1932, on the 150th anniversary of the House of Chakri and the foundation of Bangkok. The constitution would have given the people their first parliament, with a popularly elected lower house and an expanded Supreme Council as an upper house. A few months later the Khana Ratsadon staged a coup which ended the absolutist monarchy and replaced it with a constitutional monarchy. The constitution in which they promulgated abrogated the many powers of the monarch and dissolved the Supreme Council; it exiled the influential Prince Paripatra Sukhumband for life. See also Prajadhipok Bhanurangsi Savangwongse Narisara Nuvadtivongs Damrong Rajanubhab Kitiyakara Voralaksana Siamese Revolution of 1932 Privy Council of Thailand References Royal Gazette, Royal Command on the establishment of the Supreme Council of State, Volume 42, Page 2618, 28 November 2468 B.E. Senate of Thailand Stowe, Judith A. Siam Becomes Thailand: A Story of Intrigue. C. Hurst & Co. Publishers, 1991

Roberto_%C3%81lamo

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_%C3%81lamo

Roberto Martínez Felipe (born 1 January 1970), better known as Roberto Álamo, is a Spanish actor who has appeared in more than fifty films since 1996. Álamo won the Goya Award for Best Actor for his performance as Javier Alfaro in May God Save Us (2016). Life and career Roberto Martínez Felipe was born in Madrid in 1970. He developed an interest in cinema at a young age after watching Jack Lemmon in Days of Wine and Roses. He trained at the Cristina Rota acting school and was a member of theatre company Animalario. He made his feature film debut in The Ugliest Woman in the World (1999). The theatre play Urtain marked a turning point in his career. Álamo starred from 2008 to 2010 in the aforementioned play as the Basque boxer José Manuel Urtain, winning a Max Award for Best Actor for his performance. His portrayal of Alfaro, a violent police inspector under the spotlight of their superiors and colleagues chasing a rapist and murderer of elderly women, in Rodrigo Sorogoyen's thriller film May God Save Us (2016) won him the Goya Award for Best Actor. Selected filmography Television Accolades References External links Roberto Álamo at IMDb

Inma_Cuesta

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inma_Cuesta

Inmaculada Cuesta Martínez (born 25 June 1980) is a Spanish actress. She has starred in films such as The Sleeping Voice (2011), Three Many Weddings (2013), and The Bride (2015). Some of her best known television credits include performances in Águila Roja and Arde Madrid. Early life Inmaculada Cuesta Martínez was born in Valencia on 25 June 1980. Born to parents from Andalusia, Cuesta spent her childhood in Arquillos, province of Jaén (Andalusia). Her father was an upholsterer, so she used to collect the leftovers to make handbags and sell them to finance her studies. Aged 18, she moved to Córdoba to study a Degree at the School of Dramatic Art. After completing her studies, she continued her training in Seville. In 2005 she moved to Madrid and entered the Conservatory and School of Dance, a performing arts center run by Carmen Roche. Career Once settled in the capital of Spain, Cuesta undertook her career in the world of the theater from the hand of Nacho Cano starring in the musical Hoy no me puedo levantar. Her first starring role in television was in the series Amar en tiempos revueltos, playing the role of Elisa, a humble girl who became a well-known singer of the time. After three seasons and almost three years in the musical she signed for another television series, Plan América with Pepe Sancho (TVE 2008). Very soon she got her first change in the cinema with the 2007 comedy Love Expresso, in which she featured alongside Asier Etxeandía, Alejo Sauras, Diego Paris, Terele Pávez and Elena Ballesteros, among others. Later, she starred together with Fele Martínez and Angel de Andrés the film El kaserón. In 2009, she began to play the role of Margarita in the series Águila roja which was broadcast by the Spanish public television service TVE. She shot Águila Roja: la película, the film version of the series, and starred in the film Cousinhood, a comedy by Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, along with Quim Gutiérrez, Raúl Arévalo and Antonio de la Torre. On 21 October 2011 she premiered The Sleeping Voice, a film by Benito Zambrano, co-starring with María León. At the beginning of 2012, she was a candidate for the Goya Awards as Best Actress thanks to her role in The Sleeping Voice. That year, she also participated in the shooting of the film Unit 7 (Alberto Rodríguez) with Mario Casas and Antonio de la Torre. Also, she played the role of Carmen de Triana in Blancanieves, a silent and black-and-white version of fairy tale Snow White, in which actresses Maribel Verdú, Ángela Molina and Macarena García also participated. Almost at the same time, she starred in the short film by Rodrigo Atíza, Muchacha con paisaje and participated in Words with Gods (based on Guillermo Arriaga's idea) from the hand of Álex de la Iglesia in a project where directors from all around the world present an episode about religion. In November 2012, she starred together with Alberto Ammann, Karra Elejalde and Antonio de la Torre on Daniel Calparsoro’s last film, Invader, for which she won the nomination for best supporting actress at the Mestre Mateo Awards. In 2013 she played Ruth in Javier Ruiz Caldera's story Three Many Weddings, with Martiño Rivas, Paco León, Quim Gutiérrez, Rossy de Palma and Laura Sánchez, among others. She returned to the musicals with Javier Gutiérrez and Marta Ribera with the work ¡Ay, Carmela!. In 2016, along with Argentine actor Ricardo Darín, she performed a young girl from a small villa in Buenos Aires in the film Kóblic by Sebastián Borensztein. Personal life Cuesta has a relationship. She has two children with her girlfriend. Filmography Film Television Theater Accolades References External links Inma Cuesta at IMDb

The_Wasteland_(2021_film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wasteland_(2021_film)

The Wasteland (Spanish: El páramo), also known during the production stage as The Beast (La bestia), is a 2021 Spanish horror drama film directed by David Casademunt from a screenplay by Casademunt, Fran Menchón, and Martí Lucas. The film stars Inma Cuesta, Asier Flores, and Roberto Álamo. It was released on Netflix on 6 January 2022. Plot Diego is a boy who lives with his parents in a shack in the middle of nowhere. His mother, Lucía, is kind, while his father, Salvador, is stern and solemn. One evening, Diego's father tells him about a beast that follows a person around and feeds on their fear. One day, the family finds a badly injured man in a boat. Salvador attempts to heal the man. The man wanders into the shack and picks up a rifle, pointing it at Diego and Lucía. A gunshot is heard, and the man is seen, shot in the head. While going through his belongings, they find a family portrait. That night, Diego's father tells him about his sister, who saw the beast at their home. Salvador, who cannot see the beast, tells Diego that if anyone spots it, their life becomes hopeless. Salvador decides to go find the man's family on his own. Over the following days, Lucía sees a presence approaching the shack each night; Diego doesn't see it. His mother begins to act erratically and cuts off her hair. She tells Diego that the presence is outside and pushes him out, telling him the beast desires her. Diego forces his way back into the shack and finds his mother badly injured on the floor. He then sees the beast walking towards them. Diego eventually finds enough courage to face the beast; he picks up a gun and shoots at it. He then sets the shack on fire and drags his mother outside. He puts her in a wheelbarrow and wheels towards the river, only to find out that she has died. He floats her body down the river and walks purposefully away. Cast Inma Cuesta as Lucía Roberto Álamo as Salvador Asier Flores as Diego Alejandra Howard as Juana Víctor Benjumea as the man in the boat Production Spanish filmmaker David Casademunt initially conceived the original concept for the film in 2012 and began to develop the idea into a screenplay. In September 2017, the film officially entered development as part of the Sitges Film Festival Pitchbox program, with Casademunt set to direct the project from his own screenplay. Within the following year, the film received backing from Ventana Sur's Blood Window pitching program in Latin America and funding from The Madrid Film School. The script was completed by August 2018, and the Toronto International Film Festival invited Casademunt to their Filmmaker Lab for backing and financing. He described the selection as a "huge prize" and said that he would create a film that "could be loved by all audiences". In February 2020, Spanish production company Rodar y Rodar joined the project as the main producer. Marina Padró of Rodar y Rodar called Casademunt a "new promise of the Spanish cinema". Frequent collaborators Fran Menchón and Martí Lucas were credited as co-writers of the screenplay, and Casademunt described the feature as "a film about the demons we have inside [and] how these demons transform us into defective adults." During a press conference in October 2020, it was announced that Netflix had acquired worldwide distribution rights to the project. Inma Cuesta, Roberto Álamo, and Asier Flores were cast in lead roles in February 2021. Principal photography began in early February 2021 and lasted until July of that year. Filming predominantly took place in a moorland in the province of Teruel, as well as in the municipalities of Blancas and Villarquemado, with the lagoons of Gallocanta and El Cañizar serving as shooting locations. Release The film was set for a world premiere on 11 October 2021 at the 54th Sitges Film Festival, as part of the festival's official selection. It was released on Netflix worldwide on 6 January 2022. Reception Reviewing for Cinemanía, Miguel Ángel Romero gave the film 3 out of 5 stars and considered that Inma Cuesta and Asier Flores reflect the delicacy of the human mind. He also pointed out that the film helps in the visibility of mental illnesses at a time when mental health advocacy is paramount. Raquel Hernández Luján of HobbyConsolas gave it 68 out of 100 points, considering the atmosphere, the performances, and the musical score to be the best about the film, while negatively assessing that the film features repetitive parts and moments in which the internal logic is compromised. See also List of Spanish films of 2022 References External links The Wasteland on Netflix The Wasteland at IMDb

Superman_%26_Bugs_Bunny

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superman_%26_Bugs_Bunny

Superman & Bugs Bunny is a four-issue comics miniseries released in 2000 by DC Comics. It is the first official DC crossover between the DC Universe and the Looney Tunes characters. Plot The DC Superheroes Meet the Looney Tunes! In Metropolis, Clark Kent and Lois Lane are investigating reports of a mysterious giant plane (the work of the villainous Toyman) when they encounter Mr. Mxyzptlk. He causes a 'Czarbucks' coffee shop to grow out of the ground like a plant and begins to "seed" the whole city with similar pointless businesses. Clark switches to Superman to pursue him, but ultimately uses his civilian identity to trick Mxyzptlk into saying his name backwards (by getting him to read a list to which Clark has added "Kltpzyxm"). Meanwhile, "in a forest on the edge of some other city in some other universe", Elmer Fudd corners Bugs Bunny. When he tries to shoot Bugs, though, his bullets turn into flowers. This is the work of Yoyo the Dodo, who has left Wackyland via a dimensional transporter in search of people to annoy, but is feeling inadequate due to the fact everyone in the Looney Tunes' world is already crazy. The transporter is not working, leaving him unable to search elsewhere. Inspired by a Superman comic, Bugs tricks Yoyo into saying "Od-od" (Do-do backwards), which sends him to another dimension. During their respective trips, Mxyzptlk and Yoyo collide and crash-land in yet another dimension. When Mxyzptlk learns that the world Yoyo just left has no superheroes, they build a larger transporter so Mxyzptlk can go to the Looney Tunes' world and cause chaos there. However, he soon learns why Yoyo left when he encounters Foghorn Leghorn (who pies him in the face), Daffy Duck (who drops an anvil on him) and the Tasmanian Devil (who tries to eat him). Mxyzptlk's disappointment is short-lived, as he then comes up with a plan to cause chaos in the DC Universe by sending the Looney Tunes there. Soon the DC superheroes are encountering the Looney Tunes; Green Lantern catches Marvin the Martian plotting to destroy Earth on the Moon, the Flash finds himself racing Speedy Gonzales and later the Road Runner (the latter being pursued by Wile E. Coyote), Plastic Man disguises himself as a cat to spy on a cat-loving gangster only to be romanced by Pepé Le Pew before encountering Sylvester and Tweety, Aquaman is nearly blown out of the water by Yosemite Sam's pirate ship and Batman, on the trail of the Penguin, instead finds Playboy Penguin. The Looney Tunes do not find this unusual, but the fact that they only appear briefly and then vanish means that the superheroes are soon questioning their own sanity. Meanwhile, Mxyzptlk plots to cause even more havoc by swapping Superman with Elmer Fudd. The Wast Son of Kwypton! Mr. Mxyzptlk and the Do-do's partnership turns sour (mostly because the Do-do keeps playing pranks on Mxyzptlk) as the DC superheroes continue to encounter the Looney Tunes - Batman and Plastic Man team up to defeat the Penguin and the gangster Plastic Man was tailing only to meet Charlie Dog immediately afterwards. Meanwhile, Bugs Bunny disguises himself as a park ranger and makes Elmer Fudd perform several embarrassing stunts (including wearing a clown suit) to earn a "wabbit hunting license" before Fudd realizes that he has been fooled (because the stunts are actually to get a FISHING license) and angrily chases Bugs. At this point, Mxyzptlk and the Do-do effect their plan. In the Daily Planet office Clark Kent wants to go rabbit hunting while Bugs is confused by Fudd wearing Superman's costume and reciting heroic monologues. While Perry White encounters Henery Hawk (who believes Perry to be a chicken due to Perry using the term in an argument regarding his courage), news suddenly comes in that the Toyman's giant plane is attacking Metropolis. Mxyzptlk and the Do-do arrange for the broadcast to be heard in the Looney Tunes' world as well, prompting Fudd to fly to the rescue with a terrified Bugs (who sarcastically asked to accompany him, believing Fudd was delusional) in tow. Meanwhile, Kent attempts to switch to Superman, only to discover that he is now wearing Fudd's clown suit and has no superpowers. Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and Foghorn Leghorn witness the chaos on the streets and note how "weird and dark and scary!" the DC Universe is before Daffy is suddenly teleported away (the Do-do intends to swap him for Batman). Fudd and Bugs have been transported to Metropolis, where Fudd lands on the plane to confront the Toyman's goons who, like the general public, are confused to see Superman shorter than usual and accompanied by a cartoon rabbit. On the Toyman's orders, the goons prepare to fire a deadly cannon. The Duck Knight Weturns! Green Arrow meets Junior Bear and is given a box that turns out to contain Michigan J. Frog, whose tendency to sing and dance for only one person causes several people to doubt his sanity. Elmer Fudd, meanwhile, survives being blasted by the Toyman's goons. The cannon is calibrated for the real Superman and the blast goes harmlessly over the much shorter Fudd's head, while Mr. Mxyzptlk gets angry when he finds out that the Do-do swapped Daffy Duck and Batman without his say-so. The two pranksters start fighting and part of the transporter machine gets damaged, causing the Fudd/Superman switch to be undone and leaving Fudd cowering in terror as the goons prepare to shoot him. Luckily, Bugs Bunny rescues Fudd by tricking the goons into arguing and shooting each other, but this leaves the plane spiralling out of control. Clark Kent is watching helplessly from the street when Foghorn Leghorn (who is a fan of Action Comics) recognises him and encourages him to change to Superman, tearing off Kent's shirt for him and revealing that his costume and superpowers have been restored. The Man of Steel rescues Bugs, Fudd and the unconscious goons and crashes the plane harmlessly in the ocean. In Gotham City, Commissioner Gordon calls Batman only for Daffy to turn up wearing his costume. He heads off to investigate a lead on stolen mechanical parts while Batman puts on a spare Bat-suit and wonders why he wants to fly south for the winter. Mxyzptlk has tied up the Do-do and taken control of the whole process, only for the transporter (sabotaged by the Do-do) to blow up in his face. This causes the Justice League (consisting of: Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Martian Manhunter, Green Lantern, Flash, Aquaman, Green Arrow and Plastic Man) and several Looney Tunes (consisting of: Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Porky Pig, Foghorn Leghorn, Speedy Gonzales, Pepé Le Pew, Taz, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester and Tweety) to find themselves in the same location. Discussing what has happened so far, they realize that their two realities are being merged and, when Superman mentions Mxyzptlk and Foghorn remembers meeting him, suspicions arise that he is responsible. Checking the new broadcasts, they discover a more immediate threat - three of the Toyman's deadly giant toys are attacking the Federal Reserves. The Justice League prepare to head to the rescue, but Bugs convinces them to let him and the other Looney Tunes accompany them (after all, they too have done heroic things in their time). Superman appoints them honorary Justice League members. While Mxyzptlk tries to fix the transporter, the Do-do breaks free and declares that, as he belongs in neither the Looney Tunes' world nor the DC Universe, he will instead merge the two universes forever. Cwisis on Infinite Earths! The Justice League and the Looney Tunes split up into three teams to take out the Toyman's machines: Superman, Flash, Green Arrow, Elmer Fudd, Foghorn Leghorn and Pepé Le Pew encounter a tank with a cannon powerful enough to incapacitate Superman. Flash warns the Looney Tunes to stay back, but Foghorn wants to help. After hearing Fudd and Pepé argue about Pepé's smell, he comes up with "an idea so good, I wish I could steal it from myself!" They get Green Arrow to shoot an arrow Pepé is clinging onto into the tank, causing the goons inside to rapidly evacuate to escape the cartoon skunk's stench. Batman, Green Lantern, Plastic Man, Bugs Bunny, Speedy Gonzales and Taz face a giant toy soldier that knocks Green Lantern unconscious and causes him to fall. Speedy quickly stretches Plastic Man into a safety net to rescue the Emerald Gladiator while Bugs convinces Taz to eat one of the robot's feet, causing the whole thing to fall over. Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Martian Manhunter, Porky Pig, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester and Tweety run into a robotic dragon that easily bests Martian Manhunter with its fiery breath and grabs Wonder Woman and Aquaman. Tweety angrily flies at the dragon and finds himself inside it with the piloting goons. They ignore Tweety, believing him to be harmless, but Tweety starts pressing every button and pulling every switch that he can find, causing the dragon to shake itself to bits. Meanwhile, Mr. Mxyzptlk tricks the Do-do into trusting him again and proceeds to tie him up a second time before embarking on the "merge the two universes forever" plan himself. Daffy Duck, still believing he is Batman, finds the Toyman. The criminal easily convinces him to join his organization with a job offer (and a very large salary), but just as they shake on it they find themselves transported through dimensions (their hands get stuck together thanks to some superglue Daffy got himself covered in earlier). The furious Toyman prepares to shoot Daffy, but is put off the idea by the revelation that all the other Looney Tunes and the DC superheroes are all there too. After the Toyman surrenders and is arrested, Bugs and Superman start wondering how they can get everyone home before it is revealed they are all at Mxyzptlk's base. He gleefully threatens to merge the Looney Tunes' world and the DC Universe into one forever, much to the terror of the Looney Tunes (who all note how many problems the DC Universe has). While Superman and Batman waste time wondering what to do, Bugs takes action. He pretends to congratulate Mxyzptlk, convincing him to brag of his victory by posting it on the popular website "www.kltpzyxm.com"; when Mxyzptlk says it aloud he is transported back to the Fifth Dimension. Freed, the Do-do resets the machine to separate the two universes forever, announcing he intends to stay to run amok in the DC Universe and sending the Looney Tunes home because "I don't need the competition". Superman and Bugs Bunny shake hands as they leave, the Man of Steel commenting that the Looney Tunes are real superheroes. Back at the Daily Planet, Clark Kent reads a Looney Tunes comic and happily notes that Bugs and the others are back home before being sent on another assignment by Perry White. Perry notices that Kent has left a mysterious box on his desk and opens it out of curiosity, revealing Michigan J. Frog. Perry dreams of fame and fortune with the frog while, back in the Looney Tunes' world, Bugs reads the scene in a Superman comic and glumly foretells the disappointment that awaits Perry. Daffy wonders aloud whether people in the DC Universe would believe what has happened if they knew the truth, to which Bugs replies "Let's put it this way - they'd believe that before they'll believe what Perry White's gonna try and tell them!" as Porky signs off with his classic "Th-th-th-that's all, folks!" References External links Superman & Bugs Bunny #1 review Superman & Bugs Bunny #2 review Superman & Bugs Bunny #3 review Superman & Bugs Bunny #4 review

New_Guardians

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Guardians

The New Guardians are a DC Comics superhero team featured in the short-lived eponymous series The New Guardians. It was a spin-off from the Millennium event and ran for twelve issues, from 1988 through 1989, before being canceled. The characters first appeared in Millennium #1, (January 1988), written by Steve Engelhart and drawn by Joe Staton. The series has since gained infamy among comic fans due to its poor writing and second issue, which features "Snowflame", a supervillain who gained powers from the use of cocaine. History The New Guardians, who were also initially known as the Chosen, were a group of people selected by a Guardian of the Universe named Herupa Hando Hu and a Zamaron named Nadia Safir in the DC Comics crossover Millennium. These "Chosen" were then given powers by their selectors. Members of the Chosen were selected from several nationalities to form a superhero group representative of the entire human race. Original members Betty Clawman - Formerly an Australian woman, now a disembodied cosmic force with ill-defined abilities, residing in the aboriginal Dreamtime. Extraño - Peruvian male, the team's resident magician was also one of the first obviously homosexual characters in comics (due to the publication standards of the time, the character's homosexuality could only be implied), and was one of the first to reveal that he was HIV-positive. Floronic Man - Formerly American male, who became a plant-human creature with a variety of nature-related powers. The character has since been seen in the pages of the Son of Vulcan mini-series where he returned to acting as a villain. Gloss - A Chinese woman who channels the mystic Dragon Lines of the Earth, and thus sports an array of Earth-related powers. She later joined the Global Guardians, where she remained a member until she was killed by Prometheus. Harbinger - Agent of the Monitor in Crisis on Infinite Earths, she possessed the powers of flight, self-replication and undefined energy blasts. Keeper of the histories of the multiverse, Harbinger died in the pages of Superman/Batman. Donna Troy has since taken up her mantle. Jet - An English girl who could manipulate electromagnetic fields to a variety of effects. She was infected with HIV after being bitten by The Hemogoblin, a vampire with AIDS. After apparently giving her life to fend off an alien invasion, Jet is now alive again and leading the Global Guardians. Ram - Formerly a Japanese man, now a being of silicon and electronics, Ram was physically durable and also had the ability to communicate with electrical equipment over great distances (such as satellites in orbit). He was reportedly killed during a battle in Roulette's casino. Thomas Kalmaku - An Inuit friend of Hal Jordan's, Tom originally turned down the Guardian's offer of advancement, but later developed the super power to "bring out the best in people". He subsequently left the team and has shown no further signs of possessing such powers. Green Lantern: New Guardians Green Lantern: New Guardians is an American comic book series written by Tony Bedard with art by Tyler Kirkham and Batt and published by DC Comics. The team is made up of a representative of each of the Corps that tap into a particular portion of the emotional spectrum; its members are Kyle Rayner (Green Lantern Corps), Arkillo (Sinestro Corps), Bleez (Red Lantern Corps), Glomulus (Orange Lantern Corps), Munk (Indigo Tribe), Saint Walker (Blue Lantern Corps) and Fatality (Star Sapphires). An earlier version of the team, consisting of Hal Jordan, Carol Ferris, Sinestro, Atrocitus, Agent Orange, Saint Walker and Indigo-1, was seen during the Brightest Day story arc in Green Lantern. References External links DC Database: New Guardians DCU Guide: New Guardians Unofficial Crossover Index: Millennium Truly Awful Comics: New Guardians #1 Steve Engelhart.com Guide to Millennium Cosmic Teams: The New Guardians

Joe_Staton

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Staton

Joe Staton ( born January 19, 1948) is an American comics artist and writer. He co-created the Bronze Age Huntress (Helena Wayne), as well as the third Huntress (Helena Bertinelli), Kilowog and the Omega Men for DC Comics. He was the artist of the Dick Tracy comic strip from 2011 to October 2021. Early life Joe Staton grew up in Tennessee and graduated from Murray State University in 1970. Career Staton started his comics career at Charlton Comics in 1971 and gained notability as the artist of the super-hero series E-Man. Staton produced art for various comics published by Charlton, Marvel Comics, and Warren Publishing during the 1970s. Hired initially by Roy Thomas to work for Marvel, Staton was then recruited by Paul Levitz to work on DC Comics' revival of the Justice Society of America in All Star Comics and later Adventure Comics. In these titles he illustrated stories including the origin of the JSA in DC Special #29 and the death of the Earth-Two Batman. Staton also illustrated the solo adventures of two female JSA members created during the JSA revival – drawing Power Girl in Showcase and the Huntress. During that time, Staton additionally drew Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, the 1970s revival of the Doom Patrol in Showcase, and the Metal Men. In 1979, Staton began a two-and-a-half-year run on Green Lantern, during which he co-created the Omega Men with writer Marv Wolfman. Staton served as art director for First Comics for three years in the 1980s. He returned to DC Comics afterwards for a second run on Green Lantern and with writer Steve Englehart, oversaw the title's name change to Green Lantern Corps. Staton and Englehart also created the DC weekly crossover series Millennium (Jan.–Feb. 1988). Staton was one of the contributors to the DC Challenge limited series in 1986. In addition, he illustrated Guy Gardner, The Huntress, The New Guardians, and Superman & Bugs Bunny. In the early 1990s, Staton provided the artwork on the Mike Danger Sunday comic strip, written by Max Allan Collins. From the late 90s to the late 2000s, Staton drew DC's Scooby-Doo title for younger readers, as well as the more mature-themed Femme Noir for Ape Entertainment. On January 19, 2011, Tribune Media Services announced that Staton and writer Mike Curtis would replace Dick Locher as the creative team of the Dick Tracy comic strip. The new creative team has worked together on Scooby-Doo, Richie Rich, and Casper the Friendly Ghost and started on March 14, 2011. He pencilled DC Retroactive: Green Lantern – The '80s #1, written by Len Wein, published the same year. Staton also illustrated Charles Santino's graphic novel adaptation of Ayn Rand's Anthem (2011). Awards Joe Staton received an Inkpot Award in 1983. Staton and writer Mike Curtis received the Best Syndicated Strip Harvey Award for Dick Tracy in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Bibliography AC Comics Femforce #121 (Femme Noir) (2003) Alpha Productions The Detectives #1 (Michael Mauser, Private Eye) (1993) E-Man #1 (1993) E-Man Returns #1 (1994) Ape Entertainment Ape Entertainment's Cartoonapalooza #2 (Femme Noir) (2009) Femme Noir: The Dark City Diaries #1–4 (2008) Apple Press ElfQuest: Siege at Blue Mountain #1–5 (inker) (1987–1988) The New Crime Files of Michael Mauser, Private Eye #1 (1992) Archie Comics Archie & Friends Double Digest Magazine #1–5 (2011) Archie's Super Teens #1 (1994) Jughead's Double Digest #139–142 (2008) Bill Spicer Fantasy Illustrated #2 (1964) Caliber Press Dominique: Protect and Serve #1 (1995) Negative Burn #18, 20, 33, 49 (1995–1997) Century Comics For Action Hero Actor Comics Presents #1 (2006) CFD Productions Noir #2 (Michael Mauser, Private Eye) (1995) Charlton Comics Charlton Bullseye #4 (E-Man) (1976) E-Man #1–10 (1973–1975) Ghost Manor #5–6, 10, 13 (1972–1973) Ghostly Haunts #28, 32, 35–36 (1972–1973) Ghostly Tales #104, 117 (1973–1975) Haunted #11–12, 18, 21–22, 26 (1973–1976) Haunted Love #1–5 (1973) I Love You #91, 110 (1971–1975) Love and Romance #6 (1972) Love Diary #79, 88 (1972–1974) The Many Ghosts of Dr. Graves #30, 36–37, 41, 43, 47 (1972–1974) Midnight Tales #1–11, 13–14 (1972–1975) Monster Hunters #1 (1975) Primus #1–7 (1972) Scary Tales #1, 4 (1975–1976) Secret Romance #21 (1972) The Six Million Dollar Man #1–6 (1976–1978) Space 1999 #1–3, 5 (1975–1976) Sweethearts #133 (1973) Teen-Age Love #87 (1972) Teen Confessions #78 (1973) Vengeance Squad #1–6 (Michael Mauser, Private Eye) (1975–1976) Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch #1, 4–5 (1975–1976) Charlton Neo Paul Kupperberg's Secret Romances #2 (2015) The Charlton Arrow vol. 2 #1–3 (E-Man) (2017–2018) Comico E-Man #1–3 (1989–1990) Johnny Quest #2 (inker), #11 (penciller) (1986–1987) Maze Agency #6 (1989) CPL/GANG Publications The Charlton Bullseye #4 (E-Man) (1976) CrossGen Crossovers #7–9 (2003) Dark Horse Michael Chabon Presents: The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist #2 (2004) DC Comics 9-11: The World's Finest Comic Book Writers & Artists Tell Stories to Remember, Vol. 2 (2002) Action Comics #525–526, 531, 535–536 (1981–1982) Adventure Comics #445–447 (inker); #456–478 (penciller) (1976–1980) All-Star Comics #66–74 (1977–1978) Batman #334 (1981) Batman 80-Page Giant #3 (2000) Batman & Superman Adventures: World's Finest #1 (1997) Batman and Robin Adventures #17, 21, Annual #2 (1997) Batman and Robin Adventures: Sub-Zero #1 (1998) Batman Beyond #4–6 (1999) Batman Chronicles #15 (1999) Batman Family #18–20 (Huntress) (1978) Batman: Blackgate #1 (1997) Batman: Death of Innocents #1 (1996) Batman: Gotham Adventures #29 (2000) Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #65–68, Annual #4 (1994–1995) Batman: Penguin Triumphant #1 (1992) Batman: Shadow of the Bat #14–15, 42, Annual #2 (1993–1995) Batman: Two-Face Strikes Twice #1–2 (1993) Blackhawk #271 (1984) Brave & the Bold #148, 197 (1979, 1983) DC Challenge #7 (1986) DC Comics Presents #9–11, 15–16, 21, 23, 39, 96 (1979–1981, 1986) DC Retroactive: Green Lantern – The '80s #1 (2011) DC Special #29 (1977) DC Special Series #10 (Doctor Fate) (1978) DC Super Friends #2 (2008) DC Super Stars #17 (Huntress) (1977) DCU Holiday Bash #3 (1998) Doctor Fate #21 (1990) Family Man #1–3 (1995) Green Lantern vol. 2 #123–155, 188–205 (1979–1982, 1985–1986) Green Lantern vol. 3 #9–13, 18–19, 25 (1991–1992) Green Lantern Corps #206–217, 221–222 (1986–1988) Green Lantern Corps Quarterly #1 (1992) Green Lantern Secret Files #2 (1999) Gross Point #2, 4–7, 9–12 (1997–1998) Guy Gardner #1–14, 44, Annual #2 (1992–1993, 1996) Guy Gardner Reborn #1–3 (1992) Heroes Against Hunger #1 (inker) (1986) House of Mystery #300 (1982) Huntress #1–19 (1989–1990) Karate Kid #1–9 (inker) (1976–1977) Justice League Adventures #7 (2002) Justice League of America #244 (1985) Justice League International Special #2 (1991) Legion of Superheroes #259–260 (1980) The Life Story of the Flash HC (with Gil Kane) (1998) Looney Tunes #140 (2006) Metal Men #50–56 (1977–1978) Millennium #1–8 (1988) Mystery in Space #113 (1980) New Guardians #1–9 (1988–1989) Outsiders #4 (Metamorpho story) (1986) Power Company: Skyrocket #1 (2002) Power of Shazam #19 (1996) Secret Origins #36, 50 (1989–1990) Scooby-Doo #3, 5, 10–14, 16–23, 26–39, 41–48, 50, 52–67, 69, 71, 73–75, 77–78, 80–89, 91, 93, 95–100, 102–107, 109, 111–112, 119, 125–126, 143, 158 (#16 also writer) (1997–2010) Showcase #94–96 (Doom Patrol); #97–99 (Power Girl); #100 (1977–1978) Showcase '95 #10 (1995) Superboy and the Legion of Superheroes #227, 243–249, 252–258 (1976, 1978–1979) Superman & Bugs Bunny #1–4 (2000) Superman Adventures #41, Annual #1 (1997, 2000) Superman Adventures: Dimension of the Dark Shadows #1 (promo) (1998) Superman Family #191–194 (Superboy) (1978–1979) Super Friends #43, 45 (Plastic Man) (1981) Tales of the Green Lantern Corps #1–3 (1981) Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #3–4, 7 (1985) Wonder Woman #241; #271–287, 289–290, 294–299 (Huntress feature) (1978, 1980–1983) World's Finest Comics #262, 273 (1980–1981) Digital Webbing E-Man Recharged #1 (2006) E-Man: Course of the Idol oneshot (2009) E-Man: Dolly #1 (2007) Digital Webbing Jam 2007 oneshot (E-Man) (2007) Disney Disney Adventures #4 (1997) EC Mad #340 (1995) Eclipse Comics Destroyer Duck #1 (1982) First Comics American Flagg! #28–32, 39–40 (1986–1987) Badger Goes Berserk #3 (1989) Crossroads #3 (1988) E-Man #1–25 (#9, 11–23 also writer) (1983–1985) Gift #1 (1990) Grimjack #5, 33 (1984, 1987) Meta-4 #3 (inker) (1991) P.I.'s: Michael Mauser and Ms. Tree #1–3 (1984–1985) Warp #1 (inker) (1983) Hamilton Comics Captain Cosmos, The Last Starveyer #0 (1997) Grave Tales #1–3 (1991–1992) Maggots #1, 3 (1991–1992) Innovation Comics Maze Agency Special #1 (1990) IPC 2000 AD and Tornado #133 (1979) Kitchen Sink Press The Spirit #30 (penciller, two pages) (1981) Malibu Comics Dinosaurs for Hire #8 (1993) Prime #21 (1995) Marvel Comics Amazing Spider-Man #150 (layouts, with Gil Kane) (1975) Avengers #127–134 (1974–1975) Avengers: Celestial Quest #7 (2002) Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #28, 31–32 (1976–1977) Fallen Angels #5–6, 8 (1987) Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe #1 (inker, with Vince Colletta) (1989) Incredible Hulk #187–189, 191–209 (inker) (1974–1977) Justice #4 (1987) Marvel Comics Presents #74 (1991) Marvel Fanfare #39, 50 (1988, 1990) Silver Surfer vol. 3 #11, 13–14, Annual #1 (1988) Toxic Crusaders #2, 4 (1992) Vampire Tales #8 (1974) What The--?! #21–22 (1992) Ni-Cola Productions Captain Cosmos, The Last Starveyer #2, 4 (2001–2006) Penguin (New American Library) Anthem GN (2011) Star*Reach Star*Reach #5–7 (1976–1977) Topps Comics Exosquad #0 (1994) Return to Jurassic Park #1–4 (1995) Warren Publishing Creepy #42, 136 (1971, 1982) Wonderful Publishing Company Witzend #10 (1976) Ybor City Publishers Captain Cosmos, The Last Starveyer #1 (1998) References Further reading Bethke, Marlyn and Alexandre Koehn, "From E-Man to Batman: Joe Staton Interview", The Comics Journal #45 (March 1979), pp. 37–45. External links Joe Staton at the Comic Book DB (archived from the original) Joe Staton at the Grand Comics Database "DC Profiles #51: Joe Staton" at the Grand Comics Database Joe Staton at Mike's Amazing World of Comics Joe Staton at the Unofficial Handbook of Marvel Comics Creators Biography on Steve Englehart.com

Constantine_W._Curris

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_W._Curris

Constantine W. Curris is an American academic administrator. Curris also served as president of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities an organization of more than 400 colleges and universities. Education and honors Constantine William Curris was born in Lexington, Kentucky, on November 13, 1940 and graduated from the University of Kentucky in 1962 with a B.A. in political science. He obtained an M.A. in political science and public administration from the University of Illinois in 1965 and an Ed.D. in higher education from the University of Kentucky in 1967. He received the Alumni Achievement Award from the College of Arts and Science at the University of Illinois. He is a member of the University of Kentucky Arts & Sciences Hall of Fame, the University of Kentucky College of Education Hall of Fame, and he was inducted into the University of Kentucky Hall of Distinguished Alumni on May 19, 2000. Career Curris began his work in higher education in 1965 as vice president and dean of the faculty at Midway College in Kentucky. In 1968 he became director of academic programs for the West Virginia Board of Education. From 1969 through 1971 he was dean of student personnel programs at Marshall University in West Virginia, and for the following two years was the vice president and dean of the faculty at the West Virginia Institute of Technology. In 1973, the 32-year-old Curris was selected as the president of Murray State University, a position he held until 1983. After Curris's contract was not continued at Murray State in 1983, he was hired as president of University of Northern Iowa. That same year, the Murray State University Board of Regents named the school's new student center after Curris. Curris was president and professor of public policy at the University of Northern Iowa from 1983 to 1995. During his tenure, Curris began his active involvement with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. One of the buildings constructed at UNI during Curris's tenure was subsequently named the Curris Business Building by the Iowa State Board of Regents. From 1995 to 1999, he served as president and professor of public policy of Clemson University. Curris was named president of AASCU in 1999 and served until 2008. He has also been an occasional contributor to The Chronicle of Higher Education, including articles about the public purposes of public colleges, in support of a unit-record system of collecting student data, and about getting college students to the polls. Boards and commissions Other professional experiences for Curris include appointments to the 1998 Commission on the Future of the South, the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities, the Education Commission of the States, the Iowa Board of Economic Development, the South Carolina Research Authority, The Sigma Chi Foundation, and the chairmanships of American Humanics and the Iowa Task Force on Teacher Education and Certification. Retirement Since his retirement from AASCU in 2008 Curris has been a consultant in academic searches. In 2009 he was appointed to the Murray State University Board of Regents and now serves as chairman. Curris is married to Jo Hern Curris, a tax attorney. They live in Lexington, Kentucky and are the parents of two adult children: Robert Alexander and Elena Diane. == References ==

Murray_State_University

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_State_University

Murray State University (MSU) is a public university in Murray, Kentucky, in the Southern United States. In addition to the main campus in Calloway County in southwestern Kentucky, Murray State operates extended campuses offering upper-level and graduate courses in Paducah, Hopkinsville, Madisonville, and Henderson. History Murray State University was founded after the passage of Senate Bill 14 by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky, which created two normal schools in the early 20th century to address the growing demand for professional teachers. One was to be located in the western part of the state, and many cities and towns bid for the new normal school. Rainey T. Wells spoke on behalf of the city of Murray to convince the Normal School Commission to choose his city. On September 2, 1922, Murray was chosen as the site of the western normal school, while Morehead was chosen for the eastern normal school. On November 26, 1922, John Wesley Carr was elected the first president of the Murray State Normal School by the State Board of Education. Believing it had the authority to elect the president, the Normal School Commission picked Rainey Wells as the first president. On May 15, 1923, the Kentucky Court of Appeals ruled for the State Board of Education, and Carr became Murray's first president. Murray State Normal School opened on September 24, 1923. In 1924, the first building on Murray State's campus, the Administrative Building, was constructed. Before this, all MSU classes had been held on the first floor of what is now Murray Middle School, located on Main Street. Designed by Joseph & Joseph in the Collegiate Gothic style the Administrative Building, later known as Wrather Hall, housed classrooms, a dining hall, offices, and a chapel. The building was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and renovated soon after, finally being renamed to Wrather West Kentucky Museum, named for Murray State executive vice-president Marvin O. Wrather. All students lived at home or boarded with local families until the first dormitory, Wells Hall, was constructed in 1925. Wilson Hall was also completed under Carr's presidency, with other structures in progress. In 1926, Rainey T. Wells, recognized as the founder of Murray State, became its second president. Wells served from 1926 to 1932, and during this time Lovett Auditorium, Carr Health Building, and Pogue Library were all completed. In 1926, the Normal School was renamed Murray State Normal School and Teachers College, with a four-year curriculum, and the General Assembly granted it authority to confer baccalaureate degrees. In 1928, the college was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. In 1930, the name was changed to Murray State Teachers College and it was granted authority to offer liberal arts and pre-professional courses. The name was changed again in 1948 to Murray State College, with the expansion of the programs to include graduate-level courses, in 1966 the General Assembly authorized the Board of Regents to change the name to Murray State University. The Shield The Shield has the heraldic coat of arms of the family of William Murray, Earl of Mansfield, and Lord Chief Justice of Great Britain in 1756. William Murray is an ancestor of the Murray family from whom the city and the university take their names. The shield is blue with a double gold border—its three stars represent hope, endeavor, and achievement. Campus The Quad The oldest and most easily recognizable buildings on the Murray State campus are situated around a large, grassy, tree-lined area on the south side of the campus. This part of the campus, known as the Quad, is bounded by 16th Street to the west, 15th Street to the east, Lovett Auditorium to the north, and Wilson Hall to the south. In the southwest corner of the Quad is the oldest building on campus, now known as Wrather West Kentucky Museum. It was first known as the Administration Building and then as Wrather Hall, and housed classrooms and offices, before it became a museum. Ground for Wrather was broken on October 15, 1923, and it has been in use since 1924. The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975, and features a large auditorium that is frequently used for lectures and meetings. Faculty Hall, Wells Hall, and the Business Building line the western edge of the Quad. The Lowry Center, Pogue Library, and the Price Doyle Fine Arts Center line the eastern side of the Quad. The 11-story Doyle Fine Arts Center is the tallest building on campus, housing numerous classrooms, practice rooms, recital halls, the Robert E. Johnson Theatre, Clara Eagle Art Gallery, WKMS-FM, and television studios used for student work. Directly south of the Quad is Sparks Hall. The five-story, 39,000-square-foot (3,600 m2), Sparks Hall was completed in 1967 for $1,308,514, and functions as the main administrative building, housing the offices of student financial aid, admissions and registration, accounting and financial services, vice president for administrative services, Center for Continuing Education and Academic Outreach, human resources and university communications. To the south of the Quadrangle, and directly west of Sparks Hall is Oakhurst, the residence of the university president. Construction of the mansion, originally known as Edgewood, began in 1917 and was completed in 1918. The home was built by Dr. and Mrs. Rainey T. Wells. The Board of Regents purchased the home from Rainey T. Wells in June 1936. It was remodeled that year and renamed Oakhurst in preparation for James H. Richmond's occupation of the house. Central campus The central portion of the Murray State campus lines 15th Street between Chestnut Street and Olive Boulevard. This portion of 15th Street was originally open to automobile traffic but has since been closed and converted into a pedestrian thoroughfare. Along the west side of the pedestrian pathway are the Martha Layne Collins Center for Industry and Technology, Blackburn Science Building, and Oakley Applied Science Building. To the east of the pedestrian pathway lies the Curris Center, Carr Health Building and Cutchin Fieldhouse, Waterfield Library, Mason Hall, and the front facade of the now-demolished Ordway Hall. Woods Hall, a former dormitory located behind Waterfield Library, was razed in the summer of 2019, and the space it occupied will soon be replaced with a park. Ordway Hall was the most historic building in the central portion of campus. It was completed in 1931. Originally used as a men's dormitory, 38,600-square-foot Ordway Hall later housed event space and several offices. Because of costly renovation needs, Ordway was razed in 2013. The front facade was retained as a monument to its significance. Science campus An aggressive building campaign on campus has resulted in a westward expansion of the main academic campus of Murray State. The expansion began with a massive renovation and expansion of what is now known as Alexander Hall on the west side of 16th Street near Calloway Avenue. The project was the first to unveil a new architectural style that would become consistent through all renovation and new construction projects on campus. Alexander Hall houses classrooms and offices for the College of Education. Construction continued with the new state-of-the-art science complex for biology and chemistry that is located just to the southwest of Alexander Hall. The massive new science complex was constructed in phases, with the Biology Building opening in 2004, and the rest of the complex and centerpiece clock tower reaching completion in March 2008. The new clock tower was dedicated in 2007 as the Jesse L. Jones Family Clock Tower. A physics and engineering building was completed in the summer of 2017. Sports and recreation facilities The majority of the university's sports and recreation facilities are located on the northernmost edge of the campus, along the KY-121 Bypass. The most prominent structure in the sports complex is Roy Stewart Stadium. The stadium, the home field to the Murray State Racers football program, was completed in 1973 and named for former Murray State football coach Roy Stewart. It seats 16,800. The outdated AstroTurf surface was replaced with FieldTurf in 2007. Located on the second floor of the seven-story press box and seating structure is the Pat Spurgin Rifle Range, home of the three-time NCAA champion rifle squad. The 8,602-seat CFSB Center was completed in 1998 to replace the aging Racer Arena, which had been outgrown by the men's and women's basketball teams. Racer Arena remains in use by the women's volleyball team. On April 16, 2005, the new Susan E. Bauernfeind Student Recreation and Wellness Center was dedicated. The 73,000-square-foot (6,800 m2) student recreation center includes a swimming pool, two racquetball courts, a walking/jogging track, an aerobic studio, basketball courts, and free weights and cardio workout machines. The center is located just north of the residential colleges, near Roy Stewart Stadium. Residence halls A building campaign is underway to replace many of the older residence halls. A replacement building for Clark College was completed and ready for residents at the beginning of the 2007 fall semester. Clark Hall was the newest building, and the first residence hall specifically designed around the residential college concept and model. A new four-story, 270-bed, 79,900-square foot Richmond Hall was opened for James H. Richmond Residential College in fall 2009. It has a similar concept and design as Clark College. In the fall of 2009, the old Clark Hall building was torn down. Following the completion of the spring 2011 semester, the university began renovation to Elizabeth Hall, which houses the Elizabeth Residential College. The $7.2 million renovation project closed the building for the entire 2011–12 academic year as the highrise was upgraded to meet Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) standards. The renovation also included new heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning systems to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) silver status. The renovated Elizabeth Hall reopened on August 18, 2012. Hester Hall is the next highrise residence hall scheduled for renovation; however, the timeline for that project has not been announced. Academics Murray State University offers eleven associate programs, 64 bachelor programs, 42 master and specialist programs, and three doctoral programs which are administered through four academic colleges, two schools, 30 departments, and one joint program shared by the College of Business and the College of Science, Engineering, and Technology. The College of Business is the largest at Murray State, enrolling 23% of the undergraduate students. Murray State has been institutionally accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, Commission on Colleges, continuously since 1928. It is one of eight schools in the state of Kentucky to achieve AACSB accreditation of business programs; however, the school is not AACSB-accredited in accounting programs. Several other programs have achieved specialized accreditation: primarily programs in teaching, fine arts and nursing. As a former normal school and teachers' college, Murray State is best known for its NCATE-accredited education programs. The Clinical Psychology Master's program is accredited by the Masters in Psychology and Counseling Accreditation Council (MPCAC). The university has also gained national recognition for its fine arts programs. The Department of Music has been a member of the National Association of Schools of Music since 1936. Rankings For 29 years, Murray State University has been recognized by U.S. News & World Report's Best Colleges as one of the top regional universities in the United States. The 2019 rankings listed Murray State at 11th place among the public regional universities in the South and 24th overall among all regional universities in the South. Murray State has consistently been one of the top-ranked public regional universities in Kentucky in the Regional Universities-South category, which consists of both private and public schools. Murray State has also been ranked by Forbes among America's Top Colleges since 2008. Tuition policies Presumably, due to its location near multiple state borders, Murray State offers discounts from its normal out-of-state tuition rates to residents of several regional states. These discounts apply only to residential students; all online students pay the same rate regardless of residency. Tuition for doctoral students also does not vary by state of residence. Residents of Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Mississippi receive what Murray State calls a "regional" rate for both undergraduate and graduate programs. Residents of Tennessee receive the regional rate for graduate programs, but undergraduate programs receive a special rate between the regional and in-state rates. Residents of specific counties in Illinois, Indiana, and Tennessee are treated as Kentucky residents for tuition purposes: Illinois: Massac County (directly across the Ohio River from Paducah, the largest city in Murray State's home Purchase region) Indiana: Posey, Vanderburgh, and Warrick Counties (all directly across the Ohio from Kentucky; Evansville is in Vanderburgh County) Tennessee: Henry, Montgomery, Obion, Stewart, and Weakley Counties (all bordering Kentucky; Clarksville is in Montgomery County) International students 401 international students from 45 countries studied at Murray State as of 2021. MSU has several international student groups, including the International Student Organization, the Saudi Student Association, and the Indian Student Association. Murray State University provides an English as a Second Language (ESL) program to assist international students who are not fluent in English to come to Kentucky to study. This program provides English-speaking, listening, reading, and writing instruction while teaching students about American culture. The ESL program also offers conversation partner practice, where international students are paired with students from the United States to practice speaking English. Campus life Residential colleges As of fall 2012, Murray State had 2,831 students living on campus. Murray State was the first public university in the United States to adopt a successful campus-wide residential college program. The residential college structure, which took form on the campus in 1996, is based on similar, but much more established programs at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the United Kingdom as well as Yale University, Harvard College and Princeton University in the United States. The Murray State model does not include some components of the classical residential college model, such as dining halls and libraries at each college. In the Murray State model students do share central dining areas and recreation areas. However, as the older structures are being phased out, the university is taking steps with the new residential colleges to address many of those needs. Although the physical structures of all of Murray State's residential colleges do not match those of institutions such as Oxford or Yale, the basic residential college concept was successfully implemented. All faculty, staff, and students, even those who live off-campus, are assigned to one of the eight residential colleges. Once assigned to a residential college, a person remains a member of that college throughout their time at the university. The eight colleges of Murray State Clark College, named for Lee Clark, who assisted Rainey T. Wells in founding the university. Clark later served as the superintendent of grounds and buildings. The current Clark College opened in August 2007 as the first new residence hall built on campus since 1970. It is also the first residence hall at Murray to be specifically designed to support the residential college concept. Elizabeth College, named for Elizabeth Harkless Woods, wife of fourth Murray State President Ralph H. Woods Hart College, named for George Hart, a Board of Regents member and former mayor of Murray Hester College, named for Cleo Gillis Hester, who served Murray State University from 1927 to 1960, as registrar Regents College, named in honor of the outstanding citizens who have served on Murray State University's Board of Regents; completed in 1970 Richmond College, named for the third president of the university, James H. Richmond Springer-Franklin College, named for O.B. Springer, member of the Board of Regents from 1950 to 1958 and 1960 to 1970, and Hollis C. Franklin, who served on the board from 1947 to 1956 White College, named for R.H. "Bob" White, a Board of Regents member Student Government Association The Student Government Association (SGA) is the officially organized body governing all students and student organizations at Murray State University. Its purpose is to promote the welfare, growth, and development of student life in an environment of academic excellence, to represent the students in all phases of administrative effort, and to provide a means of promoting cooperative efforts for the general welfare of the university community. The SGA is made up of four branches: Senate, Campus Activities Board, Judicial Board, and the Residential College Association. The Senate is the main branch of SGA, and it is the governing body with the power to pass resolutions, bills, rules, and regulations necessary for the general welfare of the university, and to implement and maintain any programs consistent with SGA purposes. The president of SGA holds the student seat on the Board of Regents. Greek life Murray State is home to twenty-six chapters of both social and professional Greek organizations. The oldest social fraternity on campus is Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia and the oldest professional fraternity is Sigma Alpha Iota (both relating to music) with the oldest social sorority being Sigma Sigma Sigma. As of the spring 2016 semester, 1,438 students were officially reported to be involved with Greek life, representing 19% of the undergraduate student population. As of Fall 2019, 16% of undergraduate students make up Murray State Greek Life. The average chapter size for the Panhellenic Council is 93; Interfraternity Council is 50; and National Pan-Hellenic Council is 5. The average Greek GPA is 3.20. (All statistics come from the Murray State University Office of Greek Life website.) Greek life has been banned on campus several times in past decades, namely 2012 and 2018. The 2012 incidents involved Alpha Gamma Rho and Alpha Tau Omega fraternity houses. The 2018 ban on Greek life and social events followed the death of 19-year-old Zach Wardrip. In both cases, several persons were hospitalized for alcohol poisoning and ensuing violence. In 1998, a fatal dormitory fire on campus was attributed to GLOs. Traditions Alma mater The alma mater of Murray State University is sung to the tune of "Annie Lisle" and has two verses. A.B. Austin, one-time Dean of Men, wrote the words in 1935. It is traditionally sung at student orientation, convocation and commencement ceremonies, athletic events, and other special events on campus. All-Campus Sing All-Campus Sing is an annual event, first held in 1958, that takes place each April in which residential colleges, fraternities, sororities, and other student organizations compete in a choreographed song and dance competition. The event is hosted by the Iota Beta chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota (the original organizer of the event), with financial assistance from the MSU Alumni Association and the Office of Student Affairs. It is held on the steps of historic Lovett Auditorium. Campus Lights Campus Lights is the longest-running student-produced and performed musical in the South. The show was started in 1938 by the Gamma Delta chapter of Phi Mu Alpha as a fundraiser to pay the chapter's chartering fees. Campus Lights is now produced by a joint effort of the Gamma Delta chapter of Phi Mu Alpha and the Iota Beta chapter of Sigma Alpha Iota. All proceeds from the show are given to the Department of Music to fund scholarships. Racer One In 1976, the tradition of having a thoroughbred run around the track after every MSU football touchdown began. The name of that first racehorse was Violet Cactus. She died in 1984 and was buried at Roy Stewart Stadium, near the area where the current Racer One begins its run around the football field after a Racer touchdown. She is the only mascot to be interred inside the walls of the stadium. Since 1985, each horse that has circled the football field after touchdowns has been known as Racer One. Several horses have filled the role of Racer One since 1985, and the position is currently held by a horse named Vegas. Each fall, sophomores and juniors with riding experience can try out to serve as jockeys of Racer One for the following football season. The position is typically held by a student in his or her senior year. Shoe Tree Located in front of Pogue Library, Murray State tradition dictates if a couple gets married after meeting at Murray State, they return to the Quad and each one nails one of their shoes to the "Shoe Tree." Many of the shoes include names and dates written on them. If the couple has a baby, the baby's shoes are sometimes also nailed to the tree. The shoe tree tradition originated around 1965. This tree (due to the high zinc content from the nails) is a common target of lightning and has caught fire in the past. Previous incarnations of the Shoe Tree were removed in 1999 and 2015 due to safety reasons; the tradition continues through the third tree. The Shoe Tree was featured in Danish pop band Lukas Graham's September 2018 music video for their song "Love Someone." Tent City An annual tradition since 1989, Tent City is an event that takes place before every homecoming football game. At Tent City, more than 50 tents are set up on the track at Roy Stewart Stadium, representing fraternities, sororities, student organizations, and residential colleges. An average of 100 organizations participate each year. Students use this event as a chance to talk to and meet with alumni to help raise money for their activities throughout the school year. Athletics The Murray State athletic teams are called the Racers. Their historic nickname had been the "Thoroughbreds", but all teams changed over time to "Racers", with the last holdout of baseball making the change in 2014. The university is a member of the NCAA Division I ranks (for football, the Football Championship Subdivision), primarily competing in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC) since the 2022–23 academic year. The Racers previously competed in the Ohio Valley Conference (OVC) from 1948–49 to 2021–22; and in the Kentucky Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (currently known as the River States Conference (RSC) since the 2016–17 school year) of the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) from 1933–34 to 1947–48. Murray State competes in 15 intercollegiate varsity sports: Men's sports include baseball, basketball, cross country, football, and golf; while women's sports include basketball, cross country, golf, soccer, softball, tennis, track & field, and volleyball; and co-ed sports include rifle. Move to the MVC In July 2022, Murray State and Belmont will both leave the OVC to join the MVC. Because the MVC does not sponsor football, Murray State plans to remain in OVC football for the 2022 season before leaving for the Missouri Valley Football Conference (a separate entity from the MVC) in 2023. MSU will also maintain OVC membership in rifle, another sport not sponsored by the MVC. Accomplishments Murray State is particularly renowned for its men's basketball program, which has made 18 appearances in the NCAA Tournament, most recently in 2022. In 2010, as a 13-seed, Murray State won their second-ever NCAA tournament game on a buzzer-beater against 4th-seeded Vanderbilt. Former Alabama head basketball coach Mark Gottfried coached the Racers to three Ohio Valley Conference Championships all three years he coached there, the only OVC coach to accomplish such a mark. The Racer men's basketball team was also led to the 2012 OVC championship by Coach Steve Prohm. The basketball program has been recognized as one of the top 30 basketball programs in modern history by ESPN. Murray State also is home to one of the nation's top rifle programs. The Racers claimed national championships in 1978 (NRA), 1985 (NCAA) and 1987 (NCAA) and have produced six individual NCAA national champions, including two-time national titlist and 1984 Summer Olympics gold medalist Pat Spurgin. In addition, MSU is also recognized as a National Historic Chemical Landmark (NHCL) for William Kelly's Iron and Steel Making Process [NHCL, American Chemical Society, 2015]. The football program has become a stepping-stone to major college-coaching success. Frank Beamer, the former Virginia Tech head coach who built that program into a national power in the 1990s and early 2000s, and former Ole Miss head coach Houston Nutt are both former Racers head coaches. Former Maryland head coach Ralph Friedgen was a Racers assistant under Beamer, and former Illinois head coach Ron Zook was an assistant under former ESPN college football analyst Mike Gottfried, who was Beamer's predecessor as head coach. Murray State is also the home of a nationally ranked collegiate bass fishing team that has won multiple titles, including national championships. Publications The Murray State News The Murray State News is the student newspaper of Murray State University. The newspaper has been the recipient of several ACP Pacemaker awards, the highest award given to collegiate newspapers, most recently in 2004. In October 2013 the newspaper won third place best-in-show for four-year weekly broadcast at the National College Media Convention in New Orleans. The Murray State News gained notoriety between 1998 and 2001 through the work of cartoonist Darin Shock. Shock earned the honor of top college cartoonist in the nation from the College Media Advisers in 2000. He had earned second-place honors the previous year. Gateway Gateway Magazine is a full-color, glossy magazine published annually as an imprint of The Murray State News. The Shield The school yearbook, The Shield, was awarded three Pacemaker awards and two CSPA Silver Crowns. The Shield ceased publication with its 2008 edition due to financial concerns. New Madrid The university's national literary magazine, New Madrid with editor Ann Neelon, featured work from a range of nationally recognized authors and received acclaim from sources as diverse as La Bloga, a leading Hispanic journal, and New Pages, a leading national review of literary magazines. A lack of funding led to the suspension of publication in 2018. Radio WKMS-FM (91.3 FM) is a non-commercial, educational National Public Radio-affiliated station licensed and operated by Murray State University. It features a variety of NPR programming and local music shows ranging from classical music, bluegrass, alternative rock, jazz, electronica, and world music. Former Presidents of the University Presidents of the university include: John W. Carr, 1923–1926 Rainey T. Wells, 1926–1932 John W. Carr, 1933–1936 James H. Richmond, 1936–1945 Ralph H. Woods, 1945–1968 Harry M. Sparks, 1968–1973 Constantine W. Curris, 1973–1983 Kala M. Stroup, 1983–1990 James L. Booth, 1989–1990 (Acting) Ronald J. Kurth, 1990–1994 Samuel Kern Alexander, 1994–2001 Fieldon King Alexander, 2001–2005 Samuel Kern Alexander, 2006 (interim) Tim Miller, 2006 (interim) Randy J. Dunn, 2006–2013 Tim Miller, 2013–2014 Robert O. Davies, 2014–2018 Robert Jackson, 2018–present Notable alumni References External links Official website Murray State athletics website

Women%27s_Tennis_Association

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women%27s_Tennis_Association

The Women's Tennis Association (WTA) is the principal organizing body of women's professional tennis. The association governs the WTA Tour, which is the worldwide professional tennis tour for women, and was founded to create a better future for women's tennis. The WTA's corporate headquarters is in St. Petersburg, Florida, with its European headquarters in London and its Asia-Pacific headquarters in Beijing. The Women's Tennis Association was founded in June 1973 by Billie Jean King, and traces its origins to the inaugural Virginia Slims tournament, arranged by Gladys Heldman, sponsored by Joe Cullman, CEO of Philip Morris, and held on 23 September 1970 at the Houston Racquet Club in Houston, Texas. Rosie Casals won this first event. When the Women's Tennis Association was founded, Billie Jean King was one of nine players that comprised the WTA, also referred to as the Original 9, that included Julie Heldman, Valerie Ziegenfuss, Judy Dalton, Kristy Pigeon, Peaches Bartkowicz, Kerry Melville Reid, Nancy Richey, and Rosie Casals. Today, the WTA has more than 2,500 players from nearly 100 countries competing for $146 million in prize money. Early history Tennis's Open Era, in which professional players were allowed to compete alongside amateurs, began in 1968. Billie Jean King was a high ranking tennis player in the late 1960s who won several titles and was interviewed in the media. The first Open Tournament was the British Hard Court Championships in Bournemouth. Later that year at the first Open Wimbledon, the prize fund difference was 2.5:1 in favor of men. King won £750 for taking the title, while Rod Laver won £2,000. The total purses of both competitions were £14,800 for men and £5,680 for women. Confusion also reigned as no one knew how many Open Tournaments there were supposed to be. The tournaments that did not want to provide prize money eventually faded out of the calendar, including the US Eastern Grass Court circuit with stops at Merion Cricket Club and Essex county club. There were two professional tennis circuits in existence at the start of the Open Era: World Championship Tennis (WCT), which was for men only, and the National Tennis League (NTL). Ann Jones, Rosie Casals, Françoise Dürr, and Billie Jean King joined NTL. King was paid $40,000 a year, Jones was paid $25,000, and Casals and Durr were paid $20,000 each. The group played established tournaments, such as the US Open and Wimbledon. But the group also organised their own tournaments, playing in the South of France for two months. The International Tennis Federation (ITF) then imposed several sanctions on the group: the women were not allowed to play in the Wightman Cup in 1968 and 1969 and the USLTA refused to include Casals and King in their rankings for those years. By the 1970s the pay differential had increased. King said "Promoters were making more money than women. Male tennis players were making more money. Everybody was making more money except the women". In 1969, ratios of 5:1 in terms of pay between men and women were common at smaller tournaments. By 1970 these figures had increased to up to 12:1. Billie Jean King and Cynthia Starr wrote in their book, We Have Come a Long Way, in 1988, "The women were being squeezed financially because we had no control in a male-dominated sport. Men owned, ran and promoted the tournaments, and because many of them were former players themselves, their sympathies lay with the male players, who argued vociferously that most of the money should be theirs." The low point in women's pay inequality came before the US Open in 1970. The Pacific Southwest Championships directed by Jack Kramer, had announced a 12:1 ratio in the prize money difference between what males and females would win. This tournament provoked the top 9 woman tennis players to take a stand for equality. "These woman became known as the Original 9". They did not play in the Los Angeles tournament and instead wanted to create their own tennis tournament. Several female players contacted Gladys Heldman, publisher of World Tennis Magazine, and stated that they wanted to boycott the event. Although Heldman advised against it, she did help them put together their own tournament in Houston which would not take place until after the US Open. The 1970 Houston Women's Invitation for nine women players was formed. Heldman was friends with Joseph Cullman, CEO and chairman of Phillip Morris, who secured the new tournament. The tournament was a success and the women found footing, "so, at the bidding of the Original 9, Heldman – who had secured backing from Philip Morris's Virginia Slims cigarette brand for her Houston Invitational – went back to her friend, Philip Morris chairman Joe Cullman III, to see if the company would support a circuit of some kind. Delighted by the publicity splash from Houston, Cullman was only too keen to give the women what they needed: financial backing, to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars, and the Virginia Slims name as title sponsor for a circuit in 1971." The International Lawn Tennis Federation (ILTF) began dropping several women's competitions from the tournaments it presided over. For example, in 1970, the ILTF sanctioned 15 men-only tournaments, all of which had previously been combined events. The Virginia Slims Circuit, which would later absorb the ILTF's Women's Grand Prix circuit, and eventually become the WTA Tour. The circuit was composed of 19 tournaments, all based in the United States (one in Puerto Rico), and prize money totalled $309,100. In 1973 the US Open tennis tournament became the first Grand Slam tournament to award the same prize money for women as men. The Australian Open would become the second Grand Slam offering equal prize money following suit in 1985 although the tournament awarded men more money from 1996 to 2000 before equal prize money returned in 2001. The French Open offered equal prize money for champions in 2006. In 2007 both Wimbledon and the French Open both offered equal prize money. The WTA Tour sold television rights of all its tournaments as a single package, reaching large audiences around the world. "The '80s energized the popularity base, taking tennis out of country clubs and landed estates into public parks and arenas. It became a sport, in contrast to an amenable pastime." "From those first steps in Houston in 1970 to the current WTA Tour, with tournaments in 33 countries and total prize money of $139 million (in 2018); from a prize pot 10 times lower than the men at the Grand Slams in 1970 to parity in 2007 and ever since, women's tennis has become (almost) the equal of its male counterpart. And they did it themselves, which also explains why their governance is still independent today." WTA Tour The WTA was founded at a meeting organised by Billie Jean King, a week before the 1973 Wimbledon Championships. This meeting was held at Gloucester Hotel in London. In 1975, the WTA increased its financial stature by signing a television broadcast contract with CBS, the first in the WTA's history. Further financial developments ensued. In 1976, Colgate assumed sponsorship of the circuit from April to November. In 1979, Avon replaced Virginia Slims as the sponsor of the winter circuit, and in its first year offered the largest prize fund for a single tournament, $100,000 for the Avon Championships, in the WTA tennis history. The Colgate Series, renamed the Toyota Series in 1981, included tournaments in all parts of the world, whereas the Avon sponsored events took place solely in the US. The two circuits merged beginning with the 1983 season, when Virginia Slims returned to take full sponsorship rights of the WTA Tour. Every tournament under the administration of the WTA now became part of the Virginia Slims World Championships Series. In all, Virginia Slims (Philip Morris) sponsored women's tennis from 1970 to 1978 and again from 1983 to 1994. The sponsored has received such criticism as the following from the Stanford [University] Research into the Impact of Tobacco Advertising: "Virginia Slims cleverly sponsored the WTA Tour Championships at the time to increase connections between cigarettes and healthy female athletes." In 1977, women's tennis was the first professional sport opened to transgender women. The New York Supreme Court ruled in favour of Renée Richards, a player who underwent male-to-female sex reassignment surgery. Eligibility of transgender players is officially regulated under the current WTA official rulebook. In April 1977, the Washington Post published an article entitled "Social Variety Is Slim on Women's Tennis Tour" which looked at some of the downside and difficulties faced by touring tennis pros, not unlike the problems of traveling musicians performing a whole series of tour dates and gigs. The article included the phrase "comradeship that falls short of camaraderie", because fellow members were also competitors who usually felt they needed to maintain a certain amount of distance. One player was quoted as saying, "But if you are not playing well, it is very hard." In 1984, The Australian Open joined the US Open in offering women equal prize money, but temporarily did not between 1996 and 2000. After a 30-year campaign, 2007 marked the historic achievement of equal prize money at Roland Garros and Wimbledon. This meant all four major tournaments offered parity. In 1995, the WTA Players Association merged with the Women's Tennis Council to form the WTA Tour. Growth milestones The WTA circuit continued to expand during these years. In 1971, King became the first female athlete to surpass $100,000 in earnings for a single year. Chris Evert became the first female athlete to win over $1,000,000 in career earnings in 1976. By 1980, over 250 women were playing professionally, and the circuit consisted of 47 global events, offering a total of $7.2 million in prize money. These increased financial opportunities allowed for groundbreaking developments not only in tennis, but across women's sports. In 1982, Martina Navratilova became the first to win over $1,000,000 in a single year. Navratilova's single year earnings exceeded $2 million in 1984. In 1997, Martina Hingis became the first to earn over $3 million during a single year. In 2003, Kim Clijsters surpassed $4 million in earnings for a single year. In 2006, Venus Williams and the WTA pushed for equal prize money at both the French Open and Wimbledon. Both of these Grand Slam events relented in 2007 and awarded equal money for the first time. This enabled Justine Henin, who won the French Open in 2007, to earn over $5 million that year, becoming the first woman in sports to do this. In 2009, Serena Williams went over the six million mark by earning over $6.5 million in a single year. Then in 2012 both Serena Williams and Victoria Azarenka became the first players to exceed $7 million in prize money in a single season. In 2013 Serena Williams went over the twelve million dollar mark, winning $12,385,572 in a single year. Management American sports entrepreneur Jerry Diamond (1928–1996) served as executive director of the women's association from 1974 to 1985. He was instrumental in negotiating business deals with Avon, Colgate-Palmolive, and Toyota, and worked out the deal that made Virginia Slims the titular sponsor of the WTA tour. Larry Scott became chairman and CEO of the WTA on 16 April 2003. While at the WTA, Scott put together the largest sponsorship in the history of women's sports, a six-year, $88 million sponsorship deal with Sony Ericsson. On 24 March 2009, Scott announced that he was resigning as WTA chief to take up a new position as the commissioner of the Pac-10 Conference, on 1 July 2009. Scott pointed to Korn Ferry to headhunt his replacement but "with no decision made" on 13 July 2009, WTA Tour announced the appointment of Stacey Allaster, the Tour's president since 2006, as the new chairman and CEO of the WTA. Allaster was named as one of the "Most Powerful Women in Sports" by Forbes Magazine and led the WTA through significant growth and under her leadership, she secured a media agreement that would maximise fan exposure to women's tennis globally. During her time with the WTA, she generated an estimated $1 billion in diversified contract revenues, built the brand globally, and was a strong advocate for gender equality. She announced her retirement as chief executive of the WTA on 22 September 2015 citing a personal change in priorities. On 5 October 2015, Steve Simon, the Tournament Director of the BNP Paribas Open, was announced to succeed Stacey as the new WTA chairman and CEO. In December 2021, following Peng Shuai's disappearance by the Chinese government, the WTA under Steve Simon suspended its operations in China and Hong Kong. The boycott was lifted in 2023 after 16 months, citing financial losses due to the suspension of operations in China as well as the COVID-19 pandemic. In March 2022, medical technology firm Hologic reached an agreement to become title sponsor and "official health partner" of the WTA Tour, marking its first title sponsorship agreement since the expiration of the previous Sony Ericsson deal. WTA Tour tournaments In 2024, the WTA made all WTA 1000 events mandatory. The WTA Elite Trophy did not return: Grand Slam tournaments (4) Year-ending WTA Finals (1) WTA 1000 tournaments: Ten events with prize money ranging from US$2 million to US$10 million. WTA 500 tournaments: 17 events with prize money from US$700,000 to US$900,000. WTA 250 tournaments: 23 events, with prize money at US$250,000. WTA 125 tournaments (30) events Since 2012 (number of events varies each year; in 2018 there were ten tournaments: four in United States, two in China and one each in Croatia, France, India and Taiwan), with prize money for the four events in United States at US$150,000 and at the other events at around US$125,000. Ranking points are also available at tournaments on the ITF Women's Circuit organized by the International Tennis Federation, which comprises several hundred tournaments each year with prize funds ranging from US$15,000 to US$100,000. Players' Council The Players' Council is a group or sub-committee under the WTA board of directors, consisting of eight selected players on the tour that advocate player interest, handles grievances, changes in the tennis schedule and other concerns. 2023–2024 Players' Council 1–20 Ranking Category: Victoria Azarenka, Caroline Garcia, Madison Keys, Jessica Pegula 21–50 Ranking Category: Donna Vekić 51–100 Ranking Category: Daria Saville 21+ Ranking Category: Gabriela Dabrowski 101+ Ranking Category: Aleksandra Krunić Notes WTA rankings These lists are based on the WTA rankings. See also WTA Tour Association of Tennis Professionals List of tennis tournaments List of WTA number 1 ranked players Women's sports WTA Awards WTA Challenger Series WTA Tour Championships WTA Tour records Tennis Integrity Unit WTA rankings References Further reading King, Billie Jean; Starr, Cynthia. We Have Come a Long Way : The Story of Women's Tennis. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 9780070346253. OCLC 18191069. External links Official website Official current rankings

Iga_%C5%9Awi%C4%85tek

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iga_%C5%9Awi%C4%85tek

Iga Natalia Świątek (Polish pronunciation: [ˈiɡa naˈtalja ˈɕfjɔntɛk] ; born 31 May 2001) is a Polish professional tennis player. She is currently ranked as the world No. 1 in women's singles by the WTA, having held the position for a total of 124 weeks and placing her 7th on the all-time list for number of weeks spent as No. 1. Świątek has won five major singles titles and is the only player representing Poland to win a major singles title. She has won the French Open four times and the US Open once. Świątek has won 22 singles titles, including the 2023 WTA Finals and ten WTA 1000 titles. In 2024, she became the first Polish tennis player to win an Olympic medal, earning bronze in singles at the Paris Summer Olympics. As a junior, Świątek was the 2018 French Open girls' doubles champion alongside Caty McNally and the 2018 Wimbledon girls' singles champion. Świątek began playing regularly on the WTA Tour in 2019, and entered the top 50 at 18 years old after her first Tour final and a fourth-round appearance at the 2019 French Open. During her French Open title run in 2020, Świątek lost no more than five games in any singles match. She entered the top ten of the WTA rankings for the first time in May 2021 after winning the Italian Open. In 2022, Świątek won back-to-back WTA 1000 titles at Qatar and Indian Wells to reach No. 2, then became No. 1 on 4 April 2022, the first Polish player to do so. During this time, Świątek accumulated a 37-match winning streak, the longest on the WTA Tour in the 21st century. With major titles at the French and US Opens, she finished 2022 as the dominant No. 1. In 2023, she defended her French Open title and claimed the WTA Finals to finish as year-end No. 1 again. She has claimed the French Open title at four of her six appearances at the tournament, having never lost a match before the fourth round. Świątek has an all-court playing style. She won the WTA Fan Favorite Shot of the Year in 2019 with a drop shot from the baseline, and was voted WTA Fan Favorite Singles Player of the Year in 2020. In 2023, she was named L'Équipe Champion of Champions and Polish Sports Personality of the Year and included on Time's annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. Early life and background Iga Świątek was born on 31 May 2001 in Warsaw to Dorota and Tomasz Świątek. Her father is a former rower who competed in the men's quadruple sculls event at the 1988 Seoul Olympics while her mother is an orthodontist. She has a sister, Agata, who is about three years older and is a dentist. Their father wanted his daughters to become competitive athletes and preferred they take up an individual sport rather than a team sport to have better control of their chances of success. Agata started out as a swimmer but switched to tennis. Agata briefly competed on the ITF Junior Circuit in 2013 at about 15 years old, but stopped playing due to injury troubles. Iga followed her sister into tennis because she wanted to beat her and also because she wanted to be more like her. Iga trained at Mera Warsaw as a 14-year-old before later moving to Legia Warsaw. Junior career Świątek reached a career-high ranking of No. 5 as a junior player. She began competing in ITF Junior Circuit events in 2015 and won back-to-back low-level Grade 4 titles in April and May at age 13. Before the end of the year, she moved up to Grade 2 events and finished runner-up in both singles and doubles at the Czech Junior Open. Świątek made her junior Grand Slam tournament debut in 2016 at the French Open, reaching the quarterfinals in both singles and doubles. She followed this up with her best junior title to date at the Grade 1 Canadian Open Junior Championships, defeating Olga Danilović in the final. Świątek had a strong first half of 2017. She won both the singles and doubles titles at the Grade 1 Traralgon Junior International. Although she lost her opening round match at the Australian Open, she partnered with compatriot Maja Chwalińska to make her first final in a major tournament, finishing runner-up in doubles to the North American team of Bianca Andreescu and Carson Branstine. She then reached her first Grade A singles final at the Trofeo Bonfiglio, losing to Elena Rybakina. Her season came to an end after another quarterfinal at the French Open, after which she had right ankle surgery that kept her out for seven months. Despite only competing in two Grand Slam tournaments in 2018 and three singles events in total, Świątek finished her junior career with her best season. She returned to the junior tour at the French Open after a one-year absence and reached the semi-finals in singles, losing to Caty McNally. She fared better in doubles, partnering with McNally to win her first junior major title. They defeated the Japanese team of Yuki Naito and Naho Sato in the final. Świątek played only singles at Wimbledon. As an unseeded player due to her absence, she was drawn against top seed Whitney Osuigwe in the first round. After winning that match in three sets, she did not drop another set during the rest of the tournament and won the championship for her only junior major singles title. She defeated Leonie Küng in the final. Świątek then teamed up with the Slovenian Kaja Juvan to compete in the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics. They reached the final and defeated the Japanese team of Yuki Naito and Naho Sato. She then finished her junior career. Professional career 2016–2018: Undefeated in seven ITF Circuit finals Świątek began competing on the ITF Women's Circuit in 2016 and played on the circuit through the end of 2018. She won all seven ITF singles finals she reached, ranging from the first four at the $10k to $15k level to one at the $25k level followed up by two at the $60k level. Her first three titles came at 15 years old. The fourth was in February 2018 in her first tournament back from a seven-month layoff due to injury. After a $25k title in April, Świątek moved up to higher-level ITF events later that month. Following her junior Wimbledon title in July, she skipped the junior US Open to stay in Europe. During the two weeks of the US Open, she won back-to-back $60k titles at the NEK Ladies Open in Hungary and the Montreux Ladies Open in Switzerland. During the second event, she defeated top seed and world No. 120, Mariana Duque-Mariño. These were Świątek's last two ITF tournaments of the year. With these two titles, she entered the top 200 for the first time at the age of 17, rising from No. 298 to No. 180 in those two weeks. 2019: First WTA Tour final, top 50 debut Despite never playing on the WTA Tour before 2019, Świątek was able to compete in only tour-level events throughout the year. After failing to qualify at the Auckland Open, she qualified for her first major main draw at the Australian Open. She then defeated No. 82 Ana Bogdan, in three sets, in her debut match to reach the second round. At her next three tournaments, she also qualified at the Hungarian Ladies Open, but not at either of the Premier Mandatory events in March. Świątek made her first WTA breakthrough at the Ladies Open Lugano in April. With her first direct acceptance into a main draw, she made her first WTA final. During the event, she upset No. 3 seed Viktória Kužmová in the second round for her first top 50 victory. She ultimately finished runner-up to Polona Hercog in three sets. Moreover, a precise cross-court forehand drop shot she hit against Kristýna Plíšková in the semi-final was voted the 2019 WTA Shot of the Year. With the runner-up, she also made her debut in the top 100 while still 17 years old. Świątek closed out her clay court season with a fourth round appearance at the French Open in her second major. She upset No. 16 Wang Qiang in the second round for her first top 20 victory before losing to defending champion Simona Halep. Świątek could not repeat her French Open success at the remaining major tournaments of the year, losing her opening match at Wimbledon and in the second round at the US Open. Her best result in the second half of the season was a third round appearance at the Canadian Open. During the event, she upset No. 18, Caroline Wozniacki, before losing to No. 2, Naomi Osaka. With this result, she entered the top 50 for the first time a week later. She missed the rest of the season after the US Open to undergo foot surgery and finished the year at No. 61 in the world. 2020: First French Open title, top 20 debut Świątek made her return to the WTA Tour at the Australian Open. She matched her best result at a major with another fourth-round appearance, this time highlighted by a victory over No. 20, Donna Vekić. She defeated Vekić again at the Qatar Open, her last match win before the WTA Tour was shut down for six months due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Świątek continued her major tournament success once the tour resumed. She reached the third round at the US Open, losing to eventual runner-up Victoria Azarenka. Entering the rescheduled French Open in September, Świątek was ranked No. 54 in the world. Nonetheless, she won the singles event for her maiden WTA title. During the tournament, she defeated 2019 runner-up and world No. 19, Markéta Vondroušová, in the opening round. Her biggest upset was a victory in the fourth round over top seed and world No. 2, Simona Halep, who was on a 17-match win streak and was also the heavy favourite to win the title. She only lost three games against Halep after winning just one game against her in the same round of the French Open the previous year. Świątek defeated world No. 6, Sofia Kenin, in the final to become the first Polish player to win a major singles title and the lowest-ranked French Open champion in the history of the WTA rankings. She also became the youngest singles champion at the tournament since Rafael Nadal in 2005 and the youngest women's singles winner since Monica Seles in 1992. She won the title without dropping a set or more than five games to any opponent, and the 28 games she lost in total were tied for the second-fewest among French Open singles champions in the Open Era behind only the 20 games Steffi Graf lost in 1988. With the title, Świątek rose to No. 17 in the world. She also played the doubles event, partnering with Nicole Melichar for the first time. The pair reached the semi-finals, and also did not drop a set until their last match. 2021: WTA 1000 title, top 10 debut At the Australian Open, Świątek was seeded 15th and recorded wins over Arantxa Rus, Camila Giorgi and Fiona Ferro. She reached the fourth round where she lost to Simona Halep, in three sets. At Adelaide, she won her first WTA Tour title without dropping a set in the whole tournament. She defeated Belinda Bencic in the final, in straight sets. As a result, she entered the top 15 for the first time in her career, in March 2021. Seeded 15th, Świątek won her first career WTA 1000-title at the Italian Open, defeating former champion Karolína Plíšková in just 46 minutes without the loss of a single game. She advanced to the final after defeating two-time champion and world No. 5, Elina Svitolina, and the second best-ranked teenager Coco Gauff on the same day, as well as saving match points in her third-round match against Barbora Krejčíková. Świątek became the third player to win a title after saving match point en route in 2021, alongside Naomi Osaka at the Australian Open and Ashleigh Barty in Miami. She also became the fourth teenager to win a WTA 1000 event. This successful run to her third career title moved her into the top 10 in the singles rankings on 17 May 2021, as world No. 9. At the French Open, Świątek was seeded at No. 8. She opened her title defense winning against Kaja Juvan in the first round, and then defeated Rebecca Peterson, Anett Kontaveit and Marta Kostyuk. She won 22 straight sets at the French Open but then lost in the quarterfinals to Maria Sakkari. In doubles, seeded 14th with Bethanie Mattek-Sands as a pair, playing just their third event together, they reached the final where they were defeated by Barbora Krejčíková and Kateřina Siniaková in straight sets. As a result, Świątek reached the top 50 at a career-high ranking of No. 42 in doubles for the first time in her career. She started her grass-court season at the Eastbourne International where she was seeded at No. 4. After defeating Heather Watson, she lost to Daria Kasatkina in the second round. As the seventh seed at Wimbledon, Świątek defeated Hsieh Su-wei, Vera Zvonareva, and Irina-Camelia Begu, all in straight sets. In the fourth round, she lost to Ons Jabeur, in three sets. With her win over Anett Kontaveit in the third round of the US Open, she became the only player to have reached the second week of all four major championships in the 2021 season. She qualified for the WTA Finals for the first time in her career. 2022: World No. 1, two major titles, 37-match winning streak Świątek started her season by reaching the semifinals at the Adelaide International. She then reached another semifinal at the Australian Open. Following a second-round match loss against Jeļena Ostapenko, Świątek won the next six tournaments she entered — Qatar Ladies Open, Indian Wells Open, Miami Open, Stuttgart Open, Italian Open and, for her second major title, French Open — before losing to Alizé Cornet at Wimbledon in the third round. Świątek reached the world No. 1 singles ranking, and became the fourth as well as the youngest woman (11th player overall) to complete the Sunshine Double in the process. She also accumulated a 37-match win streak, the longest in the 21st century. Świątek had a lacklustre performance throughout the summer. She lost to Caroline Garcia in the quarterfinals in Warsaw, Beatriz Haddad Maia in the third round in Toronto and Madison Keys in the third round in Cincinnati. However, she returned on form at the US Open, winning her third major by defeating Ons Jabeur in the final. She became the first woman to win both the French Open and US Open in the same season since Serena Williams in 2013. Świątek reached the final at the Ostrava Open, but she lost to Barbora Krejčíková in a three-set match that lasted 3 hours and 16 minutes, the longest match of her career so far. She subsequently played at the San Diego Open, winning her eighth title by defeating Donna Vekić, in three sets. At the 2022 WTA Finals held in Fort Worth, Texas, Świątek won the group stage without dropping a set, defeating Daria Kasatkina, Caroline Garcia and Coco Gauff, respectively. However, she was upset by Aryna Sabalenka in the semi-finals in three sets. Nevertheless, she finished the season as year-end No. 1 and posted a record win-loss 67–9 in 2022, the most wins in a single season since Serena Williams in 2013. She also became the first player since Serena Williams in 2013 to collect over 11,000 ranking points in a single season. She accumulated the second highest ranking points total in WTA history, second only to Serena Williams in 2013. 2023: French Open and WTA finals champion, year-end No. 1 Świątek's 2023 campaign was statistically less dominant than her 2022 season, but she still managed to win six titles in the year. She started 2023 as only the fourth woman in WTA history to be ranked world No. 1 for 40 or more consecutive weeks in their first stint as the top-ranked player. In her first tournament of the year representing Poland at the United Cup, she partnered with her compatriots including Hubert Hurkacz and reached the semi-finals. At the Australian Open, she lost in the fourth round in straight sets against Elena Rybakina, who would upset Świątek two more times later in the year, respectively in the semi-finals at the Indian Wells Open and in the quarterfinals at the Italian Open. She did not win any tournament until the Qatar Ladies Open, where she did not drop a set throughout the tournament and only lost five games. The clay season saw her successfully defend her Stuttgart Open title, as well as winning her fourth major at the French Open by defeating Karolína Muchová in the final. After improvement on the grass court with a quarterfinal performance at Wimbledon, which ended her 14-match win streak, she won her home tournament at the Poland Open. At the US Open, Świątek lost in the fourth round against Jelena Ostapenko, which ended her reign at world No. 1. Her 75-week reign at No. 1 is the third-longest streak in the Open Era among players in their first stint as the top player, behind only Steffi Graf and Martina Hingis. Nevertheless, she went on to win the China Open. At the WTA Finals, she won the title without dropping a set, becoming the first player to do so since Serena Williams in 2012. She also dropped just 20 games throughout the entire tournament, the fewest since the reintroduction of the round-robin format in 2003 and beat Serena Williams's record of 32 overall games dropped. By conceding only one game to Jessica Pegula, Świątek also broke the record for fewest games lost in a final, previously held by Martina Navratilova in 1983 and Kim Clijsters in 2003 (two each). Winning the title saw her reclaiming the top ranking and clinching year-end No. 1 for the second season in a row. 2024: French Open, four WTA 1000 titles, Olympic bronze medal Świątek entered the United Cup in an international team competition representing Team Poland. She reached the final winning all of her singles matches and received the MVP award of the event. In the third round of the Australian Open, she was upset by Linda Nosková in three sets and as a result of this loss her 18 match winning streak came to an end which started in September 2023. Despite this earlier loss she kept her world No. 1 ranking. In February, Świątek entered the Qatar Ladies Open as a two-time defending champion. She reached the final after having defeated Sorana Cîrstea, 14th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova and Viktoria Azarenka. In the final, she faced Elena Rybakina winning in straight sets and claiming her seventh WTA 1000 title. Świątek did not drop a set en route to the title for the second consecutive year. She also became the first person to win three consecutive titles in Doha and the first player to win three consecutive titles at the same hardcourt tournament since Serena Williams in 2015. At the next WTA 1000 tournament in Dubai, she reached back-to-back quarterfinals defeating 15th seed Elina Svitolina in the round of 16. She was the fourth player since the WTA-1000 format's introduction in 2009 the make the quarterfinals in 9+ consecutive appearances (between Dubai 2023 – Dubai 2024) after Serena Williams, Maria Sharapova and Agnieszka Radwańska. She then advanced to the semifinals where she lost to Anna Kalinskaya in straight sets. In March, Świątek won the Indian Wells Open for a second time, defeating Maria Sakkari in the final. This was her second title of the season and 19th overall. In Miami, she recorded her 100th WTA 1000 career match win defeating Camila Giorgi in one hour, in straight sets. In April, Świątek entered the Stuttgart Open as a two-time defending champion and reached the semifinal where she lost to Elena Rybakina in three sets, which ended her 10-match winning streak in the tournament. In the same month, she entered her 100th week as the reigning world No. 1 surpassing Lindsay Davenport and moving to the ninth place in the all-time table. At the Madrid Open, she reached the final where she faced the defending champion and 2nd seed Aryna Sabalenka. Świątek played the longest match against Sabalenka in her career thus far, which lasted over three hours. Świątek saved three championship points in the third set and won her 20th career title. The match has been praised as a classic and the best of their rivalry, with Świątek stating that it was "the most intense and crazy final" she has played. In May, at the next WTA 1000, the Italian Open, she reached a second consecutive final with a win over world No. 3 Coco Gauff in straight sets. In the final, she beat again Aryna Sabalenka, this time in straight sets, becoming the most successful Polish tennis player in terms of the number of titles won surpassing Agnieszka Radwańska with 21. It was also her tenth WTA 1000 title and fourth on clay, and the third in Rome. She became the third female player after Serena Williams and Dinara Safina who completed the Madrid-Rome sweep, and the first player, female or male, to achieve it since 2013 when both Williams and Rafael Nadal won Madrid and Rome. Świątek won the 2024 French Open, which was her third French Open title in a row and fourth overall. Świątek only lost one set during the tournament, which was to Naomi Osaka in the second round, where Osaka held match point in the third set. After defeating Osaka, Świątek lost only 17 games, defeating Marie Bouzková in the third round, Anastasia Potapova in the fourth round, Markéta Vondroušová in the quarterfinal, Coco Gauff in the semi-final, and Jasmine Paolini in the final. Świątek became the third player in history to win three consecutive French Open titles, after Monica Seles and Justine Henin had done so, and the second woman to win Madrid, Rome, and the French Open in the same season, after Serena Williams in 2013. Świątek's overall match win record during the 2024 spring clay court swing was 21–1, losing only to Elena Rybakina in Stuttgart in April. Since her loss there, Świątek has been on a 19-match winning streak. Having not played since her French Open triumph, Świątek lost in round three at the 2024 Wimbledon Championships to Yulia Putintseva, thus ending her 21-match winning streak. At the 2024 Summer Olympics, Świątek defeated Irina-Camelia Begu, Diane Parry, Wang Xiyu and Danielle Collins. In the semifinal, she lost to the eventual gold medalist Zheng Qinwen in straight sets. This marked Świątek's first loss in Paris after 1,149 days of staying undefeated. In the bronze medal match, she beat Anna Karolína Schmiedlová in straight sets becoming the first player from Poland to win an Olympic medal in tennis. At the Cincinnati Open, Świątek reached the semifinals where she lost to the eventual champion Aryna Sabalenka. At the 2024 US Open, Świątek lost in the quarterfinals to fifth seed Jessica Pegula. National representation Junior competitions Świątek represented Poland at the ITF World Junior Tennis Finals for 14-and-under girls twice in 2014 and 2015. She won all of her matches in 2014 to lead Poland to a ninth-place finish out of 16 teams. The following year, she helped Poland go undefeated in the round robin stage to reach the semi-finals. Świątek moved up to the 16-and-under Junior Fed Cup in 2016, where she played alongside Maja Chwalińska and Stefania Rogozińska-Dzik. Poland won the title, defeating the United States 2–1 in the final. Świątek won both of her rubbers in the final tie, defeating Amanda Anisimova in singles before partnering with Chwalińska to defeat Caty McNally and Claire Liu in the decisive doubles rubber. The last event of Świątek's junior career was the 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games. Although she lost in the quarterfinals in singles to Clara Burel, she partnered with Slovenian Kaja Juvan to win the gold medal in doubles. In the final they defeated Naito and Sato, who were also Świątek's opponents in the French Open doubles final earlier in the year. Billie Jean King Cup Świątek made her senior Billie Jean King Cup debut in 2018 when Poland was in Europe/Africa Zone Group I. To advance out of this group, Poland needed to win their round-robin group, a play-off tie against one of the other round robin group winners, and then another play-off tie as part of the separate World Group II Play-off round. They did not win their round-robin group in 2018 or 2019. Świątek won her only singles match in 2018. While she only won one of her three singles matches in 2019, she won both of her doubles rubbers while partnering with Alicja Rosolska. The following year, the format was changed so that Poland only needed to finish in the top two out of three teams in their round-robin group to reach the promotional play-off. Nonetheless, they won their group and defeated Sweden 2–0 in the play-off to advance to the separate Play-off round. Świątek won all three of her singles matches in the 2020 Europe/Africa Zone Group I round, before skipping the Play-offs themselves. The following edition in 2022 had Poland facing Romania in the qualifying round, with Świątek winning her two games to help the team move on to the Finals. However, she did not attend the finals because the decisive round started very soon after the 2022 WTA Finals. The rib injury Świątek encountered shortly after exiting the 2023 Indian Wells Open also caused her to miss Poland's 2023 Billie Jean King cup qualifier against Kazakhstan in Astana. Overall, Świątek has a 9–3 record at the Fed Cup, comprising 7–2 in singles and 2–1 in doubles. In 2024, Świątek participated in a match against Switzerland winning two matches in singles and contributing to Poland's 4–0 win, which secured the country's place in November's Finals in Seville for a third consecutive year. Rivalries Aryna Sabalenka Iga Świątek and Aryna Sabalenka have met 12 times since 2021, with Świątek in control of the head-to-head at 8–4 in official competitions. Their rivalry is seen as having a potential to be counted among those that shape the history of tennis. Their most lauded match is the 2024 Madrid Open final in which Świątek defeated defending champion Sabalenka in three sets after 3 hours and 11 minutes, also saving three championship points in the process. Playing style Świątek has an aggressive, all-court style of play and incorporates a lot of variety into her game. Because her game style is focused on offence, she typically generates high amounts of both winners and unforced errors. She has described her style of play on clay as "a big serve, topspin, and backhand down the line". Despite her aggressive style of play, she plays with margin, and constructs points carefully until she creates an opportunity to hit a winner, and in all seven of her matches played at the 2020 French Open, she hit more winners than unforced errors. In total at the French Open that year, she hit 175 winners to 127 unforced errors. The basis of Świątek's game was described by tennis journalist Christopher Clarey for The New York Times as: her sliding ability, allowing her to defend from the corners à la Kim Clijsters and Novak Djokovic, a "sprinter's speed" when moving forward to the net, power and topspin akin to her idol Rafael Nadal, and mental strength forged through sports psychology. Her forehand and backhand are fast and powerful, with her forehand being hit with significant topspin due to her employing an extreme western grip; on her run to the title at the French Open in 2020, Świątek's average forehand speed was 73 mph (117 km/h), only 4 km/h below that of the average male forehand speed. She even hit some forehands up to 79 mph (127 km/h), the fastest of any female player in the draw and exceeded only by Jannik Sinner on the men's side. Her forehand topspin reached 3,453 rpm at the French Open, comparable with her idol Rafael Nadal. Świątek's backhand speed peaked at 76 mph (122 km/h) at the French Open, the fastest of any female player in the draw, and equal to Dominic Thiem's backhand speed, the fastest of any male player at the French Open. Considering her dominance on clay, Świątek is often called the "Queen of Clay". Świątek aims to come to the net, and has good volleying skills due to her doubles experience. Świątek possesses an accurate first serve, peaking at 123 mph (198 km/h), and averaging at 108 mph (174 km/h), allowing her to serve aces, dictate play from the first stroke, and win a majority of first-serve points. She possesses an effective kick serve, and an effective slice serve, which are deployed as second serves, preventing opponents from scoring free points. In earlier years of her career, she regularly used the drop shot, and won the 2019 WTA Shot of the Year with a cross-court drop shot from the baseline that landed on the sideline well inside the service box. Since the beginning of her collaboration with Tomasz Wiktorowski, she simplified her game and currently very rarely employs this shot. Świątek aims to gain the advantage in a point by hitting the ball early on the rise. Further strengths include her exceptional speed, movement, and court coverage, detailed and intricate footwork, and intelligent point construction. Her favourite surface is clay, having grown up playing on that surface, although she has had success on all surfaces. Her clay court success is enhanced by her ability to slide on the surface; as her career has progressed, she has also developed the ability to slide on hard and grass courts, too. Świątek finished runner-up to Simona Halep in the voting for the WTA Fan Favorite Singles Player of the Year award in 2019. In 2020, she was voted the WTA Fan Favorite Singles Player of the Year. Bagels Świątek's tendency to bagel or breadstick her opponents has led to the term "Iga's Bakery" entering tennis parlance. Over Świątek's WTA career up until May 2024 an average of 40.6 percent of her matches have included either a 6–0 set or a 6–1. During the 2023 season she won a bagel set in 29 percent of her matches compared with an average of 11.4 per cent of matches for matches in which she wasn't playing. Her closest bagel rivals are Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula, both of whom scored eight in 2023. As of June 2024, she has dispensed the rarer double bagel eight times in her WTA career, though only two have come during a major tournament (which were against Xinyu Wang in the 2023 French Open and against Anastasia Potapova in the 2024 French Open). Coaching team Świątek's primary coach in her early junior years was Michał Kaznowski, who she worked with up to the 2016 French Open. Jolanta Rusin-Krzepota was her physical preparation trainer for almost four years through the end of the 2019 US Open. Świątek was coached by Piotr Sierzputowski beginning in 2016. While Sierzputowski was her coach, British former professional tennis player and former Polish Davis Cup coach Nick Brown also served as a main consultant on occasion. Świątek also works with sports psychologist Daria Abramowicz and fitness trainer/physiologist Maciej Ryszczuk. In December 2021, Świątek announced that she was splitting from Sierzputowski after nearly six years working together. She wrote, "This change is really challenging for me, and this decision wasn't easy, either". Świątek had hired Sierzputowski when she was 15 and still playing in junior tournaments. From the end of 2021 until October 2024, she was coached by Tomasz Wiktorowski, who also previously worked with Agnieszka Radwańska. In October 2024 it was announced that she had parted ways with Wiktorowski. Endorsements Świątek is now sponsored by the Roger Federer-backed Swiss company On for clothing and shoes, as of 20 March 2023, and became the first female tennis player to be sponsored by On. She had been sponsored by Asics for clothing and shoes since the start of 2020. She was previously sponsored by Nike. Świątek was also previously endorsed by the Red Bull energy drink company, the Chinese tech giant Xiaomi and the Lexus division of the Toyota automaker company, the latter of which have also sponsored fellow Polish tennis player Agnieszka Radwańska. From February 2021 till January 2024 her main partner was Poland's biggest insurance company PZU. In 2021, Świątek signed an endorsement deal with Tecnifibre for racquets; she previously used a Prince Textreme 100 Tour racquet, although she was not under contract with the company. To celebrate the victory at the 2022 French Open with a Tecnifibre racquet and to recognise the female athlete, the company changed its marketing name to Swiateknifibre and its trademark to the colours white and red for seven days. It was the first women's major title for this manufacturer. Świątek's father also confirmed that she had also signed a contract with Rolex in 2021. After winning her third major title at the 2022 US Open, Świątek parted ways with her long-term manager, and began to be represented by IMG with agent Max Eisenbud. In 2023, Świątek announced that she has become a global ambassador for the Polish sports drink Oshee. She will also release collaboration line with the brand, including her own drink flavour and bottle design. On 26 June 2023, Swiatek has announced her partnership with Porsche. In August 2023, Swiatek has been announced as a global ambassador of VISA. On 25 August 2023, Infosys has announced Swiatek as their global brand ambassador alongside Rafael Nadal. In April 2024, Świątek became the brand ambassador of Lancôme. Charity work and philanthropy Since 2021 Świątek has been involved with The Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity. She has put up her winning racket from the final of her first French Open, the racket ended up getting sold with the price of 131,300 zł, which outpriced the signed Champions League winning kit of Robert Lewandowski, money helped to fund new equipment for pediatric ENT, otolaryngology and head diagnostics. In 2022, while playing at the Australian Open, she put up another racket, this time from final of Italian Open, but this time the offer also included training with the buyer. Besides the racket Świątek also put her signed Tokyo Olympics 2020 kit, her signature cap and multiple tennis balls with autographs up for auction. The offer was yet again met with a lot of interest and in the end was sold for 189,100 zł, which was the second best seller. The money would help to fund equipment for pediatric ophthalmology. In 2023, Świątek put up her winning racket with which she won both US Open and French Open in 2022. Besides the racket, she also included a double invitation to her first-round match in Roland Garros 2023 and an opportunity to meet her in person behind the scenes after the match. The pass would also allow the winners of the auction to watch all matches on the said day for free. All proceeds would go to funding medication for sepsis. Świątek's offer was auctioned for 300,300 zł, making it the most expensive auction. Świątek and her team have also been taking part in the Noble Gift project since 2020. It helps to provide families, which have found themselves in difficult financial circumstances for reasons beyond their control during the Christmas period. Świątek also took part in auction for SOS Children's Villages- Poland, putting up her autographed cap from Miami Open. In one of interviews the teacher from Świątek's elementary school in Raszyn revealed that after winning her second French Open title, she pledged to help upgrade the school's sports facilities, among which was a single tennis court. She also donated the shirt she wore in the final, tennis balls and her cap to the school, all signed for auction to raise money for one of the students who needed urgent and expensive medical treatment. In November 2021, Świątek was announced in line-up for Africa Cares Tennis Challenge tennis exhibition in Johannesburg, which was aimed to not only promote tennis in South Africa but was to be used as a vehicle in the fight against Gender-Based Violence through campaigns and activations leading up to the main event. Other players in the line-up included Simona Halep, Venus Williams, Sloane Stephens and Martina Hingis. On 30 November it was announced event was cancelled due to concerns regarding growing amount of cases of Covid-19 infections. Advocating for mental health awareness On 10 October 2021, Świątek donated $50,000 of her prize money in support of World Mental Health Day, after progressing to the last 16 of the Indian Wells Open. "I would say in sports, for me, it was always important to use that kind of help because I always thought that in my mental toughness there is some strength that I can use on court and I can also develop in that manner," she said. After winning in at the French Open in 2020, Świątek revealed that using her sports psychologist, Daria Abramowicz, had helped her get over the line. "It's just good to stay open-minded. If you need that kind of help, then go for it. If you're up to it and if you're open-minded, I think it helps a lot," Świątek added. In her runner-up speech after losing the final to Barbora Krejčíková on the Ostrava Open on 9 October 2022, Świątek announced she will donate all of her prize money (€58,032) won in the tournament to Polish non-profit organizations and foundations to celebrate World Mental Health Day. "This is the most difficult moment of this tournament for me. I do not know what to say. Thank you so much. Whether I win or not, I am fulfilling my dreams, and you with me. I wish I won cause I would be able to donate more but I would like to announce that I will donate my prize money to non-profit organisations in Poland on Monday, which is World Mental Health Day. I hope this money can help a lot of people and make some change". On 12 October 2023, Świątek announced that she would donate 300,000 PLN ($70,000) to UNICEF Poland to "help in the field of mental health in Poland and all over the world", as part of celebration of World Mental Health Day. Along with the major announcement, she shared her thoughts and motivated other people as well. "I would like to encourage you to have a look around and see if there's someone there who could use your help. You can make a donation of your choice to organizations like UNICEF that professionally help people (if you're able to)." Support of Ukraine Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Świątek has often worn ribbons or other accessories in Ukrainian colors, and on several occasions has publicly declared her support for Ukraine in her winner speeches. On 23 July 2022, Świątek hosted a charity tennis event in Kraków, Poland to raise funds for children and teenagers impacted by the war in Ukraine. The one-day event featured a mixed doubles exhibition match and a set of singles between Świątek and Agnieszka Radwańska. Ukraine football great Andriy Shevchenko was a special guest. Elina Svitolina of Ukraine served as umpire for the event. Świątek stated, "I hope that we can see each other in large numbers in TAURON Arena Krakow and in front of the television to show the strength of sport when it unites us in helping and gives us at least a little joy." Świątek later announced on Twitter that the event has raised over 2,5 mln złoty (over €500,000), which would be spread between United 24, Elina Svitolina Foundation and UNICEF Poland. On 10 August, Świątek has been announced as the part of line up for "Tennis Plays for Peace" exhibition, which took place on 24 August with other numerous current and former tennis stars like Rafael Nadal, Carlos Alcaraz, Coco Gauff, John McEnroe, Stefanos Tsitsipas, Matteo Berrettini, Maria Sakkari and many others, 100% of the proceeds going to GlobalGiving, the international non-profit identified by Tennis Plays for Peace. On 9 January 2023, Świątek took to Twitter and Instagram to announce that her 'Iga & Friends' and '1ga' T-shirts will be available for sale at Allegro Charity, where she and UNICEF Poland have once again joined forces to raise funds for children in war-torn Ukraine. On 11 January, Świątek once again announced on her social media platforms that she will be auctioning off her US Open winning gear and French Open shoes, among others all proceeds would also be going straight to UNICEF. Personal life Świątek is a cat lover and owns a black female cat named Grappa. She enjoys reading novels and listening to music. Before her matches, she listens to rock music, especially Pearl Jam, Pink Floyd, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and AC/DC. In her spare time, she listens to alternative music, jazz, soul and pop. She is also a fan of Taylor Swift. In an interview with Tennis Channel, she described Mikaela Shiffrin as a good role model and said she "really respects" her. She also mentioned being a fan of actress Sandra Bullock and her films. In addition to being a successful athlete, Świątek was always known as an excellent and diligent student in primary and high school. Despite her tour schedules, she always studied during the tournaments before coming back to school in person to pass the tests. Prior to her success at the 2020 French Open, Świątek completed her high school requirements, with excellent results in her final examination, better known as Egzamin Maturalny, with 83% for Polish at basic level, 100% for English at basic level, 96% for advanced English and 100% for mathematics. She has also admitted that she would like to go to university and study something related to mathematics at some point. Świątek is a known book lover on the WTA Tour, and brings books to each tournament. For example, she read Murder on the Orient Express at the 2022 French Open and Gone with the Wind at the 2021 US Open. She says that books help her concentrate on tournaments and help her to avoid using her phone "for longer than needed." Career statistics Grand Slam tournament performance timelines Singles Doubles Grand Slam tournament finals Singles: 5 (5 titles) Doubles: 1 (1 runner-up) Olympic Games medal matches Singles: 1 (1 bronze medal) Year-end championship finals Singles: 1 (1 title) Records only played three matches. Awards 2019 WTA Fan Favorite Shot of the Year 2020 WTA Most Improved Player WTA Fan Favorite Singles Player Gold Cross of Merit European Sportswoman of the Year – Evgen Bergant Trophy 2022 Chris Evert WTA World No. 1 Trophy WTA Player of the Year ITF World Champion WTA Fan Favourite Shot of the Year European Sportsperson of the Year Polish Sports Personality of the Year 2023 L'Équipe Champion of Champions WTA Player of the Year Polish Sports Personality of the Year Mentions Notes References External links Iga Świątek at the Women's Tennis Association Iga Świątek at the International Tennis Federation Iga Świątek at the Billie Jean King Cup Iga Świątek at the Tennis Board The Players Tribune. 12 January 2023. Personal Essay – The Story of a Polish Introvert by Iga Swiatek.

Aryna_Sabalenka

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryna_Sabalenka

Aryna Siarhiejeŭna Sabalenka (born 5 May 1998) is a Belarusian professional tennis player. She is a former world No. 1 in both singles and doubles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA). Sabalenka has won three major singles titles at the 2023 and 2024 Australian Opens and the 2024 US Open, and two major doubles titles, at the 2019 US Open and the 2021 Australian Open, both partnering with Elise Mertens. She has won 22 career titles, 16 in singles and 6 in doubles. Sabalenka came to prominence in 2017 when, together with Aliaksandra Sasnovich, they led the Belarus Fed Cup team to a runner-up finish despite both of them being ranked outside the top 75 at the time. She finished 2018 and 2019 ranked No. 11 in the world in singles. Following two major singles semifinal appearances in 2021, Sabalenka peaked at the world No. 2 ranking but struggled to maintain that success in 2022 consistently. In 2023, she won her first major singles title at the Australian Open, reached the semifinals at all four major tournaments (also finishing runner-up at the US Open), and obtained the world No. 1 ranking, being named the ITF World Champion for the season. Sabalenka also began playing doubles regularly in 2019. With Mertens as her partner, she completed the Sunshine Double by winning the two Premier Mandatory tournaments in March, the Indian Wells Open and the Miami Open. After the US Open doubles title later in the year, she also qualified for the WTA Finals for the first time. With the 2021 Australian Open doubles title, she became the world No. 1 in the discipline. Sabalenka has a very aggressive style of play, often accumulating high numbers of winners and unforced errors. With her height, she also has a very powerful serve. Early life and background Sabalenka was born in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Her father, Sergey (d. 2019), was an ice hockey player. Sabalenka started playing tennis by chance. She said, "One day, my dad was just driving me somewhere in the car, and he saw tennis courts on the way. So he took me to the courts. I liked it and enjoyed it, and that's how it was. That's how it started." She began training at the National Tennis Academy in Minsk when it opened in 2014. In 2015, the Belarusian Tennis Federation persuaded Sabalenka and her team to focus on playing low-level professional events instead of junior tournaments, even though she was still eligible to compete at the junior level. Junior career Sabalenka had a late start on the ITF Junior Circuit, instead competing on the U14 and U16 Tennis Europe tours at a younger age. She did not compete in the main draw of any ITF events until 2013 at the low-level Grade-4 Tallink Cup in Estonia at the age of 15. She never played in the junior Grand Slam tournaments or any other high-level Grade-A and Grade-1 events. Without the higher point levels from these bigger tournaments, she had a career-high ranking of just No. 225. Sabalenka won her first ITF title in doubles at the lowest-level Grade-5 Alatan Tour Cup in Belarus in late 2013 with compatriot Vera Lapko as her partner. In 2014, she excelled at Grade 4 events. She reached her first singles final at the Estonian Junior Open in June and won her first singles title at the MTV Total Junior Cup in Finland in October. At the end of the season, Sabalenka defended her Alatan Tour Cup doubles title, this time with compatriot Nika Shytkouskaya, and also won the singles title. She only played in one tournament in 2015, the European Junior Championships. As a Grade B1 event, this was the highest-level junior tournament she played in. She lost in the second round to top seed Markéta Vondroušová. Professional career 2012–2016: Top 200, Fed Cup debut Sabalenka began playing on the ITF Women's Circuit in 2012, even before she competed on the ITF Junior Circuit. Her first five tournaments were in her hometown of Minsk and spread out over two years, but she did not win a main draw match in any of them. She won her first professional match at the very end of 2014 in Istanbul. The following season in October, she won her first two titles in back-to-back weeks in Antalya, both at the $10k level. Sabalenka also won a $25k title the last week of the year. This title put her into the top 300 WTA rankings for the first time at the start of 2016. That year, she made her Fed Cup debut in April, losing her only match. She also won her two biggest titles to date at the $50k level. The first in Tianjin put her into the top 200 in May and the second in Toyota in November helped her finish the year ranked at No. 137 in the world. 2017: Fed Cup heroics, WTA 125 title, top 100 Despite some early season success in the Fed Cup, Sabalenka had a quiet start to the year. She played in her first WTA Tour main draw in February as a qualifier at the Dubai Open; however, she did not win her first WTA Tour match until Wimbledon in July. In her Grand Slam debut, she again reached the main draw through qualifying and defeated Irina Khromacheva in the opening round. Sabalenka followed up this achievement with another win at the Washington Open over No. 34 Lauren Davis, the 2016 runner-up and the highest-ranked player she had defeated at the time. After losing in qualifying at the US Open, Sabalenka reached her first ever WTA semifinal at the Tashkent Open, defeating third seed and world No. 53, Tatjana Maria, along the way. A few weeks later, she entered the Tianjin Open as the 119th-ranked player in the world, but managed to reach her first WTA tournament final. There, she faced her childhood idol Maria Sharapova, but ultimately lost in two tight sets. With this performance, she rose to No. 76 in the rankings, entering the top 100 for the first time. After losing a tight Fed Cup final to the United States, Sabalenka finished the season by winning the biggest title of her career at the time at the Mumbai Open, a WTA 125 event. The title cemented her at No. 73 at the end of the year. 2018: Newcomer of the Year, Premier 5 title After playing relatively few WTA events in 2017, Sabalenka used her higher ranking to play exclusively on the WTA Tour 2018. She reached two quarterfinals to begin the year, but lost her opening-round match at the Australian Open to top-ranked Australian and world No. 18 Ashleigh Barty. She then won her first matches at a Premier tournament with a third-round appearance at the Indian Wells Open before the early-year hardcourt season came to a close, including a victory over No. 19, Svetlana Kuznetsova. Sabalenka began the clay-court season by reaching a second career final at the Ladies Open Lugano, where she finished runner-up to No. 20 Elise Mertens. This success put her in the top 50 for the first time. However, she did not win another match for the rest of the clay-court season; this included a first-round loss to No. 22 Kiki Bertens at the French Open. Sabalenka had stronger results on grass, playing in tune-ups during each of the three weeks before Wimbledon. She made it to the quarterfinals at the Rosmalen Grass Court Championships and the final at the Premier level Eastbourne International. At the latter event, she won five consecutive three-set matches, including three over top 20 opponents and her first top-ten victory against defending champion and world No. 7 Karolína Plíšková. Sabalenka lost the final to world No. 2 Caroline Wozniacki. For the third consecutive Grand Slam event, she went out in the first round at Wimbledon. During the North American hardcourt summer season, Sabalenka rose through the rankings. At the two Premier 5 tournaments, she reached the third round at the Canadian Open and the semifinals at the Cincinnati Open. In the former, she avenged her previous loss to world No. 2, Wozniacki, for the biggest win of her career, hitting 64 winners during the match. In the latter, she recorded two more top-ten wins over No. 8 Plíšková and No. 5 Caroline Garcia before losing to world No. 1, Simona Halep. Just a week later, Sabalenka won her first WTA Tour title at the Premier-level Connecticut Open with wins over world No. 9, Julia Görges, in the semifinal, and Carla Suárez Navarro in the final. Playing a fourth consecutive week, she closed out this part of the season with her best result at a Grand Slam tournament to date, making it to the fourth round at the US Open. In particular, she upset world No. 5, Petra Kvitová, in the third round before losing to the eventual champion, Naomi Osaka. She was the only player to win a set against Osaka in the tournament. After the US Open, Sabalenka earned her first No. 1 seed at the Tournoi de Québec but lost her opening match. Nonetheless, she followed this up by winning the Premier 5 level Wuhan Open, the biggest title of her career. During the event, she upset No. 6 Elina Svitolina in the second round and did not drop a set in her last four matches. The following week, Sabalenka reached the quarterfinals of the China Open, a run that included a win over defending champion and No. 4, Caroline Garcia, for her eighth top-ten victory of the season. This success in China helped her climb to No. 11 in the world. At the end of the season, Sabalenka qualified for the WTA Elite Trophy, where she was grouped with Garcia and Ashleigh Barty. She defeated Barty to open the group but lost to Garcia in the group's final match. Barty, having defeated Garcia with fewer games lost, advanced out of the group through the tiebreak criteria to end Sabalenka's season. Nonetheless, she was named the WTA Newcomer of the Year for her excellent performance in her first full year on the WTA Tour. 2019: Top 10 debut in singles, world No. 2 in doubles Singles: Elite Trophy, three titles in China in total Although Sabalenka once again struggled at the Grand Slam tournaments, she ultimately finished the year with the same year-end ranking as in 2018 on the strength of three titles, all in China. She began the season by winning her third career WTA title at the Shenzhen Open, defeating Alison Riske in the final in a tight three-set match. Due to rain delays in the earlier rounds, she needed to play both the semifinal and the final on the last day of the tournament. However, she could not build on this success in the rest of the first half of the year. Sabalenka lost to 17-year-old Amanda Anisimova in straight sets at both the Australian Open and the French Open in the third and second rounds, respectively. She had been considered the third-leading favourite for the title at the Australian Open. Nonetheless, she made her top-10 debut following the event. Sabalenka fared worse at Wimbledon, losing her opening match to No. 139 Magdaléna Rybáriková. In-between the Grand Slam tournaments, Sabalenka's best result was a semifinal loss to No. 8, Kiki Bertens, at the Premier-level St. Petersburg Trophy in February. She also made the fourth round at the Indian Wells Open. Her best result on clay was a semifinal at the Internationaux de Strasbourg in May. Sabalenka had a better second half of the season. In her first tournament following Wimbledon, she finished runner-up to Zheng Saisai at the Silicon Valley Classic, a Premier-level event. She did not perform well at either Premier 5 tournament in August or the US Open, losing in the second round at the last Grand Slam tournament of the year. Sabalenka returned to China following the US Open, and produced three strong results in four events. After a quarterfinal at the Zhengzhou Open, she defended her title at the Premier 5 Wuhan Open. During the event, she defeated No. 8 Kiki Bertens in the third round and No. 1 Ashleigh Barty in the semifinals, her first victory over a current world No. 1 player. She won the final over Alison Riske. At the end of the season, Sabalenka qualified for the WTA Elite Trophy for the second consecutive year. She swept her round-robin group of Maria Sakkari and her doubles partner Elise Mertens. In the knockout rounds, Sabalenka defeated Karolína Muchová and Bertens for her fifth career title, and her third title of the year in China. Doubles: US Open champion, Sunshine Double Sabalenka started the year ranked No. 73 in doubles. She began partnering with Elise Mertens in January, when the pair lost to top seeds Barbora Krejčíková and Kateřina Siniaková in the third round of the Australian Open. They had their breakthrough in March at the two Premier Mandatory tournaments. In only their second tournament together, Sabalenka and Mertens won the Indian Wells Open. They defeated three of the top five seeds in the event, including second seeds Tímea Babos and Kristina Mladenovic in the first round and top seeds Krejčíková and Siniaková in the final. The pair matched this success at their next event by winning the Miami Open to complete the Sunshine Double. They defeated three of the top six seeds, including third seeds Hsieh Su-wei and Barbora Strýcová in the second round. They won the final against sixth seeds Samantha Stosur and Zhang Shuai. With these two titles, Sabalenka rose to No. 21 in the world. Sabalenka and Mertens continued to partner together throughout the year, entering eleven events before the year-end championships. Sabalenka did not have much success in the Grand Slam singles events, but she produced much better results in doubles. Sabalenka and Mertens reached the semifinals at the French Open, losing to second seeds Babos and Mladenovic. They then reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon, losing to third seeds Hsieh and Strýcová. These were Sabalenka's first two appearances in at least the quarterfinals at a Grand Slam event. Sabalenka and Mertens had their best result of the year at the US Open. As the fourth seed at the event, they made it to the final without playing another top-ten-seeded team. In the final, they faced eighth seeds Victoria Azarenka and Ashleigh Barty, the latter of whom had won the title a year earlier with CoCo Vandeweghe. Sabalenka and Mertens defeated Azarenka and Barty in straight sets for their first Grand Slam title in any discipline. With this title, Sabalenka made her top 10 debut in doubles at No. 6 in the world. Sabalenka and Mertens made one more final during the year, finishing runner-up at the Wuhan Open, where Sabalenka won the singles title. Their three big titles helped them win the Race to Shenzhen and qualify for the WTA Finals as the top seeds. Before the event, Sabalenka and Mertens moved up to No. 2 and No. 3 in the rankings, respectively, behind only world No. 1, Barbora Strýcová. At the WTA Finals, the pair were placed in a round robin group with third seeds Babos and Mladenovic, fifth seeds Chan Hao-ching and Latisha Chan, as well as eighth seeds Anna-Lena Grönefeld and Demi Schuurs. In their opening match, they were upset by Grönefeld and Schuurs in a match tiebreak. After defeating the Chan sisters, Sabalenka and Mertens lost to Babos and Mladenovic in another match tiebreak. They did not advance out of their group. 2020: Three WTA Tour titles, year-end top 10 Sabalenka continued her late-season surge by reaching the semifinals in Adelaide. She came from a 3–5 final set deficit against Hsieh Su-wei before sliding past Bernarda Pera and shocking second seed Simona Halep, whom she had never won a set against before, in straight sets. She then lost in straight sets to eventual runner-up Dayana Yastremska. Despite her excellent start to the season, she was upset by Carla Suárez Navarro in two tie-breakers in the first round of the Australian Open. She enjoyed moderate success in doubles, with Mertens reaching the quarterfinals before losing to the Chan sisters. Her next tournament was the Dubai Tennis Championships, where she made the quarterfinals with wins over Maria Sakkari and doubles partner Mertens. There she faced Simona Halep. Despite taking the first set, she could not repeat her earlier upset, falling to the eventual champion in three sets. She rebounded at the Qatar Open, reaching the final with wins over Anett Kontaveit, Maria Sakkari, Zheng Saisai and Svetlana Kuznetsova. In the final, she defeated Petra Kvitová in straight sets to claim her third Premier-5 title. After tennis resumed in August due to COVID-19, she was the second seed in Lexington, where she survived Madison Brengle in three sets but then fell in a three set thriller to 16-year-old Coco Gauff. Her results continued to disappoint as she seeded fifth and crashed out in the second round of Cincinnati and New York to Jessica Pegula and a resurgent Victoria Azarenka. She had moderate success in doubles, reaching the quarterfinals of both events. Her results in singles began to improve on clay as she reached the semifinals in Strasbourg and the third round of the French Open losing to Elina Svitolina and Ons Jabeur, respectively. That was Sabalenka's last loss of the season. In Ostrava, she came from 5–2 in the decider down to avenge her Lexington loss to Gauff and lost the first ten games of her quarterfinal match against Sara Sorribes Tormo before winning the next twelve to win. In the final, she avenged her US Open loss to Azarenka, defeating her compatriot in straight sets. She then also took the Linz title by beating Elise Mertens in the final. This gave Sabalenka the first year-end top-10 finish in her career. 2021: World No. 1 in doubles, two major semifinals, world No. 2 in singles Sabalenka entered 2021 on a nine-match winning streak and participated in her first tournament at the Abu Dhabi Open as the fourth seed. She defeated Polona Hercog in straight sets, coming back from a 5–2 deficit in the first set, and then defeated Ajla Tomljanović and Ons Jabeur to reach the quarterfinals, similarly in straight sets. She beat Elena Rybakina in the quarterfinals, where she dropped her first set of the week before defeating Maria Sakkari in straight sets. In the final, Sabalenka defeated first-time finalist Veronika Kudermetova in straight sets, losing just four games in total. The run to the title at Abu Dhabi extended her winning streak to 15 matches and catapulted her to a new ranking of No. 7. Sabalenka went into the Australian Open looking to make a Grand Slam singles quarterfinal for the first time in her career. In three sets, she was defeated in the fourth round by 23-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams. Sabalenka won the doubles competition with Elise Mertens. By winning the title, Sabalenka ascended to world No. 1 in the doubles rankings for the first time in her career on 22 February 2021. As defending champion at the Qatar Open in Doha, and after receiving a first-round bye, Sabalenka was defeated in her first match by eventual finalist Garbiñe Muguruza in three sets. At the Dubai Tennis Championships, in her first tournament since becoming No. 1 in doubles, Sabalenka and Mertens received a bye in the first round. They lost their opening match to Jessica Pegula and Bethanie Mattek-Sands. Sabalenka cruised through to the quarterfinals in the singles event, defeating 15th seed Anett Kontaveit along the way, before losing to Muguruza for the second time in as many weeks, again in three sets. Sabalenka won the title at the Madrid Open, facing Ashleigh Barty in the championship match. It was a rematch of the 2021 Porsche Tennis Grand Prix final, two week earlier, as Sabalenka faced her vanquisher, world No. 1 Ashleigh Barty. As a result of her fourth WTA 1000 title, she entered the top 5 rankings in singles at world No. 4. Sabalenka and compatriot Victoria Azarenka won the doubles event at the German Open, defeating the top-seeded pair of Demi Schuurs and Nicole Melichar. Seeded second at Wimbledon, Sabalenka reached her first Grand Slam quarterfinal and semifinal, defeating 18th seed Elena Rybakina and 21st seed Ons Jabeur in straight sets, respectively. She then lost her semifinal match against Karolína Plíšková in three sets. As a result of her performance at Wimbledon, she reached a career-high ranking in the world No. 3 in the WTA singles rankings. Sabalenka became the third Belarusian woman to reach the last four of Wimbledon following Natasha Zvereva in 1998 and Victoria Azarenka in 2011 and 2012. Sabalenka continued her season at the Canadian Open in Montreal. She reached the semifinals but lost to Karolína Plíšková, in straight sets. She then lost her opening-round match against Paula Badosa at the Cincinnati Open. Despite the loss, Sabalenka reached a career-high ranking of world No. 2. At the US Open, Sabalenka reached her second consecutive (and second overall) major semifinal following wins over Danielle Collins, Elise Mertens, and Barbora Krejčíková. In the semifinal, she lost to Leylah Fernandez in three sets. Due to a positive COVID-19 test, Sabalenka was not able to play at Indian Wells. 2022: WTA Finals runner-up, US Open semifinal Sabalenka began her season at the 2022 Adelaide International 1 as the second seed. After a first-round bye, Sabalenka lost in the second round in straight sets to Kaja Juvan. Sabalenka served 18 double faults to five aces. Next, Sabalenka received a wildcard to enter the Adelaide International 2 and was seeded top, but lost her first round to a qualifier, world No. 93 Rebecca Peterson, in three sets. Once again, Sabalenka struggled with her serve, recording 21 double faults for the match. She entered the Australian Open as the second seed. Sabalenka's serving struggles continued, but she managed to dig out three-set wins against world No. 128 Storm Sanders, No. 100 Wang Xinyu, and No. 41 Markéta Vondroušová to advance to the fourth round for the second time in her career. She faced off against giant-killer Kaia Kanepi, who had defeated the 16th seed Angelique Kerber in the first round. Kanepi prevailed in a tight three-set match, which ended in a third-set super-tiebreak. Sabalenka managed to save four match points during the match, but also served 15 double faults to Kanepi's four. She found some form, reaching the quarterfinals at the Qatar Open, beating Alizé Cornet and Jil Teichmann, before losing to the eventual champion Iga Świątek in the semifinals. Following early exits in Indian Wells, Miami and Charleston, she reached her first final of 2022 at the Women's Stuttgart Open, defeating Bianca Andreescu, world No. 6 Anett Kontaveit and Paula Badosa, the new world No. 2, eventually losing to world No. 1, Świątek, again. Entering as the defending champion at the Madrid Open, Sabalenka was knocked out by Amanda Anisimova in the first round. At the Italian Open, after defeating Zhang Shuai, Amanda Anisimova, and Jessica Pegula, she lost to Świątek in the semifinals for the third time in 2022. At the French Open, Sabalenka lost in the third round to Camila Giorgi in three sets. Sabalenka began the grass-court season at the Libéma Open as the top seed, where she made the final, losing to Ekaterina Alexandrova. She then entered the German Open as the third seed but lost in the first round to Veronika Kudermetova. Due to Wimbledon's ruling on Russian and Belarusian players, Sabalenka was banned from participating in the event due to the Russia's invasion of Ukraine, cutting her grass season short. She opened the US hardcourt swing in Silicon Valley Classic, losing to Daria Kasatkina in the quarterfinals. She then played the Canadian Open, losing to Coco Gauff in the third round. Her best result since Stuttgart came at Cincinnati Open, where as the sixth seed, she made the semifinals, defeating Anna Kalinskaya, Shelby Rogers, and Zhang Shuai before losing to eventual champion Caroline Garcia in three sets. She then made her best run of the season at the US Open. Seeded sixth, she defeated Catherine Harrison, Kaia Kanepi, Clara Burel, 19th seed Danielle Collins, and 22nd seed & former world No. 1 Karolína Plíšková to reach the semifinals, matching her previous best result from 2021. In her second-round match against Kanepi, Sabalenka came back from 6–2, 5–1 down to win in three sets, saving two match points in the process. In the semifinals, she was defeated by world No. 1, Iga Świątek, for the fourth time this season. At the San Diego Open, Sabalenka defeated Sloane Stephens in three sets before losing to Donna Vekić in the quarterfinals. In receipt of a first-round bye in Guadalajara, she lost to Liudmila Samsonova in the second round. However, she managed to qualify for the WTA Finals for a second straight year. There, she reached the final, defeating world No. 3 Jessica Pegula and No. 2 Ons Jabeur in the round-robin stage, and No. 1 Iga Świątek in the semifinals, but lost to Caroline Garcia in straight sets. She became the fourth woman to defeat the top 3 players at the same tournament, joining Steffi Graf (1999 Roland Garros), Serena Williams (2002 Miami Open), and Venus Williams (2008 WTA Finals). 2023: Australian Open champion, US Open final, No. 1 Sabalenka entered Adelaide 1 as the second seed. She reached her first final of the season by defeating Liudmila Samsonova, Markéta Vondroušová, Irina-Camelia Begu en route. Then she defeated Czech teenage qualifier Linda Nosková to win her first title since Madrid 2021 and 11th career title without dropping a single set. Sabalenka entered the Australian Open as the fifth seed and one of the title contenders. She defeated Tereza Martincová, Shelby Rogers, former doubles partner and 26th seed Elise Mertens, and the previous week's Adelaide 2 champion and world no. 10 Belinda Bencic to reach her first-ever Australian Open quarterfinal. She then beat Donna Vekić to reach her fourth Grand Slam semifinal, and won her tenth consecutive match by beating Magda Linette in the semifinal to make her first ever major final. In the final, she defeated reigning Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina in three sets to win her first major title. She became the second Belarusian to ever win a major singles title, and the first since Victoria Azarenka a decade earlier. After winning the title in Melbourne, Sabalenka rose back to No. 2 in the WTA rankings. In Dubai, Sabalenka defeated Lauren Davis and Jeļena Ostapenko to reach the quarterfinals, where she fell to the eventual champion Barbora Krejčíková in three sets. She then participated in Indian Wells, where she defeated Evgeniya Rodina and took revenge on Krejčíková for her last defeat in three sets. Then she beat Coco Gauff and Maria Sakkari to reach her first Indian Wells final, where she lost to Elena Rybakina in a rematch of the 2023 Australian Open final. In Miami, Sabalenka defeated Shelby Rogers, Marie Bouzková, and Krejčíková each in straight sets to reach the quarterfinals, where she was defeated by Sorana Cîrstea. Sabalenka started her clay court season in Stuttgart, where she defeated Krejčíková, Paula Badosa, and Anastasia Potapova to reach her fourth final of the year. In the final, a rematch of last year's final, she was defeated by world No. 1 Iga Świątek in straight sets for the second consecutive year. In Madrid, Sabalenka reached her second final at this tournament, defeating Sorana Cîrstea, Camila Osorio, Mirra Andreeva, Mayar Sherif, and Maria Sakkari, dropping just one set en route to the final. In the final, she once again faced Świątek, and won her third title of the year in three sets. In Rome, Sabalenka suffered her first early defeat of the year, losing in straight sets to former Grand Slam champion Sofia Kenin. At the French Open, she reached the semifinals without dropping a set, defeating Marta Kostyuk, Iryna Shymanovich, Kamilla Rakhimova, Sloane Stephens, and Elina Svitolina. In the semifinals, she lost to Karolína Muchová in three sets, despite leading 5–2 and holding match point. Sabalenka began her grass court season in Berlin, defeating Vera Zvonareva before losing to Veronika Kudermetova. Sabalenka next competed at Wimbledon, where she reached her fourth straight major semifinal. Sabalenka defeated Panna Udvardy, Varvara Gracheva, Anna Blinkova, Ekaterina Alexandrova, and Madison Keys, before losing to Ons Jabeur, despite leading by a set and a break. Her next tournament was Montréal, where she defeated Petra Martić, before losing in three sets to eventual runner-up Liudmila Samsonova. She next reached the semifinals in Cincinnati, defeating Ann Li, Daria Kasatkina, and Ons Jabeur, before falling once again in three sets to Karolína Muchová. At the US Open, Sabalenka reached the semifinals by defeating Maryna Zanevska, Jodie Burrage, Clara Burel, Daria Kasatkina, and Zheng Qinwen in straight sets, dropping just 21 games in all five matches. Following these wins, Sabalenka became the first player since Serena Williams in 2016 to reach the semifinals of all four Grand Slam events in one year. She faced Madison Keys in the semifinals, recovering from a set and break deficit and serving to stay in the match four times in the final two sets. In her second major final of the year, Sabalenka faced Coco Gauff, and lost in three sets. Due to the loss of world No. 1 Iga Świątek in the fourth round, Sabalenka became, for the first time, the world No. 1 tennis player at the conclusion of the tournament. Sabalenka became the 29th player to be ranked No. 1 in the world on the WTA Tour, and the second Belarusian, after Victoria Azarenka. She was also just the eighth female player to have been ranked No. 1 in the Open Era in both singles and doubles at some point in their careers. With Sabalenka reaching the final, she became the first woman since Serena Williams to reach the semifinals or better at all four majors in a season since 2016. After the US Open, Sabalenka reached the quarterfinals of the China Open, losing to Rybakina. At the WTA Finals, she defeated Rybakina and Sakkari and lost to Pegula in the group stage. Sabalenka then lost in the semifinals to Świątek, who would go on to win the event. As a result, Świątek reclaimed the world No. 1 ranking and Sabalenka finished as year-end No. 2. In December, Sabalenka was named the ITF World Champion. 2024: Australian and US Open titles In January, Sabalenka reached the final of the Brisbane International, defeating three seeded opponents: Zhu Lin (third round), Daria Kasatkina (quarterfinal) and Victoria Azarenka (semifinal) before falling to Elena Rybakina. Sabalenka won the 2024 Australian Open without losing a set and became the first woman to defend her title there since Azarenka in 2013. Sabalenka received praise for her consistent and dominant performances throughout the tournament. Notable victories included wins against former world No. 2, Barbora Krejčíková (9th seed), reigning US Open champion Coco Gauff (4th seed) and Zheng Qinwen (12th seed) who was playing in her first Grand Slam final. Gauff had previously defeated Sabalenka a few months prior in the final of the 2023 US Open. In the final itself, she did not commit any double faults, in stark contrast to previous performances at major tournaments. After less successful appearances in Dubai, Indian Wells, and Miami, she reached the quarterfinals at Stuttgart, where she was eliminated by Markéta Vondroušová. As the defending champion in Madrid, she defeated Magda Linette, Robin Montgomery, Danielle Collins and Mirra Andreeva before edging a three-set semifinal victory over world No. 4 Elena Rybakina. In total, she played four three-set matches to reach the final, dropping 60 games in the process, the most to reach the women's singles final in Madrid. In a rematch of the previous year's final, she faced Świątek. During an intense three-set battle, Sabalenka had three championship points, but eventually lost. In Rome she saved three match points in her fourth-round match against Elina Svitolina and endured a lower-back injury before defeating her opponent in three sets. In the quarterfinal, she earned her third WTA Top-10 win of the year by defeating Jeļena Ostapenko. It was followed by a semifinal victory over Danielle Collins, before Sabalenka fell again to Świątek in the final, this time in straight sets. She entered the French Open as the second seed, and defeated Erika Andreeva, Moyuka Uchijima, Paula Badosa and 22nd seed Emma Navarro in straight sets. In the quarterfinal, she was visibly hampered by stomach issues and lost to Mirra Andreeva in three tight sets. It was the first time in a Grand Slam tournament since 2022 US Open where she did not reach at least the semifinals. With this loss, she fell in the WTA ranking to No. 3. Sabalenka suffered a right shoulder injury that forced her to retire during her quarterfinal match against Anna Kalinskaya at the 2024 Berlin Ladies Open in June, and she withdrew from the 2024 Wimbledon Championships, having failed to recover in time to play. She won the Cincinnati Open in August, with a victory over Iga Swiatek in the semifinals and over Jessica Pegula in the final. In September, Sabalenka won the US Open, overcoming qualifier Priscilla Hon, Lucia Bronzetti, 29th seed Ekaterina Alexandrova, former doubles partner Elise Mertens, Olympic champion and 7th seed Zheng Qinwen and 13th seed Emma Navarro, before defeating sixth seed Jessica Pegula in straight sets in the final to claim her third Grand Slam title. National representation Fed Cup Early appearances Sabalenka represented Belarus at the Junior Fed Cup in 2014, with the team finishing in sixth place. She then made her senior Fed Cup debut for Belarus in April 2016, losing a dead rubber doubles match against Russia. Nonetheless, the Belarusian team led by Victoria Azarenka and Aliaksandra Sasnovich won the tie to qualify for the top-tier World Group the following season for the first time in their history. 2017: Surprise runner-up in World Group debut The Belarus Fed Cup team made their debut in the World Group and ultimately reached the final, despite being the underdogs in all three ties. Little was expected from the team because they were without their veteran leader Azarenka, who missed the first two ties on maternity leave and the last because of a custody battle. Without her, Belarus was led by Sabalenka and Sasnovich, neither of whom had ever been ranked above No. 76 by the time of the final. However, they did have the advantage of playing all of their ties at home in Minsk. The ties in the quarterfinals against the Netherlands in February and the semi-finals against Switzerland in April both played out in the same way. While Sabalenka lost her opening matches to their opponents' respective top-ranked players of Kiki Bertens and Timea Bacsinszky, Sasnovich was able to give Belarus a 2–1 lead in each instance. Sabalenka then clinched both ties, with wins over Michaëlla Krajicek and No. 54 Viktorija Golubic, respectively. She was only ranked No. 125 at the time of the semifinal, with no career tour match wins outside of Fed Cup. On the opening day of the final against the United States, Sabalenka upset the reigning US Open champion and world No. 13, Sloane Stephens, to level the tie after Sasnovich lost her first rubber to No. 10, CoCo Vandeweghe. The next day began with Sabalenka losing to Vandeweghe, before Sasnovich again levelled the tie by defeating Stephens. Sabalenka and Sasnovich were then selected for the decisive doubles rubber for the Fed Cup crown, but the duo were comprehensively defeated by Vandeweghe and Shelby Rogers. Despite finishing as runner-up, Belarus's Fed Cup success helped popularize women's tennis in Belarus, and vaulted Sabalenka and Sasnovich into international prominence. Sasnovich said, "When we played the quarterfinals and semi-finals in Minsk, a lot of people were coming to see our matches. They finally saw tennis in life, and it's like a popularization... I want my country to improve even more in tennis, because I think we can have even more from Belarus." 2018–19: Avoiding demotion, another semifinal Belarus was unable to repeat their 2017 Fed Cup success in 2018. Their quarterfinal tie was held in Minsk against Germany. Although Sabalenka won both of her singles rubbers, Sasnovich and Vera Lapko lost each of theirs to set up a decisive doubles rubber. Sabalenka and doubles specialist Lidziya Marozava were selected for the match, with Sabalenka playing on short rest directly after her last singles match. After taking the first set against Anna-Lena Grönefeld and Tatjana Maria, they ultimately lost the rubber and the tie. Their next tie was again contested in Minsk as part of the World Group play-offs, with Slovakia competing to take Belarus's place in the World Group the following season. Sabalenka and Sasnovich each split their two singles rubbers, with Sabalenka being upset by Viktória Kužmová. Doubles specialists Lapko and Marozava were chosen for the final rubber and the pair won the match to keep Belarus in the World Group for 2019. In the 2019 Fed Cup, Belarus were drawn against Germany in the quarterfinals for the second consecutive year. After Sasnovich won the opening rubber against Maria, Sabalenka won both of her singles rubbers against Andrea Petkovic and Laura Siegemund to clinch the tie. They advanced to face Australia in the semi-finals. Only two players from each team participated: Sabalenka and Azarenka for Belarus, and Ashleigh Barty and Samantha Stosur for Australia. Both Sabalenka and Azarenka defeated Stosur, but lost to Barty. In the decisive doubles rubber, Barty and Stosur won in three sets to eliminate Belarus. Rivalries Iga Świątek Sabalenka and Iga Świątek have met 12 times since 2021, with Świątek in control of the head-to-head at 8–4. Their rivalry is seen as becoming one of the greatest in women's tennis. Their most praised match is the 2024 Madrid Open final in which Świątek defeated defending champion Sabalenka in three sets in 3 hours and 11 minutes, saving three championship points in the process. Ashleigh Barty Sabalenka and Ashleigh Barty have met 8 times since 2018, with the head-to-head tied at 4–4. Elena Rybakina Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina have met 9 times since 2019, with Sabalenka in control of the head-to-head at 6–3. Both Sabalenka and Rybakina are aggressive baseliner, and they have the potential to become a great rivalry. One of their epic match is the 2024 Madrid Open where Sabalenka came back from a set and a break down and won 1-6, 7-5, 7-6 (7-5). Moreover, they also played at the 2023 BNP Paribas Open – Women's singles where Rybakina won 7-6 (13-11), 6-4 to gain her first victory against Sabalenka. Coco Gauff Sabalenka and Coco Gauff have met 7 times since 2020, with Gauff in control of the head-to-head at 4–3. Barbora Krejčíková Sabalenka and Barbora Krejčíková have met 7 times since 2020, with Sabalenka in control of the head-to-head at 6–1. Donna Vekić Sabalenka and Donna Vekić have met 8 times since 2016, with Vekić in control of the head-to-head at 6–2. Karolína Muchová Sabalenka and Karolína Muchová have met 4 times since 2019, with Muchova in control of the head-to-head at 3–1. Danielle Collins Sabalenka and Danielle Collins have met 6 times since 2018, with Sabalenka in control of the head-to-head at 6–0. Amanda Anisimova Sabalenka and Amanda Anisimova have met 7 times since 2019, with Anisimova in control of the head-to-head at 5–2. Ekaterina Alexandrova Sabalenka and Ekaterina Alexandrova have met 7 times since 2017, with Sabalenka in control of the head-to-head at 4–3. Playing style Sabalenka is a baseliner with a powerful, aggressive style. She has a powerful serve, and equally powerful groundstrokes, and her game is based around taking control of points and hitting winners. She has said "I hope all my shots can be strong, but my serve, I feel is the best." Sabalenka's strong serve, which can reach 200 km/h (124 mph), allows her to serve a large number of aces; in 2023, she ranked third of all players in aces served, at 401. Her serve is inconsistent, however, leading to a high double fault count; she served 166 double faults in 2020, the most of any player. Sabalenka notably suffered from the yips from the 2021 WTA Finals and into 2022, serving 152 double faults in 11 matches, an average of 14 double faults a match. Her second serve began to show improvements from August 2022, having worked with a biomechanics expert following the 2022 Canadian Open. Overall, Sabalenka served 440 double faults in 2022. Her groundstrokes are often hit with relentless pace and depth. Tennis broadcaster and former professional player Mary Carillo praised the power in her style of play along with her fierce attitude, describing her game as "big babe tennis personified". Although Sabalenka can hit a lot of winners, they can be accompanied by a lot of unforced errors. In her first career top ten victory against Karolína Plíšková, she hit 40 winners and 39 unforced errors. Her second career top ten victory against Caroline Wozniacki was similar, featuring 64 winners and 54 unforced errors. Her coach Dmitry Tursunov credited her improvement in the summer of 2018 on developing better shot selection. He said, "The major thing is she stopped trying [to] hit a winner with every shot." Sabalenka prefers playing on grass and hard courts. She commented, "This year [in 2017] I played for the first time on grass courts [during Wimbledon]. And I really liked it. I enjoyed my game on the grass courts, the feeling of grass, that's nice. I think my game is suited for grass and for hard courts." On clay, she made both the singles and doubles finals at the 2018 Ladies Open Lugano. She won her first clay court title at the 2021 Madrid Open. Sabalenka frequently accompanies her shots with loud grunting. She said, "Honestly, I don't even hear myself when I am playing." She expressed her hope that her grunting does not disturb her opponents. At the Australian Open in 2018, the crowd mocked her habit in a match against Ashleigh Barty. Coaches Sabalenka had worked with Khalil Ibrahimov for two years up until early 2018. At this point, she began working with former Swedish professional tennis players Magnus Norman and Magnus Tideman. Dmitry Tursunov became her primary coach in time for the grass court season in 2018. Sabalenka briefly split with Tursunov after the 2019 US Open. Although they reunited later in the year, she made the split permanent at the end of the season. Sabalenka briefly worked with Dieter Kindlmann before switching coaches to her longtime hitting partner and compatriot Anton Dubrov, aged 25 at the time. As of 2024, her coaching team includes Dubrov; fitness trainer Jason Stacy, a martial arts expert; and hitting partner Andrei Vasilevski. Sponsorships Sabalenka has been endorsed by Nike for apparel and shoes since the beginning of her professional career. Nike began to design custom garments for Sabalenka starting from the 2023 US Open. She is also endorsed by Wilson, specifically using the Wilson Blade range of racquets. Personal life Sabalenka has a tiger tattoo on her left arm that has earned her the nickname "The Tiger", which she has used to refer to herself. She studied at the Belarusian State University in a sports-related program. Her tennis idols growing up were Serena Williams and Maria Sharapova. Sabalenka's father, Sergey Sabalenka, a former ice hockey player, died suddenly in 2019 at age 43. He had meningitis. Sabalenka's boyfriend since 2021, Konstantin Koltsov, died of an apparent suicide in March 2024 at age 42. Sabalenka later confirmed the couple were separated at the time of his death. Political views In August 2020, during the 2020–2021 Belarusian protests, Sabalenka criticized the government of Alexander Lukashenko for its dispersal of peaceful protests and called for no violence but was criticized by members of the Belarusian opposition for not using her platform to advocate the protest movement's goals. She separately praised the Belarusian government for "everything that is done for the country in general and for sports in particular". In 2020, during widespread protests after the disputed election, Sabalenka signed an open letter that said that sport should remain outside of politics. Belarusian media considered the letter supportive of Lukashenko, as it followed an open letter by Belarusian sporting figures demanding the election be invalidated. Following the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Sabalenka expressed support for the Ukrainian people and the use of Ukraine-colored ribbons: "I feel like people need our support. I just hope they understand that we're all really concerned. I think even 'sad' isn't even the right word." In January 2023, with regard to the war and the banning of Russian and Belarusian players from the 2022 Wimbledon Championships, Sabalenka said, "I just understand that it's not my fault." Her comments on the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the situation of Ukrainian tennis players were criticized by Lesia Tsurenko's coach Nikita Vlasov and former Ukrainian player Sergiy Stakhovsky for lacking substance and compassion. Sabalenka later indicated support for ending the war in Ukraine, saying: "If I could stop the war I would do it but unfortunately that doesn't lie in my hands. I just hope for peace." During a press conference at the 2023 French Open, when asked about the war by Ukrainian journalist Daria Meshcheriakova, she said: "Nobody in this world, Russian athletes or Belarusian athletes, support the war. Nobody. How can we support the war? Nobody, normal people will never support it." She later said: "I don't want my country to be in any conflict, I don't support war, meaning I don't support Lukashenko right now." Television and film Sabalenka appears in the tennis docuseries Break Point, which premiered on Netflix on 13 January 2023. Career statistics Grand Slam tournament performance timelines Singles Doubles Grand Slam tournament finals Singles: 4 (3 titles, 1 runner-up) Doubles: 2 (2 titles) Year-end championships finals Singles: 1 (runner-up) Notes References External links Official website (in English) Aryna Sabalenka at the Women's Tennis Association Aryna Sabalenka at the International Tennis Federation Aryna Sabalenka at the Billie Jean King Cup Aryna Sabalenka at Olympedia

Coco_Gauff

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coco_Gauff

Cori Dionne "Coco" Gauff ( GAWF; born March 13, 2004) is an American professional tennis player. Gauff has career-high WTA rankings of world No. 2 in singles and of world No. 1 in doubles. She has won eight WTA Tour singles titles, including the 2023 US Open, and nine doubles titles, including the 2024 French Open. Gauff made her WTA Tour debut in March 2019 at the Miami Open at the age of 15. She received a wildcard into the qualifying draw at the 2019 Wimbledon Championships, where she became the youngest player in the tournament's history to qualify for the main draw. There, she won over Venus Williams and reached the fourth round. Gauff won her first WTA Tour singles title at the 2019 Linz Open. She reached her first major final in women's doubles at the 2021 US Open and reached her first Grand Slam singles final at the 2022 French Open. In 2023, Gauff won her first WTA 1000 title at the Cincinnati Open and her first Major singles title at the US Open. Early life Gauff was born in Atlanta, Georgia on March 13, 2004, to Candi (née Odom) and Corey Gauff, both from Delray Beach, Florida. She has two younger brothers. Her father played college basketball at Georgia State University and later worked as a health care executive. Her mother was a track and field athlete at Florida State University and worked as an educator. Gauff lived her early years in Atlanta. She began playing tennis at the age of six. When she was seven, her family moved back to Delray Beach to have better training opportunities. She worked with Gerard Loglo at the New Generation Tennis Academy starting from the age of eight. Gauff recalled, "I wasn't much of a team person. I loved tennis. I was so-so about it in the beginning because when I was younger I didn't want to practice at all. I just wanted to play with my friends. When I turned eight, that was when I played 'Little Mo' and after that I decided to do that for the rest of my life." Gauff's parents gave up their careers to focus on training their daughter. Her father later became her primary coach, while her mother oversaw her homeschooling. Her father had limited experience playing tennis growing up. At the age of 10, Gauff began to train at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy in France run by Patrick Mouratoglou, longtime coach of Serena Williams. Mouratoglou commented, "I'll always remember the first time I saw Coco. She came over to the Mouratoglou Academy in 2014 to try out and she impressed me with her determination, athleticism and fighting spirit.... When she looks at you and tells you she will be number one, you can only believe it." He helped sponsor Gauff through his Champ'Seed foundation, which he created to provide funding for talented juniors who did not have the financial resources to afford high-level training. Gauff won the USTA Clay Court National 12-and-under title at the age of 10 years and three months to become the youngest champion in the tournament's history. Junior career French Open singles champion, US Open doubles champion Gauff is a former world No. 1 junior. She entered the prestigious Les Petits As 14-and-under tournament in 2016 at age 12 and made it to the semifinals. Gauff began playing on the ITF Junior Circuit at the age of 13, skipping directly to the highest-level Grade A and Grade 1 tournaments. She finished runner-up to Jaimee Fourlis in her third career event, the Grade 1 Prince George's County Junior Tennis Championships in Maryland. At her next event, Gauff made her junior Grand Slam debut at the 2017 US Open and finished runner-up to Amanda Anisimova. Gauff did not drop a set before the final in either tournament. She became the youngest girls' singles finalist in US Open history. After beginning 2018 with a semifinal at the Grade 1 Traralgon Junior International in Australia, Gauff lost her opening round match at the Australian Open. She did not enter another tournament in singles until the French, where she won her first career junior Grand Slam tournament title at the 2018 French Open. She did not drop a set until the final, where she came from behind to defeat McNally in three sets. With the title, Gauff became the fifth youngest girls' singles champion in French Open history. A month later, following another final win against McNally at the Grade 1 Junior International Roehampton, she became the No. 1 junior in the world. Gauff reached the quarterfinals in singles at the final two Grand Slam tournaments of the year. She fared better in doubles at both tournaments, reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon with partner María Lourdes Carlé and winning her first junior Grand Slam doubles title at the 2018 US Open with McNally. Gauff and McNally defeated compatriots Hailey Baptiste and Dalayna Hewitt in the final, all in straight sets. In September 2018, Gauff represented the United States at the Junior Fed Cup with Alexa Noel and Connie Ma. The team reached the final against Ukraine. After Gauff won her singles rubber and Noel lost hers, Gauff and Noel won the Junior Fed Cup by defeating Lyubov Kostenko and Dasha Lopatetskaya 11–9 in a match tiebreak. Gauff finished the year with another Grade A title in singles at the Orange Bowl. She ended the season ranked world No. 2 behind Clara Burel. Professional career 2018–19: First titles, top 100 Gauff made her debut on the ITF Women's Circuit in May 2018 at the age of 14 as a qualifier in the $25k event at Osprey, where she won her first professional match. She received a wild card into qualifying at the US Open, but lost her opening match five months after turning 14 years old. In her first 2019 tournament, she finished runner-up in doubles at the $100k Midland Tennis Classic alongside Ann Li. Two weeks later, Gauff played her next event at the $25k level in Surprise and reached the finals in both singles and doubles. She finished runner-up in singles and won her first WTA Tour title in doubles alongside Paige Hourigan. In March, at the Miami Open, she recorded her first WTA Tour match win against Caty McNally. Gauff lost the second round of qualifying at the French Open. At Wimbledon, she defeated Aliona Bolsova and Greet Minnen. Gauff became the youngest player to reach the main draw at Wimbledon by qualifying in the Open Era at the age of 15 years and three months. In her main-draw debut, she upset five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams in straight sets. Gauff won over Magdaléna Rybáriková and No. 60 Polona Hercog, saving two match points against Hercog. The hype surrounding Gauff's first-round match win led to her third rounder moving to Centre Court. She was eliminated with a fourth-round loss to eventual champion Simona Halep. All four of Gauff's matches were most-watched matches on ESPN on their respective days during the first week of coverage. With this performance, she rose to world No. 141. Gauff played in one US Open Series tournament at the Washington Open, where she qualified for the main draw but lost in the first round. She entered the doubles event with McNally and defeated Fanny Stollár and Maria Sanchez in the final for their first career WTA title in their first joint WTA. At the US Open, Gauff wild-carded into the singles and doubles main draws. She continued her Grand Slam success in singles with two three-set wins over Anastasia Potapova and Tímea Babos, both on Louis Armstrong. She was defeated in the third round by world No. 1 and defending champion Naomi Osaka. In doubles, Gauff and McNally won two matches, including an upset over ninth seeds Nicole Melichar and Květa Peschke. They lost in the third round to eventual runners-up Ashleigh Barty and Victoria Azarenka. Although Gauff lost in qualifying at the Linz Open, she entered the main draw as a lucky loser and won the title, notably upsetting top seed Kiki Bertens in the quarterfinals for her first top-10 victory. She defeated Jeļena Ostapenko in the final to become the youngest WTA player, at age 15, to win a singles title since 2004. With this title as well as a semifinal in doubles with McNally, Gauff made her top-100 debuts in both the WTA singles and doubles rankings. Gauff and McNally ended their year with a second WTA doubles title at the Luxembourg Open over Kaitlyn Christian and Alexa Guarachi. 2020: Australian Open fourth round Starting 2020 at the Auckland Open ranked No. 67 in the world, Gauff defeated Viktória Kužmová before losing to Laura Siegemund in the second round. Playing doubles with McNally, Gauff reached the semifinals. At the Australian Open, Gauff defeated Venus Williams in straight sets in the first round and Sorana Cîrstea in the second round, making it three straight Grand Slams where she reached the third round. She defeated defending champion Osaka in the third, becoming the youngest player to defeat a top-5 player since Jennifer Capriati beat Gabriela Sabatini at the 1991 US Open. In the fourth round, she lost to the eventual champion, Sofia Kenin. In doubles, Gauff and McNally recorded their best result in a Grand Slam championship to date, reaching the quarterfinals before falling to second seeds and eventual champions, Kristina Mladenovic and Tímea Babos. Gauff beat two top-50 players at the Lexington Challenger, before losing in straight sets to world No. 49, Jennifer Brady. At the Western and Southern Open, played in New York, Gauff lost in the first round to world No. 21, Maria Sakkari. At the US Open, Gauff was defeated in the first round by Anastasija Sevastova. Gauff, ranked 53, beat world No. 34, Ons Jabeur, in the first round of the Italian Open before losing to two-time Grand Slam champion Garbiñe Muguruza. At the French Open, Gauff defeated the ninth seed and world No. 13, Johanna Konta, in the first round, but went on to lose to eventual quarterfinalist Martina Trevisan in a second-round match in which Gauff hit 19 double faults. At the Ostrava Open, she qualified for the main draw and was defeated by world No. 12, Aryna Sabalenka, in the second round. 2021: Top 20, first major singles quarterfinal & doubles final Starting the year ranked No. 48, in the Abu Dhabi Open, she beat Norwegian Ulrikke Eikeri before falling in the next round to Maria Sakkari. At the Australian Open, in singles, Gauff again beat Teichmann in the first round, but fell in the round of 64 to the fifth-seeded Elina Svitolina, in straight sets. In doubles, she and McNally failed to Demi Schuurs and Nicole Melichar in the quarterfinals. At Adelaide, she failed to second seeded Belinda Bencic. In doubles, she partnered with Canadian Sharon Fichman, and they bowed out in the first round to Duan Yingying and Zheng Saisai. This run brought her to a then-career-high of No. 38 in singles. After the Dubai Championships, she reaches a career high of No. 35 in singles. In the Miami Open, she played her first WTA 1000 event while seeded (as the 31st). In May, Gauff reached the first semifinal at a WTA 1000 in her career at the Italian Open due to then-No. 1, Barty, retiring with a right arm injury in their quarterfinal match. As a result, she entered top 30 for the first time. She then lost to the eventual champion, Iga Świątek. Gauff won her second singles and third doubles (with McNally) titles at the Emilia-Romagna Open in Parma. She became the youngest player to win both the singles and doubles titles at an event since Maria Sharapova won both titles at the 2004 Birmingham Classic. Gauff thus rose to new career-high rankings of world No. 25 in singles and No. 41 in doubles. She became the youngest American to make her top 25 debut in nearly 23 years (since Serena Williams, June 8, 1998). Seeded 24th at the French Open (her first time being seeded at a Grand Slam), she beat Aleksandra Krunić and Wang Qiang in straight sets, received a walkover when leading one set to love against 13th seed and Australian Open runner-up Jennifer Brady, and beat 25th seed Ons Jabeur in just 53 minutes to reach her first Grand Slam quarterfinal. As a result, she became the youngest female player (17 years, three months) to reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal since Nicole Vaidišová at the 2006 French Open, the youngest American to reach a quarterfinal at Roland Garros since Jennifer Capriati in 1993 and the youngest American to reach the quarterfinals of any Grand Slam since Venus Williams reached the 1997 US Open final. Subsequently, Gauff was eliminated after losing in straight sets to the eventual champion, unseeded Barbora Krejčíková. As a result, she reached a new career-high of No. 23. At Wimbledon, Gauff reached the fourth round for a second consecutive time defeating Elena Vesnina in straight sets in 70 minutes, and Kaja Juvan in straight sets in the third round. Gauff lost her next match to Angelique Kerber in straight sets, eliminating her from the tournament. She also reached the third round in doubles with Caty McNally and as a result entered the top 40 in the doubles rankings at No. 38 on 12 July. At 17 years old, she was selected for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, becoming the second youngest American player after Jennifer Capriati competed at 16 in 1992 and the youngest Olympic tennis player of any gender since Mario Ančić in 2000. However, she tested positive for COVID-19 and was forced to withdraw. At the Cincinnati Open, Gauff reached the second round and lost to second seed, and world No. 2, Naomi Osaka. At the US Open, Gauff beat Magda Linette in the first round, before falling to Sloane Stephens in the next. In the women's doubles, Gauff and McNally stormed into their first Grand Slam semifinal without dropping a set and in the finals, they lost to Sam Stosur and Zhang Shuai. 2022: French Open final & top 5 in singles, world No. 1 in doubles Seeded 18th at the Australian Open, Gauff lost in the first round against Wang Qiang in straight sets. In February, Gauff reached the quarterfinals at the Qatar Open by defeating Shelby Rogers, Caroline Garcia and third seed Paula Badosa. In the quarterfinals, Gauff lost to sixth seed Maria Sakkari. In doubles, Gauff paired with Jessica Pegula to win her first WTA 1000 doubles title, beating third-seeded pair of Veronika Kudermetova and Elise Mertens in the final. With the win, she climbed to a career-high No. 10 in the doubles rankings on February 28, 2022. Gauff reached her first Grand Slam singles final at the French Open, defeating Rebecca Marino, Alison Van Uytvanck, Kaia Kanepi, 31st seed Elise Mertens, Sloane Stephens, and Martina Trevisan, before losing to Iga Świątek in straight sets. She reached the final in doubles with Jessica Pegula where they were defeated by Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic. As a result, she secured a new career-high of world No. 13 in singles and the top 5 in doubles. After winning her first two matches at Wimbledon Championships as the 11th seed against unseeded Romanians Elena-Gabriela Ruse and Mihaela Buzărnescu, Gauff lost in the third round to 20th Amanda Anisimova in three sets. As a result, she reached a new career-high ranking of world No. 11, on 11 July. Seeded sixth at the Silicon Valley Classic, she reached the quarterfinals defeating Anhelina Kalinina in the first round, and next Naomi Osaka who saved seven match points. In her quarterfinal match, she struggled with her serve and lost in straight sets to Paula Badosa. At the Canadian Open, she became the youngest player to reach back-to-back quarterfinals in Canada since Jennifer Capriati in 1990 and 1991. She beat sixth seed Aryna Sabalenka, a day after ousting Wimbledon champion Elena Rybakina, winning both matches in a third-set tiebreak. She lost to eventual champion Simona Halep, in straight sets. Seeded third in doubles at the same tournament she reached the semifinals with Pegula defeating fifth seeds Desirae Krawczyk and Demi Schuurs. Next they defeated Madison Keys/Sania Mirza in the semifinals and Nicole Melichar/Ellen Perez in the final to win their second WTA 1000 title together. As a result, Gauff became the No. 1 doubles player in the world. At the US Open, she reached the quarterfinals of this major for the first time with wins over 20th seed Madison Keys and Zhang Shuai becoming the youngest American woman to achieve this feat since 2009, when Melanie Oudin was 17. As a result, she guaranteed herself a top 10 debut in the singles rankings at world No. 8 after the tournament. Subsequently, Gauff was defeated by Caroline Garcia, in straight sets. Seeded second in doubles, Gauff and partner Pegula were defeated in the first round by Leylah Fernandez and Daria Saville. In October, Gauff became the youngest player in singles since Maria Sharapova in 2005 to qualify for the year-end WTA Finals championships. She and partner Jessica Pegula also both qualified for the doubles' championships. Gauff and Pegula are the first Americans since Serena and Venus Williams in 2009 to qualify for both the singles and doubles year-end championships. 2023: US Open singles champion, WTA 1000 singles & doubles titles Gauff started her 2023 season at the Auckland Open, where she defeated Rebeka Masarova in the final in straight sets. At the Australian Open, Gauff advanced to the fourth round, where she lost to Jeļena Ostapenko in straight sets. At the Qatar Ladies Open, Gauff reached the quarterfinals after defeating two-time champion Petra Kvitová in the second round. At the same tournament in doubles, Gauff and Jessica Pegula defended their title, defeating Lyudmyla Kichenok and Jeļena Ostapenko in a three-set match. At Dubai, Gauff reached the semifinals by defeating Madison Keys in the quarterfinals, before losing to Iga Świątek. At Indian Wells, Gauff lost in the quarterfinals to second seed and eventual runner-up, Aryna Sabalenka. In Miami, Gauff lost against 27th seed Anastasia Potapova in the third round. In doubles at the same tournament, Gauff won her fifth overall and third WTA 1000 team title with her partner Jessica Pegula. They became the first all-American duo to win the Miami Open doubles title in 22 years, defeating Leylah Fernandez and Taylor Townsend in the final. In August, Gauff won the Washington Open title, beating Maria Sakkari in the final. It was Gauff's first WTA 500 singles title, and her biggest singles title to date. She became the first teenager to win the tournament. Gauff won her first WTA 1000 title at the 2023 Cincinnati Open, defeating world No. 1 Iga Świątek in the semifinals and world No. 10, Karolína Muchová, in the final. In September, Gauff won the US Open, her first major singles title, beating world No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka in three sets and becoming the first American teenager to win the US Open since Serena Williams in 1999. As a result, she reached world No. 3 in the rankings on 11 September 2023 and was nominated at the Laureus World Sports Awards for Breakthrough of the Year. Gauff and Pegula returned to the world No. 1 doubles ranking on 23 October 2023, after qualifying for the 2023 WTA Finals as a pair and also individually, becoming the first players to qualify in both disciplines in back-to-back years since Sara Errani in 2012–13. 2024: World No. 2 in singles, French Open doubles champion At the Italian Open she reached the semifinal for the second time at this tournament and second at the WTA 1000 level for the season defeating Magdalena Fręch, Jaqueline Cristian, Paula Badosa and seventh seed Zheng Qinwen. With the win, she passed Caroline Wozniacki for the most WTA 1000 wins before turning 21. She lost to world No. 1 Iga Świątek, in straight sets. At the same tournament, partnering Erin Routliffe, she reached a consecutive final in doubles. At the 2024 French Open with new partner Katerina Siniaková, she lifted her first Grand Slam doubles trophy defeating 11th seeds Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in the final. In singles, also at Roland Garros, she reached the semifinals and was defeated by eventual champion Iga Swiatek, but despite the loss reached a new career-high ranking of world No. 2 in singles on 10 June 2024. At the 2024 Wimbledon Championships, Gauff went out in the fourth-round to Emma Navarro. Gauff was chosen by her Olympic teammates to be the female flag-bearer for the United States at the opening ceremony of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, alongside LeBron James. She became the youngest athlete to be so honored. In singles, she lost in the third round to Donna Vekić in straight sets. At the 2024 China Open, she became the youngest China Open champion in 14 years after defeating Karolina Muchova 6-1, 6-3 in the final. It was her second WTA 1000 title and eighth career singles title. Gauff will be the second American champion in Beijing, following Serena Williams title runs in 2004 and 2013. Playing style and coaching Gauff's favorite surface is hard, and she describes her playing style as aggressive as possible with a big serve. She depends on her quickness and athleticism to keep her in any point, and describes herself as a "fighter". From July 2023 to September 2024 her coach was Brad Gilbert. In September 2024 Gauff hired coach Matt Daly. Endorsements Gauff uses a Head Boom MP 2022 with 16 main and 19 cross strings. She wears New Balance clothing and tennis shoes. In October 2018, Gauff signed her first multi-year sponsorship contract, with New Balance. At the 2021 French Open, Gauff wore a New Balance outfit of bold mismatched color splotches to contrast with the all-white ensemble of doubles partner Venus Williams. In March 2019, Gauff announced a multi-year sponsorship agreement with Italian food company Barilla, which also sponsors Roger Federer. In January 2023, Gauff was announced as a brand ambassador for advisory CPA firm Baker Tilly US, LLP. In January 2024 at the Australian Open, Gauff debuted a new New Balance pair of shoes with geographical coordinates specially inscribed on the soles. She revealed in a post-match interview that the coordinates (26 28 0.75” N 80 5’ 1.4” W) pointed to public tennis courts in Delray Beach where she grew up and trained. Personal life Gauff is a Christian. Since she was eight years old, she has prayed with her father before every match that she and her opponent would be safe. After winning the Cincinnati Open in August 2023, she said: "… I'd like to thank my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I spent a lot of nights alone, crying trying to figure it out. I still have a lot to figure out, but I thank Him for covering me." After winning her first Grand Slam title in September 2023, she said: "… I don't pray for results, I just ask that I get the strength to give it my all and whatever happens happens. I'm so blessed in this life." Gauff's tennis idols are Serena and Venus Williams. "Serena Williams has always been my idol...and Venus," she has said. "They are the reason why I wanted to pick up a tennis racquet." Gauff first met Serena when she won the Little Mo national tournament at the age of eight, and later met her again to film a commercial for Delta Air Lines and at the Mouratoglou Academy. After defeating Venus Williams at Wimbledon in 2019, Gauff expressed her respect when they shook hands at the net. "I was just telling her thank you for everything she's done for the sport," Gauff said. "She's been an inspiration for many people. I was just really telling her thank you." Gauff stated in 2020 that she had experienced depression and stress related to her sporting career, though her parents clarified that she was not diagnosed with depression in the clinical sense, and had not sought medical attention relating to her psychological well-being. Gauff is a fan of anime, including My Hero Academia. In July 2023, Gauff and actress Storm Reid helped fund a new playground and purple-painted tennis courts in East Atlanta's Brownwood Park. Career statistics Grand Slam tournament performance timelines Singles Doubles Grand Slam tournament finals Singles: 2 (1 title, 1 runner-up) Doubles: 3 (1 title, 2 runner-ups) References External links Coco Gauff at the Women's Tennis Association Coco Gauff at the International Tennis Federation Coco Gauff at the Billie Jean King Cup Coco Gauff at Wimbledon Coco Gauff at Olympics.com

Olympic-size_swimming_pool

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic-size_swimming_pool

An Olympic-size swimming pool is a swimming pool which conforms to the regulations for length, breadth, and depth made by World Aquatics (formerly FINA) for swimming at the Summer Olympics and the swimming events at the World Aquatics Championships. Different size regulations apply for other pool-based events, such as diving, synchronized swimming, and water polo. Less onerous breadth and depth regulations exist for lesser swimming competitions, but any "long course" event requires a course length of 50 metres (164 ft 0.5 in), as distinct from "short course" which applies to competitions in pools that are 25 metres (82 ft 0 in) in length (or 75 feet (22.9 m) in the United States). If touch pads are used in competition, then the distance is relative to the touch pads at either end of the course, so that the pool itself is generally oversized to allow for the width of the pads. An Olympic-size swimming pool is used as a colloquial unit of volume, to make approximate comparisons to similarly sized objects or volumes. It is not a specific definition, as there is no maximum limit on the depth of an Olympic pool. The value has an order of magnitude of 1 megaliter (ML). Some style guides caution against the hyperbole of describing any relatively large pool as "Olympic-size[d]". Specifications World Aquatics specifications for an Olympic-size pool are as follows: There must be two spaces 2.5 m (8 ft 2 in) wide outside lanes 1 and 8 (in effect, two empty lanes). The length of 50 metres (164 ft) must be between the touch pads at the end of each lane, if they are used. If starting blocks are used, then there must be a minimum depth of 1.35 metres (4.4 ft) from between 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) from the end of the pool to at least 6 metres (19 ft 8 in) from the end of the pool. At all other points, the minimum depth is 1 metre (3 ft 3 in). If the pool is used for Olympic Games or World Championships, then the minimum depth is increased to 2 metres (6 ft 7 in). Whereas the Water Cube pool used for the 2008 Olympics was 3 metres (9 ft 10 in) deep, the temporary pool used in 2024 was only 2.2 metres (7 ft 3 in), which commentators suggested made for slower race times. Ten-lane pools At FINA's 2009 Congress, rules were approved for 10-lane courses for competition, as an alternative to the more traditional 8-lane course. This version of the Olympic-sized swimming pool debuted in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. Beforehand, the Summer Olympics featured the more traditional 8-lane course with a depth of roughly seven feet, now the minimum depth requirement. Twenty-five world records were broken at this pool, although this is more heavily attributed to the polyurethane “supersuits” worn by many competitors (banned by FINA in 2010). The new Olympic-sized swimming pool was designed to provide advantages to competitors. Increasing the lane count from eight to ten introduces a "buffer lane", helping to absorb waves generated by movements of the swimmers. The increased depth of the pool assists the lane lines in dissipating water churn, thereby creating less hydrodynamic drag. See also Sport venue List of long course swimming pools in the United Kingdom List of long course swimming pools in the Republic of Ireland List of Olympic-size swimming pools in the Philippines List of largest swimming pools List of Olympic venues in swimming == References ==

Usain_Bolt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usain_Bolt

Usain St. Leo Bolt (; born 21 August 1986) is a Jamaican retired sprinter who is widely considered to be the greatest sprinter of all time. He is an eight-time Olympic gold medalist and the world record holder in the 100 metres, 200 metres, and 4 × 100 metres relay. Bolt is the only sprinter to win Olympic 100 m and 200 m titles at three consecutive Olympics (2008, 2012, and 2016). He also won two 4 × 100 relay gold medals. He gained worldwide fame for his double sprint victory in world record times at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which made him the first person to hold both records since fully automatic time became mandatory. An eleven-time World Champion, he won consecutive World Championship 100 m, 200 m and 4 × 100 metres relay gold medals from 2009 to 2015, with the exception of a 100 m false start in 2011. He is the most successful male athlete of the World Championships. Bolt is the first athlete to win four World Championship titles in the 200 m and is one of the most successful in the 100 m with three titles, being the first person to run sub-9.7s and sub-9.6s. Bolt improved upon his second 100 m world record of 9.69 with 9.58 seconds in 2009 – the biggest improvement since the start of electronic timing. He has twice broken the 200 metres world record, setting 19.30 in 2008 and 19.19 in 2009. He has helped Jamaica to three 4 × 100 metres relay world records, with the current record being 36.84 seconds set in 2012. Bolt's most successful event is the 200 m, with three Olympic and four World titles. The 2008 Olympics was his international debut over 100 m; he had earlier won numerous 200 m medals (including 2007 World Championship silver) and held the world under-20 and world under-18 records for the event until being surpassed by Erriyon Knighton in 2021. His achievements as a sprinter have earned him the media nickname "Lightning Bolt", and his awards include the IAAF World Athlete of the Year, Track & Field Athlete of the Year, BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year (three times), and Laureus World Sportsman of the Year (four times). Bolt was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2016. Bolt retired after the 2017 World Championships, when he finished third in his last solo 100 m race, opted out of the 200 m, and pulled up injured in the 4×100 m relay final. Early years Usain St. Leo Bolt was born on 21 August 1986 to parents Wellesley and Jennifer Bolt in Sherwood Content, a small town in Jamaica. Jennifer named her son Usain at the suggestion of her nephew-in-law, who suggested the name as he had a classmate of that name, while Bolt's middle name, St Leo, was given to him by his aunt. He has a brother, Sadiki, and a sister, Sherine. His parents ran the local grocery store in the rural area, and Bolt spent his time playing cricket and football in the street with his brother, later saying, "When I was young, I didn't really think about anything other than sports." As a child, Bolt attended Waldensia Primary, where he began showing his sprint potential when he ran in his parish's annual national primary school meet. By the age of twelve, Bolt had become the school's fastest runner over the 100 metres distance. Bolt also developed an affection for European football teams Real Madrid and Manchester United. Upon his entry to William Knibb Memorial High School, Bolt continued to focus on other sports, but his cricket coach noticed Bolt's speed on the pitch and urged him to try track and field events. Pablo McNeil, a former Olympic sprint athlete, and Dwayne Jarrett coached Bolt, encouraging him to focus his energy on improving his athletic abilities. The school had a history of success in athletics with past students, including sprinter Michael Green. Bolt won his first annual high school championships medal in 2001; he took the silver medal in the 200 metres with a time of 22.04 seconds. McNeil soon became his primary coach, and the two enjoyed a positive partnership, although McNeil was occasionally frustrated by Bolt's lack of dedication to his training and his penchant for practical jokes. Early competitions Representing Jamaica in his first Caribbean regional event, Bolt clocked a personal best time of 48.28 s in the 400 metres in the 2001 CARIFTA Games, winning a silver medal. The 200 m also yielded a silver, as Bolt finished in 21.81 s. He made his first appearance on the world stage at the 2001 IAAF World Youth Championships in Debrecen, Hungary. Running in the 200 m event, he failed to qualify for the finals, but he still set a new personal best of 21.73 s. Bolt still did not take athletics or himself too seriously, however, and he took his mischievousness to new heights by hiding in the back of a van when he was supposed to be preparing for the 200 m finals at the CARIFTA Trials. He was detained by the police for his practical joke, and there was an outcry from the local community, which blamed coach McNeil for the incident. However, the controversy subsided, and both McNeil and Bolt went to the CARIFTA Games, where Bolt set championship records in the 200 m and 400 m with times of 21.12 s and 47.33 s, respectively. He continued to set records with 20.61 s and 47.12 s finishes at the Central American and Caribbean Junior Championships. Bolt is one of only eleven athletes (along with Valerie Adams, Veronica Campbell-Brown, Armand Duplantis, Jacques Freitag, Yelena Isinbayeva, Kirani James, Faith Kipyegon, Jana Pittman, Dani Samuels, and David Storl) to win world championships at the youth, junior, and senior level of an athletic event. Former Prime Minister P. J. Patterson recognised Bolt's talent and arranged for him to move to Kingston, along with Jermaine Gonzales, so he could train with the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association (JAAA) at the University of Technology, Jamaica. Rise to prominence The 2002 World Junior Championships were held in front of a home crowd in Kingston, Jamaica, and Bolt was given a chance to prove his credentials on a world stage. By the age of 15, he had grown to 1.95 metres (6 ft 5 in) tall, and he physically stood out among his peers. He won the 200 m in a time of 20.61 s, which was 0.03 s slower than his personal best of 20.58 s, which he set in the 1st round. Bolt's 200 m win made him the youngest world-junior gold medallist ever. The expectation from the home crowd had made him so nervous that he had put his shoes on the wrong feet, although he realized the mistake before the race began. However, it turned out to be a revelatory experience for Bolt, as he vowed never again to let himself be affected by pre-race nerves. As a member of the Jamaican sprint relay team, he also took two silver medals and set national junior records in the 4×100 metres and 4×400 metres relay, running times of 39.15 s and 3:04.06 minutes respectively. The rush of medals continued as he won four golds at the 2003 CARIFTA Games and was awarded the Austin Sealy Trophy for the most outstanding athlete of the games. He won another gold at the 2003 World Youth Championships. He set a new championship record in the 200 m with a time of 20.40 s, despite a 1.1 m/s (4.0 km/h; 2.5 mph) head wind. Michael Johnson, the 200 m world-record holder, took note of Bolt's potential but worried that the young sprinter might be over-pressured, stating, "It's all about what he does three, four, five years down the line". Bolt had also impressed the athletics hierarchy, and he received the IAAF Rising Star Award for 2002. Bolt competed in his final Jamaican High School Championships in 2003. He broke the 200 m and 400 m records with times of 20.25 s and 45.35 s, respectively. Bolt's runs were a significant improvement upon the previous records, beating the 200 m best by more than half a second and the 400 m record by almost a second. Bolt improved upon the 200 m time three months later, setting the former World youth best at the 2003 Pan American Junior Championships. The 400 m time remains No. 6 on the all-time youth list, surpassed only once since, by future Olympic champion Kirani James. Bolt turned his main focus to the 200 m and equalled Roy Martin's world junior record of 20.13 s at the Pan-American Junior Championships. This performance attracted interest from the press, and his times in the 200 m and 400 m led to him being touted as a possible successor to Johnson. Indeed, at sixteen years old, Bolt had reached times that Johnson did not register until he was twenty, and Bolt's 200 m time was superior to Maurice Greene's season's best that year. Bolt was growing more popular in his homeland. Howard Hamilton, who was given the task of Public Defender by the government, urged the JAAA to nurture him and prevent burnout, calling Bolt "the most phenomenal sprinter ever produced by this island". His popularity and the attractions of the capital city were beginning to be a burden to the young sprinter. Bolt was increasingly unfocused on his athletic career and preferred to eat fast food, play basketball, and party in Kingston's club scene. In the absence of a disciplined lifestyle, he became ever-more reliant on his natural ability to beat his competitors on the track. As the reigning 200 m champion at both the World Youth and World Junior championships, Bolt hoped to take a clean sweep of the world 200 m championships in the Senior World Championships in Paris. He beat all comers at the 200 m in the World Championship trials. Bolt was pragmatic about his chances and noted that, even if he did not make the final, he would consider setting a personal best a success. However, he suffered a bout of conjunctivitis before the event, and it ruined his training schedule. Realising that he would not be in peak condition, the JAAA refused to let him participate in the finals, on the grounds that he was too young and inexperienced. Bolt was dismayed at missing out on the opportunity, but focused on getting himself in shape to gain a place on the Jamaican Olympic team instead. Even though he missed the World Championships, Bolt was awarded the IAAF Rising Star Award for the 2003 season on the strength of his junior record-equalling run. Professional athletics career 2004–2007 Early career Under the guidance of new coach Fitz Coleman, Bolt turned professional in 2004, beginning with the CARIFTA Games in Bermuda. He became the first junior sprinter to run the 200 m in under twenty seconds, taking the world junior record outright with a time of 19.93 s. For the second time in the role, he was awarded the Austin Sealy Trophy for the most outstanding athlete of the 2004 CARIFTA Games. A hamstring injury in May ruined Bolt's chances of competing in the 2004 World Junior Championships, but he was still chosen for the Jamaican Olympic squad. Bolt headed to the 2004 Athens Olympics with confidence and a new record on his side. However, he was hampered by a leg injury and was eliminated in the first round of the 200 metres with a disappointing time of 21.05 s. American colleges offered Bolt track scholarships to train in the United States while continuing to represent Jamaica on the international stage, but the teenager from Trelawny refused them all, stating that he was content to stay in his homeland of Jamaica. Bolt instead chose the surroundings of the University of Technology, Jamaica, as his professional training ground, staying with the university's track and weight room that had served him well in his amateur years. The year 2005 signalled a fresh start for Bolt in the form of a new coach, Glen Mills, and a new attitude toward athletics. Mills recognised Bolt's potential and aimed to cease what he considered an unprofessional approach to the sport. Bolt began training with Mills in preparation for the upcoming athletics season, partnering with more seasoned sprinters such as Kim Collins and Dwain Chambers. The year began well, and in July, he knocked more than a third of a second off the 200 m CAC Championship record with a run of 20.03 s, then registered his 200 m season's best at London's Crystal Palace, running in 19.99 s. Misfortune awaited Bolt at the next major event, the 2005 World Championships in Helsinki. Bolt felt that both his work ethic and athleticism had much improved since the 2004 Olympics, and he saw the World Championships as a way to live up to expectations, stating, "I really want to make up for what happened in Athens. Hopefully, everything will fall into place". Bolt qualified with runs under 21 s, but he suffered an injury in the final, finishing in last place with a time of 26.27 s. Injuries were preventing him from completing a full professional athletics season, and the eighteen-year-old Bolt still had not proven his mettle in the major world-athletics competitions. However, his appearance made him the youngest ever person to appear in a 200 m world final. Bolt was involved in a car accident in November, and although he suffered only minor facial lacerations, his training schedule was further upset. His manager at the time, Norman Peart, made Bolt's training less intensive, and he had fully recuperated the following week. Bolt had continued to improve his performances, and he reached the world top-5 rankings in 2005 and 2006. Peart and Mills stated their intentions to push Bolt to do longer sprinting distances with the aim of making the 400 m event his primary event by 2007 or 2008. Bolt was less enthusiastic, and demanded that he feel comfortable in his sprinting. He suffered another hamstring injury in March 2006, forcing him to withdraw from the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, and he did not return to track events until May. After his recovery, Bolt was given new training exercises to improve flexibility, and the plans to move him up to the 400 m event were put on hold. The 200 m remained Bolt's primary event when he returned to competition; he bested Justin Gatlin's meet record in Ostrava, Czech Republic. Bolt had aspired to run under twenty seconds to claim a season's best but, despite the fact that bad weather had impaired his run, he was happy to end the meeting with just the victory. However, a sub-20-second finish was soon his, as he set a new personal best of 19.88 s at the 2006 Athletissima Grand Prix in Lausanne, Switzerland, finishing behind Xavier Carter and Tyson Gay to earn a bronze medal. Bolt had focused his athletics aims, stating that 2006 was a year to gain experience. Also, he was more keen on competing over longer distances, setting his sights on running regularly in both 200 m and 400 m events within the next two years. Bolt claimed his first major world medal two months later at the IAAF World Athletics Final in Stuttgart, Germany. He passed the finishing post with a time of 20.10 s, gaining a bronze medal in the process. The IAAF World Cup in Athens, Greece, yielded Bolt's first senior international silver medal. Wallace Spearmon from the United States won gold with a championship record time of 19.87 s, beating Bolt's respectable time of 19.96 s. Further 200 m honours on both the regional and international stages awaited Bolt in 2007. He yearned to run in the 100 metres but Mills was skeptical, believing that Bolt was better suited for middle distances. The coach cited the runner's difficulty in smoothly starting out of the blocks and poor habits such as looking back at opponents in sprints. Mills told Bolt that he could run the shorter distance if he broke the 200 m national record. In the Jamaican Championships, he ran 19.75 s in the 200 m, breaking the 36-year-old Jamaican record held by Don Quarrie by 0.11 s. Mills complied with Bolt's demand to run in the 100 m, and he was entered to run the event at the 23rd Vardinoyiannia meeting in Rethymno, Crete. In his debut tournament, he won the gold medal in a time of 10.03 s, feeding his enthusiasm for the event. He built on this achievement at the 2007 World Championships in Osaka, Japan, winning a silver medal. Bolt recorded 19.91 s with a headwind of 0.8 m/s (2.9 km/h; 1.8 mph). The race was won by Tyson Gay in 19.76 s, a new championship record. Bolt was a member of the silver medal relay team with Asafa Powell, Marvin Anderson, and Nesta Carter in the 4×100 metres relay. Jamaica set a national record of 37.89 s. Bolt did not win any gold medals at the major tournaments in 2007, but Mills felt that Bolt's technique was much improved, pinpointing improvements in Bolt's balance at the turns over 200 m and an increase in his stride frequency, giving him more driving power on the track. World-record breaker The silver medals from the 2007 Osaka World Championships boosted Bolt's desire to sprint, and he took a more serious, more mature stance towards his career. Bolt continued to develop in the 100 m, and he decided to compete in the event at the Jamaica Invitational in Kingston. On 3 May 2008, Bolt ran a time of 9.76 s, with a 1.8 m/s (6.5 km/h; 4.0 mph) tail wind, improving his personal best from 10.03 s. This was the second-fastest legal performance in the history of the event, second only to compatriot Asafa Powell's 9.74 s record set the previous year in Rieti, Italy. Rival Tyson Gay lauded the performance, especially praising Bolt's form and technique. Michael Johnson observed the race and said that he was shocked at how quickly Bolt had improved over the 100 m distance. The Jamaican surprised even himself with the time, but coach Glen Mills remained confident that there was more to come. On 31 May 2008, Bolt set a new 100 m world record at the Reebok Grand Prix in the Icahn Stadium in New York City. He ran 9.72s with a tail wind of 1.7 m/s (6.1 km/h; 3.8 mph). This race was Bolt's fifth senior 100 m. Gay again finished second and said of Bolt: "It looked like his knees were going past my face." Commentators noted that Bolt appeared to have gained a psychological advantage over fellow Olympic contender Gay. In June 2008, Bolt responded to claims that he was a lazy athlete, saying that the comments were unjustified, and he trained hard to achieve his potential. However, he surmised that such comments stemmed from his lack of enthusiasm for the 400 metres event; he chose not to make an effort to train for that particular distance. Turning his efforts to the 200 m, Bolt proved that he could excel in two events—first setting the world-leading time in Ostrava, then breaking the national record for the second time with a 19.67 s finish in Athens, Greece. Although Mills still preferred that Bolt focus on the longer distances, the acceptance of Bolt's demand to run in the 100 m worked for both sprinter and trainer. Bolt was more focused in practice, and a training schedule to boost his top speed and his stamina, in preparation for the Olympics, had improved both his 100 m and 200 m times. 2008 Summer Olympics Bolt doubled-up with the 100 metres and 200 metres events at the Beijing Summer Olympics. As the new 100 m world-record holder, he was the favourite to win both races. Michael Johnson, the 200 m and 400 m record holder, personally backed the sprinter, saying that he did not believe that a lack of experience would work against him. Bolt qualified for the 100 m final with times of 9.92 s and 9.85 s in the quarter-finals and semi-finals, respectively. In the Olympic 100 m final (16 August), Bolt broke new ground, winning in 9.69 s (unofficially 9.683 s) with a reaction time of 0.165 s. This was an improvement upon his own world record, and he was well ahead of second-place finisher Richard Thompson, who finished in 9.89 s. Not only was the record set with no favourable wind (0.0 m/s), but he also visibly slowed down to celebrate before he finished and his shoelace was untied. Bolt's coach reported that, based upon the speed of Bolt's opening 60 m, he could have finished with a time of 9.52 s. After scientific analysis of Bolt's run by the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo, Hans Eriksen and his colleagues also predicted a sub 9.60 s time. Considering factors such as Bolt's position, acceleration and velocity in comparison with second-place-finisher Thompson, the team estimated that Bolt could have finished in 9.55±0.04 s had he not slowed to celebrate before the finishing line. Bolt stated that setting a world record was not a priority for him, and that his goal was just to win the gold medal, Jamaica's first of the 2008 Games. Olympic medallist Kriss Akabusi construed Bolt's chest slapping before the finish line as showboating, noting that the actions cost Bolt an even faster record time. IOC president Jacques Rogge also condemned the Jamaican's actions as disrespectful. Bolt denied that this was the purpose of his celebration by saying, "I wasn't bragging. When I saw I wasn't covered, I was just happy". Lamine Diack, president of the IAAF, supported Bolt and said that his celebration was appropriate given the circumstances of his victory. Jamaican government minister Edmund Bartlett also defended Bolt's actions, stating, "We have to see it in the glory of their moment and give it to them. We have to allow the personality of youth to express itself". Bolt then focused on attaining a gold medal in the 200 m event, aiming to emulate Carl Lewis' double win in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Michael Johnson felt that Bolt would easily win gold but believed that his own world record of 19.32 s set at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta would remain intact at the Olympics. Bolt eased through the first and second rounds of the 200 m, jogging towards the end of his run both times. He won his semi-final and progressed to the final as the favourite to win. Retired Jamaican sprinter Don Quarrie praised Bolt, saying he was confident that Johnson's record could be beaten. The following day, at the final, he won Jamaica's fourth gold of the Games, setting a new world and Olympic record of 19.30 s. Johnson's record fell despite the fact that Bolt was impeded by a 0.9 m/s (3.2 km/h; 2.0 mph) headwind. The feat made him the first sprinter since Quarrie to hold both 100 m and 200 m world records simultaneously and the first to hold both records since the introduction of electronic timing. Furthermore, Bolt became the first sprinter to break both records at the same Olympics. Unlike in the 100 m final, Bolt sprinted hard all the way to the finishing line in the 200 m race, even dipping his chest to improve his time. Following the race, "Happy Birthday" was played over the stadium's sound system as his 22nd birthday would begin at midnight. Two days later, Bolt ran as the third leg in the Jamaican 4 × 100 metres relay team, increasing his gold medal total to three. Along with teammates Nesta Carter, Michael Frater, and Asafa Powell, Bolt broke another world and Olympic record, their 37.10 s finish breaking the previous record by three-tenths of a second. Powell, who anchored the team to the finishing line, lamented the loss of his 100 m record to Bolt but showed no animosity towards his Jamaican rival, stating that he was delighted to help him set his third world record. In January 2017 the Jamaican relay teammates were stripped of their gold medals when a blood sample taken from Carter after the race was retested and found positive for a banned substance. Following his victories, Bolt donated US$50,000 to the children of Sichuan province in China to help those harmed by the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Bolt's record-setting runs caused commentators not only to praise his achievements but to speculate about his potential to become one of the most successful sprinters in history. Critics hailed his Olympic success as a new beginning for a sport that had long suffered through high-profile drug scandals. The previous six years had seen the BALCO scandal, Tim Montgomery and Justin Gatlin stripped of their 100 m world records, and Marion Jones returning three Olympic gold medals. All three sprinters were disqualified from athletics after drugs tests detected banned substances in their systems. Bolt's record-breaking performances caused suspicion among some commentators, including Victor Conte, and the lack of an independent Caribbean anti-doping federation raised more concerns. The accusations of drug use were vehemently rejected by Glen Mills (Bolt's coach) and Herb Elliott (the Jamaican athletics team doctor). Elliott, a member of the IAAF anti-doping commission, urged those concerned about the issue to "come down and see our programme, come down and see our testing, we have nothing to hide". Mills had been equally ardent that Bolt was a clean athlete, declaring to the Jamaica Gleaner: "We will test any time, any day, any part of the body...[he] doesn't even like to take vitamins". Bolt stated that he had been tested four times prior to the Olympics, and all had tested negative for banned substances. He also welcomed anti-doping authorities to test him to prove that he was clean, stating, "We work hard and we perform well and we know we're clean". I was slowing down long before the finish and wasn't tired at all. I could have gone back to the start and done it all over again. After the 2008 Olympics At the end of the 2008 athletics season, Bolt competed in the ÅF Golden League, beginning in Weltklasse Zürich. Despite having the slowest start among his competitors in the 100 m race, he still crossed the finishing line in 9.83 s. Even though the time was slower than both his newly set world record and Asafa Powell's track record, it was still among the top-fifteen 100 m finishes by any sprinter to that date. Bolt admitted that he was not running at full strength because he was suffering from a cold, but he concentrated on winning the race and finishing the season in good health. At the Super Grand Prix final in Lausanne, Bolt ran his second-fastest 200 m with a time of 19.63 s, equalling Xavier Carter's track record. However, it was the 100 m final, featuring Asafa Powell, that drew the most interest. Powell had moved closer to Bolt's world record after setting a new personal best of 9.72 s, reaffirming his status as Bolt's main contender. Bolt's final event of the season came three days later at the Golden League final in Brussels. This was the first 100 m race featuring both Bolt and Powell since the final in the Olympics. Both Jamaicans broke the track record, but Bolt came out on top with a time of 9.77 s, beating Powell by 0.06 s. Victory, however, did not come as smoothly as it had in Beijing. Bolt made the slowest start of the nine competitors and had to recover ground in cold conditions and against a 0.9 m/s (3.2 km/h; 2.0 mph) headwind. Yet the results confirmed Jamaican dominance in the 100 m, with nine of the ten-fastest legal times in history being recorded by either Bolt or Powell. On his return to Jamaica, Bolt was honoured in a homecoming celebration and received an Order of Distinction in recognition of his achievements at the Olympics. Additionally, Bolt was selected as the IAAF Male Athlete of the year, won a Special Olympic Award for his performances, and was named Laureus World Sportsman of the Year. Bolt turned his attention to future events, suggesting that he could aim to break the 400 metres world record in 2010 as no major championships were scheduled that year. 2009 Berlin World Championships Bolt started the season competing in the 400 metres in order to improve his speed, winning two races and registering 45.54 s in Kingston, and windy conditions gave him his first sub-10 seconds finish of the season in the 100 m in March. In late April, Bolt suffered minor leg injuries in a car crash. However, he quickly recovered following minor surgery and (after cancelling a track meet in Jamaica) he stated that he was fit to compete in the 150 metres street race at the Manchester Great City Games. Bolt won the race in 14.35 s, the fastest time ever recorded for 150 m. Despite not being at full fitness, he took the 100 and 200 m titles at the Jamaican national championships, with runs of 9.86 s and 20.25 s respectively. This meant he had qualified for both events at the 2009 World Championships. Rival Tyson Gay suggested that Bolt's 100 m record was within his grasp, but Bolt dismissed the claim and instead noted that he was more interested in Asafa Powell's return from injury. Bolt defied unfavourable conditions at the Athletissima meet in July, running 19.59 seconds into a 0.9 m/s (3.2 km/h; 2.0 mph) headwind and rain, to record the fourth fastest time ever over 200 m, one hundredth off Gay's best time. The 2009 World Championships were held during August at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, which was coincidentally the same month and venue where Jesse Owens had achieved world-wide fame 73 years earlier. Bolt eased through the 100-m heats, clocking the fastest ever pre-final performance of 9.89 seconds. The final was the first time that Bolt and Gay had met during the season, and Bolt set a new world record—which stands to this day—with a time of 9.58s to win his first World Championship gold medal. Bolt took more than a tenth of a second off his previous best mark, and this was the largest-ever margin of improvement in the 100-m world record since the beginning of electronic timing. Gay finished with a time of 9.71 s, 0.02 s off Bolt's 9.69 s world-record run in Beijing. Although Gay withdrew from the second race of the competition, Bolt once again produced world record-breaking time in the 200 metres final. He broke his own record by 0.11 seconds, finishing with a time of 19.19 seconds. He won the 200 m race by the largest margin in World Championships history, even though the race had three other athletes running under 19.90 seconds, the greatest number ever in the event. Bolt's pace impressed even the more experienced of his competitors; third-placed Wallace Spearmon complimented his speed, and the Olympic champion in Athens 2004 Shawn Crawford said "Just coming out there...I felt like I was in a video game, that guy was moving – fast". Bolt pointed out that an important factor in his performance at the World Championships was his improved start to the races: his reaction times in the 100 m (0.146) and 200 m (0.133) were significantly faster than those he had produced in his world record runs at the Beijing Olympics. However, he, together with other members of Jamaican 4×100 m relay team, fell short of their own world record of 37.10 s set at 2008 Summer Olympics by timing 37.31 s, which is, however, a championship record and the second fastest time in history at that date. On the last day of the Berlin Championships, the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, presented Bolt with a 12-foot high section of the Berlin Wall in a small ceremony, saying Bolt had shown that "one can tear down walls that had been considered as insurmountable." The nearly three-ton segment was delivered to the Jamaica Military Museum in Kingston. Several days after Bolt broke the world records in 100 and 200 metres events, Mike Powell, the world record holder in long jump (8.95 metres set in 1991) argued that Bolt could become the first man to jump over 9 metres, the long jump event being "a perfect fit for his speed and height". At the end of the season, he was selected as the IAAF World Athlete of the Year for the second year running. 2010 Diamond League and broken streak Early on in the 2010 outdoor season, Bolt ran 19.56 seconds in the 200 m in Kingston, Jamaica for the fourth-fastest run of all time, although he stated that he had no record breaking ambitions for the forthcoming season. He took to the international circuit May with wins in East Asia at the Colorful Daegu Pre-Championships Meeting and then a comfortable win in his 2010 IAAF Diamond League debut at the Shanghai Golden Grand Prix. Bolt made an attempt to break Michael Johnson's best time over the rarely competed 300 metres event at the Golden Spike meeting in Ostrava. He failed to match Johnson's ten-year-old record of 30.85 and suffered a setback in that his 30.97-second run in wet weather had left him with an Achilles tendon problem. After his return from injury a month later, Bolt asserted himself with a 100 m win at the Athletissima meeting in Lausanne (9.82 seconds) and a victory over Asafa Powell at Meeting Areva in Paris (9.84 seconds). Despite this run of form, he suffered only the second loss of his career in a 100 m final at the DN Galan. Tyson Gay soundly defeated him with a run of 9.84 to Bolt's 9.97 seconds, and the Jamaican reflected that he had slacked off in training early in the season while Gay had been better prepared and in a better condition. This marked Bolt's first loss to Gay in the 100 m, which coincidentally occurred in the same stadium where Powell had beaten Bolt for the first time two years earlier. 2011 World Championships Bolt went undefeated over 100 m and 200 m in the 2011 season. He began with wins in Rome and Ostrava in May. He ran his first 200 m in over a year in Oslo that June and his time of 19.86 seconds was a world-leading one. Two further 200 m wins came in Paris and Stockholm the following month, as did a 100 m in Monaco, though he was a tenth of a second slower than compatriot Asafa Powell before the world championships. Considered the favourite to win in the 100 metres at the 2011 World Championships in Daegu, Bolt was eliminated from the final, breaking "ridiculously early" according to the starter in an interview for BBC Sport, and receiving a false start. This proved to be the highest profile disqualification for a false start since the IAAF changed the rules that previously allowed one false start per race. The disqualification caused some to question the new rule, with former world champion Kim Collins saying it was "a sad night for athletics". Usain Bolt's countryman, Yohan Blake, won in a comparatively slow 9.92 seconds. In the World Championships 200 m, Bolt cruised through to the final which he won in a time of 19.40. Though this was short of his world record times of the two previous major tournaments, it was the fourth fastest run ever at that point, after his own records and Michael Johnson's former record, and left him three tenths of a second ahead of runner-up Walter Dix. This achievement made Bolt one of only two men to win consecutive 200 m world titles, alongside Calvin Smith. Bolt closed the championships with another gold with Jamaica in the 4 × 100 metres relay. Nesta Carter and Michael Frater joined world champions Bolt and Blake to set a world record time of 37.04. Following the World Championships, Bolt ran 9.85 seconds for the 100 m to win in Zagreb before setting the year's best time of 9.76 seconds at the Memorial Van Damme. This run was overshadowed by Jamaican rival Blake's unexpected run of 19.26 seconds in the 200 m at the same meeting, which brought him within seven hundredths of Bolt's world record. Although Bolt failed to win the Diamond Race in a specific event, he was not beaten on the 2011 IAAF Diamond League circuit, taking three wins in each of his specialities that year. 2012 Summer Olympics Bolt began the 2012 season with a leading 100 m time of 9.82 seconds in May. He defeated Asafa Powell with runs of 9.76 seconds in Rome and 9.79 in Oslo. At the Jamaican Athletics Championships, he lost to Yohan Blake, first in the 200 m and then in the 100 m, with his younger rival setting leading times for the year. However, at the 2012 London Olympics, he won the 100 metres gold medal with a time of 9.63 seconds, improving upon his own Olympic record and duplicating his gold medal from the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Blake was the silver medallist with a time of 9.75 seconds. Following the race, seventh-place finisher Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Tobago declared "There's no doubt he's the greatest sprinter of all time", while USA Today referred to Bolt as a Jamaican "national hero", noting that his victory came just hours before Jamaica was to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its independence from the United Kingdom. With his 2012 win, Bolt became the first man to successfully defend an Olympic sprint title since Carl Lewis in 1988. I'm now a legend. I'm also the greatest athlete to live. Bolt followed this up with a successful defence of his Olympic 200 metres title with a time of 19.32 seconds, followed by Blake at 19.44 and Warren Weir at 19.84 to complete a Jamaican podium sweep. With this, Bolt became the first man in history to defend both the 100 m and 200 m Olympic sprint titles. He was dramatic in victory: in the final metres of the 200 m race, Bolt placed his fingers on his lips, gesturing to silence his critics, and after crossing the line he completed five push-ups – one for each of his Olympic gold medals. On the final day of the 2012 Olympic athletics, Bolt participated in Jamaica's gold medal-winning 4×100 metres relay team along with Nesta Carter, Michael Frater and Blake. With a time of 36.84 seconds, they knocked two tenths of a second from their previous world record from 2011. He celebrated by imitating the "Mobot" celebration of Mo Farah, who had claimed a long-distance track double for the host nation. International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge initially stated that Bolt was not yet a "legend" and would not deserve such acclaim until the end of his career, but later called him the best sprinter of all time. Following the Olympics he was confirmed as the highest earning track and field athlete in history. Bolt ended his season with wins on the 2012 IAAF Diamond League circuit; he had 200 m wins of 19.58 and 19.66 in Lausanne and Zürich before closing with a 100 m of 9.86 in Brussels. The latter run brought him his first Diamond League title in the 100 m. 2013 World Championships Bolt failed to record below 10 seconds early season and had his first major 100 m race of 2013 at the Golden Gala in June. He was served an unexpected defeat by Justin Gatlin, with the American winning 9.94 to Bolt's 9.95. Bolt denied the loss was due to a hamstring issue he had early that year and Gatlin responded: "I don't know how many people have beaten Bolt but it's an honour". With Yohan Blake injured, Bolt won the Jamaican 100 m title ahead of Kemar Bailey-Cole and skipped the 200 m, which was won by Warren Weir. Prior to the 2013 World Championships in Athletics, Bolt set world leading times in the sprints, with 9.85 for the 100 m at the London Anniversary Games and 19.73 for the 200 m in Paris. Bolt regained the title as world's fastest man by winning the World Championships 100 metres in Moscow. In wet conditions, he edged Gatlin by eight hundredths of a second with 9.77, which was the fastest run that year. Gatlin was the sole non-Jamaican in the top five, with Nesta Carter, Nickel Ashmeade and Bailey-Cole finishing next. Bolt was less challenged in the 200 m final. His closest rival was Jamaican champion Warren Weir but Bolt ran a time of 19.66 to finish over a tenth of a second clear. This performance made Bolt the first man in the history of the 200 metres at the World Championships in Athletics to win three gold medals over the distance. Bolt won a third consecutive world relay gold medal in the 4 × 100 metres relay final, which made him the most successful athlete in the 30-year history of the world championships. The Jamaican team, featuring four of the top five from the 100 m final were comfortable winners with Bolt reaching the finish line on his anchor leg three tenths of a second ahead of the American team anchored by Gatlin. Bolt's performances were matched on the women's side by Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, meaning Jamaica took a complete sweep of the sprint medals at the 2013 World Championships. After the championships, Bolt took 100 m wins on the 2013 IAAF Diamond League circuit in Zürich and Brussels. He remained unbeaten in the 200 m and his only loss that year was to Gatlin over 100 m in Rome. For the fifth time in six years, Bolt was named IAAF World Male Athlete of the Year. 2014: Injury and Commonwealth Games An injury to Bolt's hamstring in March 2014 caused him to miss nine weeks of training. Having recovered from surgery, Bolt competed in the 4 × 100 metres relay of the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow. Not in peak form Bolt said that he was attending the Games for the fans and to show his progress since the injury. Bolt and his teammates won the 4 × 100 metres relay in 37.58 seconds – a Commonwealth Games record. This was the foremost competition of the year for Bolt, given no Olympics or World Championships in 2014. In August 2014, Bolt set the indoor 100 m world record in Warsaw with a time of 9.98 seconds. This was his sole individual outing of the 2014 season. Soon afterwards he ended his season early in order to be fit for the 2015 season. In Bolt's absence, Justin Gatlin had dominated the sprints, holding the year's fastest times, including seven of the top ten 100 m runs that season. 2015 Beijing World Championships At the start of 2015, he intended to make the 2017 World Championships in Athletics his last major competition before retirement. Upon his return from injury, Bolt appeared a reduced figure at the start of the 2015 season. He ran only two 100 m and three 200 m before the major championship. He opened with 10.12 seconds for the 100 m and 20.20 for the 200 m. He won the 200 m in New York and Ostrava, but his season's best time of 20.13 seconds ranked him 20th in the world going into the championships. Two 100 m runs of 9.87 in July in London showed better form, but in comparison, Justin Gatlin was easily the top ranked sprinter – the American had times of 9.74 and 19.57 seconds, and had already run under 9.8 seconds on four occasions that season. Bolt entered the World Championships to defend his sprint titles but was not the comfortable favourite he had been since 2008. In the World Championships 100 m, Bolt won his semi-final in 9.96, which lagged Gatlin's semi-final win in 9.77 seconds. However, Gatlin did not match that form in the final while Bolt improved through the rounds. In a narrow victory, Bolt leaned at the line to beat Gatlin 9.79 to 9.80 seconds. Bolt joined Carl Lewis and Maurice Greene on a record three 100 m world titles. A similar outcome followed in the 200 m World finals. In the semi-final, Gatlin outpaced Bolt – the Jamaican at 19.95 and the American at 19.87. Despite such slow times prior to Beijing, Bolt delivered in the final with his fifth fastest run ever for the 200 m at 19.55 seconds. Gatlin failed to reach his early season form and finished almost two-tenths of a second behind Bolt. Bolt's four consecutive wins over 200 m at the World Championships was unprecedented and established him clearly as the best ever sprinter at the competition. There was also a fourth straight win in the 4 × 100 metres relay with the Jamaica team (Nesta Carter, Asafa Powell, Nickel Ashmeade, Usain Bolt). The Americans initially had a lead, but a poor baton exchange saw them disqualified and Jamaica defend their title in 37.36 seconds – well clear of the Chinese team who took a surprise silver for the host nation. Conscious of his injuries at the start of the season, he did not compete after the World Championships, skipping the 2015 IAAF Diamond League final. 2016 Rio Olympics Bolt competed sparingly in the 200 m before the Olympics, with a run of 19.89 seconds to win at the London Grand Prix being his sole run of note over that distance. He had four races over 100 m, though only one was in Europe, and his best of 9.88 seconds in Kingston placed him fourth on the world seasonal rankings. As in the previous season, Gatlin appeared to be in better form, having seasonal bests of 9.80 and 19.75 seconds to rank first and second in the sprints. Doping in athletics was a prime topic before the 2016 Rio Olympics, given the banning of the Russian track and field team for state doping, and Bolt commented that he had no problem with doping controls: "I have no issue with being drug-tested...I remember in Beijing every other day they were drug-testing us". He also highlighted his dislike of rival Tyson Gay's reduced ban for cooperation, given their close rivalry since the start of Bolt's career, saying "it really bothered me – really, really bothered me". I want to be among greats Muhammad Ali and Pelé. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Bolt won the 100 metres gold medal with a time of 9.81 seconds. With this win, Bolt became the first athlete to win the event three times at the Olympic Games. Bolt followed up his 100 m win with a gold medal in the 200 m, which also makes him the first athlete to win the 200 m three times at the Olympic Games. Bolt ran the anchor leg for the finals of the 4 × 100 m relay and secured his third consecutive and last Olympic gold medal in the event. With that win, Bolt obtained the "triple-triple", three sprinting gold medals in three consecutive Olympics, and finished his Olympic career with a 100% win record in finals. However, in January 2017, Bolt was stripped of the 4 × 100 relay gold from the Beijing Games in 2008 because his teammate Nesta Carter was found guilty of a doping violation. 2017 season Bolt took a financial stake in a new Australia-based track and field meeting series – Nitro Athletics. He performed at the inaugural meet in February 2017 and led his team (Bolt All-Stars) to victory. The competition featured variations on traditional track and field events. He committed himself to three further editions. In 2017, the Jamaican team was stripped of the 2008 Olympics 4×100 metre title due to Nesta Carter's disqualification for doping offences. Bolt, who never failed a dope test, was quoted by the BBC saying that the prospect of having to return the gold was "heartbreaking". The banned substance in Carter's test was identified as methylhexanamine, a nasal decongestant sometimes used in dietary supplements. At the 2017 World Athletics Championships, Bolt won his heat uncomfortably after a slow start in 10.07, in his semi-final he improved to 9.98 but was beaten by Christian Coleman by 0.01. That race broke Bolt's 4 year winning streak in the 100 m. In his final individual race, in the final, Bolt won the bronze medal in 9.95, 0.01 behind silver medalist Coleman and 0.03 behind World Champion Justin Gatlin. It was the first time Bolt had been beaten at a major championship since the 4×100 m relay of the 2007 World Athletics Championships. Also at the 2017 World Athletics Championships, Bolt participated as the anchor runner for Jamaica's 4×100-metre relay team in both the heats and the final. Jamaica won their heat comfortably in 37.95 seconds. In what was intended to be his final race, Bolt pulled up in agony with 50 metres to go and collapsed to the track after what was later confirmed to be another hamstring injury. He refused a wheelchair and crossed the finish line one last time with the assistance of his teammates Omar McLeod, Julian Forte, and Yohan Blake. Following his 2017 season, Bolt had a statue of him unveiled in his honour at the National Stadium in Kingston on 3 December 2017. The statue shows him in his signature "lightning bolt" pose. Personal life Bolt expresses a love for dancing and his character is frequently described as laid-back and relaxed. His Jamaican track and field idols include Herb McKenley and former Jamaican 100 m and 200 m world record holder Don Quarrie. Michael Johnson, the former 200 m world and Olympic record holder, is also held in high esteem by Bolt. Bolt has the nickname "Lightning Bolt" due to his name and speed. He is Catholic and known for making the sign of the cross before racing competitively, and he wears a Miraculous Medal during his races. His middle name is St. Leo. In 2010, Bolt also revealed his fondness of music, when he played a reggae DJ set to a crowd in Paris. He is also an avid fan of the Call of Duty video game series, saying, "I stay up late [playing the game online], I can't help it." In his autobiography, Bolt wrote that he suffered from scoliosis, a curvature of the spine which made his right leg 1⁄2 inch (13 mm) shorter than his left. This condition causes an uneven stride, with his left leg remaining on the ground for longer than his right, and hitting the ground with a lesser force. Biomechanics researchers have studied, with no firm conclusions, whether this asymmetry has helped or hurt Bolt in his sprinting career. He popularised the "lightning bolt" pose, also known as "to di world" or "bolting", which he used both before races and in celebration. The pose consists of extending a slightly raised left arm to the side and the right arm folded across the chest, with both hands have the thumb and index finger outstretched. His performance of the pose during his Olympic and World Championship victories led to widespread copying of the move, from American President Barack Obama to small children. It has been suggested that the pose comes from Jamaican dancehall moves of the period, though Olympic sprint champion Bernard Williams also had performed similar celebration moves earlier that decade. His habit of fist bumping the volunteers for good luck has been noted in the media. In 2021, Bolt told the BBC that his love for video games, such as Mario Kart and Mortal Kombat, helped him during his Olympic career. Financial crisis On 19 January 2023, Bolt had fallen victim to a fraud scheme, resulting in the disappearance of more than $12 million from his retirement savings account, according to a letter from his attorneys obtained by the Associated Press. The account, held with Kingston-based investment firm Stocks and Securities Ltd., showed a balance of only $12,000, down from its previous $12.8 million. Bolt's legal team had stated that if the allegations were true, a serious act of fraud or larceny had been committed against their client. Family On 17 May 2020, Bolt's longtime girlfriend Kasi Bennett gave birth to their first child, daughter Olympia Lightning. Bolt and Bennett then welcomed twin boys Thunder and Saint Leo in June 2021. Other sports Cricket was the first sport to interest Bolt, and he said if he were not a sprinter, he would be a fast bowler instead. As a child, he admired the bowling of Waqar Younis. He is also a fan of Indian batsman Sachin Tendulkar, West Indian opener Chris Gayle, and Australian opener Matthew Hayden. During a charity cricket match, Bolt clean-bowled Gayle, who was complimentary of Bolt's pace and swing. Bolt also struck a six off Gayle's bowling. Another bowler complimentary of Bolt's pace was former West Indies fast-bowling great Curtly Ambrose. After talking with Australian cricketer Shane Warne, Bolt suggested that if he were able to get time off he would be interested in playing in the cricket Big Bash League. Melbourne Stars chief executive Clint Cooper said there were free spots on his team should he be available. Bolt stated that he enjoyed the Twenty20 version of the game, admiring the aggressive and constant nature of the batting. On his own ability, he said, "I don't know how good I am. I will probably have to get a lot of practice in." Bolt is also a fan of Premier League football team Manchester United. He has declared he is a fan of Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy. Bolt was a special guest of Manchester United at the 2011 UEFA Champions League Final in London, where he stated that he would like to play for them after his retirement. In 2013, Bolt played basketball in the NBA All-Star Weekend Celebrity Game. He scored two points from a slam dunk but acknowledged his other basketball skills were lacking. In an interview with Decca Aitkenhead of The Guardian in November 2016, Bolt said he wished to play as a professional footballer after retiring from track and field. He reiterated his desire to play for Manchester United if given a chance and added, "For me, if I could get to play for Manchester United, that would be like a dream come true. Yes, that would be epic." In 2018, after training with Norwegian side Strømsgodset, Bolt played for the club as a forward in a friendly match against the Norway national under-19 team. He wore the number "9.58" in allusion to his 100 m world record. Bolt wore the same number whilst captaining the World XI during Soccer Aid 2018 at Old Trafford. On 21 August 2018, on his 32nd birthday, Bolt started training with Australian club Central Coast Mariners of the A-League. He made his friendly debut for the club as a substitute on 31 August 2018 against a Central Coast Select team, made up of players playing in the local area. On 12 October, he started in a friendly against amateur club Macarthur South West United and scored two goals, both in the second half, with his goal celebration featuring his signature "To Di World" pose. Bolt was offered a two-year contract from Maltese club Valletta, which he turned down on 18 October 2018. On 21 October 2018, Bolt was offered a contract by the Mariners. The Australian FA was helping the Mariners to fund it. Later that month, Perth Glory forward Andy Keogh was critical of Bolt's ability, stating his first touch is "like a trampoline." He added Bolt has "shown a bit of potential but it's a little bit of a kick in the teeth to the professionals that are in the league." Bolt left the Mariners in early November 2018 after 8 weeks with the club. In January 2019, Bolt decided not to pursue a career in football, saying his "sports life is over." Bolt, a Green Bay Packers fan, stated in July 2021 he could have considered a career as a wide receiver in the National Football League had the rules on violent tackles related to concussions been as tightly regulated 'back in the day' as they were by that stage. If he had switched to gridiron football, his concern was that he would have been a high-priced target for very heavy hits which made him back out of his desire to try the sport. He also felt certain that even at 34 and being retired he would comfortably be the fastest player in the league. Documentary film A documentary film based on the athletic life of Bolt to win three Olympic gold medals, titled I Am Bolt, was released on 28 November 2016 in United Kingdom. The film was directed by Benjamin Turner and Gabe Turner. Sponsorships and advertising work After winning the 200 m title in the 2002 World Junior Championships in Kingston, Bolt signed a sponsorship deal with Puma. To promote Bolt's chase for Olympic glory in the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China, Puma released a series of videos including Bolt's then-world-record-setting run in Icahn Stadium and his Olympic preparations. After his record-breaking run in New York City, which was preceded by a lightning storm, the press frequently made puns on the Jamaican's name, nicknaming him "Lightning Bolt" and the "Bolt from the blue". During the 2008 Beijing 100 m final, Bolt wore golden Puma Complete Theseus spikes that had "Beijing 100 m Gold" emblazoned across them. Writing of Bolt's performance at the Olympics, The Associated Press said: Almost single-handedly, Bolt has helped track transform itself from a dying sport to one with a singular, smiling, worldwide star. In September 2010, Bolt travelled to Australia where his sponsor Gatorade was holding an event called the "Gatorade Bolt" to find Australia's fastest footballer. The event was held at the Sydney International Athletic Centre and featured football players from rugby league, rugby union, Australian rules football, and association football. Prior to the race Bolt gave the runners some private coaching and also participated in the 10th anniversary celebrations for the 2000 Summer Olympic Games. In January 2012, Bolt impersonated Richard Branson in an advertising campaign for Virgin Media. The campaign was directed by Seth Gordon and features the Virgin founder Branson to promote its broadband service. In March 2012, Bolt starred in an advert for Visa and the 2012 Summer Olympics. In July 2012, Bolt and RockLive launched Bolt!, an Apple iOS game based on his exploits. Bolt! quickly became the No. 1 app in Jamaica and climbed the UK iTunes charts to reach No. 2 on the list of Top Free Apps. In 2012, Bolt collaborated with headphone maker Soul Electronics to design his own line of headphones. Bolt designed both an in-ear bud and over-ear model with the Jamaican color scheme and his signature "To Di World" pose. Bolt's autobiography, My Story: 9.58: Being the World's Fastest Man, was released in 2010. Bolt had previously said that the book "...should be exciting, it's my life, and I'm a cool and exciting guy." His athletics agent is PACE Sports Management. As part of his sponsorship deal with Puma, the manufacturer sends sporting equipment to his alma mater, William Knibb Memorial High School, every year. At Bolt's insistence, advertisements featuring him are filmed in Jamaica, by a Jamaican production crew, in an attempt to boost local enterprise and gain exposure for the country. In 2017, Bolt had the third highest earning social media income for sponsors among sportspeople (behind Cristiano Ronaldo and Neymar), and he was the only non-footballer in the top seven. Bolt is the highest paid athlete in the history of the sport. In 2016, Bolt earned about $33 million in one year putting him at No. 32 on Forbes list of The World's Highest-paid Athletes making him the only track and field athlete on the list. Entrepreneurship Usain Bolt co-founded electric scooter company Bolt Mobility in 2018, created in his namesake. Bolt founded the micromobility company, which provides electric scooters and other yet-to-be released mobility devices, such as the company's upcoming Bolt Nano. Bolt appeared in Bolt Mobility's debut commercial, released through YouTube and his official Facebook account. Bolt appeared in a number of interviews for the company, alongside CEO Sarah Pishevar Haynes. Bolt made his first public appearance for the company in March 2019, during the company's New York City launch and in CNBC interviews on the NYSE. In May 2019, the company expanded its services to Europe, introducing the product first in Paris. In May 2019, Bolt spoke in Paris at the Viva Technology conference, where he introduced the company's future release of the Nano minicar. He also met with French president Emmanuel Macron while at the conference. While in France, Bolt participated in a CNN interview where he revealed his reasons for founding the company. Bolt argues that his scooter is different, which allows bag, shopping and mobile phone storage. The scooters have capabilities to reach up to 30 mph, but are typically capped at 15 mph depending on city regulation. The company has begun operations in a number of U.S. cities, and plans to expand throughout Europe and Asia. In early July 2022, Bolt Mobility abruptly ceased operations, leaving bike-sharing programs up in the air, including Burlington, Vermont; Portland, Oregon; Richmond, California; and Richmond, Virginia. Music production In July 2019, Bolt made his debut as a dancehall music producer with the release of the Olympe Rosé riddim that featured 5 tracks from Jamaican dancehall artistes: Dexta Daps "Big Moves", Munga Honorable "Weekend", Christopher Martin "Dweet", Ding Dong "Top A Di Top" and football player turned artist Ricardo "Bibi" Gardner "Mount A Gyal". In November 2019, he followed up with another compilation called Immortal Riddim that included tracks from Vybz Kartel, Masicka, Munga Honorable and Christopher Martin. In early January 2021, Bolt released a single titled "Living the Dream" with his childhood friend and manager Nugent 'NJ' Walker. Recognition IAAF World Athlete of the Year: 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2016 Track & Field Athlete of the Year: 2008, 2009 Laureus World Sportsman of the Year: 2009, 2010, 2013, 2017 BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year: 2008, 2009, 2012 L'Équipe Champion of Champions: 2008, 2009, 2012, 2015 Jamaica Sportsman of the year: 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2013 AIPS Male Athlete of the Year: 2015 Marca Leyenda (2009) In October 2008, he was made a Commander of the Order of Distinction, which entitles him to use the post nominal letters CD. In 2009, at age 23, Usain Bolt became the youngest member so far of the Order of Jamaica. The award was "for outstanding performance in the field of athletics at the international level". In the Jamaican honours system, this is considered the equivalent of a knighthood in the British honours system, and entitles him to be formally styled "The Honourable", and to use the post nominal letters OJ. Statistics Personal bests Records Bolt's personal best of 9.58 seconds in 2009 in the 100 metres is the fastest ever run. Bolt also holds the second fastest time of 9.63 seconds, the current Olympic record, and set two previous world records in the event. Bolt's personal best of 19.19 s in the 200 metres is the world record. This was recorded at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin against a headwind of −0.3 m/s (−1.1 km/h; −0.67 mph). This performance broke his previous world record in the event, his 19.30 s clocking in winning the 2008 Olympic 200 metres title. Bolt has been on three world-record-setting Jamaican relay teams. The first record, 37.10 seconds, was set in winning gold at the 2008 Summer Olympics, although the result was voided in 2017 when the team was disqualified due to his team member Nesta Carter's urine sample being retested and found positive for the prohibited substance methylhexaneamine. The second record came at the 2011 World Championships in Athletics, a time of 37.04 seconds. The third world record was set at the 2012 Summer Olympics, a time of 36.84 seconds. Bolt also holds the 200 metres world teenage best results for the age categories 15 (20.58 s), 16 (20.13 s, former world youth record), 17 (19.93 s) and 18 (19.93 s, world junior record). He also holds the 150 metres world best set in 2009, during which he ran the last 100 metres in 8.70 seconds, the quickest timed 100 metres ever. Bolt completed a total of 53 wind-legal sub-10-second performances in the 100 m during his career, with his first coming on 3 May 2008 and his last on 5 August 2017 at the World Championships. His longest undefeated streak in the 200 m was in 17 finals, lasting from 12 June 2008 to 3 September 2011. He also had a win-streak covering 14 100 m finals from 16 August 2008 to 16 July 2010. Guinness World Records Bolt claimed 19 Guinness World Records, and, after Michael Phelps, holds the second-highest number of accumulative Guinness World Records for total number of accomplishments and victories in sports. Fastest run 150 metres (male) Most medals won at the IAAF Athletics World Championships (male) Most gold medals won at the IAAF Athletics World Championships (male) Most Athletics World Championships Men's 200 m wins Most consecutive Olympic gold medals won in the 100 metres (male) Most consecutive Olympic gold medals won in the 200 metres (male) Most Olympic men's 200 metres Gold medals Fastest run 200 metres (male) Most Men's IAAF World Athlete of Year Trophies First Olympic track sprint triple-double Highest annual earnings for a track athlete Most wins of the 100 m sprint at the Olympic Games First athlete to win the 100 m and 200 m sprints at successive Olympic Games Fastest run 100 metres (male) First man to win the 200 m sprint at successive Olympic Games Most Athletics World Championships Men's 100 m wins Most tickets sold at an IAAF World Championships Most competitive 100 m sprint races completed in sub 10 seconds Fastest relay 4×100 metres (male) Average and top speeds From his record time of 9.58 s for the 100 m sprint, Usain Bolt's average ground speed equates to 37.58 km/h (23.35 mph). However, once his reaction time of 0.148 s is subtracted, his time is 9.44 s, making his average speed 38.18 km/h (23.72 mph). Bolt's top speed, based on his split time of 1.61 s for the 20 metres from the 60- to 80-metre marks (made during the 9.58 WR at 100 m), is 12.42 m/s (44.72 km/h (27.79 mph)). Season's bests World rank in parentheses World rankings International competitions National titles Jamaican Athletics Championships 100 m: 2008, 2009, 2013 200 m: 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009 Circuit wins Other distances Manchester GreatCity Games: 2010 (150 m) Ostrava Golden Spike: 2010 (300 m) Publications Allen, Matt; Bolt, Usain (2013). Faster Than Lightning: My Autobiography. London: HarperSport. ISBN 978-0-00-752364-1. Bolt, Usain; Custis, Shaun (2010). Usain Bolt: 9.58. London: HarperSport. ISBN 978-0-00-737139-6. Bolt, Usain; Custis, Shaun (2012). The Fastest Man Alive: The True Story of Usain Bolt. New York: Sports Publishing. ISBN 978-1-61321-067-3. See also Athletics in Jamaica Jamaica at the Olympics List of multiple Olympic gold medalists List of multiple Olympic gold medalists at a single Games Men's 100 metres world record progression Men's 200 metres world record progression Sport in Berlin Nominative determinism Notes References External links Media related to Usain Bolt at Wikimedia Commons Usain Bolt at Wikinews Quotations related to Usain Bolt at Wikiquote Official website Usain Bolt at World Athletics Usain Bolt timeline via The Daily Telegraph Videos Usain Bolt wins the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Athletics men's 100 metres final in 9.58 seconds via IAAF on YouTube Usain Bolt wins the 2009 Great CityGames Manchester men's 150 metres final in 14.35 seconds via Athletics Weekly on YouTube Usain Bolt wins the 2009 IAAF World Championships in Athletics men's 200 metres final in 19.19 seconds via IAAF on YouTube Usain Bolt wins the 2012 Olympic Games men's 100 metres final in 9.63 seconds via the Olympic Channel on YouTube Usain Bolt wins the 2012 Olympic Games men's 200 metres final in 19.32 seconds via the Olympic Channel on YouTube Usain Bolt wins the 2016 Olympic Games men's 100 metres final in 9.81 seconds via the Olympic Channel on YouTube Usain Bolt wins the 2016 Olympic Games men's 200 metres final in 19.79 seconds via the Olympic Channel on YouTube All of Usain Bolt's Olympic Games finals via the Olympic Channel on YouTube

Tom_Daley

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Daley

Thomas Robert Daley (born 21 May 1994) is an English retired diver, YouTuber and television personality. He is an Olympic champion in the men's synchronised 10-metre platform event at the 2020 Olympics and double world champion in the FINA 10-metre platform event, winning in 2009 at the age of fifteen, and again in 2017. He is an Olympic bronze medallist in the 2012 platform event, the 2016 synchronised event, and the 2020 platform event, He won the silver medal in the men's synchronised 10-metre at the 2024 Olympics, making him the first British diver to win 5 Olympic medals. Daley also competes in team events, winning the inaugural mixed team World title in 2015, and repeating the win in 2024, his fourth World title in all. He is an Olympic champion, four-time World Champion, a two-time junior World Champion, a five-time European champion and four-time Commonwealth champion. Daley started diving at the age of seven and is a member of Plymouth Diving Club, where his talent was identified early, and made an impact in national and international competitions from age nine. He represented Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics where he was Britain's youngest competitor, age fourteen, and the youngest from any nation to participate in a final. In 2009, Daley reached a career-best ranking of number one in the FINA World Aquatics Championships Diving Rankings for the 10 m platform. He won two gold medals for England at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, in the 10 m synchro diving (with Max Brick) and the 10 m Individual Platform competition. After the 2012 Summer Olympics and a summer of increased sporting interest amongst the UK public, television network ITV approached Daley to have a role in their new celebrity diving reality TV show Splash! Daley made his debut in the show's premiere on 5 January 2013 as a mentor to the celebrity competitors taking part. In 2023, Daley became an assistant diving coach at UCLA. In August 2024, a day after the 2024 Summer Olympics concluded, Daley announced his retirement from professional diving. Early life Thomas Robert Daley was born on 21 May 1994 at Derriford Hospital in Plymouth, Devon, England, the son of Debbie (née Selvester) and Robert Daley. He has two brothers – William who is three years younger, and Ben who is five years younger. Their father, Robert, died from a brain tumour on 27 May 2011, aged 40, a few days after Daley's 17th birthday. His early diving hero was Canadian diver Alexandre Despatie, who won gold at the 1998 Commonwealth Games at the age of 13, and British diver Leon Taylor, who later mentored him. Daley was spotted by a coach taking part in regular diving lessons and was placed in a competitive squad in September 2002. His first competition was the National Novice Championships in April 2003 where he won a medal in the 8/9-year-old boys category. In September 2003, he took part in an invitational event in Southampton where he won the 1 m, 3 m and platform events, and first made his mark on the wider audience. Daley won his age group at the British Championships in the 1 m springboard, the 3 m springboard, and platform in 2004, 2005, and 2006. In June 2004, the month after his 10th birthday, he won the platform competition in the National Junior (under-18) group, making him the youngest winner of that event. In 2005, Daley competed as a guest competitor in the Australian Elite Junior Nationals and placed first in platform and second in 3 m springboard in the 14–15 age group event. He also competed in the 14–15 category at the 2005 Aachen Junior International, placing second in platform and third in 3 m springboard. He met the qualification standard for the 2006 Commonwealth Games, but was not selected for the England team because of his age. In 2006, he was the under-18 British champion in platform and 3 m springboard, and he placed second in the 10 m platform at the 2007 senior British Championships, which were held in December 2006. Education From age 11 to 14, Daley attended Eggbuckland Community College in Plymouth. At 13, he became a celebrity supporter of Childline, a children's helpline run by the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), and at that time it was revealed that he had been bullied eighteen months earlier. In April 2009, Daley told Plymouth's main local newspaper The Herald that he had been bullied at school since the Olympics, and his father told the BBC that he had temporarily withdrawn him from that school because its response to the problem had been "ineffective". Daley was praised in the media for speaking out about his problem. Daley was offered a full scholarship to board at independent school Brighton College, but his father turned this down due to the distance from home, and instead accepted a "very significant scholarship" from local independent school Plymouth College. Daley took his GCSEs in small batches to fit around his diving commitments. He persuaded supermodel Kate Moss to pose for a recreation of an original portrait by David Hockney, as part of a GCSE photography project recreating great works of art, after meeting her on a photo shoot for Italian Vogue. In 2012, Daley finished his two-year A-level studies in mathematics, Spanish and photography. Daley decided not to undertake an International Baccalaureate course because of the pressures he faced in his preparation for the 2012 Olympics. He passed all GCSE and A-level exams with A or A*. International competitions 2007 In January 2007, at the age of twelve, Daley was given a special dispensation to compete at the 2007 Australian Youth Olympic Festival. The usual minimum age is fifteen. Competing with a persistent thumb injury, Daley won the silver medal with synchro-partner Callum Johnstone in the 10 m synchronised diving final. Later in 2007, he won the senior platform title at the Amateur Swimming Association (ASA) National Championships, the national championship for English divers. In 2007, he also began to compete on International Swimming Federation's (FINA) international diving circuit of Grand Prix and World Series events, twice finishing fourth in individual competition. Daley won the 2007 BBC Sports Personality of the Year Young Personality award. He was considered a medal prospect for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London from this time, and was one of the British Olympians being tracked through the years leading up to London 2012 by the BBC television series Olympic Dreams. 2008 In January 2008, Daley won the 10 m platform event at the British Championships and became the youngest winner of the senior British 10 m title. He also won the 10 m platform synchro title with new partner Blake Aldridge. Two weeks later, Daley won his first medals on the FINA circuit, winning a bronze in the individual platform competition and a silver in synchro at the Madrid Grand Prix. Daley and Aldridge won bronze in synchro at the 2008 FINA Diving World Cup. Their score was a British record and Daley became the youngest ever male medallist in a world diving event. Daley came seventh in the individual competition. In March 2008, Daley became the youngest person to win a gold medal at the European Championships, held in Eindhoven. The previous youngest winner was the Scottish swimmer Ian Black, who won a European gold in 1958 at the age of 17. Daley qualified for the Beijing 2008 Olympics in the individual 10 m dive competition and, following the retirement of 2004 silver medallist Leon Taylor, in the 10 m platform synchro competition. Some in the British media reported that in competing he would become the youngest-ever male British Olympian, until it was ascertained that Ken Lester, cox to the rowing pair at the 1960 Summer Olympics, had been 13 years and 144 days old at the time. In the Olympic synchronized 10 m platform competition, they placed eighth, while in the individual 10 m platform competition, he finished seventh. A month after his appearance at the Olympics, Daley participated in the FINA Junior World Championships for the first time (being too young to enter before). He finished second in the category "B" platform competition (for 14- and 15-year-old boys) with 549.60 points, between China's Qiu Bo (551.85 points) and Wu Dongliang (474.00 points). He came second in the 3-metre springboard competition in the same category with 485.25 points, sandwiched between the two Chinese divers, Wu Dongliang (510.25 points) and Wang Peng (470.40 points). 2009 In February 2009, Daley retained his individual British 10 m championship, setting a competition personal best score of 517.55 points, 133.45 points ahead of the second-placed diver. He was unable to defend his 10 m synchronized title, as his dive partner Blake Aldridge had been injured in a brawl at a nightclub several days before the championships and was unable to dive. In March 2009, he improved his personal best to 540.70 in coming third at a Diving World Series event in China, and the following month he improved it to 540.85 while finishing second at the World Series event in Sheffield. During the Olympics, Daley had a row with diving partner Blake Aldridge when the latter phoned his mother between rounds. When Aldridge missed the British Championships because of the injury sustained in the nightclub incident, Daley's father said he would like his son to have a different diving partner. In April 2009, he started to dive with Max Brick, who is two years his senior, compared with the twelve-year gap with Aldridge. The pair achieved a silver medal in the 10 m synchronized event at Fort Lauderdale on 8 May 2009. Daley won the individual event in a new personal best of 554.90, scoring a perfect set of seven 10s for one of his dives. In the 2009 FINA World Championships, held in Rome, Daley unexpectedly won the individual platform title despite his lower tariff, with a score of 539.85 points, when his opponents had poor final dives – Qiu Bo finished on 532.20 points, Zhou Luxin on 530.55. In the 10 m platform synchronized event at the World Championships, Daley and Brick finished in 9th place following an inconsistent series of dives by the new pairing. 2010 In the February 2010 British Championships individual 10 m competition, Daley unveiled his 5255B dive (back two-and-a-half somersault, one-and-a-half twists, with pike) in competition for the first time, giving him a 3.6 tariff dive (reduced from 3.8 in FINAs' September 2009 DD tables). In this competition Daley finished in second place, 40.05 points behind Peter Waterfield. In the March 2010 FINA Diving World Series event in Qingdao individual 10 m competition, Daley showcased his two new dives and finished in 4th place, 520.35 points (his best score of the year). In the first April 2010 FINA Diving World Series event held in Veracruz, Mexico, Daley failed to qualify for the final round of the individual 10 m competition. A second event was held in the same venue three days later to replace the Sheffield DWS event which was cancelled because of the eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull. Daley finished in fourth place, with a score of 519.70 points – his second highest score of the season (just 0.8 points away from bronze). In August 2010, Daley attended the European Championships in Budapest, Hungary, intending to defend his individual 10 m title. However, an injury to his triceps muscle in the 10 m synchro competition forced his withdrawal from the synchro and individual 10 m competitions, and placed his participation in the inaugural Youth Olympics in Singapore in the following two weeks in doubt. It was later announced that Daley would dive in the 3 m springboard but not in the 10 m platform. Daley took part in the 3 m springboard diving competition and finished in 9th place. On 12 October 2010, Daley attended the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, India. He and his teammate Max Brick won the gold medal for Synchronized 10 m Platform Competition. The following day he also won gold in the 10 m Individual Platform competition. In November 2010, Daley was announced as a nominated sportsman for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year 2010 and the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year 2010. He won BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year 2010 for the third time in his career, and is the first person to receive this award three times. 2011 For the 2011 season, Daley was paired in the synchronized competitions with 2004 Athens Olympic silver medallist Peter Waterfield in British Swimming's continuing efforts to find the best synchro pairing for the 2012 Olympics. At the 2011 National Cup, the British Championship was held in the new Southend Swimming and Diving Centre on 28–30 January and Daley came second in the 3m springboard competition behind Jack Laugher. With Waterfield, he won the 10 m platform synchronized competition. The following day, Waterfield beat Daley to the individual 10 m platform title for the second successive year, by 494.25 points to 472.35, with Max Brick third with 399.80. In the 2011 World Championships, held in Shanghai, China, he was again paired with Waterfield in the 10 m synchro event. In the week before the competition, Waterfield was struck by a flu-like illness for five days, and consequently they finished in sixth place. In the individual event, Daley finished in fifth place on 505.10 points, behind Qiu Bo (585.45), David Boudia (544.25), Sascha Klein (534.50), and Viktor Minibaev (527.50). On 27 July 2011, Daley took the first dive in London's newly built Olympic Park Aquatics Centre marking the one-year countdown until the games begin. It was broadcast live on BBC One and when interviewed he said "Marking the one year to go, by diving in the Aquatics Centre is an incredible honour. Only a few years ago, this was a distant dream. The fact that I qualified at the weekend and am taking the first dive is a complete privilege. I can't wait for next year and the honour of representing Team GB." 2012 In the 2012 season, a thumb injury forced Daley's withdrawal from the National Cup a few days before the competition (the 10m platform title was won by Max Brick). In February 2012, British Diving's Performance Director Alexei Evangulov criticised Daley's work ethic, stating that he feared Daley's media and commercial activities were to the detriment of his training for the Olympics – a comment which was seemingly backed up when Daley and Pete Waterfield could only finish 7th in the 10 m synchro competition in the FINA World Cup event held at the London Aquatics Centre. Following a clear-the-air meeting between Daley, Evangulov, and Daley's representatives, Daley participated in the 2012 FINA Diving World Series. In the first event held in Dubai, Daley and Waterfield finished 4th in the 10 m synchro event, while Daley won silver in the individual 10 m event. In the event held in Beijing a week later, Daley and Waterfield won the silver medal in the 10 m synchro event, while in the individual event Daley won silver and Waterfield the bronze. Three weeks later, in the Moscow event, Daley won silver in the individual platform event, while the pairing finished fifth in the synchro. In the final DWS meet of the year, in Tijuana, Mexico, Daley won gold in the individual platform event, and the pairing with Waterfield won bronze in the synchro event, although the Chinese did not compete in these events at this meet. Over the whole 2012 Diving World Series, Daley and the Daley/Waterfield pairing won both the overall individual and synchro 10-metre competitions. In April 2012, Daley won the British elite juniors 10-metre platform title by a margin of 140 points at the Plymouth Life Centre. In May 2012, Daley regained the European 10-metre platform title when he won gold at the Eindhoven championships with a score of 565.05 points, 49.65 ahead of Viktor Minibaev in silver position. In the British Gas Diving Championships held in Sheffield in June 2012, which were also the Olympic trials, Daley and Waterfield won the 10 m synchro platform title with a new British record score of 475.77, more than 140 points ahead of silver medallists Daniel Goodfellow and Ross Haslam on 333.72. In the individual 10 m championship, Daley regained the title for the first time since 2009 with a score of 547.60, ahead of Peter Waterfield on 452.80 and James Denny on 390.20. Olympics In Britain, Daley had long been considered one of the "poster boys" of the 2012 Summer Olympics, (literally – an 80-foot tall banner depicting him adorned the John Lewis department store in Cardiff, while a 40-foot tall banner of his female equivalent, heptathlete Jessica Ennis, was on the Sheffield branch of the store chain.) It was hoped that the 10 m men's synchronized platform event, on the first Monday of the Games, would provide Daley and Waterfield with an opportunity to supply Team GB's first medal of the Games. However, while the pairing was leading the competition after three dives, a poor reverse 3 1/2 somersaults with tuck in the fourth round put them out of contention and they ended the competition in fourth place on 454.65 points, behind the Chinese pairing of Cao Yuan and Zhang Yanquan on 486.78 points, the Mexican pairing of Iván García and Germán Sánchez on 468.90 points, and the US pairing of David Boudia and Nick McCrory on 463.47 points. Following this disappointment, there was controversy when Daley was the subject of some abusive Twitter messages, which resulted in the police arresting a 17-year-old boy in Weymouth, Dorset, and a 28-year-old professional footballer for publishing offensive messages. Returning to the Aquatics Centre on the final Friday of the Games for the 10 m men's platform event, Daley initially gave his fans cause for concern with a poor performance in the preliminary round where he was ranked 15th of the 18 qualifying divers for the semi-final with 448.45 points (the eventual gold medal winner, David Boudia, ranked 18th). A much better performance in the semi-finals the next morning left Daley in fourth position on 521.10 points, behind Qiu Bo on 563.55, Lin Yue on 541.80, and Boudia on 531.15. The final round began in dramatic form when Daley's star status almost led to his undoing – a large number of camera flashes while he was diving distracted him and he only scored 75 points; a protest to the referee resulted in him being allowed to retake the dive, when he scored 91.80. By the beginning of the final round of dives in an enthralling contest, Daley was in the lead over Qiu Bo and David Boudia by 0.15 points, but Daley's final dive had a degree of difficulty of only 3.3 while his rivals both had 3.6 dives, and Daley won the bronze medal with 556.95 points while Boudia won gold with 568.65 points and Qiu Bo won silver with 566.85 points. World Junior Diving Championships At the 19th FINA World Junior Diving Championships, held in October 2012 in Adelaide, Australia, Daley led a strong British team and rather unexpectedly won the Boys "A" 3 m synchronized springboard competition together with Jack Laugher, who had won the individual 3 m competition, they had had little practice together. Daley and Laugher scored 338.85 points, over 30 points ahead of Ilia Kuzmin and Maxim Popkov. In the 10m individual platform event, Daley won the competition with a score of 663.95, ahead of Yang Jian on 611.95 and Chen Aisen on 597.20, scoring five 10's and two 9.5's on his fifth dive. 2013 In January 2013, Daley was involved in the ITV celebrity diving show Splash!, where he was an expert adviser to the celebrity contestants. While the show got a largely negative critical response, it nevertheless got the largest ratings on each of the five Saturday nights it was broadcast, and was renewed for a second season in 2014. Daley was warned by British Swimming chief executive David Sparkes that taking part in the series would risk damaging his chances of winning an Olympic gold medal in the future. At the British Gas Diving Championships held at his home pool in Plymouth on 8–10 February, Daley only competed in the individual 10-metre platform event, which he won with 501.00 points, ahead of James Denny on 374.90 points and Daniel Goodfellow on 340.25 points. Daley did not compete in the 10 m synchro platform event, as his partner Peter Waterfield had lost his funding following this Olympiad, and his future synchro partner had yet to be determined. Daley's participation in competitive diving in 2013 was seriously restricted by an injury in May. In April he won the 10 m competition at the Edinburgh leg of the Diving World Series, but while subsequently training for the Diving Grand Prix event at Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Daley injured his elbow and was forced to withdraw from the Fort Lauderdale competition and the subsequent DWS event in Mexico. In training for the 2013 World Championships, in Barcelona, Daley suffered a torn triceps for the third time, and only competed following intense medical attention and painkilling injections; he finished the individual 10 m competition in 6th place. 2014 At the beginning of 2014, Daley moved his training base from the Life Centre in Plymouth to the London Aquatics Centre at the Olympic Park in east London, with a new coach, Jane Figueiredo. In January 2014 Daley was involved in the second series of Splash!. Ratings were not as good as the first season, and the show was cancelled. In the FINA Diving World Series, Daley came third in the 10m platform competition at the Beijing round, scoring 525.05 points, behind China's Cao Yuan on 579.45 and Qiu Bo on 534.05 points. In 2014, Daley hosted a six-part travel series for ITV2 called Tom Daley Goes Global. At the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, Daley won a silver medal in the men's synchronized 10 m platform with diving partner James Denny and gold in the men's 10 m platform, with 516.55 points, retaining his title from the Commonwealth Games in Delhi in 2010. In August 2014 at the European Championships in Berlin, the Daley/Denny partnership finished fourth in the 10 m platform synchro competition, in only their second competition, while Daley won the silver medal in the 10 m platform competition, with 535.45 points, behind Russia's Viktor Minibaev who had 586.10 points. 2015 For the 2015 season, Daley dropped the "demon dive" (backward 2.5 somersault with 2.5 twists, piked) which he had experienced difficulty with for several years, and replaced it with a forward 3.5 somersaults with one twist, which he called his "firework" dive and displayed for the first time at the British championships in Plymouth in February. At the British championships held in his old home pool in Plymouth, Daley won the individual 10 m platform title for the fifth time, with 493.70 points, ahead of 14-year-old Matthew Dixon on 427.15, and Matty Lee on 413.20. In the season's opening meet of the FINA Diving World Series, in Beijing, Daley conceded that the new dive still needed "work to be done" on it, as he failed to qualify for the final round. Overall, throughout the years' DWS meets, in the 10 m platform competition Daley won the silver medal in the Dubai, Windsor, Ontario, and Mérida, Mexico legs, and gold in London, whilst with Alicia Blagg he won bronze in the mixed synchronized 3m springboard at Windsor and at Mérida. At the World Championships held in Kazan, Russia, Daley won the gold medal with Rebecca Gallantree in the inaugural team event competition (Daley diving twice from the 10 m platform and once from the 3 m springboard, Gallantree diving once from the platform and twice from the springboard). In the individual 10 m platform event he later won the bronze medal with 537.95 points, behind Qiu Bo on 587.00 and David Boudia on 560.20, having recovered from being in ninth place after the second round. 2016 For the 2016 season, Daley was paired with Daniel Goodfellow for the 10 m men's platform synchro competition, with a view to competing in the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics in this sport. At the British National Diving Cup, the British Championships, held in January, Daley won a gold in the individual 10 m platform competition with 545.80 points, ahead of Matty Lee on 461.00 and Dan Goodfellow on 419.35 points. In the synchronized 10 m platform competition, Daley and Goodfellow won the competition, but they were the only entrants in the competition after Lee and James Denny withdrew following a power cut at the venue. Daley and Goodfellow got bronze at the 2016 FINA Diving World Cup, earning them a spot in the 10 m synchro competition at the Olympic Games. At the 2016 FINA Diving World Series, which consisted of four competitions, Daley earned six medals. In the synchro event, he and Goodfellow medalled at each of the four competitions, earning two silver and two bronze medals. In the individual event, Daley earned a silver and a bronze medal. At the 2016 Summer Olympics, Daley and Goodfellow won a bronze medal in the synchronized 10 m platform. In the individual 10 m platform, Daley placed first in the preliminaries (with an Olympic record score of 571.85 points, which was later broken by Chen Aisen in the finals). However, he had difficulties the next day, placing 18th in the semi-finals and failing to qualify for the finals. 2017 In the 2017 FINA World Series, Daley took home 1 bronze medal in Beijing (10 m Platform), 3 bronze medals in Kazan (10 m Platform, 10 m Synchro, and 3 m Mixed), and one silver medal in Guangzhou (10 m Platform). On 22 July 2017, he won the gold medal in the 10 m platform event at the FINA World Championships held in Budapest. 2018–2019 In the 2018 FINA Diving World Series, Daley won 1 silver medal and 1 bronze medal in Beijing (3 m Mixed and 10 m Synchro), 1 silver medal in Fuji (3 m Mixed), 1 silver medal in Montreal (3 m Mixed), and 1 silver medal in Kazan (3 m Mixed). At the 2018 Commonwealth Games held at the Gold Coast, Australia, Daley and Goodfellow won gold on the men's synchronized 10-metre platform. Daley partnered with Matty Lee starting in October 2018 in the men's synchronized 10-metre platform. At the 2019 World Aquatics Championships held in Gwangju, South Korea, Daley and Lee finished in the bronze position in the 10 m synchro. 2021 At the 2021 FINA Diving World Cup, which was held in Japan as an official test event for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Daley won his first World Cup gold with Matty Lee in synchronized 10 m platform. He also won gold in the individual 10 m platform. At the European Championships held in Budapest, Daley and Lee also won gold in synchronized 10 m platform, and a silver in the individual 10 m platform. On 26 July, Daley and Lee won the 2020 Olympic gold medal in the Men's synchronized 10 m platform diving event. On 7 August, Tom Daley qualified for the final of Men's individual 10 m platform diving, improving on his performance in the individual event at Rio 2016. He went on to win bronze in the final. 2024 Daley was selected to take part in the 10 metre platform synchronised event at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris with Noah Williams; the pair went on to win the silver medal. He was also chosen to be one of Team GB's flag-bearers at the opening ceremony alongside rower Helen Glover. The day after the closing ceremony, Daley announced his official retirement from diving. Competitive history British champion in all events (1 m, 3 m, platform) in 2004, 2005 and 2006 in the relevant age group. † with Blake Aldridge § with Max Brick @ with Peter Waterfield ? with Jack Laugher % with James Denny & with Rebecca Gallantree * with Alicia Blagg = with Daniel Goodfellow ♠ with Grace Reid £ with Matty Lee # with Noah Williams ** semi-final result Daley's current dives are: 307C: Reverse 3 1/2 Somersault Tucked (3.4 Tariff) 407C: Inward 3 1/2 Somersault Tucked (3.2 Tariff) 5172B: Forward 3 1/2 Somersault w/ 1 Twist Piked (3.6 Tariff) 626B: Armstand Back Triple Somersault Piked (3.5 Tariff) 109C: Forward 4 1/2 Somersault Tucked (3.7 Tariff) 207B: Back 3 1/2 Somersault Piked (3.6 Tariff) Personal life Daley created a YouTube channel on 23 August 2010. His channel covers various topics such as vlogs, exercise and food. As of August 2024, Daley has over 1.2 million subscribers with over 180 million views. On 2 December 2013, Daley released a YouTube video announcing that he had been in a relationship with a man since early that year. He said: "I've never been happier." Daley said that it had been a tough decision to speak out about his private life, but he had never before felt that feeling of love, which happened very quickly when he met his husband, American film screenwriter, director and producer Dustin Lance Black. Daley and Black met at an industry event, with Daley later saying that it was "a real love-at-first-sight thing". He announced their engagement on 1 October 2015. Daley and Black married at Bovey Castle in Devon on 6 May 2017. Their first child, a son, was born through surrogacy in June 2018. The couple's second son was born in March 2023. When asked about his sexual orientation in a July 2015 interview with The Guardian, Daley said: "I don't put a particular label on any of it because right now I'm in a relationship with a guy, but I still have sexual feelings towards girls". He said in another interview that he had been in sexual relationships with girls, but his sexual feelings became "much more intense" when he met Lance. In an April 2018 interview with PinkNews, Daley said he was "queer... not 100 percent straight... not 100 percent gay". Three years later he referred to himself as a "gay man". Daley likes to knit and crochet, hobbies he took up when the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown began. During the 2020 and 2024 Summer Olympics television coverage of diving events, Daley was frequently shown knitting in the stands while he watched other athletes compete. He maintains a separate Instagram account dedicated to his knitting and crochet projects. Views In August 2014, Daley was one of 200 public figures who were signatories to a letter to The Guardian opposing Scottish independence in the run-up to September's referendum on that issue. In a statement made on the eve of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2018, Daley called on Commonwealth countries to repeal their anti-gay laws. In response, the-then UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson told BBC Radio 1's Newsbeat that he would raise concerns about gay rights with leaders of countries where homosexuality is illegal. There have been repeated calls from the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights for governments to safeguard the rights of their vulnerable LGBT minorities. Prime Minister Theresa May said she "deeply regretted" Britain's historical legacy of anti-gay laws across the British Commonwealth. In October 2021, Daley said he would make it his "mission" to campaign for countries where homosexuality is punishable by death to be banned from the next Olympics, "to make it so that the countries [where it's] punishable by death for LGBT people are not allowed to compete at the Olympic Games." Media activities In 2015, Daley became a patron of the LGBT+ charity Switchboard and collaborated with YouTuber Calum McSwiggan to relaunch the charity under its new name. In October 2017, Daley hosted the Virgin Holidays Attitude Awards for the first time. On 30 September 2018, he was the guest on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs. His favourite choice was "How Long Will I Love You" by Ellie Goulding. His book choice was Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J. K. Rowling and his luxury item was an oven. On 25 December 2021, he delivered the Alternative Christmas message for Channel 4. In July 2024, it was announced that Daley would join Eurosport as part of its on-screen team of pundits for its coverage at the Paris Olympics. Honours and awards Daley was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2022 New Year Honours for services to diving, LGBTQ+ rights and charity. Named Youngster of the Year by BBC South West in 2005. Named BBC South West Sports Personality of the Year, 2009. Short-listed to the final ten for the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year award in 2006. Short-listed to the final three for the BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year award in 2008. Named BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year 2007, 2009 and 2010 (only person ever to win this award more than once). Short-listed to the final ten for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award in 2009 and 2010. Ranked No. 63 in Time's 2008 edition of 100 Olympic Athletes To Watch. Won LEN Magazine's "Athlete of the Year" award for men's divers, 2009, on behalf of the European Swimming Federation. The award is voted for by representatives of all European Aquatic Federations and the media. Nominated for the 2010 Laureus World Sports Award for Breakthrough of the Year. Included in The Sunday Times' "100 Makers of the 21st Century" list. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate on 27 September 2017 by the University of St Mark and St John in Plymouth, Devon. He was awarded the Freedom of the City of Plymouth, Devon by the Plymouth City Council on 13 September 2021. For the 2020 Summer Olympics, FINA named Daley winning the gold medal in the synchronized 10 metre platform event with his diving partner Matty Lee as the number three moment from the Olympic Games. A 2024 YouGov survey asked young LGBTQ+ Britons (16–25) which public figures made a "positive impression" on them growing up in terms of making them feel more comfortable and less alone in their identities. Though the list was "long and widely varied", Daley came third. Notes References External links Thomas Daley at World Aquatics Tom Daley at British Swimming Tom Daley at Olympedia Tom Daley at Team GB Tom Daley at Team England Thomas Daley at the Gold Coast 2018 Commonwealth Games (archived) Tom Daley's channel on YouTube Tom Daley at IMDb Plymouth Diving Club profile "Diver Daley Wins BBC Young Sports Personality 2007" – British Olympic Association "Tom Daley", number 63 on Time's list of "100 Olympic Athletes To Watch" Students interview Tom Daley

Pop_Idol

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop_Idol

Pop Idol is a British music competition television series created by Simon Fuller which ran on ITV from 2001 to 2003. The aim of the show was to decide the best new young pop singer (or "pop idol") in the UK based on viewer voting and participation. Two series were broadcast, one in 2001–2002 and a second in 2003. An immense success when it launched in 2001, Maggie Brown in The Guardian wrote, "the show became a seminal reality/entertainment format once on air that autumn". Series judge Simon Cowell became a major public figure in entertainment, and the show produced instant No. 1 chart hits, including for the first series winner Will Young, whose single "Evergreen" was the fastest-selling debut in UK chart history and the best-selling song of 2002. Pop Idol was subsequently put on an indefinite hiatus after Simon Cowell announced the launch of The X Factor in the UK in April 2004. The show has become an international TV franchise since, spawning multiple Idol series worldwide. In the meantime, a legal dispute arose with the makers of Popstars, which eventually led to the word "pop" being excluded from the titles of all the spin-offs, such as American Idol, Australian Idol, Arab Idol, Canadian Idol, Indonesian Idol, Indian Idol, New Zealand Idol, Latin American Idol, Idol (Norway), Idol (Poland), Idol (Sweden), Singapore Idol, Idols (South Africa), Pakistan Idol, Bangladeshi Idol and Ídolos (same name for the Portuguese and Brazilian series). The show's theme music was written by Gingell/Stone and Cathy Dennis. Format One of the UK's top-earning TV format exports, Pop Idol made extensive use of premium-priced viewer interactivity, with viewers voting by telephone, mobile telephone texting (not used on series one), through the "red button" on digital television sets, or via the official website. The final of the first series of Pop Idol in February 2002 received the highest-ever one-night vote for a UK TV show, making the show one of ITV's most profitable. The sister show on ITV2, Pop Idol Extra, hosted by Kate Thornton also made extensive use of mobile phone text messages to raise additional revenue. The first Pop Idol received very high voting figures despite allowing only telephone and Internet voting and not making use of texting or the "red button". However, the 'voting' system was effectively meaningless, as any individual was permitted to make an unlimited number of votes, the winning contestant thus being merely the one with the most persistent supporters. The Saturday night primetime show initially followed the audition process, as hopefuls sang before four judges (record producer and music executive Pete Waterman, music executive and music manager Simon Cowell, music promoter and music manager Nicki Chapman and Radio DJ and television personality Neil "Dr" Fox) at various locations around the UK. Besides the successful auditionees, the poorest "singers" were often aired due to their obvious lack of talent or presence. Poor singers often faced harsh criticisms from the judges, especially from Simon Cowell (whose controversial rantings also made him famous on American Idol). The judges' reactions to such performances often ranged from disgust to nearly open laughter; their style of judgement and attitude towards pop-star wannabes resulted in the controversial opinions of others about the show's setup, including that of Take That manager Nigel Martin Smith. The viewing public quickly fell in love with the format though, as viewing figures indicated. The judges' policy of speaking candidly would have to be sanitised in series 2, however, as it received condemnation from MPs. Once the first round of auditions was completed, the series moved to the Criterion Theatre, where further auditions saw the judges decide on a group of 50. Unusually, this was the final point at which the judges had direct control over the contestants' fates, as the remainder of the results would be driven solely by viewer voting. Stage 3 of the series took place in a conventional TV studio. The 50 contestants were split into five groups of ten, each of whom sang one song for the judges, accompanied only by a piano. Each judge offered their opinion, and at the end of the pre-recorded show phone lines opened for votes. Later the same evening a live show followed in which the voting results were revealed, the top two earning a place in the final ten. In series 2, a wildcard round (an innovation that originated on American Idol) was added, in which the judges selected ten rejected contestants and gave them a second chance. In this special edition, one contestant, Susanne Manning, was selected by the viewer vote, and one, Sam Nixon, was chosen by the judges. This meant that the next stage began with twelve contestants, rather than the ten in series 1. For the final stage, the show moved to a more lavish TV set, where all remaining contestants sang on live television, accompanied by either a backing track or live band. Most editions had a theme, with contestants singing songs from a particular genre or artist (no original songs were performed at any stage in the competition). Again, the judges offered comments, but the results were decided by viewer voting. Again, a live results show was broadcast later in the evening, but this time the singer with the fewest votes was eliminated, the rest continuing to the following week until only the winner remained. Exceptions to the usual format were limited. In series 1, Darius Danesh was promoted to the live shows when Rik Waller dropped out. Danesh was third in the results for the group where Waller had won his place. Also, the first two live shows of series 2 saw two contestants leave, in order to rebalance the numbers after the addition of the two extra performers from the wildcard show. Results and legacy The first series was won by Will Young, with Gareth Gates coming second. Michelle McManus won the second series. All of the top three contestants from series 1 had number-one singles in the UK. Young continues to be a recording artist. Gates initially had great success as a recording artist, releasing three studio albums and seven top 5 singles. He has since moved on to a successful career in musical theatre appearing as lead in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, as Marius in Les Misérables, on tour and in the West End and as Claude in Hair. In 2013, he became a member of the supergroup 5th Story. Darius Danesh had two hit albums and appeared in the West End musicals Chicago, playing the role of Billy Flynn, and Gone with the Wind, originating the role of Rhett Butler. He also appeared in the touring version of Guys and Dolls as Sky Masterson. Finalists Rosie Ribbons and Zoe Birkett have both scored chart hits, Birkett also moving on to a career in musical theatre whilst Jessica Garlick represented the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest 2002. Semi-finalist Sarah Whatmore had two chart hits, despite failing to be voted into the top 10. Series 2 contestants enjoyed significantly less chart success, which many believe damaged the credibility of the show and helped hasten its demise in its home country. Immediately after the second series of Pop Idol, the same set was used to host World Idol, in which winners of various Idol series around the world, including original Pop Idol winner Will Young, American Idol winner Kelly Clarkson and Australian Idol winner Guy Sebastian, competed in a one-off competition, complete with a large judging panel featuring one judge from each country (Simon Cowell officially representing American Idol, with Pete Waterman the "official" UK judge). The surprise winner was Norway's Kurt Nilsen, who proceeded to minor UK chart success. Cowell was strongly critical of World Idol, and it is highly unlikely to be staged again. After the second series of Pop Idol, ITV put the show on indefinite hiatus when in April 2004 judge and music executive Simon Cowell announced the launch of his own show, The X Factor, which he and his record label (Syco) held the rights to. In September 2004, Pop Idol creator Simon Fuller filed a lawsuit against The X Factor producers claiming that the format was copied from his own show. The case was eventually settled out of court in November 2005, and as part of the settlement, Simon Fuller was made a joint partner in The X Factor show, and Simon Cowell was obliged to stay on as a judge on American Idol for a further five years. ITV's licence to produce Pop Idol has since expired, meaning that other channels could theoretically acquire the series. Despite rumours (see below), no broadcaster has since acquired the rights to the format in the UK. Despite running for only two series, Pop Idol's impact was immense and led 19 Entertainment and FremantleMedia to roll the format out globally; currently there are over 50 versions in 110 countries, including, notably, American Idol, on which Cowell was a judge until 2010, before launching The X Factor USA in 2011. Series 1 (2001–02) Colour key 1 Had been eliminated in previous rounds, but reinstated following Rik Waller's exit. Series 2 (2003) Following the completion of the series, the official Pop Idol companion book published percentages of votes for each contestant every week. In some circumstances, the book suggested that the bottom 2 or 3 contestants were not the same as announced by the show hosts. It is not known if the incorrect result was announced, or if the book merely made a typing error. However, the contestant deemed to have had the lowest percentage was always eliminated on that week, meaning the overall result of the show was not changed. Colour key In week 1 of the finals, Chris and Marc received the same vote percentage as did Roxanne and Brian. In week 4, Mark and Chris received the same vote percentage. Video games Pop Idol was released as a video game developed by Codemasters for the PlayStation 2 and Game Boy Advance it was also released for the PC on 30 October 2003. The player creates his/her own singer, then they must sing their way through the auditions, theatre stages, heats, and then the finals. The game increases in difficulty as the player progresses through the competition. With each stage of the finals, one or two players with the least public vote tally are eliminated. The gameplay mainly consists of lining up a moving symbol with a fixed object in the centre of the screen and pressing the corresponding symbol on the game's controller. If the player presses it when the symbol is in the middle of the circle, their singer sings a good note. If he or she presses it when it is not in the circle, or mistimes their press, the singer sings a bad note. Related programmes The Idol format has been launched in dozens of nations worldwide, and there have been many imitations of the programme. A World Idol international television special was held in December 2003, featuring national first series Idol contest winners competing against each other; viewers worldwide voted Norwegian Idol's Kurt Nilsen "World Idol". The similar Popstars format preceded Pop Idol, and was succeeded in Britain by one series of Popstars: The Rivals and fifteen series of The X Factor as of 2018. After Popstars producers threatened legal action, a deal was struck that, among other clauses, does not allow the use of the word "pop" in the title of Pop Idol editions outside of the UK. See also Pop Idol discography Pop Idol: The Big Band Album American Idol Australian Idol Ídolos Popstars Fame Academy The X Factor Starmania References External links Pop Idol at IMDb

Timeline_of_prime_ministers_of_Great_Britain_and_the_United_Kingdom

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_prime_ministers_of_Great_Britain_and_the_United_Kingdom

This is a graphical timeline of prime ministers of Great Britain and the United Kingdom from when the first prime minister of Great Britain in the modern sense, Robert Walpole, took office in 1721, until the present day. From 1801 until 1922, British prime ministers also held the office for the whole of Ireland. Great Britain United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland Combined timeline Career-based timeline This timeline shows most of the early life, the political career and death of each prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1846. The first prime minister was Robert Walpole in the early 18th century (Dickinson 1973). Unlike countries where the leader is elected directly to the highest political office of a separate executive, the prime minister must first establish a political career in the UK Parliament and typically serves many years in the House of Commons before becoming prime minister, and in some cases for many years afterwards. Since the Marquess of Salisbury in 1895, all time in parliamentary service before being prime minister has been in the House of Commons, apart from Sir Alec Douglas-Home's period as a member of the Government while in the House of Lords (1951–63; though he was previously the elected member for Lanark, 1931–1945). After becoming prime minister, Douglas-Home returned to the Commons by winning a by-election on the recess death of MP Gilmour Leburn. Uniquely, Cameron's brief parliamentary activity as Foreign Secretary from November 2023 to July 2024 was served while a member of the House of Lords. Key Each dark coloured bar denotes the time spent as prime minister A light colour denotes time spent in Parliament before or after serving as prime minister A grey colour bar denotes the time the prime minister spent outside the House of Commons or the entire Parliament, either before or after their political career Notable moments since 1800 two separate periods in office: Russell, Palmerston, Disraeli, MacDonald, Churchill, Wilson three separate periods in office: Derby, Salisbury, Baldwin four separate periods in office: Gladstone crossed the floor: Palmerston, Derby, Gladstone, Churchill (twice) died in office: Canning, Palmerston, Perceval (assassinated) died less than six months after leaving office: Portland, Campbell-Bannerman, Law, Chamberlain left Parliament on leaving office: Russell, Baldwin, Blair lived for more than twenty years after leaving the House of Commons: Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Thatcher, Major less than twenty years in Parliament before being prime minister: Baldwin, Chamberlain, Wilson, Major, Blair, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak, Starmer more than twenty years in Parliament after being prime minister: Rosebery, Balfour, Lloyd George, Heath served as prime minister after an interruption to their parliamentary career: MacDonald, Churchill, Macmillan (twice), Douglas-Home, Johnson served as prime minister for two monarchs: Walpole, Newcastle, Liverpool, Wellington, Melbourne, Peel, Salisbury, Asquith, Churchill, Truss served as prime minister for three monarchs: Baldwin served as prime minister for less than two months: Truss over 65 years of age when first appointed: Palmerston, Campbell-Bannerman, Aberdeen, Chamberlain, Grey, Churchill under 45 years of age when first appointed: Goderich, Blair, Addington, Cameron, Sunak, Liverpool Timeline References Dickinson, Harry T. (1973), Walpole and the Whig Supremacy, London: English Universities Press, ISBN 0-340-11515-7

Diving_duck

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diving_duck

The diving ducks, commonly called pochards or scaups, are a category of duck which feed by diving beneath the surface of the water. They are part of Anatidae, the diverse and very large family that includes ducks, geese, and swans. The diving ducks are placed in a distinct tribe in the subfamily Anatinae, the Aythyini. While morphologically close to the dabbling ducks, there are nonetheless some pronounced differences such as in the structure of the trachea. mtDNA cytochrome b and NADH dehydrogenase subunit 2 sequence data indicate that the dabbling and diving ducks are fairly distant from each other, the outward similarities being due to convergent evolution. Alternatively, the diving ducks are placed as a subfamily Aythyinae in the family Anatidae which would encompass all duck-like birds except the whistling-ducks. The seaducks commonly found in coastal areas, such as the long-tailed duck (formerly known in the U.S. as oldsquaw), scoters, goldeneyes, mergansers, bufflehead and eiders, are also sometimes colloquially referred to in North America as diving ducks because they also feed by diving; their subfamily (Merginae) is a very distinct one however. Although the group is cosmopolitan, most members are native to the Northern Hemisphere, and it includes several of the most familiar Northern Hemisphere ducks. This group of ducks is so named because its members feed mainly by diving, although in fact the Netta species are reluctant to dive, and feed more like dabbling ducks. These are gregarious ducks, mainly found on fresh water or on estuaries, though the greater scaup becomes marine during the northern winter. They are strong fliers; their broad, blunt-tipped wings require faster wing-beats than those of many ducks and they take off with some difficulty. Northern species tend to be migratory; southern species do not migrate though the hardhead travels long distances on an irregular basis in response to rainfall. Diving ducks do not walk as well on land as the dabbling ducks; their legs tend to be placed further back on their bodies to help propel them when underwater. Systematics Three genera are included in the Aythyini. The marbled duck which makes up the monotypic genus Marmaronetta, however, seems very distinct and might have diverged prior to the split of dabbling and diving ducks as indicated by morphological and molecular characteristics. The probably extinct pink-headed duck, previously treated separately in Rhodonessa, has been suggested to belong into Netta, but this approach has been questioned. DNA sequence analyses have found it to be the earliest diverging member of the pochard group. The molecular analysis also suggests that the white-winged duck should be placed into a monotypic genus Asarcornis which is fairly close to Aythya and might belong into this subfamily. Family Anatidae Subfamily Anatinae Tribe Aythyini Genus Rhodonessa Pink-headed duck (Rhodonessa caryophyllacea) ; probably extinct (1945?) Genus Marmaronetta Marbled duck (Marmaronetta angustirostris) Genus Netta (provisionally including Rhodonessa) Red-crested pochard (Netta rufina) Southern pochard (Netta erythrophthalma) Rosy-billed pochard (Netta peposaca) Genus Aythya Canvasback (Aythya valisineria) Common pochard (Aythya ferina) Redhead (Aythya americana) Ring-necked duck (Aythya collaris) Hardhead (Aythya australis) Baer's pochard (Aythya baeri) Ferruginous duck (Aythya nyroca) Madagascar pochard (Aythya innotata) – feared to be extinct, rediscovered (2006) Réunion pochard, (Aythya cf. innotata) – extinct (c. 1690s) New Zealand scaup (Aythya novaeseelandiae) Tufted duck (Aythya fuligula) Greater scaup (Aythya marila) Lesser scaup (Aythya affinis) == References ==

Prairie_Pothole_Region

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prairie_Pothole_Region

The Prairie Pothole Region (PPR; French: Région des cuvettes/fondrières des prairies) is an expansive area of the northern Great Plains that contains thousands of shallow wetlands known as potholes. These potholes are the result of glacier activity in the Wisconsin glaciation, which ended about 10,000 years ago. The decaying ice sheet left behind depressions formed by the uneven deposition of till in ground moraines. These depressions are called potholes, glacial potholes, kettles, or kettle lakes. They fill with water in the spring, creating wetlands, which range in duration from temporary to semi-permanent. The region covers an area of about 800,000 sq. km and expands across three Canadian provinces (Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Alberta) and five U.S. states (Minnesota, Iowa, North and South Dakota, and Montana). The hydrology of the wetlands is variable, which results in long term productivity and biodiversity. The PPR is a prime spot during breeding and nesting season for millions of migrating waterfowl. Hydrology Few natural surface water drainage systems occur in the region as pothole wetlands are not connected by surface streams. They receive most of their water from spring snowmelt and precipitation. Some pothole wetlands also receive groundwater inflow, so they typically last longer each year than those that only receive water from precipitation. Shorter-duration wetlands fed only by precipitation typically are sources of groundwater recharge. The hydrology of the potholes is very variable, responding to changes in precipitation and groundwater, and results in regular wet-and-dry cycles. Vegetation The vegetation of the PPR consists of emergent plants and tall grasses, while the prairie surrounding the region has dense grassland vegetation. The composition of a local plant community is heavily affected by the amount of water available. In wetter wetlands that retain water through the summer, the common plant is hard-stem bulrush, along with soft-stem bulrush and common threesquare in slightly drier regions of the wetlands. The vegetation in permanently flooded wetlands is more aquatic; duckweeds, pondweeds, aquatic buttercups, and aquatic smartweeds are some of the most common. In drier wetlands of the PPR, the vegetation varies from spikerush, which is found in the wetter areas of the wetland, to foxtail barley and wheatgrass on the outer edges of the wetland. The variable availability of water in the Prairie Pothole Region is buffered by an abundant seed bank under the soil, comprising species that thrive under different water regimes. During times of drought, shortgrass species increase and expand their range, while during wetter periods, tallgrass and mixed prairie communities become more common. Wildlife The Prairie Pothole Region provides important habitats for migratory waterfowl and other wildlife, supporting more than 50% of North America's migratory waterfowl. In particular, the region is one of North America's most important breeding areas for ducks. Although the region contains only about one-tenth of the continent's habitat area for breeding of waterfowl, roughly half the primary species of game ducks on the continent breed there. The region accounts for more than 60% of the breeding populations of mallard, gadwall, blue-winged teal, northern shoveler, northern pintail, redhead, and canvasback ducks. Threats Conversion of land for agriculture is a significant factor in the loss of wetlands in the PPR. More than half of the wetlands have been drained for farming. In particular, 90% of the prairie wetlands of the Minnesota River basin have been lost as habitat. The wetlands that do persist, surrounded as they are by agricultural lands, are also affected. Chemical runoff, sedimentation, and nutrient flow into the wetlands have adverse impacts. Climate change is an adverse factor in the long-term viability of PPR wetlands for breeding ducks and other birds. Without mitigation, severe droughts and rising temperatures will cause many pothole wetlands to dry up sooner in the spring. In turn, due to the timing of waterfowl migrations, these dried wetlands will not present suitable breeding habitat. Warming-related drought may affect as much as 90 percent of the PPR's remaining wetlands. Simulations suggest that climate change will shift the most productive wetlands from the center of the region (southeastern Saskatchewan and the Dakotas) to edges of the PPR in the east and north. However, research has suggested that the effect of global warming is overshadowed by that of intensified land use and drainage of wetlands. See also Geography of Alberta Geography of Saskatchewan Geography of Manitoba Geography of Montana Geography of North Dakota Geography of South Dakota Geography of Minnesota Geography of Iowa References External links "The Small Wetlands Program: A Half Century of Conserving Prairie Habitat". National Wildlife Refuge System. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Retrieved 9 July 2018. "Welcome to the Prairie Pothole Joint Venture". Prairie Pothole Joint Venture. Retrieved 9 July 2018. "Prairie Potholes". Wetlands. United States Environmental Protection Agency. 2016-10-06. Retrieved 2018-07-09. America’s Grasslands: A Threatened National Treasure Documentary produced by Prairie Public Television Land-use Change, Economics, and Rural Well-being in the Prairie Pothole Region of the United States United States Geological Survey

Canvasback

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canvasback

The canvasback (Aythya valisineria) is a species of diving duck, the largest found in North America. Taxonomy Scottish-American naturalist Alexander Wilson described the canvasback in 1814. The genus name is derived from Greek aithuia, an unidentified seabird mentioned by authors, including Hesychius and Aristotle. The species name valisineria comes from the wild celery Vallisneria americana, whose winter buds and rhizomes are the canvasback's preferred food during the nonbreeding period. The celery genus is itself named for seventeenth century Italian botanist Antonio Vallisneri. The duck's common name is based on early European inhabitants of North America's assertion that its back was a canvas-like color. In other languages it is just a white-backed duck; for example in French, morillon à dos blanc, or Spanish, pato lomo blanco. In Mexico it is called pato coacoxtle. Description It ranges from 48–56 cm (19–22 in) in length and weighs 862–1,600 g (1.900–3.527 lb), with a wingspan of 79–89 cm (31–35 in). It is the largest species in the genus Aythya, being similar in size to a mallard but with a heavier and more compact build than it. 191 males wintering in western New York averaged 1,252 g (2.760 lb) and 54 females there averaged 1,154 g (2.544 lb). The canvasback has a distinctive wedge-shaped head and long graceful neck. The adult male (drake) has a black bill, a chestnut red head and neck, a black breast, a grayish back, black rump, and a blackish brown tail. The drake's sides, back, and belly are white with fine vermiculation resembling the weave of a canvas, which gave rise to the bird's common name. The bill is blackish and the legs and feet are bluish-gray. The iris is bright red in the spring, but duller in the winter. The adult female (hen) also has a black bill, a light brown head and neck, grading into a darker brown chest and foreback. The sides, flanks, and back are grayish brown. The bill is blackish and the legs and feet are bluish-gray. Its sloping profile distinguishes it from other ducks. Breeding The breeding habitat of the canvasback is in North American prairie potholes. The bulky nest is built from vegetation in a marsh and lined with down. Loss of nesting habitat has caused populations to decline. The canvasback usually takes a new mate each year, pairing in late winter on ocean bays. It prefers to nest over water on permanent prairie marshes surrounded by emergent vegetation, such as cattails and bulrushes, which provide protective cover. Other important breeding areas are the subarctic river deltas in Saskatchewan and the interior of Alaska. It has a clutch size of approximately 5–11 eggs, which are greenish drab. The chicks are covered in down at hatching and able to leave the nest soon after. The canvasback sometimes lays its eggs in other canvasback nests and redheads often parasitize canvasback nests. Migration The canvasback migrates through the Mississippi Flyway to wintering grounds in the mid-Atlantic United States and the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley (LMAV), or the Pacific Flyway to wintering grounds along the coast of California. Historically, the Chesapeake Bay wintered the majority of canvasbacks, but with the recent loss of submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) in the bay, their range has shifted south towards the LMAV. Brackish estuarine bays and marshes with abundant submergent vegetation and invertebrates are ideal wintering habitat for canvasbacks. A small number of birds are also known to have crossed the Atlantic, with several sightings being recorded in the United Kingdom. In December 1996, a canvasback was observed in a quarry in Kent, which was followed by an additional sighting in Norfolk in January 1997. At least five more sightings have since been confirmed in England. Diet The canvasback feeds mainly by diving, sometimes dabbling, mostly eating seeds, buds, leaves, tubers, roots, snails, and insect larvae. Besides its namesake, wild celery, the canvasback shows a preference for the tubers of sago pondweed, which can make up 100% of its diet at times. The canvasback has large webbed feet adapted for diving and its bill helps it dig tubers from the substrate. In the late 1930s, studies showed that four-fifths of the food eaten by canvasbacks was plant material. In the early 1950s it was estimated that there were 225,000 canvasbacks wintering in the Chesapeake Bay; this represented one-half of the entire North American population. By 1985, there were only 50,000 ducks wintering there, or one-tenth of the population. Canvasbacks were extensively hunted around the start of the 20th century, but federal hunting regulations now restrict their harvest, so hunting is ruled out as a cause for the decline. Scientists have now concluded that the decline in duck populations was due to the decline in sub-aquatic vegetation acreage. Today the population has stabilized and is even increasing slightly, although it is nowhere near previous levels. Studies have now shown that by the 1970s four-fifths of the ducks' diet was made up of Baltic Clams, which are very common in the Chesapeake Bay: the ducks have been able to adapt to the decline in sub-aquatic vegetation by changing their diet. Redheads, which also feed on the tubers of sub-aquatic vegetation, have not been able to adapt, and their population remains low. Cuisine Canvasback ducks were a particularly prestigious game dish in mid-19th-century America. They were rarely found on everyday menus, and often featured at banquets. They were generally sourced from Maryland and Chesapeake Bay, and their flavor was attributed to their diet of wild celery. By the end of the century, though, they had become "scarce, expensive, or unobtainable". Edith Wharton refers to canvasback with blackcurrant sauce as an especially luxurious dinner served in New York City in the 1870s. Canvasback duck was a canonical element, along with Terrapin à la Maryland, of the elegant "Maryland Feast" menu, an "elite standard... that lasted for decades". Conservation Populations have fluctuated widely. Low levels in the 1980s put the canvasback on lists of special concern, but numbers increased greatly in the 1990s. The canvasback is particularly vulnerable to drought and wetland drainage on the prairies of North America. Many species of ducks, including the canvasback, are highly migratory, but are effectively conserved by protecting the places where they nest, even though they may be hunted away from their breeding grounds. Protecting key feeding and breeding grounds is key for conserving many types of migratory birds. References External links Canvasback - Aythya valisineria - USGS Patuxent Bird Identification InfoCenter "Canvasback media". Internet Bird Collection. Canvasback photo gallery at VIREO (Drexel University) Interactive range map of Aythya valisineria at IUCN Red List maps Mowbray, Thomas B. (2020-03-04). Poole, Alan F; Gill, Frank B (eds.). "Canvasback (Aythya valisineria)". Birds of the World. Cornell Lab of Ornithology. doi:10.2173/bow.canvas.01. S2CID 216414904. Retrieved 2021-04-20.