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419489 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le%20Morte%20d%27Arthur | Le Morte d'Arthur | (originally written as ; Anglo-Norman French for "The Death of Arthur") is a 15th-century Middle English prose reworking by Sir Thomas Malory of tales about the legendary King Arthur, Guinevere, Lancelot, Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, along with their respective folklore. In order to tell a "complete" story of Arthur from his conception to his death, Malory compiled, rearranged, interpreted and modified material from various French and English sources. Today, this is one of the best-known works of Arthurian literature. Many authors since the 19th-century revival of the legend have used Malory as their principal source.
Apparently written in prison at the end of the medieval English era, Le Morte d'Arthur was completed by Malory around 1470 and was first published in a printed edition in 1485 by William Caxton. Until the discovery of the Winchester Manuscript in 1934, the 1485 edition was considered the earliest known text of Le Morte d'Arthur and that closest to Malory's original version. Modern editions under myriad titles are inevitably variable, changing spelling, grammar and pronouns for the convenience of readers of modern English, as well as often abridging or revising the material.
History
Authorship
The exact identity of the author of Le Morte d'Arthur has long been the subject of speculation, owing to the fact that at least six historical figures bore the name of "Sir Thomas Malory" (in various spellings) during the late 15th century. In the work, the author describes himself as "Knyght presoner Thomas Malleorre" ("Sir Thomas Maleore" according to the publisher William Caxton). Historically, this has been taken as supporting evidence for the identification most widely accepted by scholars: that the author was Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel of Newbold Revel, Warwickshire, son of Sir John Malory.
According to the timeline proposed by P.J.C. Field; Sir Thomas of Newbold Revel inherited the family estate in 1434, but by 1450 he was fully engaged in a life of crime. As early as 1433, he had been accused of theft, but the more serious allegations against him included that of the attempted murder of Humphrey Stafford, 1st Duke of Buckingham, an accusation of at least two rapes, and that he had attacked and robbed Coombe Abbey. Malory was first arrested and imprisoned in 1451 for the ambush of Buckingham, but was released early in 1452. By March, he was back in the Marshalsea prison and then in Colchester, escaping on multiple occasions. In 1461, he was granted a pardon by King Henry VI, returning to live at his estate.
After 1461, few records survive which scholars agree refer to Malory of Newbold Revel. In 1468-1470, King Edward IV issued four more general pardons which specifically excluded a Thomas Malory. The first of these names Malory a knight; and applied to participants in a campaign in Northumberland in the North of England by members of the Lancastrian faction. Field interprets these pardon-exclusions to refer to Malory of Newbold Revel, suggesting that Malory changed his allegiance from York to Lancaster, and that he was involved in a conspiracy with Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick to overthrow King Edward. William Matthews, having given evidence of this candidate's advanced age at the time of the Northumberland campaign and living much further to the South, interprets this record as referring to his own proposed candidate for authorship.
Field proposed that it was during a final stint at Newgate Prison in London that he wrote Le Morte d'Arthur, and that Malory was released in October 1470 when Henry VI returned to the throne; dying only five months later. This Warwickshire knight was widely accepted as the author of the Morte until the publication of Matthews' research in 1966. This candidate's advanced age at the time the work was written is now generally recognized as a serious problem, and his history and character stand in contradiction to the work itself.
This identification was widely accepted through most of the 20th century based on the assumption that this candidate was born around 1416. The 1416 date was proposed by Field, contradicting the original record of this knight's military service record by Dugdale. In 1966, Matthews published original research demonstrating that Malory of Newbold Revel had in fact been an officer under King Henry V in the famous Agincourt campaign by 1414 or 1415; confirming Dugdale's original record and placing this knight's birth around 1393. Late 20th-century researchers generally acknowledged that this would make the Newbold Revel knight far too old to have written Le Morte: in prison in his mid-70s to early 80s, when, in Matthews' words, "the medieval view was that by sixty a man was bean fodder and forage, ready for nothing but death's pit." Because no other contemporary Thomas Malory had been shown to have been knighted, the question remained unresolved.
The second candidate to receive scholarly support as the possible author of Le Morte Darthur is Thomas Mallory of Papworth St Agnes in Huntingdonshire, whose will, written in Latin and dated 16 September 1469, was described in an article by T. A. Martin in the Athenaeum magazine in September 1897. This Mallory was born in Shropshire in 1425, the son of Sir William Mallory, although there is no indication in the will that he was himself a knight; he died within six weeks of the will being made. It has been suggested that the fact that he appears to have been brought up in Lincolnshire may account for the traces of Lincolnshire dialect in Le Morte Darthur. To date, this candidate has not commanded the attention of scholars as the Newbold-Revel knight has.
The most recent contender for authorship emerged in the mid-20th century: Thomas Malory of Hutton Conyers and Studley Royal in Yorkshire. This claim was put forward in 1966 in The Ill-Framed Knight: A Skeptical Inquiry into the Identity of Sir Thomas Malory by William Matthews. Matthews' primary arguments in favor of the Yorkshire Malory were the northerly dialect of the Morte; the likelihood that this is the Malory who was excluded from the pardon by Edward IV in 1468; and the fact that the Newbold Revel knight was far too old to be writing the Morte in the late 1460s. Matthews' interpretation was not widely accepted, primarily because he could not find evidence that the Yorkshireman was a knight. Cecelia Lampp Linton, however, has provided extensive detail about the Malorys of Yorkshire and offered evidence that Thomas of Yorkshire was a Knight Hospitaller, a knight of the church. She has also examined the provenance of some of the known sources of the Morte and has demonstrated that this Malory would have had ready access to these documents. If we accept Linton's evidence, the primary objection to his authorship is removed, and the contradictions presented by the Newbold Revel knight become irrelevant. The Morte itself seems to be much more the work of a knight of the church than a secular repeat offender, as evidenced by Malory's own conclusion (rendered in Modern English): "... pray for me while I am in life that God send me good deliverance, and when I am dead I pray you all pray for my soul; for this book was ended the ninth year of the reign of King Edward the Fourth by Sir Thomas Maleore, knight, as Jesus help him by his great might, as he is the servant of Jesus both day and night."
Sources
As Elizabeth Bryan wrote of Malory's contribution to Arthurian legend in her introduction to a modern edition of Le Morte d'Arthur, "Malory did not invent the stories in this collection; he translated and compiled them. Malory in fact translated Arthurian stories that already existed in 13th-century French prose (the so-called Old French Vulgate romances) and compiled them together with Middle English sources (the Alliterative Morte Arthure and the Stanzaic Morte Arthur) to create this text."
Within his narration, Malory refers to drawing it from a singular "Freynshe booke", in addition to also unspecified "other bookis". In addition to the vast Vulgate Cycle in its different variants, as well as the English poems Morte Arthur and Morte Arthure, Malory's other original source texts were identified as several French standalone chivalric romances, including Érec et Énide, L'âtre périlleux, Perlesvaus, and Yvain ou le Chevalier au Lion (or its English version, Ywain and Gawain), as well as John Hardyng's English Chronicle. The English poem The Weddynge of Syr Gawen is uncertainly regarded as either just another of these or possibly actually Malory's own work. His assorted other sources might have included a 5th-century Roman military manual, De re militari.
Publication and impact
Le Morte d'Arthur was completed in 1469 or 1470 ("the ninth year of the reign of King Edward IV"), according to a note at the end of the book. It is believed that Malory's original title intended was to be The hoole booke of kyng Arthur & of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table, and only its final section to be named Le Morte Darthur. At the end of the work, Caxton added: "Thus endeth this noble & joyous book entytled le morte Darthur, Notwythstondyng it treateth of the byrth, lyf, and actes of the sayd kynge Arthur; of his noble knyghtes of the rounde table, theyr meruayllous enquestes and aduentures, thachyeuyng of the sangreal, & in thende the dolorous deth & departynge out of this worlde of them al." Caxton separated Malory's eight books into 21 books, subdivided the books into a total of 506 chapters, and added a summary of each chapter as well as a colophon to the entire book.
The first printing of Malory's work was made by Caxton in 1485, becoming one of the first books to be ever printed in England. Only two copies of this original printing are known to exist, in the collections of the Morgan Library & Museum in New York and the John Rylands Library in Manchester. It proved popular and was reprinted in an illustrated form with some additions and changes in 1498 (The Boke of Kyng Arthur Somtyme Kynge of Englande and His Noble Actes and Feates of Armes of Chyvalrye) and 1529 (The Boke of the Moost Noble and Worthy Prince Kyng Arthur Somtyme Kyng of Grete Brytayne Now Called Englande) by Wynkyn de Worde who succeeded to Caxton's press. Three more editions were published before the English Civil War: William Copland's The Story of the Most Noble and Worthy Kynge Arthur (1557), Thomas East's The Story of Kynge Arthur, and also of his Knyghtes of the Rounde Table (1585), and William Stansby's The Most Ancient and Famous History of the Renowned Prince Arthur King of Britaine (1634), each of which contained additional changes and errors. Stansby's edition, based on East's, was also deliberately censored. Thereafter, the book went out of fashion until the Romanticist revival of interest in all things medieval.
The British Library summarizes the importance of Malory's work thus: "It was probably always a popular work: it was first printed by William Caxton (...) and has been read by generations of readers ever since. In a literary sense, Malory's text is the most important of all the treatments of Arthurian legend in English language, influencing writers as diverse as Edmund Spenser, Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Mark Twain and John Steinbeck."
The Winchester Manuscript
An assistant headmaster at Winchester College, Walter Fraser Oakeshott discovered a previously unknown manuscript copy of the work in June 1934, during the cataloguing of the college's library. Newspaper accounts announced that what Caxton had published in 1485 was not exactly what Malory had written. Oakeshott published "The Finding of the Manuscript" in 1963, chronicling the initial event and his realization that "this indeed was Malory," with "startling evidence of revision" in the Caxton edition. This manuscript is now in the British Library's collection.
Malory scholar Eugène Vinaver examined the manuscript shortly after its discovery. Oakeshott was encouraged to produce an edition himself, but he ceded the project to Vinaver. Based on his initial study of the manuscript, Oakeshott concluded in 1935 that the copy from which Caxton printed his edition "was already subdivided into books and sections." Vinaver made an exhaustive comparison of the manuscript with Caxton's edition and reached similar conclusions. Microscopic examination revealed that ink smudges on the Winchester manuscript are offsets of newly printed pages set in Caxton's own font, which indicates that the Winchester Manuscript was in Caxton's print shop. The manuscript is believed to be closer on the whole to Malory's original and does not have the book and chapter divisions for which Caxton takes credit in his preface. It has been digitised by a Japanese team, who note that "the text is imperfect, as the manuscript lacks the first and last quires and few leaves. The most striking feature of the manuscript is the extensive use of red ink."
In his 1947 publication of The Works of Sir Thomas Malory, Vinaver argued that Malory wrote not a single book, but rather a series of Arthurian tales, each of which is an internally consistent and independent work. However, William Matthews pointed out that Malory's later tales make frequent references to the earlier events, suggesting that he had wanted the tales to cohere better but had not sufficiently revised the whole text to achieve this. This was followed by much debate in the late 20th-century academia over which version is superior, Caxton's print or Malory's original vision.
Caxton's edition differs from the Winchester manuscript in many places. As well as numerous small differences on every page, there is also a major difference both in style and content in Malory's Book II (Caxton's Book V), describing the war with the Emperor Lucius, where Caxton's version is much shorter. In addition, the Winchester manuscript has none of the customary marks indicating to the compositor where chapter headings and so on were to be added. It has therefore been argued that the Winchester manuscript was not the copy from which Caxton prepared his edition; rather it seems that Caxton either wrote out a different version himself for the use of his compositor, or used another version prepared by Malory.
The Winchester manuscript does not appear to have been copied out by Malory himself; rather, it seems to have been a presentation copy made by two scribes who, judging from certain dialect forms which they introduced into the text, appear to have come from West Northamptonshire. Apart from these forms, both the Winchester manuscript and the Caxton edition show some more northerly dialect forms which, in the judgement of the Middle English dialect expert Angus McIntosh are closest to the dialect of Lincolnshire. McIntosh argues, however, that this does not necessarily rule out the Warwickshire Malory as the possible author; he points out that it could be that the Warwickshire Malory consciously imitated the style and vocabulary of romance literature typical of the period.
Overview
Style
Like other English prose in the 15th century, Le Morte d'Arthur was highly influenced by French writings, but Malory blends these with other English verse and prose forms. The Middle English of Le Morte d'Arthur is much closer to Early Modern English than the Middle English of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (the publication of Chaucer's work by Caxton was a precursor to Caxton's publication of Malory); if the spelling is modernized, it reads almost like Elizabethan English. Where the Canterbury Tales are in Middle English, Malory extends "one hand to Chaucer, and one to Spenser," by constructing a manuscript which is hard to place in one category.
Malory's writing can be divisive today: sometimes seen as simplistic from an artistic viewpoint, "rambling" and full of repetitions, however there are also opposite opinions, such as of those regarding it a "supreme aesthetic accomplishment". Other aspects of Malory's writing style include him abruptly abridging of much of the source material, especially in the early parts concerning Arthur's backstory and his rise of power (preferring the later adventures of the knights), apparently acting on an authorial assumption that the reader knows the story already and resulting in the problem of omitting important things "thereby often rendering his text obscure", and how he would sometimes turn descriptions of characters into proper names. Because there is so much lengthy ground to cover, Malory uses "so—and—then", often to transition his retelling of the stories that become episodes instead of instances that can stand on their own.
Setting and themes
Most of the events take place in a historical fantasy version of Britain and France at an unspecified time (on occasion, the plot ventures farther afield, to Rome and Sarras, and recalls Biblical tales from the ancient Near East). Arthurian myth is set during the 5th to 6th centuries; however, Malory's telling contains many anachronisms and makes no effort at historical accuracy–even more so than his sources. Earlier romance authors have already depicted the "Dark Ages" times of Arthur as a familiar, High-to-Late Medieval style world of armored knights and grand castles taking place of the Post-Roman warriors and forts. Malory further modernized the legend by conflating the Celtic Britain with his own contemporary Kingdom of England (for example explicitly identifying Logres as England, Camelot as Winchester, and Astolat as Guildford) and, completely ahistorically, replacing the legend's Saxon invaders with the Ottoman Turks in the role of King Arthur's foreign pagan enemies. Although Malory hearkens back to an age of idealized vision of knighthood, with chivalric codes of honour and jousting tournaments, his stories lack mentions of agricultural life or commerce. As noted by Ian Scott-Kilvert, characters "consist almost entirely of fighting men, their wives or mistresses, with an occasional clerk or an enchanter, a fairy or a fiend, a giant or a dwarf," and "time does not work on the heroes of Malory."
According to Charles W. Moorman III, Malory intended "to set down in English a unified Arthuriad which should have as its great theme the birth, the flowering, and the decline of an almost perfect earthy civilization." Moorman identified three main motifs going through the work: Sir Lancelot's and Queen Guinevere's affair; the long blood feud between the families of King Lot and King Pellinore; and the mystical Grail Quest. Each of these plots would define one of the causes of the downfall of Arthur's kingdom, namely "the failures in love, in loyalty, in religion."
Volumes and internal chronology
Prior to Caxton's reorganization, Malory's work originally consisted of eight books:
The birth and rise of Arthur: "From the Marriage of King Uther unto King Arthur (that reigned after him and did many battles)" (Fro the Maryage of Kynge Uther unto Kynge Arthure that regned aftir hym and ded many batayles)
Arthur's war against the resurgent Western Romans: "The Noble Tale Between King Arthur and Lucius the Emperor of Rome" (The Noble Tale betwyxt Kynge Arthure and Lucius the Emperour of Rome)
The early adventures of Sir Lancelot: "The Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot of the Lake" (The Noble Tale of Sir Launcelot du Lake)
The story of Sir Gareth: "The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkney" (The Tale of Sir Gareth of Orkeney)
The legend of Tristan and Iseult: "The Book of Sir Tristram de Lyones" (originally split between The Fyrste Boke of Sir Trystrams de Lyones and The Secunde Boke of Sir Trystrams de Lyones)
The quest for the Grail: "The Noble Tale of the Sangreal" (The Noble Tale of the Sankegreall)
The forbidden love between Lancelot and Guinevere: "Sir Launcelot and Queen Guenever" (Sir Launcelot and Quene Gwenyvere)
The breakup of the Knights of the Round Table and the last battle of Arthur: "The Death of Arthur" (The Deth of Arthur)
Moorman attempted to put the books of the Winchester Manuscript in chronological order. In his analysis, Malory's intended chronology can be divided into three parts: Book I followed by a 20-year interval that includes some events of Book III and others; the 15-year-long period of Book V, also spanning Books IV, II and the later parts of III (in that order); and finally Books VI, VII and VIII in a straightforward sequence beginning with the closing part of Book V (the Joyous Gard section).
Synopsis
Book I (Caxton I–IV)
Arthur is born to the High King of Britain (Malory's "England") Uther Pendragon and his new wife Igraine, and then taken by the wizard Merlin to be secretly fostered by Sir Ector in the country in turmoil after the death of Uther. Years later, the now teenage Arthur suddenly becomes the ruler of the leaderless Britain when he removes the fated sword from the stone in the contest set up by Merlin, which proves his birthright that he himself had not been aware of. The newly crowned King Arthur and his followers including King Ban and King Bors go on to fight against rivals and rebels, ultimately winning the war in the great Battle of Bedegraine. Arthur prevails due to his military prowess and the prophetic and magical counsel of Merlin (later replaced by the sorceress Nimue), further helped by the sword Excalibur that Arthur received from a Lady of the Lake. With the help of reconciled rebels, Arthur also crushes a foreign invasion in the Battle of Clarence. With his throne secure, Arthur marries the also young Princess Guinevere and inherits the Round Table from her father, King Leodegrance. He then gathers his chief knights, including some of his former enemies who now joined him, at his capital Camelot and establishes the Round Table fellowship as all swear to the Pentecostal Oath as a guide for knightly conduct.
The narrative of Malory's first book is mainly based on the Prose Merlin in its version from the Post-Vulgate Suite du Merlin (more specifically, possibly on the manuscript Cambridge University Library, Additional 7071). It also includes the tale of Balyn and Balan (a lengthy section which Malory called a "booke" in itself), as well as other episodes such as the hunt for the Questing Beast and the treason of Arthur's sorceress half-sister Queen Morgan le Fay in the plot involving her lover Accolon. Furthermore, it tells of begetting of Arthur's incestuous son Mordred by one of his other royal half-sisters, Morgause (though Arthur did not know her as his sister); on Merlin's advice, Arthur then takes every newborn boy in his kingdom and all but Mordred, who miraculously survives and eventually indeed kills his father in the end, perish at sea (this is mentioned matter-of-fact, with no apparent moral overtone).
Malory addresses his contemporary preoccupations with legitimacy and societal unrest, which will appear throughout the rest of Le Morte d'Arthur. According to Helen Cooper in Sir Thomas Malory: Le Morte D'arthur – The Winchester Manuscript, the prose style, which mimics historical documents of the time, lends an air of authority to the whole work. This allowed contemporaries to read the book as a history rather than as a work of fiction, therefore making it a model of order for Malory's violent and chaotic times during the Wars of the Roses. Malory's concern with legitimacy reflects 15th-century England, where many were claiming their rights to power through violence and bloodshed.
Book II (Caxton V)
The opening of the second volume finds Arthur and his kingdom without an enemy. His throne is secure, and his knights including Griflet and Tor as well as Arthur's own nephews Gawain and Ywain (sons of Morgause and Morgan, respectively) have proven themselves in various battles and fantastic quests as told in the first volume. Seeking more glory, Arthur and his knights then go to the war against (fictitious) Emperor Lucius who has just demanded Britain to resume paying tribute. Departing from Geoffrey of Monmouth's literary tradition in which Mordred is left in charge (as this happens there near the end of the story), Malory's Arthur leaves his court in the hands of Constantine of Cornwall and sails to Normandy to meet his cousin Hoel. After that, the story details Arthur's march on Rome through Almaine (Germany) and Italy. Following a series of battles resulting in the great victory over Lucius and his allies, and the Roman Senate's surrender, Arthur is crowned a Western Emperor but instead arranges a proxy government and returns to Britain.
This book is based mostly on the first half of the Middle English heroic poem Alliterative Morte Arthure (itself heavily based on Geoffrey's pseudo-chronicle Historia Regum Britanniae). Caxton's print version is abridged by more than half compared to Malory's manuscript. Vinaver theorized that Malory originally wrote this part first as a standalone work, while without knowledge of French romances. In effect, there is a time lapse that includes Arthur's war with King Claudas in France.
Book III (Caxton VI)
Going back to a time before Book II, Malory establishes Sir Lancelot, a young French orphan prince, as King Arthur's most revered knight through numerous episodic adventures, some of which he presented in comedic manner. Lancelot always adheres to the Pentecostal Oath, assisting ladies in distress and giving mercy for honourable enemies he has defeated in combat. However, the world Lancelot lives in is too complicated for simple mandates and, although Lancelot aspires to live by an ethical code, the actions of others make it difficult. Other issues are demonstrated when Morgan le Fay enchants Lancelot, which reflects a feminization of magic, and in how the prominence of jousting tournament fighting in this tale indicates a shift away from battlefield warfare towards a more mediated and virtuous form of violence.
Lancelot's character had previously appeared in the chronologically later Book II, fighting for Arthur against the Romans. In Book III, based on parts of the French Prose Lancelot (mostly its 'Agravain' section, along with the chapel perilous episode taken from Perlesvaus), Malory attempts to turn the focus of courtly love from adultery to service by having Lancelot dedicate doing everything he does for Queen Guinevere, the wife of his lord and friend Arthur, but avoid (for a time being) to committing to an adulterous relationship with her. Nevertheless, it is still her love that is the ultimate source of Lancelot's supreme knightly qualities, something that Malory himself did not appear to be fully comfortable with as it seems to have clashed with his personal ideal of knighthood. Although a catalyst of the fall of Camelot, as it was in the French romantic prose cycle tradition, the moral handling of the adultery between Lancelot and Guinevere in Le Morte implies their relationship is true and pure, as Malory focused on the ennobling aspects of courtly love.
Book IV (Caxton VII)
The fourth volume primarily deals with the adventures of the young Gareth ("Beaumains") in his long quest for the sibling ladies Lynette and Lioness. The youngest of Arthur's nephews by Morgause and Lot, Gareth hides his identity as a nameless squire at Camelot as to achieve his knighthood in the most honest and honourable way. While this particular story is not directly based on any existing text unlike most of the content of previous volumes, it resembles various Arthurian romances of the Fair Unknown type.
Book V (Caxton VIII–XII)
A collection of the tales about Sir Tristan of Lyonesse as well as a variety of other knights such as Sir Dinadan, Sir Lamorak, Sir Palamedes, Sir Alexander the Orphan (Tristan's young relative abducted by Morgan) and "La Cote de Male Tayle". After telling of Tristan's birth and childhood, its primary focus is on the doomed adulterous relationship between Tristan and the Belle Isolde, wife of his villainous uncle King Mark. It also includes the retrospective story of how Sir Galahad was born to Sir Lancelot and Princess Elaine of Corbenic, followed by Lancelot's years of madness.
Based mainly on the French vast Prose Tristan, or its lost English adaptation (and possibly also the Middle English verse romance Sir Tristrem), Malory's treatment of the legend of the young Cornish prince Tristan is the centerpiece of Le Morte d'Arthur as well as the longest of his eight books. The variety of episodes and the alleged lack of coherence in the Tristan narrative raise questions about its role in Malory's text. However, the book foreshadows the rest of the text as well as including and interacting with characters and tales discussed in other parts of the work. It can be seen as an exploration of secular chivalry and a discussion of honour or "worship" when it is founded in a sense of shame and pride. If Le Morte is viewed as a text in which Malory is attempting to define the concept of knighthood, then the tale of Tristan becomes its critique, rather than Malory attempting to create an ideal knight as he does in some of the other books.
Book VI (Caxton XIII–XVII)
Malory's primary source for this long part was the Vulgate Queste del Saint Graal, chronicling the adventures of many knights in their spiritual quest to achieve the Holy Grail. Gawain is the first to embark on the quest for the Grail. Other knights like Lancelot, Percival, and Bors the Younger, likewise undergo the quest, eventually achieved by Galahad. Their exploits are intermingled with encounters with maidens and hermits who offer advice and interpret dreams along the way.
After the confusion of the secular moral code he manifested within the previous book, Malory attempts to construct a new mode of chivalry by placing an emphasis on religion. Christianity and the Church offer a venue through which the Pentecostal Oath can be upheld, whereas the strict moral code imposed by religion foreshadows almost certain failure on the part of the knights. For instance, Gawain refuses to do penance for his sins, claiming the tribulations that coexist with knighthood as a sort of secular penance. Likewise, the flawed Lancelot, for all his sincerity, is unable to completely escape his adulterous love of Guinevere, and is thus destined to fail where Galahad will succeed. This coincides with the personification of perfection in the form of Galahad, a virgin wielding the power of God. Galahad's life, uniquely entirely without sin, makes him a model of a holy knight that cannot be emulated through secular chivalry.
Book VII (Caxton XVIII–XIX)
The continued story of Lancelot's romance with Guinevere. Lancelot completes a series of trials to prove being worthy of the Queen's love, culminating in his rescue of her from the abduction by the renegade knight Maleagant (this is also the first time the work explicitly mentions the couple's sexual adultery). Writing it, Malory combined the established material from the Vulgate Cycle's Prose Lancelot (including the story of the Fair Maiden of Ascolat and an abridged retelling of Lancelot, the Knight of the Cart) with his own creations (the episodes "The Great Tournament" and "The Healing of Sir Urry").
Book VIII (Caxton XX–XXI)
Mordred and his half-brother Agravain succeed in revealing Guinevere's adultery and Arthur sentences her to burn. Lancelot's rescue party raids the execution, killing several loyal knights of the Round Table, including Gawain's brothers Gareth and Gaheris. Gawain, bent on revenge, prompts Arthur into a long and bitter war with Lancelot. After they leave to pursue Lancelot in France, where Gawain is mortally injured in a duel with Lancelot (and later finally reconciles with him on his death bed), Mordred seizes the throne and takes control of Arthur's kingdom. At the bloody final battle between Mordred's followers and Arthur's remaining loyalists in England, Arthur kills Mordred but is himself gravely wounded. As Arthur is dying, the lone survivor Bedivere casts Excalibur away, and Morgan and Nimue come together to take Arthur to Avalon. Following the passing of King Arthur, who is succeeded by Constantine, Malory provides a denouement about the later deaths of Bedivere, Guinevere, and Lancelot and his kinsmen.
Writing the eponymous final book, Malory used the version of Arthur's death derived primarily from parts of the Vulgate Mort Artu and, as a secondary source, from the English Stanzaic Morte Arthur (or, in another possibility, a hypothetical now-lost French modification of the Mort Artu was a common source of both of these texts). In the words of George Brown, the book "celebrates the greatness of the Arthurian world on the eve of its ruin. As the magnificent fellowship turns violently upon itself, death and destruction also produce repentance, forgiveness, and salvation."
Modern versions and adaptations
Following the lapse of 182 years since the last printing, the year 1816 saw a new edition by Alexander Chalmers, illustrated by Thomas Uwins (The History of the Renowned Prince Arthur, King of Britain; with His Life and Death, and All His Glorious Battles. Likewise, the Noble Acts and Heroic Deeds of His Valiant Knights of the Round Table), as well as another one by Joseph Haslewood (La Mort D'Arthur: The Most Ancient and Famous History of the Renowned Prince Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table); both of these were based on the 1634 Stansby's version. Several other modern editions, including these by Thomas Wright (La Morte D'Arthure: The History of King Arthur and of the Knights of the Round Table, 1858) and Ernest Rhys (Malory's History of King Arthur and the Quest of The Holy Grail: From The Morte D'Arthur, 1886), were also based on that by Stansby.
William Upcott's edition directly based on then-newly rediscovered Morgan copy of the first print Caxton version was published as Malory's Morte d'Arthur with Robert Southey's introduction and notes including summaries of the original French material from the Vulgate tradition in 1817. Afterwards, Caxton became the basis for many subsequent editions until the 1934 discovery of the Winchester Manuscript.
The first mass-printed modern edition of Caxton was published in 1868 by Edward Strachey as a book for boys titled Le Morte Darthur: Sir Thomas Malory's Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table, highly censored in accordance to Victorian morals. Many other 19th-century editors, abridgers and retellers such as Henry Frith (King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, 1884) would also censor their versions for the same reason. The first "standard" popular edition, based on Caxton was Heinrich Oskar Sommer's Le Morte Darthur by Syr Thomas Malory published in 1890 with an introduction and glossary as well as an essay on Malory's prose style, followed by these by John Rhys in 1893 (Everyman's Library) and Israel Gollancz in 1897 (Temple Classics).
Modernized editions update the late Middle English spelling, update some pronouns, and re-punctuate and re-paragraph the text. Others furthermore update the phrasing and vocabulary to contemporary Modern English. The following sentence (from Caxton's preface, addressed to the reader) is an example written in Middle English and then in Modern English:
Doo after the good and leve the evyl, and it shal brynge you to good fame and renomme. (Do after the good and leave the evil, and it shall bring you to good fame and renown.)
Since the 19th-century Arthurian revival, there have been numerous modern republications, retellings and adaptations of Le Morte d'Arthur. A few of them are listed below (see also the following Bibliography section):
Malory's book inspired Reginald Heber's unfinished poem Morte D'Arthur. A fragment of it was published by Heber's widow in 1830.
Victorian poet Alfred Tennyson retold the legends in the poetry volume Idylls of the King (1859 and 1885). His work focuses on Le Morte d'Arthur and the Mabinogion, with many expansions, additions and several adaptations, such as the fate of Guinevere (in Malory, she is sentenced to be burnt at the stake but is rescued by Lancelot; in the Idylls, Guinevere flees to a convent, is forgiven by Arthur, repents and serves in the convent until her death).
James Thomas Knowles published Le Morte d'Arthur as The Legends of King Arthur and His Knights in 1860. Knowles described it as "an abridgment of Sir Thomas Malory's version ... with a few additions from Geoffrey of Monmouth and other sources—and an endeavor to arrange the many tales into a more or less consecutive story." Originally illustrated by George Housman Thomas, it has been subsequently illustrated by various other artists, including William Henry Margetson and Louis Rhead. The 1912 edition was illustrated by Lancelot Speed, who later also illustrated Rupert S. Holland's 1919 King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table that was based on Knowles with addition of some material from the 12th-century Perceval, the Story of the Grail.
In 1880, Sidney Lanier published a much expurgated rendition entitled The Boy's King Arthur: Sir Thomas Malory's History of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, Edited for Boys, an enduringly popular children's adaptation, originally illustrated by Alfred Kappes. A new edition with illustrations by N. C. Wyeth was first published in 1917. This version was later incorporated into Grosset and Dunlap's series of books called the Illustrated Junior Library, and reprinted under the title King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table (1950).
In 1892, London publisher J. M. Dent produced an illustrated edition of Le Morte Darthur in modern spelling, with illustrations by 20-year-old insurance office clerk and art student Aubrey Beardsley. It was issued in 12 volumes between June 1893 and mid-1894, and met with only modest success, but was later described as Beardsley's first masterpiece, launching what has come to be known as the "Beardsley look". It was Beardsley's first major commission, and included nearly 585 chapter openings, borders, initials, ornaments and full- or double-page illustrations. The majority of the Dent edition illustrations were reprinted by Dover Publications in 1972 under the title Beardsley's Illustrations for Le Morte Darthur. A facsimile of the Beardsley edition, complete with Malory's unabridged text, was published in the 1990s.
Mary MacLeod's popular children's adaptation King Arthur and His Noble Knights: Stories From Sir Thomas Malory's Morte D'Arthur was first published with illustrations by Arthur George Walker in 1900 and subsequently reprinted in various editions and in extracts in children's magazines.
Beatrice Clay wrote a retelling first included in her Stories from Le Morte Darthur and the Mabinogion (1901). A retitled version, Stories of King Arthur and the Round Table (1905), features illustrations by Dora Curtis.
In 1902, Andrew Lang published The Book of Romance, a retelling of Malory illustrated by Henry Justice Ford. It was retitled as Tales of King Arthur and the Round Table in the 1909 edition.
Howard Pyle wrote and illustrated a series of four books: The Story of King Arthur and His Knights (1903), The Story of the Champions of the Round Table (1905), The Story of Sir Launcelot and His Companions (1907), and The Story of the Grail and the Passing of King Arthur (1910). Rather than retell the stories as written, Pyle presented his own versions of select episodes enhanced with other tales and his own imagination.
Another children adaptation, Henry Gilbert's King Arthur's Knights: The Tales Retold for Boys and Girls, was first published in 1911, originally illustrated by Walter Crane. Highly popular, it was reprinted many times until 1940, featuring also illustrations from other artists such as Frances Brundage and Thomas Heath Robinson.
Alfred W. Pollard published an abridged edition of Malory in 1900, illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Pollard later also published a complete version in four volumes during 1910-1911 and in two volumes in 1920, with illustrations by William Russell Flint.
T. H. White's The Once and Future King (1938–1977) is a famous and influential retelling of Malory's work. White rewrote the story in his own fashion. His rendition contains intentional and obvious anachronisms and social-political commentary on contemporary matters. White made Malory himself a character and bestowed upon him the highest praise.
Pollard's 1910-1911 abridged edition of Malory provided basis for John W. Donaldson's 1943 book Arthur Pendragon of Britain. It was illustrated by N. C. Wyeth son, Andrew Wyeth.
Roger Lancelyn Green and Richard Lancelyn Green published King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table in 1953.
Alex Blum's comic book retelling Knights of the Round Table was published in the Classics Illustrated series in 1953.
John Steinbeck utilized the Winchester Manuscripts of Thomas Malory and other sources as the original text for his The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights. This retelling was intended for young people but was never completed. It was published posthumously in 1976 as The Book of King Arthur and His Noble Knights of the Round Table.
Walker Percy credited his childhood reading of The Boy's King Arthur for his own novel Lancelot (1977).
Thomas Berger described his 1978 novel Arthur Rex as his memory of the "childish version" by Elizabeth Lodor Merchant that began his fascination in the Arthurian legend in 1931.
Excalibur, a 1981 British film directed, produced, and co-written by John Boorman, retells Le Morte d'Arthur, with some changes to the plot and fate of certain characters (such as merging Morgause with Morgan, who dies in this version).
Marion Zimmer Bradley's 1983 The Mists of Avalon retold Le Morte d'Arthur from a feminist neopagan perspective.
In 1984, the ending of Malory's story was turned by John Barton and Gillian Lynne into a BBC2 non-speaking (that is featuring only Malory's narration and silent actors) television drama, titled simply Le Morte d'Arthur.
Emma Gelders Sterne, Barbara Lindsay, Gustaf Tenggren and Mary Pope Osborne published King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table in 2002.
Jeff Limke's and Tom Yeates' comic book adaptation of a part of Malory's Book I was published as King Arthur: Excalibur Unsheathed in 2006, followed by Arthur & Lancelot: The Fight for Camelot in 2007.
Castle Freeman Jr.'s 2008 novel Go with Me is a modern retelling of Malory's Tale of Sir Gareth.
In 2009, Dorsey Armstrong published a Modern English translation that focused on the Winchester manuscript rather than the Caxton edition.
Peter Ackroyd's 2010 novel The Death of King Arthur is a modern English retelling of Le Morte d'Arthur.
Chris Crawford's 2023 game Le morte D'Arthur features interactive story where one plays for Arthur and decides about course of action.
Bibliography
The work itself
Editions based on the Winchester manuscript:
Facsimile:
Malory, Sir Thomas. The Winchester Malory: A Facsimile. Introduced by Ker, N. R. (1976). London: Early English Text Society. .
Original spelling:
Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte Darthur. (A Norton Critical Edition). Ed. Shepherd, Stephen H. A. (2004). New York: W. W. Norton.
_. The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. Ed. Vinaver, Eugène. 3rd ed. Field, Rev. P. J. C. (1990). 3 vol. Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
_. Malory: Complete Works. Ed. Vinaver, Eugène (1977). Oxford: Oxford University Press. . (Revision and retitling of Malory: Works of 1971).
_. Malory: Works. Ed. Vinaver, Eugène (1971). 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. .
_. The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. Ed. Vinaver, Eugène (1967). 2nd ed. 3 vol. Oxford: Clarendon Press. .
_. Malory: Works. Ed. Vinaver, Eugène (1954). Oxford: Oxford University Press. . (Malory's text from Vinaver's The Works of Sir Thomas Malory (1947), in a single volume dropping most of Vinaver's notes and commentary.)
_. The Works of Sir Thomas Malory. Ed. Vinaver, Eugène (1947). 3 vol. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Modernised spelling:
Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte Darthur: The Winchester Manuscript. Ed. Cooper, Helen (1998). Oxford: Oxford University Press. (Abridged text.)
Translation/paraphrase into contemporary English:
Armstrong, Dorsey. Sir Thomas Malory's Morte Darthur: A New Modern English Translation Based on the Winchester Manuscript (Renaissance and Medieval Studies) Anderson, SC: Parlor Press, 2009. .
Malory, Sir Thomas. Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur: King Arthur and Legends of the Round Table. Trans. and abridged by Baines, Keith (1983). New York: Bramhall House. . Reissued by Signet (2001). .
_. Le Morte D'Arthur. (London Medieval & Renaissance Ser.) Trans. Lumiansky, Robert M. (1982). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. .
John Steinbeck, and Thomas Malory. The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights: From the Winchester Manuscripts of Thomas Malory and Other Sources. (1976) New York: Noonday Press. Reissued 1993. . (Unfinished)
Brewer, D.S. Malory: The Morte Darthur. York Medieval Texts, Elizabeth Salter and Derek Pearsall, Gen. Eds. (1968) London: Edward Arnold. Reissued 1993. . (Modernized spelling version of Books 7 and 8 as a complete story in its own right. Based on Winchester MS, but with changes taken from Caxton, and some emendations by Brewer.)
Editions based on Caxton's edition:
Facsimile:
Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte d'Arthur, printed by William Caxton, 1485. Ed. Needham, Paul (1976). London.
Original spelling:
Malory, Sir Thomas. Caxton's Malory. Ed. Spisak, James. W. (1983). 2 vol. boxed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. .
_. Le Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory. Ed. Sommer, H. Oskar (1889–91). 3 vol. London: David Nutt. The text of Malory from this edition without Sommer's annotation and commentary and selected texts of Malory's sources is available on the web at:
_. Tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Caxton's text, with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley and a foreword by Sarah Peverley (2017). Flame Tree Publishing. .
–––. Le Morte Darthur, Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse: University of Michigan.
Modernised spelling:
Malory, Sir Thomas. Le Morte d'Arthur. Ed. Matthews, John (2000). Illustrated by Ferguson, Anna-Marie. London: Cassell. . (The introduction by John Matthews praises the Winchester text but then states this edition is based on the Pollard version of the Caxton text, with eight additions from the Winchester manuscript.)
_. Le Morte Darthur. Introduction by Moore, Helen (1996). Herefordshire: Wordsworth Editions Ltd. . (Seemingly based on the Pollard text.)
_. Le morte d'Arthur. Introduction by Bryan, Elizabeth J. (1994). New York: Modern Library. . (Pollard text.)
_. Le Morte d'Arthur. Ed. Cowen, Janet (1970). Introduction by Lawlor, John. 2 vols. London: Penguin. .
_. Le Morte d'Arthur. Ed. Rhys, John (1906). (Everyman's Library 45 & 46.) London: Dent; London: J. M. Dent; New York: E. P. Dutton. Released in paperback format in 1976: . (Text based on an earlier modernised Dent edition of 1897.)
_. Le Morte Darthur: Sir Thomas Malory's Book of King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table,. Ed. Pollard, A. W. (1903). 2 vol. New York: Macmillan. (Text corrected from the bowdlerised 1868 Macmillan edition edited by Sir Edward Strachey.) Available on the web at:
_. Le Morte Darthur. Ed. Simmon, F. J. (1893–94). Illustrated by Beardsley, Aubrey. 2 vol. London: Dent.
Project Gutenberg: Le Morte Darthur: Volume 1 (books 1–9) and Le Morte Darthur: Volume 2 (books 10–21). (Plain text.)
Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library: Le Morte Darthur: Volume 1 (books 1–9) and Le Morte Darthur: Volume 2 (books 10–21) (HTML.)
Celtic Twilight: Legends of Camelot: Le Morte d'Arthur (HTML with illustrations by Aubrey Beardsley from the Dent edition of 1893–94.)
Commentary
Glossary to Le Morte d'Arthur at Glossary to Book 1 and Glossary to Book 2 (PDF)
Malory's Morte d'Arthur and Style of the Morte d'Arthur, selections by Alice D. Greenwood with bibliography from the Cambridge History of English Literature.
Arthur Dies at the End by Jeff Wikstrom
About the Winchester manuscript:
University of Georgia: English Dept: Jonathan Evans: Walter F. Oakeshott and the Winchester Manuscript. (Contains links to the first public announcements concerning the Winchester manuscript from The Daily Telegraph, The Times, and The Times Literary Supplement.)
UBC Dept. of English: Siân Echard: Caxton and Winchester (link offline on Oct. 25, 2011; according to message on Ms. Echard's Medieval Pages, "September 2011: Most of the pages below are being renovated, so the links are (temporarily) inactive.")
Department of English, Goucher College: Arnie Sanders: The Malory Manuscript
Other
Bryan, Elizabeth J. (1999/1994). "Sir Thomas Malory", Le Morte D'Arthur, p. v. New York: Modern Library. .
Lumiansky, R. M. (1987). "Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte Darthur, 1947-1987: Author, Title, Text". Speculum Vol. 62, No. 4 (Oct., 1987), pp. 878–897. The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Medieval Academy of America
Linton, Cecelia Lampp. The Knight Who Gave Us King Arthur: Sir Thomas Malory, Knight Hospitaller. Front Royal, VA: Christendom College Press. 2023. ISBN 979-8-9868157-2-5.
See also
Illegitimacy in fiction – In Le Morte d'Arthur, King Arthur is conceived illegitimately when his father Uther Pendragon utilizes Merlin's magic to seduce Igraine
James Archer – one of 19th-century British artists inspired by Malory's book
Notes and references
External links
Full Text of Volume One – at Project Gutenberg
Full Text of Volume Two – at Project Gutenberg
Different copies of La Mort d'Arthur at the Internet Archive
1485 books
Adaptations of works by Chrétien de Troyes
Arthurian literature in Middle English
Books published posthumously
British books
Medieval literature
Prison writings
Romance (genre)
Works by Thomas Malory |
419490 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nzinga%20of%20Ndongo%20and%20Matamba | Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba | Nzinga Ana de Sousa Mbande ( – 17 December 1663) was a Southwest African ruler who ruled as queen of the Ambundu Kingdoms of Ndongo (1624–1663) and Matamba (1631–1663), located in present-day northern Angola. Born into the ruling family of Ndongo, her father Ngola Kilombo Kia Kasenda was the king of Ndongo.
Njinga received military and political training as a child, and she demonstrated an aptitude for defusing political crises as an ambassador to the Portuguese Empire. In 1624, she assumed power over Ndongo after the death of her brother Mbandi. She ruled during a period of rapid growth of the African slave trade and encroachment by the Portuguese Empire in South West Africa. The Portuguese declared war on Ndongo in 1626 and by 1628, Njinga's army had been severely depleted and they went into exile. In search of allies, she married Imbangala warlord Kasanje. Using this new alliance to rebuild her forces, she conquered the Kingdom of Matamba from 1631 to 1635. In 1641, she entered into an alliance with the Dutch West India Company who had captured Luanda from the Portuguese. Between 1641 and 1644, Njinga was able to reclaim large parts of Ndongo. Alongside the Dutch, she defeated the Portuguese in a number of battles but was unable to take the Fortress of Massangano. In 1648, the Portuguese recaptured Luanda, with the Dutch leaving Angola. Njinga continued to fight the Portuguese until a peace treaty was signed in 1656.
In the centuries since her death, Njinga has been increasingly recognized as a major historical figure in Angola and in the wider Atlantic Creole culture. She is remembered for her intelligence, her political and diplomatic wisdom, and her military tactics.
Early life
Njinga was born into the royal family of Ndongo, a Mbundu kingdom in central West Africa around 1583. She was the daughter of Ngola (a noble title translatable to King) Kilombo of Ndongo. Her mother, Kengela ka Nkombe, was one of her father's slave wives and his favorite concubine. According to legend, the birthing process was very difficult for Kengela, her mother; Njinga received her name because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck (the Kimbundu verb kujinga means to twist or turn). Children of the royal household who survived difficult or unusual births were believed to possess spiritual gifts, and some saw their births as an indicator the person would grow to become a powerful and proud person. Njinga had two sisters, Kambu, or Lady Barbara and Funji, or Lady Grace. She also had a brother, Mbandi, who was heir apparent to throne.
When she was 10 years old, her father became the king of the Ndongo. As a child, Njinga was greatly favored by her father. Since she was not considered an heir to the throne, she was not seen as direct competition to male members of the family, and so the king could freely lavish attention upon her without offending his more likely heirs. She received military training and was trained as a warrior to fight alongside her father, displaying considerable aptitude with a battle axe, the traditional weapon of Ndongan warriors. She participated in many official and governance duties alongside her father, including legal councils, war councils, and important rituals. Furthermore, Njinga was taught by visiting Portuguese missionaries to read and write in Portuguese.
Name variations
Queen Njinga Mbande is known by many different names including both Kimbundu and Portuguese names, alternate spellings and various honorifics. Common spellings found in Portuguese and English sources include Nzinga, Nzingha, Njinga, and Njingha. In colonial documentation, including her own manuscripts, her name was also spelled Jinga, Ginga, Zinga, Zingua, Zhinga, and Singa. She was also known by her Christian name, Ana de Sousa. This name—Anna de Souza Nzingha—was given to her when she was baptized. She was named Anna after the Portuguese woman who acted as her Godmother at the ceremony. She helped influence who Nzingha was in the future. Her Christian surname, de Souza, came from the acting governor of Angola, João Correia de Souza.
As a monarch of Ndongo and Matamba, her native name was Ngola Njinga. Ngola was the Ndongo name for the ruler and the etymological root of "Angola". In Portuguese, she was known as Rainha Nzinga/Zinga/Ginga (Queen Nzingha). According to the current Kimbundu orthography, her name is spelled Njinga Mbandi (the "j" is a voiced postalveolar fricative or "soft j" as in Portuguese and French, while the adjacent "n" is silent). The statue of Njinga now standing in the square of Kinaxixi in Luanda calls her "Mwene Njinga Mbande".
Political background
During this period, the kingdom of Ndongo was managing multiple crises, largely due to conflicts with the Portuguese Empire. The Portuguese had first come to Ndongo in 1575 when they established a trading post in Luanda with the help of the Kingdom of Kongo, Ndongo's northern rival. Despite several years of initial peace between Ndongo and Portugal, relations soured between the two kingdoms and devolved into decades of war between them. Ndongo faced intense military pressure from Portugal and Kongo, both of which seized Ndongan territory. By the 1580s, large parts of Ndongo had fallen under Portuguese control. The Portuguese waged war in a brutal style, burning villages and taking hostages. In addition to territorial conquests, the Portuguese seized large numbers of slaves during the conflict (50,000 according to one source) and built forts inside Ndongan territory to control the slave trade.
Ndongo rallied against the Portuguese, defeating them at the Battle of Lucala in 1590, but not before the kingdom had lost much of its territory. The conflict eroded the power of the king, with many Ndongan noblemen, sobas, refusing to pay tribute to the crown and some siding with the Portuguese. By the time that Nzingha's father became king in 1593, the region had been devastated by war and the power of the king greatly diminished. The king tried a variety of methods to handle the crisis, including diplomacy, negotiations, and open warfare, but he was unable to improve the situation.
The situation grew worse for Ndongo when in 1607 the kingdom was invaded by the Imbangala, tribal bands of warriors known for their ferocity in battle and religious fervor. The Imbangala divided themselves into warbands, occupying Ndongan territory and capturing slaves. The Portuguese hired some of the Imbangalans as mercenaries, and the new threat forced the Ndongan king to give up any attempts to reconquer his lost territory.
Succession to power
Nzinga's Embassy
In 1617, Ngola Mbandi Kiluanji died and Ngola Mbandi, his son and Nzinga's brother, came to power. Upon assuming the throne, he engaged in months of political bloodletting, killing many rival claimants to the throne, including his older half-brother and their family. 35 at the time, Nzingha was spared, but the new king ordered her young son killed while she and her two sisters were forcibly sterilized, ensuring that she would never have a child again. According to some sources, Nzingha was singled out for harsh treatment as she had a longstanding rivalry with her brother. Perhaps fearing for her life, Nzinga fled to the Kingdom of Matamba.
Having consolidated his power, Mbandi vowed to continue the war against the Portuguese. However, he lacked military skill, and while he was able to form an alliance with the Imbangala, the Portuguese made significant military gains. Faced with the Portuguese threat, in 1621 he contacted Nzingha, asking her to be his emissary to the Portuguese in Luanda. She was the best fit for the job, as she was both of royal lineage and spoke fluent Portuguese. She agreed to lead the diplomatic mission with the stipulation that she be granted the authority to negotiate in the king's name and permission to be baptized – an important diplomatic tool she hoped to use against the Portuguese. Nzingha departed the Ndongan capital with a large retinue and was received with considerable interest in Luanda, compelling the Portuguese governor to pay for all of her party's expenses. While Ndongo leaders typically met the Portuguese in European clothing, she chose to wear opulent traditional clothing (including feathers and jewels) of the Ndongan people, to display that their culture was not inferior. According to a popular story, when Nzingha arrived to meet with the Portuguese, there were chairs for the Portuguese officials but only a mat provided for her. This type of behavior from the Portuguese was common; it was their way of displaying a "subordinate status, a status reserved for conquered Africans." In response to this, Nzingha's attendant formed himself to be her chair while she spoke to the governor face to face. She employed flattery as a diplomatic tool, and according to some sources deliberately chose to contrast her brother's belligerent style with her own diplomatic decorum.
As ambassador, Nzingha's main goal was to secure peace between her people and the Portuguese. To this end, she promised the Portuguese an end to hostilities (describing her brother's previous actions as the mistakes of a young king), allowed Portuguese slave traders inside Ndongo, and offered to return escaped Portuguese slaves fighting in her brother's army. In return, she demanded that Portugal remove the forts built inside Ndongan territory and was adamant that Ndongo would not pay tribute to Portugal, noting that only conquered peoples paid tribute and her people had not been defeated. She also expressed a desire for cooperation between the two kingdoms, noting that they could support each-other against their common enemies in the region. When the Portuguese questioned her commitment to peace, Nzingha offered to be publicly baptized, which she was with great aplomb in Luanda. She adopted the name Dona Anna de Sousa in honor of her godparents, Ana da Silva (the governor's wife and her ordained godmother) and Governor Joao Correia de Sousa. A peace treaty was subsequently agreed upon, and Nzingha returned to Kabasa in triumph in late 1622.
Despite her success in the negotiations with the Portuguese, the peace between Ndongo and the Imbangala – themselves engaged in expanding their territory – collapsed. After a series of defeats, the Ndongan royal family was driven out of their court in Kabasa, putting the king in exile and allowing for some of the Imbangala to establish the Kingdom of Kasanje. The Portuguese governor wanted to proceed with the treaty, but refused to aid Ndongo against the Imbangala until the king had recaptured Kabasa and been baptized. King Mbandi retook Kabasa in 1623 and took tentative steps towards Christianity, but remained deeply distrustful of the Portuguese. An increasingly powerful figure in the royal court, Nzingha (in a possible political ploy) warned her brother that a baptism would offend his traditionalist supporters, convincing him to reject any idea of being baptized. In addition, the Portuguese began reneging on the treaty, refusing to withdraw from their fortresses inside Ndongo and conducting raids for loot and slaves into Ndongo's territory. By 1624, King Mbandi had fallen into a deep depression and was forced to cede many of his duties to Nzingha.
Wartime
Rise to power
In 1624, her brother died of mysterious causes (some say suicide, others say poisoning). Before his death, he had made it clear that Nzinga should be his successor. Nzinga quickly moved to consolidate her rule, having her supporters seize the ritual objects associated with the monarchy and eliminating her opponents at court. She also assumed the title of Ngola, conferring a position of great influence among her people. An opulent funeral for her brother was arranged, and some of his remains were preserved in a misete (a reliquary), so they could later be consulted by Nzinga. One major obstacle to her rule, her 7-year-old nephew, was under the guardianship of Kasa, an Imbangala war chief. To remove this potential pretender to her throne, Nzinga approached Kasa with a marriage proposal; the couple were married, and after the wedding she had her nephew killed—in Nzinga's view, final revenge for her own murdered son.
However, her ascension to the throne faced severe opposition from male claimants from other noble families. According to Mbande tradition, neither Nzinga nor her predecessor brother had a direct right to the throne because they were children of slave wives, not the first wife. Nzinga countered this argument, strategically using the claim that she was properly descended from the main royal line through her father, as opposed to her rivals had no bloodline connection. Her opponents, on the other hand, used other precedents to discredit her, such as that she was a female and thus ineligible. In addition, Nzinga's willingness to negotiate with the Portuguese (as opposed to previous rulers, whom had fought against them) was seen as a sign of weakness by some of the Ndongan nobility; specifically, the treaty's allowing of Portuguese missionaries inside Ndongo was seen with distaste.
While the succession crisis deepened, relations between Ndongo and Portugal became more complex. Nzinga hoped to fulfill the treaty she had signed with the Portuguese in 1621, and thereby regain Ndongan lands lost during her brother's disastrous wars. Governor de Sousa was also keen to avoid conflict, and both he and Nzinga were eager to re-open the slave trade that was so vital to the region's economy. However, tensions rose between Nzinga and de Sousa. When Nzinga asked for the return of kijikos (a servile caste of slaves traditionally owned by the Ndongan royalty) living in Portuguese controlled territory, as had been agreed in the treaty, de Sousa refused and demanded that Nzinga return escaped Portuguese slaves serving in her army first. De Sousa also demanded that Nzinga become a vassal of the king of Portugal and pay tribute, demands she refused outright. Further straining relations, in late 1624 de Sousa began an aggressive campaign to force Mbande nobles, sobas, to become Portuguese vassals. Sobas were traditionally vassals of the ruler of Ndongo, and provided as tribute the valuable provisions, soldiers, and slaves needed to control Angola – thus, by making the sobas vassals of Portugal, the Portuguese were able to undermine Nzinga's position as queen of Ndongo.
To weaken the Portuguese colonial administration, Nzinga dispatched messengers (makunzes) to encourage Mbande slaves to flee Portuguese plantations and join her kingdom, thereby depriving the colony of its income and manpower. When the Portuguese complained about the escapes, Nzinga replied that she would abide by her earlier treaty and return escaped slaves, but that her kingdom had none. Her actions were a success and many sobas joined forces with her, strengthening her position and causing the Portuguese to fear a Mbande uprising was imminent.
Despite these successes, Nzinga's policies threatened the income of the Portuguese and Mbande nobles, and soon the Portuguese began to foment rebellion in her kingdom. In late 1625, the Portuguese sent soldiers to protect Hari a Kiluanje, a soba who had broken ties with Nzinga. Kiluanje opposed having a woman rule Ndongo, and was himself descended from the royal family; upon learning of his actions, Nzinga sent warriors to crush his revolt but was defeated, weakening her position and convincing more nobles to revolt. Nzinga petitioned the Portuguese to stop supporting Kiluanje, and attempted to negotiate as long as possible while she gathered more forces, but the Portuguese guessed this was a delaying tactic and soon recognized Kiluanje as king of Ndongo. The Portuguese subsequently declared war on Nzinga on 15 March 1626.
War with the Portuguese
Facing a Portuguese invasion, Nzinga gathered her army and withdrew to a group of islands in the Kwanza river. After a series of battles, she was defeated and forced to make a long march into eastern Ndongo; during the retreat, she was forced to abandon most of her followers, a strategy that greatly benefited her as the Portuguese were more interested in re-capturing slaves than in pursuing her army. The Portuguese soon suffered their own setback when Hari a Kiluanje died of smallpox, forcing them to replace him as king with Ngola Hari, another Ndongan nobleman. Ngola Hari proved to be an unpopular leader with the Ndongan people, who viewed him as a Portuguese puppet, while some sobas supported his rule. A divide soon formed inside the kingdom of Ndongo in which the common people and lesser nobles supported Nzinga, while many powerful nobles supported Ngola Hari and the Portuguese.
In November 1627, Nzinga again attempted to negotiate with the Portuguese, sending a peace delegation and a gift of 400 slaves. She indicated that she was willing to become a vassal of the kingdom of Portugal and pay tribute if they supported her claim to the throne, but was adamant that she was the rightful queen of Ndongo. The Portuguese, however, rejected the offer, beheading her lead diplomat and issuing the counter demand that she retire from public life, renounce her claim to the kingdom of Ndongo, and submit to Ngola Hari as rightful king—these demands were within the diplomatic norm in Europe, but were utterly unacceptable to Nzinga. Faced with the Portuguese rebuke and the realization that many Ndongan nobles stood against her, Nzinga (as had her father and brother) slipped into depression, locking herself in a room for several weeks. She emerged, however, and within a month had begun a new campaign to rebuild her alliances in Ndongo.
While rebuilding her strength, Nzinga took advantage of Ngola Hari's political weakness, highlighting his lack of political experience. Ngola Hari was despised by both his nobles and his Portuguese allies, for while previous kings of Ndongo had all been warriors, Ngola Hari had no soldiers of his own and was forced to rely on Portuguese soldiers. Ngola Hari and the Portuguese launched a counter-propaganda campaign against Nzinga, hoping to use her gender as a means to delegitimize her strength, but this backfired as she increasingly outmaneuvered Ngola Hari in Ndongan politics. In one notable incident, Nzinga sent Ngola Hari threatening letters and a collection of fetishes, challenging him to combat with her forces; the messages terrified Hari, who was forced to call on his Portuguese allies for support, thus greatly diminishing his own prestige while adding to Nzinga's reputation. However, she was still unable to directly face the Portuguese in battle, and was forced to retreat from the advancing Portuguese army. She suffered a series of military defeats, most notably in a Portuguese ambush that saw half of her army, most of her officials, and her two sisters captured, though she herself was able to escape. By late 1628, Nzinga's army had been greatly reduced (down to around 200 soldiers according to one source) and she had been effectively expelled from her kingdom.
Conquest of Matamba
Following her expulsion, Nzinga and her supporters continued to fight against the Portuguese. To bolster her forces, the queen looked to make allies in the region while keeping her battered forces out of reach of the Portuguese army. During this time she was contacted by Kasanje, a powerful Imbangala warlord who had established his own kingdom on the Kwanza river. Kasanje and the Imbangala were traditional enemies of Ndongo, and Kasanje himself had previously executed several of Nzinga's envoys. Kasanje offered Nzinga an alliance and military support, but in return demanded that she marry him and discard her lunga (a large bell used by Ndongan war captains as a symbol of their power). Nzinga accepted these terms, married Kasanje and was inducted into Imbangala society. The exiled queen adapted quickly to the new culture, adopting many Imbangala religious rites. Sources (African, Western, modern, contemporary) disagree on the intricacies and extent of Imbangala rites and laws (ijila), but the general consensus is that Nzinga was compelled to participate in the customary cannibalistic (the drinking of human blood in the cuia, or blood oath ceremony) and infanticidal (through the use of an oil made from a slain infant, the maji a samba) initiation rites required for a woman to become a leader in the highly militarized Imbangala society. The ritual was in part to prevent a succession crisis amongst the Imbangala in the future. She did not, however, completely abandon her Mbundan cultural roots, instead combining the beliefs of her people with those of her new Imbangalan allies. As noted by historian Linda Heywood, Nzinga's genius was to combine her Mbundu heritage with the Imbangalan's Central African military tradition and leadership structure, thus forming a new, highly capable army. To increase her numbers, she granted freedom to escaped slaves and land, new slaves, and titles to other exiled Ndongans. According to some sources, Nzinga – having been disenfranchised by the Mbundu-dominated nobility of Ndongo – was politically attracted to the Imbangalans, who placed more value on merit and religious fervor as opposed to lineage, kinship (and by extension, sex).
Using her new power base, Nzinga remodeled her forces after the highly effective Imbangala warriors. By 1631 she had rebuilt her army and was waging a successful guerilla war against the Portuguese, with one Jesuit priest (living in the Kongo at the time) describing her as being akin to an Amazon queen and praising her leadership. Between 1631 and 1635, Nzingha invaded the neighboring Kingdom of Matamba, capturing and deposing Queen Mwongo Matamba in 1631. Nzingha had the defeated queen branded but spared her life (Imbangala custom mandated she execute her) and took Mwongo's daughter into her service as one of her warriors. Having defeated the Matambans, Nzinga assumed the throne of Matamba and began settling the region with exiled Ndongans, hoping to use the kingdom as a base to wage her war to reclaim her homeland. Unlike her native Ndongo, Matamba had a cultural tradition of female leadership, giving Nzinga a more stable power base after she overthrew the previous queen. With Matamba under her control, Nzinga worked extensively to expand the slave trade in her new kingdom, using the profits from slave trading to finance her wars and divert trade income away from the Portuguese. Over the next decade, Nzinga continued to struggle against the Portuguese and their allies, with both sides attempting to limit each other's influence and take control over the slave trade. During this decade, Nzinga took on more masculine traits, adopting male titles and clothing. She established an all-female bodyguard for herself, and ordered that her male concubines wear women's clothing and address her as king. She also instituted communal sleeping quarters at her court, and enforced strict chastity rules for her male councilors and female bodyguards.
Expansion and Dutch alliance
By the late 1630s, Nzinga had expanded her influence to the north and south of Matamba. Using her forces, she cut other rulers off from the Portuguese-controlled coast, capturing parts of the Kwango River and bringing the region's key slave supplying lands under her control. She also expanded her territory to the north, and in doing so established diplomatic relations with the Kingdom of the Kongo and Dutch merchants, who were increasingly active in the area. Nzinga also established a lucrative slave trade with the Dutch, who purchased as many as 13,000 slaves per year from Nzinga's kingdom. She continued to occasionally send peace overtures to the Portuguese, even suggesting a military alliance with them, but only if they supported her return to Ndongo. She also refused to be re-admitted to the Christian faith, which became a point of contention between the two parties.
In 1641, forces from the Dutch West India Company, working in alliance with the Kingdom of Kongo, seized Luanda, driving out the Portuguese and setting up the directorate of Loango-Angola. The fall of Luanda was a major blow to the Portuguese, and Nzinga quickly dispatched an embassy to the Dutch-controlled city. Hoping to form an Afro-Dutch coalition against the Portuguese, Nzinga requested an immediate alliance and offered to open the slave trade to them, though she was concerned that the Kingdom of Kongo (her people's traditional northern rivals) was growing too powerful. The Dutch accepted her offer of an alliance and sent their own ambassador and soldiers (some of whom brought their wives) to her court, soon assisting her in her fight against the Portuguese. Having lost large amounts of territory and forced to retreat to Massangano, the Portuguese governor attempted to make peace with Nzinga, but she refused these overtures. Nzingha moved her capital to Kavanga, in the northern part of Ndongo's former domains. The capture of Luanda also left Nzingha's kingdom as the pre-eminent, if temporary, slave-trading power in the region, allowing for her to build a sizeable war-camp (kilombo) of 80,000 (a figure which included non-combatants) members, including mercenaries, escaped slaves, allies, and her own soldiers.
Using the large size of her army, her new wealth and her famous reputation, Nzinga was able to reclaim large parts of Ndongo from 1641 to 1644. However, her expansionism caused alarm amongst other African kingdoms; in one infamous incident, she invaded the Wandu region of Kongo, which had been in revolt against the Kongolese king. Though these lands had never been part of Ndongo, Nzinga refused to withdraw and added the conquest to her kingdom, an act which greatly offended the Kongolese king, Garcia II. The Dutch, hoping to preserve their alliance with both Kongo and Nzinga, brokered a peace, but relations between Nzinga and other regional leaders remained strained. In addition, her former husband and ally, Kasanje, feared her growing power in the region and formed a coalition of Imbangala leaders against Nzinga, invading her lands in Matamba (though they made little progress). By the mid-1640s, her successes had won her the support of many Ndongan nobles. With the nobility flocking to her side, Nzingha was able collect more tribute (in the form of slaves) which she in turn sold to the Dutch in exchange for firearms, thereby increasing her military and economic power; by 1644, she considered Garcia II of the Kongo to be her only political equal in the region, while the Portuguese viewed her as their most potent adversary in Africa.
In 1644, Nzinga defeated the Portuguese army at the Battle of Ngoleme. Then, in 1646, she was defeated by the Portuguese at the Battle of Kavanga and, in the process, her sister Kambu was recaptured, along with her archives, which revealed her alliance with Kongo. These archives also showed that her captive sister, Funji, had been in secret correspondence with Nzinga and had revealed coveted Portuguese plans to her. As a result of the woman's spying, the Portuguese reputedly drowned the sister in the Kwanza River. The Dutch in Luanda sent Nzinga reinforcements, and with their help, Nzinga routed a Portuguese army in 1647 at the Battle of Kombi. Nzinga then laid siege to the Portuguese capital of Massangano, isolating the Portuguese there; by 1648, Nzingha controlled much of her former kingdom, while her control over the slave trade increased the economic power of Matamba.
Despite these successes, the allies' control over Angola remained tenuous. Lacking artillery, Nzinga was unable to effectively break the Portuguese defenses at Massangano, while political infighting and developments in Europe weakened the Dutch forces in Angola. In August 1648 a Portuguese expedition, led by newly appointed governor Salvador Correia de Sá, besieged Luanda. After suffering through a major Portuguese bombardment, on 24 August 1648 the Dutch commander sued for peace with the Portuguese and agreed to evacuate Angola. When Nzinga's army and the remaining Dutch forces arrived outside Luanda, the peace between Dutch and Portuguese was signed, and unbeknownst to Nzinga, the Dutch forces sailed for Europe. Faced with a bolstered Portuguese garrison, Nzinga and her forces retreated to Matamba. Unlike previous decades however, after 1648 Nzinga concentrated her efforts on preventing a Portuguese push inland (as opposed to trying to re-conquer Ndongan territory), disrupting their soldiers and fomenting wars between smaller tribes and kingdoms.
Later years
Last campaigns
While her wars against the Portuguese and their allies continued, Nzingha created alliances with neighboring kingdoms, expanding her influence even as she aged. She sent soldiers to enforce her rule over local noblemen, dispatched forces to fight against Kasanje's Imbangalans in eastern Matamba, and fought against the Kingdom of Kaka in the Congo. She also used her army as a political tool, using its influence to sway the outcomes of succession disputes in her favor.
On Christianity
Throughout the 1640s and 1650s, Nzinga began to tentatively adopt Christian cultural traditions, following her conversion to the faith in 1623. This began in 1644 when her army captured a Portuguese priest, and expanded when her forces in Kongo captured two Spanish Capuchins in 1648; unlike other European prisoners, the queen granted missionaries extended freedoms in her war camp. One of the Spaniards, Father Calisto Zelotes do Reis Mago, would go on to become a longtime resident at her court and her personal secretary. Whereas previous missionaries (either parish priests or Jesuits) had been strongly affiliated with the Portuguese and their colonial administration, the Spanish Capuchins were more sympathetic to Nzinga's positions. During the early 1650s, Nzinga sent requests to the Capuchin order for more missionaries and for support against the Portuguese – effectively turning the missionaries into de facto diplomats between her and the Vatican. She pursued closer relations with Catholic leaders in Europe for the rest of her life, even receiving correspondence from Pope Alexander VII in 1661 praising her efforts.
In addition to using Christianity as a diplomatic tool, Nzinga adopted Christian customs into her court. From the 1650s onward, she increasingly relied on Christian converts at her court. Just as she had done with the Imbangalan culture several decades before, Nzinga appropriated aspects of Christian ideology and culture, adding these to her existing court traditions to create a new class of Christian councilors loyal to her. She also began practicing Catholic-inspired rituals, placed crosses in places of high honor in her court, and built many churches across her kingdom.
Nzinga's efforts to convert her people was not without controversy, and some conservative religious figures pushed back against her policies. In response, Nzinga empowered her Christian priests to burn the temples and shrines of practitioners who opposed her, and ordered that they be arrested and turned over to her for trial. Traditionalists were dismissed from her court, after which she sentenced them to public whippings. Several prominent Mdundu and Imbangala priests were sold as slaves to the Portuguese, with Nzinga personally asking that they be shipped overseas; profits of the sale were then used to furnish a new church. Some of the wanted priests, however, escaped Nzinga's purge and went into hiding, later working to undermine her legitimacy as queen.
Peace with Portugal
By 1650 the kingdoms of Matamba and Portugal had been at war for nearly 25 years, with both sides having become exhausted. Tentative peace talks between Nzingha and the Portuguese began in 1651, would continue in 1654, and would culminate in 1656. The negotiations were aided by Nzingha's recent conversion to Christianity and by the pressure Portugal was facing from its war of Independence against Spain. The Portuguese hoped to end the expensive war in Angola and re-open the slave trade, while Nzingha – increasingly cognizant of her age – hoped to have her sister Kambu (often referred to by her Christian name, Barbara, during this period) released. She would not, however, pay the ransom the Portuguese demanded for her sister, and so negotiations repeatedly stalled.
Despite difficulties, a peace treaty was signed between Nzingha and the Portuguese in late 1656. Under the term of the peace treaty, Nzingha agreed to cede lands on her kingdom's western coast to Portugal, with the Lucala River becoming the new border between Portuguese Angola and Matamba. In return, Portugal ceded the Kituxela region to her. Nzingha also agreed to allow Portuguese traders inside Matamba, while they agreed to intervene if Kasanje or Nogla Hari attacked her. The Portuguese agreed to concentrate the slave trade in a market in her capital (effectively giving her a monopoly on the slave trade) and send a permanent representative to her court. In return, Nzingha agreed to provide military assistance to the Portuguese and allowed for missionaries to reside in her kingdom. A final provision asking that Matamba pay Portugal tribute was proposed, but never ratified. While several sources describe the treaty as making concessions to Portugal, others note that her recognition as a ruler by Portugal gained Nzingha legitimacy and political stability. On 12 October Nzingha's sister arrived at Nzingha's court in Matamba in a procession led by Father Ignazio de Valassina. Upon Kambu's arrival to Matamba the terms of peace were officially agreed upon, and as was tradition Nzingha and her officials clapped their hands letting the Portuguese know that peace terms were accepted.
Final years
After the wars with Portugal ended, Nzingha attempted to rebuild her kingdom. As noted by Linda Heywood, Nzingha's final years were spent establishing a unified kingdom she could pass on to her sister. However, her native Ndongo had been ravaged by decades of war, with wide swathes of the land left depopulated; as such, Nzingha focused her efforts on strengthening Matamba. She developed Matamba as a trading power by capitalizing on its strategic position as the gateway to the Central African interior, strengthening her hold on the slave trade. She resettled former slaves on new land and allowed women in her war camp to bear children, which had been banned under the wartime Imbangala customs. She also reformed the legal code of her kingdom and established contact with Christian rulers in Europe, hoping to certify Matamba's status as an internationally recognized Christian kingdom.
Peace caused major changes at Nzingha's royal court. Whereas in wartime she had adopted the masculine dress and mannerisms of an Imbangala warlord, in the postwar era Nzingha's court became more feminine; she adopted new fashions in court, imported silk and goods from Europe, placed renewed focus on education (replacing military drills) and abolished concubinage, eventually marrying her favorite concubine in a Christian ceremony. Nzingha – wary of a potential succession crisis – also worked to increase the power of the royal family in Ndongo. She distanced herself from the Imbangalan culture and abolished many of the democratic and meritocratic policies she had tolerated in wartime, seeing them as a threat to the monarchy. During her later reign, divides opened in her court between educated Christian converts who supported her royalist policies and traditionalists Imbangalans and Mbundus, who supported a return to the more militaristic, meritocratic policies of the past.
Death and succession
During the 1660s (specifically after a period of serious illness in 1657) Nzinga grew increasingly concerned about who would succeed her as ruler of Ndongo and Matamba. She feared that her death would lead to a succession crisis, which would cause her Christian conversions to be undone, and spark renewed Portuguese aggression. To ensure the transition would be smooth, she appointed her sister Kambu as her heir, forgoing any of the traditional Mbundu elections. However, she grew increasingly concerned that her sister's husband, Nzinga a Mona, was growing too powerful. Nzinga a Mona was a skilled soldier who was raised in the Imbangala tradition, and while he had been a lifelong soldier in Nzingha's army, in his older age he increasingly came into conflict with Nzinga. She feared that Nzinga Mona's adherence to Imbangala tradition would destabilize the new, Christian kingdom she had established.
In October 1663, Nzinga fell ill with infection in her throat and became bedridden. By December of that year the infection had spread to her lungs, and Nzinga died in her sleep on the morning of 17 December. She was buried with great aplomb in accordance with Catholic and Mbundu traditions. Ceremonies were held across Matamba and in Luanda, where both the Portuguese and Mbundu populations held services in her honor.
Following Nzinga's death, her sister Kambu (more commonly known as Barbara or Dona Barbara) assumed the throne.
Historical portrayal
A powerful queen who reigned for over thirty years, Nzinga has been the subject of many works.
Angolan
In her native Angola, oral traditions celebrating Nzinga's life began immediately after her death. Though her kingdoms would eventually be incorporated into Portuguese Angola, commemoration of Nzinga and her achievements persisted. In the mid-20th century, Nzinga became a powerful symbol of Angolan resistance against Portugal during the Angolan War of Independence. Nzinga's legacy would outlast the Angolan Civil War and remains an area of interest in the country.
Portuguese
The Portuguese, Nzinga's longtime rivals, wrote a number of works relating to her life. The first biography of Nzinga was published by Antonio da Gaeta (a Capuchin priest who had lived in her court) in 1669; Gaeta's work praised Nzinga's diplomatic skills and compared her to famous women from antiquity, but also pointedly noted that she had ultimately been persuaded by divine providence to accept Christianity. Antonio Cavazzi (another Capuchin who had resided in Nzinga's court) wrote a biography of her in 1689, again noting her political skill, but also describing her as a queen who had ruined the land. Together, Gaeta and Cavazzi's biographies became the primary sources for Nzinga's life. Portuguese writers would continue to write about Nzinga into the 20th century, normally depicting her as a skilled, "savage" opponent who had ultimately been forced to submit to Portugal and accept Christianity.
Western
Numerous western authors have written about Nzinga. The first notable, non-Portuguese Western work mentioning Nzinga was written by French Jesuit Jean-Baptiste Labat in 1732. A heavily edited translation of Cavazzi's earlier biography, Labat's work formed the basis on which many Western sources would depict their image of Nzinga; whereas Portuguese sources focused on Nzinga's capabilities as a leader and conversion to Christianity, Western sources in the 18th and 19th centuries tended to heavily focus on her sexuality, alleged cannibalism, and brutality. Jean-Louis Castilhon wrote a fictional story of her life in 1769, portraying her as cruel (but not a cannibal), while the Marquis de Sade wrote about Nzinga's alleged cruelty and promiscuity in his 1795 work Philosophy in the Bedroom, in which he cites her as an example of a woman driven to evil by passion. Likewise, Laure Junot included Nzinga as a symbol of cruelty and lust in her Memoirs of Celebrated Women of All Countries, grouping her alongside women such as Lady Jane Grey, Marie Antoinette, and Catherine I. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was also critical of Nzinga's (though he did not directly name her) "female state", describing her kingdom as a barren, unfertile land that had eventually collapsed due to her usurping of the natural order.
Nzinga's reputation in the West recovered significantly in the 20th century. Nzinga's usage as a symbol in the Angolan War of Independence increased interest in her life, and authors began to take a more nuanced approach to her biography. American historian Joseph C. Miller published a widely cited essay on Nzinga in the 1975 The Journal of African History, highlighting her struggles and innovations but also criticizing her autocratic methods. Afro-Cuban poet Georgina Herrera published a 1978 poem extolling Nzinga's wisdom and connecting her culturally with Afro-Caribbeans in the Americas. American feminist author Aurora Levins Morales wrote about Nzinga, praising her anti-colonial and anti-patriarchal struggles but also criticizing her status as a ruling elite and her propagation of the slave trade. In his writings on Nzinga, American historian John Thornton focused on her lifelong struggle to establish her authority over the Mbundu culture, noting that her legendary reputation and actions helped to establish a wider Atlantic Criole culture. American historian Linda Heywood wrote an extensive biography of Nzinga in 2017, featuring much of her life and describing her as a great historical figure. Heywood cautioned against portraying Nzinga as either a populist hero or tyrant, noting instead that she should be viewed as a complicated individual who used culture, diplomacy, religion and war to secure her kingdom.
Legendary accounts
One legend records that Nzinga executed her lovers. She kept 50–60 men dressed as women, according to Dapper's Description of Africa, as her harem, and she had them fight to the death for the privilege and duty of spending the night with her. In the morning, the winner was put to death.
According to an account by the Capuchin priest Cavazzi, Nzinga maintained her strength well into her later years. Upon witnessing her during a military review in 1662 (the year prior to her death), Cavazzi praised her agility, to which the elder queen replied that, in her youth, she was able to wound any Imbangala warrior, and that she would have stood against 25 armed men – unless they had muskets.
Legacy
Today, she is remembered in Angola as the Mother of Angola, the fighter of negotiations, and the protector of her people. She is still honored throughout Africa as a remarkable leader and woman, for her political and diplomatic acumen, as well as her brilliant military tactics. Accounts of her life are often romanticized, and she is considered a symbol of the fight against oppression. Nzingha ultimately managed to shape her state into a form that tolerated her authority, though surely the fact that she survived all attacks on her and built up a strong base of loyal supporters helped as much as the relevance of the precedents she cited. While Njinga had obviously not overcome the idea that females could not rule in Ndongo during her lifetime, and had to 'become a male' to retain power, her female successors faced little problem in being accepted as rulers. The clever use of her gender and her political understandings helped lay a foundation for future leaders of Ndongo today. In the period of 104 years that followed Njinga's death in 1663, queens ruled for at least eighty of them. Nzingha is a leadership role model for all generations of Angolan women. Women in Angola today display remarkable social independence and are found in the country's army, police force, government, and public and private economic sectors. Nzingha was embraced as a symbol of the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola during civil war.
A major street in Luanda is named after her, and a statue of her was placed in Kinaxixi on an impressive square in 2002, dedicated by President Santos to celebrate the 27th anniversary of independence. Angolan women are often married near the statue, especially on Thursdays and Fridays.
On 23 December 2014, the National Reserve Bank of Angola (BNA) issued a 20 Kwanza coin in tribute to Nzingha "in recognition of her role to defend self-determination and cultural identity of her people."
An Angolan film, Njinga: Queen Of Angola (Portuguese: Njinga, Rainha de Angola), was released in 2013.
A Starz series, Queen Nzinga, is in development with Yetide Badaki as the titular character and 50 Cent, Steven S. DeKnight and Mo Abundu as producers.
Nzinga (referred to as Nzinga Mbande) leads the Kongolese civilization in the 2016 4X video game Civilization VI, since the release of Great Negotiators on 21 November 2022, as part of the DLC "Leader Pass".
The 2023 Netflix docudrama African Queens: Njinga chronicles her life, dramatized through historical reenactment.
See also
List of Rulers of Matamba
List of Ngolas of Ndongo
List of women who led a revolt or rebellion
Nzinga a Nkuwu
Pungo Andongo
Dahomey Amazons (all-female military regiment who fought the French)
References
Citations
Sources
Nzinga is one of Africa's best documented early-modern rulers. About a dozen of her own letters are known (all but one published in Brásio, Monumenta volumes 6–11 and 15 passim). In addition, her early years are well described in the correspondence of Portuguese governor Fernão de Sousa, who was in the colony from 1624 to 1631 (published by Heintze). Her later activities are documented by the Portuguese chronicler António de Oliveira de Cadornega, and by two Italian Capuchin priests, Giovanni Cavazzi da Montecuccolo and Antonio Gaeta da Napoli, who resided in her court from 1658 until her death (Cavazzi presided at her funeral). Cavazzi included a number of watercolours in his manuscript which include Njinga as a central figure, as well as himself. However, Cavazzi's account is peppered with a number of pejorative statements about Nzinga for which he does not offer factual evidence, such as her cannibalism.
Brásio, António. Monumenta Missionaria Africana (1st series, 15 volumes, Lisbon: Agencia Geral do Ultramar, 1952–88)
Baur, John. "2000 Years of Christianity in Africa – An African Church History" (Nairobi, 2009), , pp. 74–75
Burness, Donald. "'Nzinga Mbandi’ and Angolan Independence." Luso-Brazilian Review, vol. 14, no. 2, 1977, pp. 225–229. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3513061.
Cadornega, António de Oliveira de. História geral das guerras angolanas (1680–81). mod. ed. José Matias Delgado and Manuel Alves da Cunha. 3 vols. (Lisbon, 1940–42) (reprinted 1972).
Cavazzi, Giovanni Antonio da Montecuccolo. Istorica descrizione de tre regni Congo, Matamba ed Angola. (Bologna, 1687). French translation, Jean Baptiste Labat, Relation historique de l'Éthiopie. 5 vols. (Paris, 1732) [a free translation with additional materials added]. Modern Portuguese translation, Graziano Maria Saccardo da Leguzzano, ed. Francisco Leite de Faria, Descrição histórica dos tres reinos Congo, Matamba e Angola. 2 vols. (Lisbon, 1965).
Gaeta da Napoli, Antonio. La Meravigliosa Conversione alla santa Fede di Christo delle Regina Singa...(Naples, 1668).
Heintze, Beatrix. Fontes para a história de Angola no século XVII. (2 vols, Wiesbaden, 1985–88) Contains the correspondence of Fernão de Souza.
Heywood, Linda. "Njinga of Angola: Africa's Warrior Queen." (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA. 2017).
Miller, Joseph C. “Nzinga of Matamba in a New Perspective.” The Journal of African History, vol. 16, no. 2, 1975, pp. 201–216. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/180812.
Snethen, J. (16 June 2009) Queen Nzinga (1583-1663). Retrieved from https://www.blackpast.org/global-african-history/queen-nzinga-1583-1663/
Further reading
Patricia McKissack, Nzingha: Warrior Queen of Matamba, Angola, Africa, 1595; The Royal Diaries Collection (2000)
David Birmingham, Trade and Conquest in Angola (Oxford, 1966).
Heywood, Linda and John K. Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Making of the Americas, 1580–1660 (Cambridge, 2007). This contains the most detailed account of her reign and times, based on a careful examination of all the relevant documentation.
Heywood, Linda M. Njinga of Angola: Africa's Warrior Queen. Harvard University Press, 2017.
Saccardo, Grazziano, Congo e Angola con la storia dell'antica missione dei cappuccini. 3 Volumes, (Venice, 1982–83)
Williams, Chancellor, Destruction of Black Civilization (WCP)
Nzinga, the Warrior Queen (a play written by Elizabeth Orchardson Mazrui and published by The Jomo Kenyatta Foundation, Nairobi, Kenya, 2006).
The play is based on Nzinga and discusses issues of colonisation, traditional African rulership, women leadership versus male leadership, political succession, struggles between various Portuguese socio-political, and economic interest groups, struggles between the vested interests of the Jesuits and the Capuchins, etc.
Kenny Mann, West Central Africa: Kongo, Ndongo (African Kingdoms of the Past). Parsippany, NJ: Dillon Press, 1996.
External links
Bio-Comic strip at Wikimedia Commons, et al.
Article on Nzinga from Instituto Palmeiras
Ana Nzinga: Queen of Ndongo at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Women Who Lead
Maybe Nzinga is not so innocent
1580s births
1663 deaths
Angolan Roman Catholics
African resistance to colonialism
African women in war
Converts to Roman Catholicism from pagan religions
Women in 17th-century warfare
Queens regnant in Africa
17th-century women rulers
17th century in Portugal
Matamban and Ndongo monarchs
17th century in Angola |
419509 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaeology%20and%20the%20Book%20of%20Mormon | Archaeology and the Book of Mormon | Since the publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830, Mormon archaeologists have attempted to find archaeological evidence to support it. Although historians, archaeologists, and those outside the religion who have examined the topic consider the book to be an anachronistic invention of Joseph Smith, many members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and other denominations of the Latter Day Saint movement believe that it describes ancient historical events in the Americas.
The Book of Mormon principally describes God's dealings with two civilizations in the Americas over the course of several hundred years. The book primarily deals with the Nephites and the Lamanites, who – it states – existed in the Americas from about 600 BC to about AD 400. It also deals with the rise and fall of the Jaredite nation, which the Book of Mormon says came from the Old World shortly after the confounding of the languages at the Tower of Babel. The Book of Mormon mentions several animals, plants, and technologies that are not substantiated by the archaeological record of the period 3100 BC to 400 AD in the Americas, constituting some of the most significant anachronisms in the Book of Mormon.
Some early-20th century Mormons claimed various archaeological findings, such as place names and ruins of the Inca, Maya, Olmec, and other ancient American and Old World civilizations, as giving credence to the Book of Mormon record. Many current believers, including the LDS Church, have no strong position on whether or how to attribute the people in the narrative to specific groups.
Archaeology research in pre-Columbian Americas and the Book of Mormon
Numerous observers have suggested that the Book of Mormon appears to be a work of fiction that parallels others within the 19th-century "Mound Builder" genre that was pervasive at the time. Some nineteenth-century archaeological finds (e.g., earth and timber fortifications and towns, the use of a plaster-like cement, ancient roads, metal points and implements, copper breastplates, head-plates, textiles, pearls, native North American inscriptions, North American elephant remains etc.) were well-publicized at the time of the publication of the Book of Mormon and there is incorporation of some of these ideas into the narrative. References are made in the Book of Mormon to then-current understanding of pre-Columbian civilizations, including the Formative Mesoamerican civilizations such as the (Pre-Classic) Olmec, Maya, and Zapotec.
Organizational statements regarding the Book of Mormon
Smithsonian Institution
During the early 1980s, rumors circulated in Mormon culture that the Book of Mormon was being used by the Smithsonian Institution to guide primary archaeological research. These rumors were brought to the attention of Smithsonian directors who, by 1982, sent a form letter to inquiring parties stating that the Smithsonian did not use the Book of Mormon to guide any research, and included a list of specific reasons Smithsonian archaeologists considered the Book of Mormon historically unlikely. In 1998, the Smithsonian revised the form letter and stated that Book of Mormon had not been used by the Smithsonian in any form of archaeological research. Mormon scholars speculated that this was because the earlier version of the letter contradicts some aspects of research published by Smithsonian staff members. Non-Mormon scholars note that the Smithsonian has not retracted any of its previous statements and feel that the response was toned down to avoid negative public relations with Mormons. Terryl Givens speculates that the change in the statement was an effort to avoid controversy.
National Geographic Society
The Institute for Religious Research posted on its website a 1998 letter from National Geographic Society that stated that the Society was unaware of any archaeological evidence that would support the Book of Mormon. The letter is no longer posted on the National Geographic website.
Anachronisms and archaeological findings
Critics of the Book of Mormon have argued that certain words and phrases in the book are anachronistic with archaeological findings. These relate to artifacts, animal, plant, or technology that critics believe did not exist in the Americas during the Book of Mormon time period (before 2500 BC to about 400 AD). The list below summarizes a few of the anachronistic criticisms in the Book of Mormon, as well as perspectives and rebuttals by Mormon apologists.
The Book of Mormon mentions horses in five incidences, and are portrayed as being in the forest upon first arrival of the Nephites, "raise(d)", "fed", "prepared" (in conjunction with chariots), used for food, and being "useful unto man". Horses in the America are considered to have become extinct between 10,000 and 7,600 years ago, and did not reappear there until the Spaniards brought them from Europe. Horses were re-introduced to the Americas (Caribbean) by Christopher Columbus in 1493 and to the American continent by Cortés in 1519. Mormon archaeologist John L. Sorenson claims that there is fossil evidence that some New World horses may have survived the Pleistocene–Holocene transition, though these findings are disputed by other Book of Mormon scholars. Alternately, Mormon apologist Robert R. Bennett suggests that the word "horse" in the Book of Mormon may have referred to a different animal, such as a tapir.
Elephants are mentioned once in the earliest Book of Mormon record in the Book of Ether. Critics argue that the archaeological record suggests that all elephant-like creatures became extinct in the New World around 10,000 BC. The source of this extinction is speculated to be the result of human predation, a significant climate change, or a combination of both factors. Recent eDNA research of sediments indicates mammoths survived until at least 6600 BC in North America. A small population of mammoths survived on St. Paul Island, Alaska, up until 3700 BC,
Apologists deal with the "elephant" in much the same way as they treat the "horse" anachronism, countering with the following arguments:
Various amateur archaeologists and Mormon authors have cited controversial evidence that North American mound builder cultures were familiar with the elephant. This evidence has long been a topic of debate with modern archaeologists concluding that the elephantine remains were improperly dated, misidentified, or openly fraudulent.
Cattle and cows
There are five separate incidences of "cows" or "cattle" in the New World in the Book of Mormon, including verbiage that they were "raise(d)" and were "for the use of man" or "useful for the food of man", and indicates that "cattle" and "cows" were not considered the same animal. While the Book of Mormon may follow the common biblical precedent of referring to all domesticated animals as "cattle", there is no evidence that Old World cattle (members of the genus Bos) inhabited the New World prior to European contact in the 16th century AD. Further, there is currently no archaeological evidence of American bison having been domesticated. It is widely accepted that the only large mammals to be domesticated in the Americas were the llama and the alpaca and that no species of goats, deer, or sheep were fully domesticated before the arrival of the Europeans to the continent.
Some Mormon apologists believe that the term "cattle", as used in the Book of Mormon is more general and does not exclusively mean members of the genus Bos. Thus, they claim the term "cattle" may refer to mountain goats; llamas; or the ancestor of the American bison, Bison antiquus (of the sub family Bovinae).
Sheep
"Sheep" are mentioned in the Book of Mormon metaphorically at various places in the Nephite record but are conspicuously absent in the list of animals observed in the New World upon the arrival of the Nephites. In one instance sheep are described as being possessed by the Jaredites in the Americas at . Another verse mentions "lamb-skin" worn by enemy armies of robbers about their loins (). However, domesticated sheep are known to have been first introduced to the Americas during the second voyage of Columbus in 1493.
Mormon apologists argue the following to deal with this anachronism:
One apologist cites the discovery of some charred wool cloth in a grave during a dig in central Mexico in 1935. However, the discovering archaeologists noted their uncertainty in determining if the grave was pre-Spanish.
Some suggest that the word "sheep" may refer to another species of animal that resembled sheep such as big horn sheep or llamas. Critics point out that big horn sheep have never been domesticated by humans. Llamas and Alpacas are native to the Andes in South America.
The sheep referred to by the Jaredites, as the reference is not long after their arrival , is referring to Old World sheep as it is mentioned in the Book of Mormon that the Jaredites brought animals and birds with them, and the reference to lamb-skins may refer to wild sheep that were hunted. No evidence of domesticated sheep has been found in the Americas prior to Columbus.
Goats
"Goats" are mentioned three times in the Book of Mormon placing them among the Nephites and the Jaredites (i.e., between 2500 BC and 400 AD). In two of the verses, "goats" are distinguished from "wild goats", indicating that there were at least two varieties, one of them possibly domesticated.
Domesticated goats are known to have been introduced on the American continent by Europeans in the 15th century, 1000 years after the conclusion of the Book of Mormon, and nearly 2000 years after goats are last mentioned in the Book of Mormon. The aggressive mountain goat is indigenous to North America. There is no evidence that it was ever domesticated. Mormon Apologist Matthew Roper has countered these claims, pointing out that 16th-century Spanish friars used the word "goat" to refer to native Mesoamerican brocket deer. There is no evidence that brocket deer were ever domesticated.
Swine
"Swine" are referred to twice in the Book of Mormon, and states that the swine were "useful for the food of man" among the Jaredites. There have not been any remains, references, artwork, tools, or any other evidence suggesting that swine were ever present in the pre-Columbian New World.
Apologists note that peccaries (also known as javelinas), which bear a superficial resemblance to pigs and are in the same subfamily Suinae as swine, have been present in South America since prehistoric times. Mormon authors advocating the original mound-builder setting for the Book of Mormon have similarly suggested North American peccaries (also called "wild pigs") as the "swine" of the Jaredites. The earliest scientific description of peccaries in the New World in Brazil in 1547 referred to them as "wild pigs".
Though it has not been documented that peccaries were bred in captivity, it has been documented that peccaries were tamed, penned, and raised for food and ritual purposes in the Yucatán, Panama, the southern Caribbean, and Columbia at the time of the Conquest. Archaeological remains of peccaries have been found in Mesoamerica from the Preclassic (or Formative) period up until immediately before Spanish contact. Specifically, peccary remains have been found at Early Formative Olmec civilization sites, which civilization Mormon apologists correlate to the Book of Mormon Jaredites.
Barley and wheat
"Barley" is mentioned three times and "wheat" once in the Book of Mormon narrative with the ground being "tilled" to plant barley and wheat at one geographical location, in the 1st and 2nd century BC according to Book of Mormon chronology. The introduction of domesticated modern barley and wheat to the New World was made by Europeans after 1492. The Book of Mormon claims that non-specific "seeds" were brought from the land of Jerusalem and planted on arrival in the New World and produced a successful yield. To date, the existing evidence suggests that the introduction of Old World flora and fauna to the American continent happened during the Columbian exchange.
FARMS scholar Robert Bennett argues the following to deal with this anachronism:
That the words "barley" and "wheat" in the Book of Mormon may actually be referring to other crops in the Americas, such as Hordeum pusillum. Most Hordeum pusillum has been found in Iowa, dating back to around 2,500 years ago.
That these words may refer to genuine varieties of New World barley and wheat, which are as yet undiscovered in the archaeological record.
That the Norse, after reaching North America, claimed to have found what they called "self-sown wheat".
Bennett states:
Research on this matter supports two possible explanations. First, the terms barley and wheat, as used in the Book of Mormon, may refer to certain other New World crop plants that were given Old World designations; and second, the terms may refer to genuine varieties of New World barley and wheat. For example, the Spanish called the fruit of the prickly pear cactus a "fig," and emigrants from England called maize "corn," an English term referring to grains in general. A similar practice may have been employed when Book of Mormon people encountered New World plant species for the first time.
Bennett describes the use of Hordeum pusillum, also known as "little barley", a species of grass native to the Americas. The seeds are edible, and this plant was part of the pre-Columbian Eastern Agricultural Complex of cultivated plants used by Native Americans. Hordeum pusillum was unknown in Mesoamerica, where there is no evidence of pre-Columbian barley cultivation. Evidence exists that this plant was domesticated in North America in the Woodland periods contemporary with mound-builder societies (early centuries AD) and has been carbon-dated to 2,500 years ago. Barley samples that date to 900 AD were also found in Phoenix, Arizona, and samples from Southern Illinois date between 1 and 900 AD.
Silk
The Book of Mormon mentions the use of "silk" in the New World four times. "Silk" ordinarily refers to material that is created from the cocoon of one of several Asian moths, predominantly Bombyx mori; this type of silk was unknown in pre-Columbian America.
Mormon scholar John L. Sorenson documents several materials which were used in Mesoamerica to make fine cloth equivalent to silk, some of which the Spanish actually called "silk" upon their arrival, including the fiber (kapok) from the seed pods of the ceiba tree, the cocoons of wild moths, the fibers of silkgrass (Achmea magdalenae), the leaves of the wild pineapple plant, and the fine hair of the underbelly of rabbits. He alleges that the inhabitants of Mexico used the fiber spun by a wild silkworm to create a fabric.
The Aztecs used a silk material taken from nests made by two indigenous insects, the moth Eucheira socialis and the butterfly Gloveria psidii. The nests were cut and pieced together to make a fabric, rather than extracting and spinning the fiber as in modern silk. Spinning of silk from what are thought to be the same insects has been reported in more recent times, though its use in pre-Columbian times has been debated.
Old World artifacts and products
Chariots or wheeled vehicles
The Book of Mormon contains two accounts of "chariots" being used in the New World.
Critics argue that there is no archaeological evidence to support the use of wheeled vehicles in Mesoamerica, especially since many parts of ancient Mesoamerica were not suitable for wheeled transport. Clark Wissler, the Curator of Ethnography at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, noted: "we see that the prevailing mode of land transport in the New World was by human carrier. The wheel was unknown in pre-Columbian times."
A comparison of the South American Inca civilization to Mesoamerican civilizations shows the same lack of wheeled vehicles. Although the Incas used a vast network of paved roads, these roads are so rough, steep, and narrow that they appear to be unsuitable for wheeled use. Bridges that the Inca people built, and even continue to use and maintain today in some remote areas, are straw-rope bridges so narrow (about 2–3 feet wide) that no wheeled vehicle can fit. Inca roads were used mainly by chaski message runners and llama caravans.
Some Mormon apologists argue the following to deal with this anachronism:
One apologist has suggested that the "chariots" mentioned in the Book of Mormon might refer to mythic or cultic wheeled vehicles.
Some apologists point out that pre-Columbian wheeled toys have been found in Mesoamerica, indicating that the wheel was known by ancient American peoples. Some of these wheeled toys were referred to by Smithsonian archaeologist William Henry Holmes and archaeologist Désiré Charnay as "chariots".
One Mormon apologist argues that few chariot fragments have been found in the Middle East dating to Biblical times (apart from the disassembled chariots found in Tutankhamun's tomb), and therefore wheeled chariots did exist in the Book of Mormon timeframe and it would not be unreasonable to assume that archaeologists have not yet discovered any evidence of them.
Critics counter that although few fragments of chariots have been found in the Middle East, there are many images of ancient chariots on pottery and frescoes and in many sculptures of Mediterranean origin, thus confirming their existence in those societies. The absence of these images among pre-Columbian artwork found in the New World (with the exception of Pre-Columbian wheeled toys), they state, does not support the existence of Old World–style chariots in the New World.
Mormon scholar Brant Gardner has asserted that the Book of Mormon "chariot' may be a palanquin or litter vehicle, and apologist Michael Ash generally speculates that the word "chariot" may refer to a non-wheeled vehicle.
Iron and steel
"Steel" and "iron" are mentioned several times in the Book of Mormon. Ancient mound-building cultures of North America are known to have mined and worked native copper, silver, gold, and meteoric iron, although evidence of iron being hardened to make steel in ancient times has not been found in the Americas.
Between 2004 and 2007, a Purdue University archaeologist, Kevin J. Vaughn, discovered a 2000-year-old hematite mine near Nazca, Peru. Although hematite is today mined as an iron ore, Vaughn believes that the hematite was then being mined for use as red pigment. There are also numerous excavations that included iron minerals. He noted:
Even though ancient Andean people smelted some metals, such as copper, they never smelted iron like they did in the Old World .... Metals were used for a variety of tools in the Old World, such as weapons, while in the Americas, metals were used as prestige goods for the wealthy elite.
Apologists counter that the word "steel" in the Book of Mormon likely refers to a hardened metal other than iron. This argument follows from the fact that the Book of Mormon refers to certain Old World articles made of "steel". Similar "steel" articles mentioned in the King James Version of the Bible (KJV) are actually hardened copper. It has been demonstrated that much of the terminology of the Book of Mormon parallels the language of the KJV. Ancient mound-building cultures of North America are known to have mined and worked native copper, silver, gold, and meteoric iron, although few instances of metallic blades or of deliberately alloyed (or "hardened") copper have been uncovered from ancient North America. Examples of ancient copper knife blades have been found on Isle Royale and around Lake Superior.
Metal swords, which had "rusted"
The Book of Mormon makes numerous references to "swords" and their use in battle. When the remnants of the Jaredites' final battle were discovered, the Book of Mormon narrative states that some swords were collected and "the hilts thereof have perished, and the blades thereof were cankered with rust."
Apologists argue that most references to swords do not speak of the material they were made of, and that they may refer to a number of weapons such as the macuahuitl, a "sword" made of obsidian blades that was used by the Aztecs. It was very sharp and could decapitate a man or horse.
Cimeters
"Cimeters" are mentioned in eight instances in the Book of Mormon stretching from approximately 500 BC to 51 BC. Critics argue this existed hundreds of years before the term "scimitar" was coined. The word "cimiter" is considered an anachronism since the word was never used by the Hebrews (from which the Book of Mormon peoples came) or any other civilization prior to 450 AD. The word 'cimeterre' is found in the 1661 English dictionary Glossographia and is defined as "a crooked sword" and was part of the English language at the time that the Book of Mormon was translated. In the 7th century, scimitars generally first appeared among the Turko- Mongol nomads of Central Asia however a notable exception was the sickle sword of ancient Egypt known as the khopesh which was used from 3000 BC and is found on the Rosetta Stone dated to 196 BC. Eannatum, the king of Lagash, is shown on a Sumerian stele from 2500 BC equipped with a sickle sword.
Apologists Michael R. Ash and William Hamblin postulate that the word was chosen by Joseph Smith as the closest workable English word for a short curved weapon used by the Nephites.
Mormon scholar Matthew Roper has noted there are a variety of weapons with curved blades found in Mesoamerica.
System of exchange based on measures of grain using precious metals as a standard
The Book of Mormon details a system of measures used by the societies described therein. However, the overall use of metal in ancient America seems to have been extremely limited. A more common exchange medium in Mesoamerica were cacao beans.
Knowledge of Hebrew and Egyptian languages
The Book of Mormon describes more than one literate people inhabiting ancient America. The Nephite people are described as possessing a language and writing with roots in Hebrew and Egyptian, and writing part of the original text of the Book of Mormon in this unknown language, called reformed Egyptian. A transcript of some of the characters of this language has been preserved in what had previously been erroneously identified as the "Anthon Transcript" but is now known as the "Caractors document".
Fifteen examples of distinct scripts have been identified in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, many from a single inscription. While Maya contains cartouches and is a form of hieroglyphic script like Egyptian, no further resemblance to Hebrew or Egyptian hieroglyphs has been identified. Additionally, professional linguists and Egyptologists do not consider the Caractors document to contain any legitimate ancient writing. Edward H. Ashment called the characters of the transcript "hieroglyphics of the Micmac Indians of northeastern North America".
The Smithsonian Institution has noted, "Reports of findings of ancient Egyptian Hebrew, and other Old World writings in the New World in pre-Columbian contexts have frequently appeared in newspapers, magazines, and sensational books. None of these claims has stood up to examination by reputable scholars. No inscriptions using Old World forms of writing have been shown to have occurred in any part of the Americas before 1492 except for a few Norse rune stones which have been found in Greenland."
Linguistic studies on the evolution of the spoken languages of the Americas agree with the widely held model that Homo sapiens arrived in America between 15,000 and 10,000 BC. According to the Book of Mormon, additional immigrants arrived on the American continent about 2500 BC and about 600 BC.
Systems of measuring time (calendars)
Chronologic dates given in the Nephite portion of the Book of Mormon are stated in terms of the Nephite calendar. The Jaredite abridgment does not contain an apparent calendar, the length of reigns and ages of kings are indicated in years, but no connection beyond that to a continuous calendar is indicated. The system of dates used by the Lamanites is not stated, though the Book of Mormon indicates that Lamanites had a different system of counting hours. The highest numbered month mentioned in the Book of Mormon is the eleventh, and the highest numbered day is the twelfth, but the total number of months in a year and the number of days in a month is not explicitly stated. Even so, it appears that Book of Mormon peoples observed lunar cycles, "months", and that the Nephites observed the Israelite Sabbath at the end of a seven-day week.
Most North American tribes relied upon a calendar of 13 months, relating to the annual number of lunar cycles. Seasonal rounds and ceremonies were performed each moon. Months were counted in the days between phase cycles of the moon. Calendar systems in use in North America during this historical period relied on this simple system.<ref>13 Moons On the Turtles Back. A Native American Year of Moons, , Putnam and Grossnet Group, 199</ref>
One of the more distinctive features shared among pre-Columbian Mesoamerican civilizations is the use of an extensive system of inter-related calendars. The epigraphic and archaeological record for this practice dates back at least 2,500 years, by which time it appears to have been well-established. The most widespread and significant of these calendars was the 260-day calendar, formed by combining 20 named days with 13 numerals in successive sequence (13 × 20 = 260). Another system of perhaps equal antiquity is the 365-day calendar, approximating the solar year, formed from 18 "months" × 20 named days + 5 additional days. These systems and others are found in societies of that era such as the Olmec, Zapotec, Mixe-Zoque, Mixtec, and Maya (whose system of Maya calendars are widely regarded as the most intricate and complex among them) reflected the vigesimal (base 20) numeral system and other numbers, such as 7, 9, 13, and 19.
Latter-day Saints and Book of Mormon archaeology
Early activities
In the early 1840s, John Lloyd Stephens' two-volume work Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan was seen by some church members as an essential guide to the ruins of Book of Mormon cities. In the fall of 1842, an article appearing in the church's Times and Seasons alleged that the ruins of Quiriguá, discovered by Stephens, may be the very ruins of Zarahemla or some other Book of Mormon city. Other articles followed, including one published shortly after the death of Joseph Smith. Every Latter Day Saint was encouraged to read Stephens' book and to regard the stone ruins described in it as relating to the Book of Mormon. It is now believed that these Central American ruins date more recent than Book of Mormon times.
In recent years, there have been differing views among Book of Mormon scholars, particularly between the scholars and the "hobbyists".
New World Archaeological Foundation
From the mid-1950s onwards, New World Archaeological Foundation (NWAF), based out of Brigham Young University, has sponsored archaeological excavations in Mesoamerica, with a focus on the Mesoamerican time period known as the Preclassic (earlier than c. AD 200). The results of these and other investigations, while producing valuable archaeological data, have not led to any widespread acceptance by non-Mormon archaeologists of the Book of Mormon account. In 1973, citing the lack of specific New World geographic locations to search, Michael D. Coe, a prominent Mesoamerican archaeologist and Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at Yale University, wrote,
As far as I know there is not one professionally trained archaeologist, who is not a Mormon, who sees any scientific justification for believing the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and I would like to state that there are quite a few Mormon archaeologists who join this group.
In 1955, Thomas Stuart Ferguson, an attorney and the founder of the NWAF, received five years of funding from the LDS Church and the NWAF then began to dig throughout Mesoamerica for evidence of the veracity of the Book of Mormon claims. In a 1961 newsletter, Ferguson predicted that although nothing had been found, the Book of Mormon cities would be found within 10 years. The NWAF became part of BYU in 1961 and Ferguson was removed from the director position.
Eleven years after Ferguson was no longer affiliated with the NWAF, in 1972 Christian scholar Hal Hougey wrote Ferguson questioning the progress given the stated timetable in which the cities would be found. Replying to Hougey, as well as other secular and non-secular requests, Ferguson wrote in a letter dated 5 June 1972: "Ten years have passed .... I had sincerely hoped that Book-of-Mormon cities would be positively identified within 10 years—and time has proved me wrong in my anticipation."
In 1976, fifteen years removed from any archaeological involvement with the NWAF, referring to his own paper, Ferguson wrote a letter in which he stated:
The real implication of the paper is that you can't set the Book-of-Mormon geography down anywhere—because it is fictional and will never meet the requirements of the dirt-archaeology. I should say—what is in the ground will never conform to what is in the book.
Archaeological efforts have failed to garner complete support from all prominent Mormon scholars. Author and Mormon Professor of Biblical and Mormon scripture Hugh Nibley published the following critical remarks:
Book of Mormon archaeologists have often been disappointed in the past because they have consistently looked for the wrong things ... Blinded by the gold of the pharaohs and the mighty ruins of Babylon, Book of Mormon students have declared themselves "not interested" in the drab and commonplace remains of our lowly Indians. But in all the Book of Mormon we look in vain for anything that promises majestic ruins.
Though the NWAF failed to establish a common belief of a specific Book of Mormon geographic location, the archaeological investigations of NWAF-sponsored projects were a success for ancient American archaeology in general which has been recognized and appreciated by non-Mormon archaeologists. Currently BYU maintains 86 documents on the work of the NWAF at the BYU NWAF website; these documents are used outside both BYU and the LDS Church by researchers.
Modern approach and conclusions
There is a broad consensus among archaeologists that the archaeological record does not substantiate the Book of Mormon account, and in most ways directly contradicts it.
An example of the mainstream archaeological opinion of Mormon archaeology is summarized by historian and journalist Hampton Sides:
Yale's Michael Coe likes to talk about what he calls "the fallacy of misplaced concreteness," the tendency among Mormon theorists like Sorenson to keep the discussion trained on all sorts of extraneous subtopics ... while avoiding what is most obvious: that Joseph Smith probably meant "horse" when he wrote down the word "horse".
Proposed geographical settings
Various apologists have claimed that events in the Book of Mormon took place in a variety of locations most notably North America, South America, and Central America. These finds are divided into competing models, most notably the Hemispheric Geography Model, the Mesoamerican Limited Geography Model, and the Finger Lakes Limited Geography Model.
Generally non-Mormon archaeologists do not consider there to be any authentic Book of Mormon archaeological sites.
Hemispheric Geography Model
The Hemispheric Geography Model posits that the events of the Book of Mormon took place over the entirety of the North and South American continents. By corollary some Mormons believe that the three groups mentioned in the Book of Mormon (Jaredites, Nephites, and Lamanites) exclusively populated an empty North and South American Continent, and that Native Americans were all of Israeli descent.
Speculations from various church leaders has shifted slightly over time, with early Mormon leaders including Orson Pratt taking a traditional stance.Silverberg quotes early Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt who attempted to incorporate "ancient mounds filled with human bones" in a geographic model spanning "North and South America." (Silverberg, Robert, The Mound Builders, pg. 73)Orson Pratt also speculated that the Nephite landing site was on the coast of Chile near Valparaiso, Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses (London, England: Albert Carrington, 1869), vol. 12; p. 342; Volume 14, p. 325, 1872. This model was also implicitly endorsed in the introduction to the Book of Mormon which, before 2008, stated that Lamanites are the "principal ancestors of the American Indians." More recently, the church has not taken as strong position on the absolute origin of Native American peoples.
Some Mormon apologists note that on June 4, 1834, during the Zion's Camp trek through Illinois, Joseph Smith stated that the group was "wandering over the plains of the Nephites, recounting occasionally the history of the Book of Mormon, roving over the mounds of that once beloved people of the Lord, picking up their skulls & their bones, as proof of its divine authenticity".
Criticism
Critics have noted that the assumption that Lamanites are the ancestors of the American Indians is wholly unfounded in current archaeological and genetic research.
Limited geography models
Mesoamerican Limited Geography Model
The Mesoamerican Limited Geography Model posits that the events of the Book of Mormon occurred in a geographically "limited" region in Mesoamerica only hundreds of miles in dimension and that other people were present in the New World at the time of Lehi's arrival. This model has been proposed and advocated by various Mormon apologists in the 20th century (both RLDS and LDS). Geographically limited settings for the Book of Mormon have been suggested by LDS church leaders as well, and this view has been published in the official church magazine, Ensign.
Mormon apologists believe the following archaeological evidence supports the Mesoamerican Geography Model:
Some Mormon apologists argue that there is only a single plausible match with the geography in Mesoamerica centered around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (current day Guatemala, the southern Mexico States of Tabasco, Chiapas, Oaxaca, Veracruz, and the surrounding area). This region was first proposed as the location of Zarahemla (ruins of Quirigua) in the anonymous newspaper article of October 1, 1842 (Times and Seasons).
Mormon apologist John L. Sorenson cites discoveries of fortifications at Becán, Tlaxcala, Puebla, Teotihuacan, and Kaminaljuyu, dated between 100 and 300 AD, as evidence of the Book of Mormon's account of large-scale warfare.
Some apologists, and church leaders (including Joseph Smith) believe that the Maya ruins on the Yucatán Peninsula belonged to Book of Mormon peoples LDS efforts to relate anachronistic Mayan ruins to Book of Mormon cities, owes much of its origins to an infatuation with archaeologists Stephens' and Catherwood's discoveries of Mesoamerican ruins, made public more than a decade after the first publication of the Book of Mormon. These findings were cited by early church leaders and publications as confirming evidence. This correlation is clearly problematic however, since conventional archaeology places the pinnacle of Mayan civilization several centuries after the final events in the Book of Mormon supposedly occurred. Critics note that according to , Nephite civilization came to an end near the year 384 AD. Copan, Quirigua, and sites in the Yucatàn visited by Stephens and Catherwood, contain artifacts that date more recent than Book of Mormon times. It has not been shown that any of Stephens' artifacts date to Book of Mormon times.
Criticism
The Limited Mesoamerican Geography Model has been critiqued by a number of scholars, who suggest that it is not an adequate explanation for Book of Mormon geography and that the locations, events, flora and fauna described in it do not precisely match. In response to one of these critiques in 1994, Sorenson reaffirmed his support for a limited Mesoamerican geographical setting.
Among apologists, there have been critiques—particularly around the location of the Hill Cumorah, which most Mormons consider to be definitively identified as a location in New York. In a Mesoamerican Limited Geography model, this would require there to be two Cumorahs (which some consider preposterous).
Finger Lakes Limited Geography Model
Some Mormon apologists hold that the events of the Book of Mormon occurred in a small region in and around the Finger Lakes region of New York. Part of the basis of this theory lies on statements made by Joseph Smith and other church leaders.See also "Sir, Considering the Liberal Principles," Joseph Smith to N.C. Saxton, editor, American Revivalist, and Rochester Observer, 4 January 1833 (from Times and Seasons [Nauvoo, Illinois] 5 [15 November 1844], 21:705-707) where Smith stated that the "Western Indians" in the United States are the descendants of Book of Mormon peoples.Joseph Smith's published statements indicate that he taught that Book of Mormon peoples or their descendants migrated from "the lake country of America" (near Lake Ontario) to Mexico and Central America. "Traits of the Mosaic History Found Among the Aztaeca Nations", Joseph Smith, Editor, Times and Seasons, June 15, 1842, Volume 3, Number 16, pp 818-820.In his "AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES" editorial of July, 1842, Joseph Smith correlates various archaeological finds in North America, South America, and Central America with events and peoples in the Book of Mormon. See the following Times and Seasons editorials: July 15, 1842, Volume 3, number 18, p. 859-60. "A CATACOMB OF MUMMIES FOUND IN KENTUCKY", Vol. 3, No 13, May 2, 1842, p. 781; "Traits of the Mosaic History, Found Among the Aztaeca Nations", Vol. 3, No 16, June 15, 1842, p. 818; "AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES", Vol. 3, No 18, July 15, 1842, p. 858., "FACTS ARE STUBBORN THINGS.", Times and Seasons, September 15, 1842, Vol. 3, No. 22, p. 922. Note that Smith's authorship of these articles has been challenged on some fronts. However, in the March 15, 1842, edition of the Times and Seasons, editor Joseph Smith informed readers, that he would endorse papers with his signature, or editor's mark "ED". Editor, Times and Seasons, March 15, 1842, Vol. 3, No. 9: "This paper commences my editorial career, I alone stand for it, and shall do for all papers having my signature henceforward. I am not responsible for the publication, or arrangement of the former paper; the matter did not come under my supervision. JOSEPH SMITH.
Mormon scholar Hugh Nibley, in apparent agreement with this view, drew attention to mound builder works of North America as "an excellent description of Book of Mormon strong places".
Criticism
Mormon scholars have estimated that at various periods in Book of Mormon history, the populations of civilizations discussed in the book would have ranged between 300,000 and 1.5 million people. The size of the late Jaredite civilization was even larger. According to the Book of Mormon, the final war that destroyed the Jaredites resulted in the deaths of at least two million people. From Book of Mormon population estimates, it is evident that the civilizations described are comparable in size to the civilizations of ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Rome, and the Maya. Such civilizations left numerous artifacts in the form of hewn stone ruins, tombs, temples, pyramids, roads, arches, walls, frescos, statues, vases, and coins.
No evidence of any civilizations approaching this size and scale have been found in the Finger Lakes region of New York.
South American Limited Geography Model
A document in the handwriting of Frederick G. Williams, one of Joseph Smith's counselors and scribes, asserts that Lehi's people landed in South America at thirty degrees south latitude, which is Coquimbo Bay, Chile. Analysis of the history and provenance of this document does not indicate it came from Joseph Smith and looks to just be an opinion from an unknown source.
Old World Book of Mormon archaeology
Some Mormon archaeologists and researchers have focused on the Arabian peninsula in the Middle East where they believe the Book of Mormon narrative describes actual locations. These alleged connections include the following:
One Mormon apologist believes that an ancient tribe known to have existed on the Arabian Peninsula with a similar name to that of the Book of Mormon figure Lehi may have adopted his name. Other Mormon scholars have not reached this conclusion, as "far too little is yet known about early Arabia to strengthen a link with the historical Lehi, and other explanations are readily available for every point advanced."
The Wadi Tayyib al-Ism is considered to be a plausible location for the Book of Mormon River of Laman by some Mormon researchers. This is disputed by other Mormon researchers.
Some Mormon theorist believe that the Book of Mormon place name "Nahom" correlates to a location in Yemen referred to as "NHM". According to Jerald and Sandra Tanner this link is disputed by mainstream archaeologists.
Mormon scholars believe they have located several plausible sites for the Book of Mormon location "Bountiful".
One Mormon apologist believes that an ancient Judean artifact is connected with the Book of Mormon figure Mulek.
Several Mormon apologists have proposed a variety of locations on the Arabian Peninsula that they believe could be the Book of Mormon location "Shazer".
Mormon cultural belief regarding Book of Mormon archaeology
Existing ancient records of the New World
The Smithsonian Institution has noted, "Reports of findings of ancient Egyptian Hebrew, and other Old World writings in the New World in pre-Columbian contexts have frequently appeared in newspapers, magazines, and sensational books. None of these claims has stood up to examination by reputable scholars. No inscriptions using Old World forms of writing have been shown to have occurred in any part of the Americas before 1492 except for a few Norse rune stones which have been found in Greenland."
Losses of ancient writings occurred in the Old World, including as a result of deliberate or accidental fires, wars, earthquakes, and floods. Similar losses occurred in the New World. Much of the literature of the pre-Columbian Maya was destroyed during the Spanish conquest in the 16th century. On this point, Michael Coe noted:
Nonetheless, our knowledge of ancient Maya thought must represent only a tiny fraction of the whole picture, for of the thousands of books in which the full extent of their learning and ritual was recorded, only four have survived to modern times (as though all that posterity knew of ourselves were to be based upon three prayer books and Pilgrim's Progress).
The Maya civilization also left behind a vast corpus of inscriptions (upwards of ten thousand are known) written in the Maya script, the earliest of which date from around the 3rd century BC with the majority written in the Classic Period (c. 250–900 AD). Mayanist scholarship is now able to decipher a large number of these inscriptions. These inscriptions are mainly concerned with the activities of Mayan rulers and the commemoration of significant events, with the oldest known Long Count date corresponding to December 7, 36 BC, being recorded on Chiapa de Corzo Stela 2'' in central Chiapas. None of these inscriptions have been correlated with events, places, or rulers of Book of Mormon.
One Mormon researcher has referred to ancient Mesoamerican accounts that appear to parallel events recorded in the Book of Mormon.
Jaredites and the Olmec
There is no archaeological evidence of the Jaredite people described in the Book of Mormon that is accepted by mainstream archaeologists. Nevertheless, some Mormon scholars believe that the Jaredites were the Olmec civilization, though archaeological evidence supporting this theory is disputed and circumstantial.
The Jaredites of the Book of Mormon are identified as being primarily located in the land northward as opposed to the land southward, however, no information is discussed specific to the Jaredites as to where the dividing line of the land northward and land southward was.
The date at which the Jaredites would be considered a civilization is not identified in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon claims the Jaredite civilization on the American continent was completely destroyed as the result of a civil war some time after (as late as 400 BC). Lehi's party is claimed to have arrived in the New World (). Olmec civilization flourished in Mesoamerica during the Preclassic period, dating from 1200 BC to about 400 BC.
Nephites
No Central or South American civilization is recognized by non-LDS scholars to correlate with the Nephites of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon makes no mention of Lamanites or Nephites erecting impressive works of hewn stone as did the Maya or various South American peoples. Some believe that Nephites lived in the Great Lakes region. Numerous aboriginal fortresses of earth and timber were known to have existed in this region.
Military fortifications
There are ten instances in the Book of Mormon in which cities are described as having defensive fortifications. For example, Alma 52:2 describes how the Lamanites "sought protection in their fortifications" in the city of Mulek.
One archaeologist has noted the existence of ancient Mesoamerican defensive fortifications. According to one article in an LDS Church magazine, military fortifying berms are found in the Yucatán Peninsula. Proponents of the Heartland Model have found it ironic that such great lengths would be taken to find "Moroniesque" aboriginal defensive works so far away from Cumorah, when such works are known to have existed in New York.
Efforts to correlate artifacts
Izapa Stela 5
In the early 1950s, M. Wells Jakeman of the BYU Department of Archaeology suggested that a complicated scene carved on Stela 5 in Izapa was a depiction of a Book of Mormon event called "Lehi's dream", which features a vision of the tree of life. This interpretation is disputed by other Mormon and non-Mormon scholars. Julia Guernsey Kappelman, author of a definitive work on Izapan culture, finds that Jakeman's research "belies an obvious religious agenda that ignored Izapa Stela 5's heritage".
Other artifacts
Sorenson claims that one artifact, La Venta Stela 3, depicts a person with Semitic features ("striking beard and beaked nose"). Mormon researchers such as Robin Heyworth have claimed that Copan Stela B depicts elephants; others such as Alfred M Tozzer and Glover M Allen claim it depicts macaws.
See also
Proposed Book of Mormon geographical setting
Historicity of the Book of Mormon
Biblical archaeology
Criticism of Mormonism
Khirbet Beit Lei
Los Lunas Decalogue Stone
Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact
Burrows Cave
Notes
References
.
Further reading
.
.
Mormonism and Native Americans
Book of Mormon studies
Criticism of Mormonism
Mormon apologetics
Book of Mormon
Book of Mormon
Book of Mormon geography |
419549 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia%20Browne | Sylvia Browne | Sylvia Celeste Browne (née Shoemaker; October 19, 1936 – November 20, 2013) was an American author who claimed to be a medium with psychic abilities. She appeared regularly on television and radio, including on The Montel Williams Show and Larry King Live, and hosted an hour-long online radio show on Hay House Radio.
Browne frequently made pronouncements that were later found to be false, including those related to missing persons. In 1992, she plead no contest to securities fraud. Despite the considerable negative publicity, she maintained a large following until her death in 2013.
Early life
Sylvia Browne grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, the daughter of William Lee and Celeste (née Coil) Shoemaker. Her father held several different jobs, working at times in mail delivery, jewelry sales, and as a vice president of a major freight line. Browne was raised mostly as a Catholic, and was said to have an Episcopalian mother, a Lutheran maternal grandmother, Jewish father, and relatives from all these faiths.
Browne claimed that she started seeing visions at the age of three,<ref name= sierra>"Grand Sierra hosts psychic and author Sylvia Browne". '"Reno Gazette-Journal. June 5, 2008. p. BestBets 8.</ref> and that her grandmother, who she claimed was also a psychic medium, helped her understand what they meant. Browne also claimed her great-uncle was a psychic medium and was "rabid about UFOs".
Career
Browne started working as a psychic in 1973. In 1986, she founded a "Gnostic Christian" church in Campbell, California, known as the Society of Novus Spiritus. She was also head of the Sylvia Browne Corporation and Sylvia Browne Enterprises. In a 2010 interview, Browne's business manager said that her businesses earned $3 million a year.
Browne claimed to have observed Heaven and angels. She also professed the ability to speak with a spirit guide named "Francine", and to perceive a wide range of "vibrational frequencies".
Books
Browne authored some 40 books on paranormal topics, some of which appeared on The New York Times Best Seller list. Many of these books were acknowledged as resulting from collaborations with other writers such as Lindsay Harrison and Chris Dufresne.
1990: (with Antoinette May). Adventures of a Psychic. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
1999: (with Lindsay Harrison). The Other Side and Back: A Psychic's Guide to Our World and Beyond. New York, NY: Signet.
2000: (with Lindsay Harrison). Life on the Other Side: A Psychic's Tour of the Afterlife. Dutton.
2000: God, Creation, and Tools for Life. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2000: Astrology Through A Psychic's Eyes. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2000: Meditations. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2000: (with Lindsay Harrison). Blessings From the Other Side. New York, NY: New American Library.
2000: Souls Perfection. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2001: (with Lindsay Harrison). Past Lives, Future Healing. New York, NY: New American Library.
2001: The Nature of Good and Evil. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2002: Prayers. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2002: Conversations With the Other Side. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2003: (with Lindsay Harrison). Visits from the Afterlife. New York, NY: New American Library.
2003: (with Lindsay Harrison). Book of Dreams. New York, NY: Signet.
2003: Book of Angels. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2004: Mother God: The Feminine Principle to Our Creator. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2004: Lessons For Life. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2004: (with Lindsay Harrison). Prophecy: What the Future Holds for You. New York, NY: Dutton.
2005: Contacting Your Spirit Guide. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2005: Secrets & Mysteries of the World. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2005: Phenomenon: Everything You Need to Know About the Paranormal. New York, NY: Dutton.
2005: (with Chris Dufresne). Animals on the Other Side. Cincinnati, OH: Angel Bea Publishing.
2006: If You Could see What I See: The Tenets of Novus Spiritus. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2006: Exploring the Levels of Creation. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2006: Insight: Case Files from the Psychic World. New York, NY: Dutton.
2006: The Mystical Life of Jesus. New York, NY: Dutton.
2006: Light A Candle. Angel Bea Publishing.
2006: (with Chris Dufresne). Christmas in Heaven. Angel Bea Publishing.
2007: Father God. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2007: Spiritual Connections. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2007: (with Lindsay Harrison). Psychic Children. New York, NY: Dutton.
2007: Secret Societies. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2007: (with Chris Dufresne). Spirit of Animals Angel Bea Publishing.
2007: The Two Marys. New York, NY: Dutton.
2008: Temples on the Other Side. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2008: (with Lindsay Harrison). End of Days. New York, NY: Dutton.
2008: Mystical Traveler. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2009: All Pets go to Heaven: The Spiritual Lives of the Animals We Love. Touchstone.
2009: Psychic Healing: Using the Tools of a Medium to Cure Whatever Ails You. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House Inc.
2009: Messages from Spirit: An Open-at-Random Book of Guidance. St. Lynn's Press.
2009: Accepting the Psychic Torch. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House.
2009: (with Lindsay Harrison). The Truth About Psychics: What's Real, What's Not, and How to Tell the Difference. Touchstone.
2010: Psychic: My Life in Two Worlds. HarperOne.
2011: Afterlives of the Rich and Famous. HarperOne.
Television and radio
Browne was a frequent guest on U.S. television and radio programs, including Larry King Live, The Montel Williams Show, That's Incredible!, and Coast to Coast AM. During these appearances, she usually discussed her claimed abilities with the host and then performed readings for audience members or callers. On certain occasions she was paired with other guests, including skeptics, often leading to debate about the authenticity of Browne's psychic abilities. Browne hosted her own hour-long online radio show on Hay House Radio, where she performed readings and discussed paranormal issues.
Browne appeared in a 1991 episode of Haunted Lives: True Ghost Stories. In the segment "Ghosts R Us", she portrayed herself in a recreation of events that purportedly took place in a haunted Toys R Us store. Browne also appeared as herself on the CBS television soap opera The Young and the Restless in December 2006.
False predictions
Browne made many public pronouncements which were subsequently proven false. Among the more notable incidents were the following:
In 2002, Browne informed the parents of 11-year-old Shawn Hornbeck, who had disappeared earlier that year, that he had been kidnapped by a dark-skinned Hispanic man with dreadlocks and was now deceased. Hornbeck was found alive in 2007; his kidnapper was Caucasian and short-haired. In June 2008, the UK television network ITV2 was sanctioned by Ofcom for re-airing the episode of The Montel Williams Show featuring Browne's original prediction. Republished
In November 2004, Browne told the mother of kidnapping victim Amanda Berry, who had disappeared nineteen months earlier: "She's not alive, honey." Browne also claimed that Berry was "in water", and that she had had a vision of Berry's jacket in the garbage with "DNA on it". Berry's mother died two years later believing her daughter had been killed. Berry was found alive in May 2013.
On Larry King Live in 2003, Browne predicted that she would die at age 88. She died in 2013, at age 77.
Psychic detective cases
In 2000, Brill's Content examined ten recent Montel Williams episodes that highlighted Browne's work as a psychic detective, spanning 35 cases. In 21 cases, the information predicted by Browne was too vague to be verified. Of the remaining 14, law enforcement officials or family members stated Browne had played no useful role.
In 2010, the Skeptical Inquirer published a detailed three-year study by Ryan Shaffer and Agatha Jadwiszczok that examined Browne's predictions about missing persons and murder cases. Despite her repeated claims to be more than 85% correct, the study reported that "Browne has not even been mostly correct in a single case." The study compared Browne's televised statements about 115 cases with newspaper reports and found that in the 25 cases where the actual outcome was known, she was completely wrong in every one. In the rest, where the outcome was unknown, her predictions could not be substantiated. The study concluded that the media outlets that repeatedly promoted Browne's work had no visible concern about whether she was untrustworthy or harmed people.
Among the predictions examined in the study were the following:
In 1999, Browne said that six-year-old Opal Jo Jennings, who had disappeared a month earlier, had been forced into slavery in Japan. Later that year, a local man was convicted of kidnapping and murdering Jennings. In 2003, an autopsy of Jennings' remains found that she had died within hours of her abduction.
In 2002, Browne claimed Holly Krewson, who had disappeared in 1995, was working as an exotic dancer in a Hollywood nightclub. In 2006, dental records were used to positively identify a body found in 1996 in San Diego as Krewson's.
In 2002, Browne claimed Lynda McClelland, who had disappeared in 2000, had been taken by a man with the initials "MJ"; was alive in Orlando, Florida; and would be found soon. In 2003, McClelland's son-in-law David Repasky, who had been present at Browne's reading, was convicted of murdering McClelland; her remains were found near her home in Pennsylvania.
In 2004, Browne said that Ryan Katcher, a 19-year-old who had disappeared in 2000, had been murdered, and his body could be found in a metal shaft. In 2006, Katcher's body was found in his truck at the bottom of a pond, where he had drowned.
In a 2013 follow-up article, Shaffer reviewed more recent predictions by Browne, as well as predictions whose outcomes had been earlier classified as undetermined but were now largely resolved. According to Shaffer, Browne was mostly or completely wrong in 33 cases and mostly accurate in none.
Sago Mine disaster
On January 2, 2006, an explosion at Sago mine in West Virginia trapped several miners underground. The following day, Browne was a guest on the radio program Coast to Coast AM with George Noory. At the start of the broadcast, it was believed that twelve of thirteen miners trapped by the disaster had been found alive and, when Noory asked Browne if the reported lack of noise from inside the mine might have led her to think the men had died, she replied, "No; I knew they were going to be found." Later in the program, it was discovered that the earlier news reports had been in error; Browne said, "I don't think there's anybody alive, maybe one ... I just don't think they are alive", adding, subsequently, that she "didn't believe that they were alive ... I did believe that they were gone."
Popularity
Browne cultivated a large following. In 2007, she had a four-year waiting list for readings by telephone. That same year, hundreds of people joined Browne on a cruise, each paying thousands of dollars for psychic readings. Many of her books became staples on The New York Times Best Seller list.
Browne attracted media attention seven years after her death, when social media users claimed that a prediction in her books (End of Days and Prophecy: What the Future Holds For You) referred to the COVID-19 pandemic (she claimed "a severe pneumonia-like illness" would spread "around" 2020). News coverage of the alleged similarity appeared in March 2020, and was picked up by celebrities with large social media platforms such as Kim Kardashian. Investigator Benjamin Radford and others dismissed the one-paragraph prediction as too generic, and actually more akin to the 2003 SARS epidemic, than to COVID-19. Radford said that as Browne had produced predictions by the thousands, "the fact that this one happened to possibly, maybe, be partly right is meaningless."
Criticism
Browne was frequently condemned by skeptics. Robert S. Lancaster maintained an exhaustive record of her inaccurate predictions and criminal activity, and described her pronouncements relating to missing children as "incredibly offensive". Jon Ronson, who called Browne "America's most controversial psychic", wrote that she was often "psychically wrong" and made "a fortune saying very serious, cruel, show-stopping things to people in distress". Fox News noted that she was "often criticized for her predictions"; Browne also garnered disapproval from others who claim to be psychics.
James Randi
Browne's most vocal critic within the skeptical movement was James Randi, a retired stage magician and investigator of paranormal claims; Randi claimed that Browne's accuracy rate was no better than educated guessing. On September 3, 2001, Browne stated on Larry King Live that she would prove her legitimacy by accepting the James Randi Educational Foundation's One Million Dollar Paranormal Challenge to demonstrate supernatural abilities in a controlled scientific test. By April 2003, however, Browne had not contacted Randi to make testing arrangements.
On May 16, 2003, in another appearance on King's show, Browne said she had not taken the test because Randi refused to place the prize money in escrow. Randi responded by mailing a notarized copy of the prize account status showing a balance in excess of one million dollars; Browne refused to accept the letter. In late 2003, despite challenge rules that money could not be placed in escrow, Randi announced that he was willing to do so for Browne; she did not accept or acknowledge this offer. In 2005, Browne posted a message online that she had never received confirmation of the prize money's existence, despite Randi's claim that he had a certified mail receipt showing Browne's refusal of the package. In 2007, on CNN's Anderson Cooper 360°, Browne's business manager Linda Rossi stated that Browne would not be taking Randi's challenge "because she has nothing to prove to James Randi".
John Oliver
In a 2019 segment of HBO's Last Week Tonight, John Oliver criticized the media for promoting Browne and other psychics and enabling them to prey on grieving families. Oliver said, "When psychic abilities are presented as authentic, it emboldens a vast underworld of unscrupulous vultures, more than happy to make money by offering an open line to the afterlife, as well as many other bullshit services."
Fraud conviction
During the late 1980s, the FBI and local authorities began investigating Browne and her businesses over several bank loans that caused "sustained losses" to banks. In 1992, Browne and her then-husband Kenzil Dalzell Brown were indicted on several charges of investment fraud and grand theft. The Superior Court of Santa Clara County, California, found Browne and her husband had sold securities in a gold-mining venture under false pretenses. In at least one instance, they told a couple that their $20,000 investment was to be used for immediate operating costs. Instead, the money was transferred to an account for their Nirvana Foundation for Psychic Research. Browne pleaded no contest to securities fraud and was indicted on grand larceny in Santa Clara County on May 26, 1992. The couple each received one year probation. In addition, Browne was sentenced to 200 hours of community service.
Personal life
Sylvia Browne married four times. Her first marriage, from 1959 to 1972, was to Gary Dufresne. The couple had two sons, Paul and Christopher. She took the surname Brown upon her third marriage, and later changed it to Browne. Her fourth marriage took place on February 14, 2009, to Michael Ulery, the owner of a jewelry store.
In March 2011, the Society of Novus Spiritus, the Gnostic Christian Church founded by Browne, announced that she had suffered a heart attack on March 21 in Hawaii, requesting donations on her behalf.
Death
Sylvia Browne died on November 20, 2013, aged 77, at Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose, California. Her interment was at Oak Hill Memorial Park.
See also
References
External links
The Society of Novus Spiritus, the Gnostic Christian church founded by Browne.
Ask Sylvia!'', Browne's HayHouse radio talk show.
1936 births
2013 deaths
20th-century American non-fiction writers
20th-century American women writers
20th-century apocalypticists
21st-century apocalypticists
21st-century American non-fiction writers
21st-century American women writers
American Christians
American female criminals
American members of the clergy convicted of crimes
American people convicted of fraud
American people of Jewish descent
American psychics
American self-help writers
American spiritual mediums
American spiritual writers
American white-collar criminals
American women non-fiction writers
Angelic visionaries
Burials at Oak Hill Memorial Park
Female religious leaders
Founders of new religious movements
Gnostics
New Age spiritual leaders
New Age writers
Writers from Kansas City, Missouri |
419553 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004%20in%20politics | 2004 in politics | These are some of the notable events relating to politics in 2004.
Events
January
January 1- Adnan Pachachi becomes president of the Iraq Interim Governing Council and will serve for the duration of the month.
January 1 – Joseph Deiss takes office as President of the Confederation in Switzerland, Samuel Schmid as vice-president.
January 4 – Texas Congressman Ralph Hall switches to the Republicans. Hall had been a Democrat.
January 4 – Mikhail Saakashvili is elected as President of Georgia.
January 6 – 2000 Democratic Presidential Candidate Bill Bradley endorses fellow Democrat Howard Dean for President.
January 8 – Gavin Newsom is sworn in as Mayor of San Francisco.
January 8 – Roosevelt Skerrit is sworn in as Prime Minister of Dominica following the death of Pierre Charles on January 6.
January 12 – Kathleen Babineaux Blanco is sworn in as Governor of Louisiana.
January 13 – Haley Barbour is sworn in as Governor of Mississippi.
January 13 – Howard Dean wins a non-binding primary in Washington, D.C., with 43% of the vote. Al Sharpton comes in second with 34% of the vote.
January 13 – Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill contributes to a book that claims that George W. Bush wanted to attack Iraq since January 2001 and not after the September 11th terrorist attacks as had been believed.
January 13 – The Turkish Cypriot leader approves a new cabinet headed by Mehmet Ali Talat.
January 14 – Óscar Berger Perdomo is inaugurated as President of Guatemala. Eduardo Stein Barillas becomes vice president and Jorge Briz Abularach becomes foreign minister.
January 14 – Madan Lal Khurana is sworn in as governor of Rajasthan.
January 14 – Nikolay Shaklein is sworn in as governor of Kirov.
January 15 – Carol Moseley Braun drops out of the 2004 United States Presidential race and endorses Howard Dean.
January 16 – Ban Ki Moon is named foreign minister of South Korea.
January 19 – The Iowa Caucuses are held. John Kerry wins with 38%. John Edwards comes second with 32%. Howard Dean comes in third with 18%. Richard A. "Dick" Gephardt comes in fourth with 11%.
January 20 – Richard Gephardt quits the 2004 Presidential race after a poor showing in the Iowa Caucuses.
January 20 – Bill Janklow's resignation from Congress takes effect. Janklow had been convicted of a felony in December 2003.
January 25 – Mikhail Saakashvili is sworn in as President of Georgia.
January 27 – John Kerry wins the New Hampshire Primary with 38% of the vote. Howard Dean gets 26% of the vote.
January 27 – Don Brash Speech Orewa Rotary Club on Nationhood against Māori racial separatism in New Zealand
January 27 – A House of Commons vote on University tuition top-up fees is narrowly won by the British Government. It is, however, the worst voting result for Tony Blair since he came to power in 1997.
February
February 1- Jörg Schild becomes president of the government of Basel-Stadt.
February 3 – John Edwards wins a primary in South Carolina with 46% of the vote. Wesley Clark wins the Oklahoma primary with 30% of the vote. John Kerry wins primaries and caucuses in Arizona with 43% of the vote, Delaware with 50% of the vote, Missouri with 51% of the vote, New Mexico with 42% of the vote, and North Dakota with 50% of the vote.
February 3 – Joe Lieberman quits the Presidential race after poor results in primaries and caucuses in South Carolina, Oklahoma, Arizona, Delaware, Missouri, North Dakota, and New Mexico.
February 3 – Jóannes Eidesgaard becomes prime minister of the Faroe Islands.
February 4 – Andrei Stratan is appointed foreign minister of Moldova.
February 4 – Dragan Marsicanin becomes acting president of Serbia.
February 6 – Richard Gephardt endorses John Kerry for President.
February 7 – John Kerry wins a primary in Michigan with 52% of the vote. Kerry also wins the Washington primary with 49% of the vote.
February 7 – Peter Beattie (of the Australian Labor Party) wins a 3rd term as Premier of Queensland, again winning over two-thirds of the seats.
February 8 – John Kerry wins the Maine Caucuses with 45% of the vote.
February 10 – John Kerry wins primaries in Tennessee and Virginia with 41% and 52% of the vote, respectively.
February 11 – Wesley Clark quits the Presidential race after poor results in the Virginia and Tennessee primaries.
February 13 – Wesley Clark endorses John Kerry.
February 13 – Jesús Pérez is sworn in as foreign minister of Venezuela.
February 13 – Tassos Giannitsis is sworn in as caretaker foreign minister of Greece.
February 14 – John Kerry wins a caucus in Washington, D.C., with 47% of the vote. Kerry wins the Nevada caucus with 63% of state party delegates.
February 17 – Democrat Ben Chandler defeats Republican Alice Forgy Kerr in a Congressional special election in Kentucky with 55% of the vote compared to Forgy Kerr's 43%.
February 17 – John Kerry wins 40% of the vote in the Wisconsin primary.
February 17 – Luisa Diogo is named prime minister of Mozambique.
February 18 – Howard Dean quits the Presidential race after a poor showing in Wisconsin.
February 18 – Jacques Simonet is sworn in as minister-president of Brussels-Capital.
February 21 – Ralph Nader enters the Presidential race as an Independent.
February 23 – Paul Lennon becomes acting premier of Tasmania.
February 23 – Mamady Condé is named foreign minister of Guinea.
February 23 – Josep Bargalló takes office as chief councillor of Catalonia.
February 24 – Viktor Khristenko is named acting prime minister of Russia.
February 26 – Ljupčo Jordanovski becomes acting president of Republic of Macedonia.
February 28 – Sulejman Tihić becomes chairman of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
February 29 – Boniface Alexandre is sworn in as provisional president of Haiti.
March
March 2 – "Super Tuesday" U.S. presidential primaries or caucuses take place in California, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont. John Kerry wins in 9 states, and a dejected John Edwards quits the race.
March 3 – New Government of Serbia was formed with support of Milošević's SPS party
March 4 – national parliament and all state assemblies of Malaysia, except Sarawak's were dissolved by the Prime Minister, paving the way for the general election.
March 4 – Predrag Marković becomes acting President of Serbia.
March 5 – Mikhail Fradkov is confirmed as Prime Minister of Russia.
March 7 – Kostas Karamanlis is given the mandate to form a new government in Greece.
March 9 – Sergey Lavrov is appointed Foreign Minister of Russia.
March 9 – Petros Molyviatis becomes Foreign Minister of Greece.
March 9 – Parliament of Latvia approves a new government headed by Indulis Emsis, Rihards Piks becomes foreign minister.
March 11 – Salomé Zurabishvili is appointed as foreign minister of the Republic of Georgia.
March 12 – Oleg Chirkunov becomes new acting governor of Perm.
March 12 – Gérard Latortue is sworn in as Prime Minister of Haiti.
March 13 – Nomination day for the Malaysian general election. Barisan Nasional wins 15 parliamentary seats and 7 state assembly seats uncontested. The Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party settles for one seat in the state of Johor.
March 16 – Sergey Abaramov is appointed as Prime Minister of Chechnya.
March 21 – National Front scores a landslide victory in the Malaysian general election.
March 23 – Lawrence Gonzi is sworn in as Prime Minister of Malta. John Dalli becomes foreign minister.
March 24 – Baldwin Spencer is sworn in as Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda. Harold Lovell becomes Foreign Minister.
March 25 – Datuk Idris Jusoh is sworn in as chief minister of Terengganu.
March 31 – Michel Barnier becomes foreign minister of France.
April
April 1 – Paolo Bollini and Marino Riccardi take office as Captains Regent of San Marino.
April 1 – Massoud Barzani becomes President of the governing council of Iraq.
April 1 – Roland Brogli becomes Landammann of Aargau.
April 4 – Camille de Rocca-Serra is elected as president of the Corsican Assembly.
April 5 – Mahinda Rajapakse is appointed as Prime Minister of Sri Lanka.
April 6 – Artūras Paulauskas becomes acting President of Lithuania.
April 6 – Gabriele Gendotti becomes president of the Council of State of Ticino.
April 7 – José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero is asked to form the new government of Spain.
April 10 – Chen Tang-shan is named foreign minister of the Republic of China.
April 12 – Georgy Shpak takes office as governor of Ryazan.
April 14 – Nikolay Kiselyov is sworn in as governor of Arkhangelsk. Mikhail Yevdokimov is sworn in as governor of Altai Krai.
April 14 – James Michel is sworn in as President of Seychelles.
April 14 – S'bu Ndebele is sworn in as Premier of KwaZulu-Natal.
April 16 – Prague Process between Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministries is started.
April 17 – José María Barreda Fontes assumes the Presidency of the Junta of Castilla-La Mancha.
April 18 – Miguel Ángel Moratinos becomes foreign minister of Spain.
April 21 – Macky Sall is appointed as Prime Minister of Senegal.
April 22 – Catherine Mabuza becomes acting premier of Limpopo.
April 23 – Leonard Ramatlakane is sworn in as acting premier of Western Cape.
April 23 – Sergey Gaplikov becomes acting Prime Minister of Chuvashia.
April 24- Referendums on the Annan Plan for Cyprus, which proposes to re-unite the island of Cyprus, take place in both the Republic of Cyprus controlled and Turkish controlled parts. Although the Turkish Cypriots vote in favour, the Greek Cypriots reject the proposal.
April 26 – Sello Moloto is sworn in as premier of Limpopo. Ebrahim Rasool is elected premier of Western Cape.
April 28 – Gabi Burgstaller is sworn in as Landeshauptfrau of Salzburg.
April 29 – Ousmane Issoufi Maïga is appointed Prime Minister of Mali.
May
May 1 – Laurie Morgan is elected chief minister of Guernsey.
May 1 – Ezzedine Salim becomes president of the governing council of Iraq.
May 1 – Jean-René Fournier takes office as president of the Council of State of Valais. Ruedi Jeker takes office as president of the government of Zürich.
May 2 – Moctar Ouane becomes foreign minister of Mali.
May 2 – Marek Belka is sworn in as prime minister of Poland.
May 7 – Fredis Refunjol is sworn in as governor of Aruba.
May 9 – Carlos Gomes Júnior is named Prime Minister of Guinea-Bissau.
May 10 – Deborah Barnes Jones is sworn in as governor of Montserrat.
May 17 – Ghazi al-Yawer becomes president of the governing council of Iraq.
May 19 – Manmohan Singh is invited to form the new government of India.
May 20 – Bingu wa Mutharika wins the presidential election in Malawi.
May 23 – K. Natwar Singh becomes foreign minister of India.
May 28 – Dharam Singh is installed as chief minister of Karnataka.
May 28 – Alan Huckle is sworn in as governor of Anguilla.
June
June 1 – Antonio Saca becomes President of El Salvador; Francisco Laínez becomes foreign minister.
June 1 – Barbara Egger-Jenzer becomes President of the Government of Bern. Sylvie Perrinjaquet becomes president of the Council of State of Neuchâtel, Josef Keller Landammann of Sankt Gallen, Claudius Graf-Schelling president of the government of Thurgau, and Josef Arnold Landammann of Uri.
June 2 – The parliament of the Republic of Macedonia approves the new government of Prime Minister Hari Kostov.
June 10 – The Congress of New Caledonia elects Marie-Noëlle Thémereau as new president of the government.
June 14 – Oscar Temaru is elected president of French Polynesia.
June 15 – Ivan Gašparovič takes office as president of Slovakia.
June 26 – Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain is named as new prime minister of Pakistan.
June 27 – New President of Serbia, Boris Tadić elected.
June 28 – Canadian federal elections occur; the Liberal party loses its absolute majority.
July
July 1 – Horst Köhler takes office as President of Germany.
July 1 – Adrian Ballmer becomes president of the government of Basel-Land; Gerhard Odermatt Landammann of Nidwalden; Elisabeth Gander-Hofer Landammann of Obwalden; and Kurt Zibung Landammann of Schwyz.
July 1 – M. Jodi Rell is sworn in as Governor of Connecticut.
July 3 – Michael Frendo is sworn in as foreign minister of Malta.
July 5 – T. V. Rajeshwar is appointed Governor of Uttar Pradesh.
July 6 – John Edwards named as John Kerry's running mate for U.S. President.
July 6 – Ivo Vajgl becomes foreign minister of Slovenia.
July 8 – Heinz Fischer is sworn in as President of Austria.
July 9 – Ahmed Nazif is named Prime Minister of Egypt.
July 11 – Boris Tadić is sworn in as President of Serbia.
July 12 – Pedro Santana Lopes appointed Prime Minister of Portugal.
July 17 – António Monteiro is sworn in as Foreign Minister of Portugal.
July 19 – Marie Arena becomes minister-president of the French Community of Belgium; Charles Picqué becomes minister-president of Brussels-Capital
July 20 – Karel De Gucht is sworn in as foreign minister of Belgium
July 20 – Canadian prime minister Paul Martin announces his new cabinet. See Cabinet of Canada.
July 21 – Artis Pabriks is elected foreign minister of Latvia.
July 22 – Yves Leterme becomes minister-president of Flanders.
July 26 – Stanislav Gross is appointed as the prime minister of the Czech Republic.
July 30 – Jean Asselborn becomes foreign minister of Luxembourg,
August
August 10 – George Yeo becomes foreign minister of Singapore.
August 12 – Lee Hsien Loong is sworn in as prime minister of Singapore.
August 16 – Søren Jessen-Petersen takes office as Kosovo administrator.
August 17 – Aleksandr Zhilkin becomes acting governor of Astrakhan Oblast.
August 18 – Lyonpo Yeshey Zimba takes office as prime minister of Bhutan.
August 18 – Alberto Romulo is appointed as foreign secretary of the Philippines.
August 23 – Babulal Gaur is sworn in as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh.
August 25 – Hungarian Socialist Party picks Ferenc Gyurcsány to be Prime Minister of Hungary.
August 27 – Shaukat Aziz is elected Prime Minister of Pakistan by the National Assembly of Pakistan.
August 31 – Oommen Chandy is sworn in as chief minister of Kerala.
September
September 1 – Terry Davis takes office as secretary-general of the Council of Europe.
September 1 – Martín Torrijos takes office as president of Panama; Samuel Lewis Navarro becomes Vice President.
September 2 – Col. Michel Sallé becomes Interior Minister of the Central African Republic.
September 9 – Anatoly Kvashnin is appointed as Vladimir Putin's plenipotentiary in the Sibirsky federal district.
September 10 – Alan Boradzov is confirmed Prime Minister of North Ossetia.
September 13 – Dmitry Kozak is appointed as Vladimir Putin's plenipotentiary in Southern Federal District of Russia.
September 15 – Halldór Ásgrímsson becomes Prime Minister of Iceland.
September 27 – Nobutaka Machimura becomes foreign minister of Japan.
September 28 – Tsendiin Mönkh-Orgil is approved as foreign minister of Mongolia.
September 29 – Ignacio Walker Prieto is named foreign minister of Chile.
September 29 – Dermot Ahern becomes foreign minister of the Republic of Ireland.
October
October 1 – Giuseppe Arzilli and Roberto Raschi take office as captains-regent of San Marino.
October 3 – Nodar Khashba is appointed as Prime Minister of the Republic of Georgia.
October 5 – Alu Alkhanov is sworn in as president of Chechnya.
October 6 – Norodom Sihamoni is chosen as King of Cambodia.
October 9 – Australian election held, John Howard's conservative government re-elected for a fourth term.
October 10 – Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is elected by the Transitional National Assembly of Somalia as President.
October 13 – Atay Aliyev is named Prime Minister of Dagestan.
October 14 – Sidi Moro Sanneh is appointed as foreign minister of The Gambia.
October 19 – Lt. Gen. Soe Win becomes Prime Minister of Myanmar.
October 20 – Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is sworn in as President of Indonesia.
October 20 – Ursula Plassnik is sworn in as foreign minister of Austria.
October 21 – Omar Karami is named Prime Minister of Lebanon.
October 26 – Petrus Compton becomes foreign minister of Saint Lucia.
November
November 2 – George W. Bush is re-elected for a second and final four-year term as U.S. President.
November 2 – Ferenc Somogyi is sworn in as foreign minister of Hungary.
November 3 – Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan becomes President of the United Arab Emirates.
November 3 – Janez Janša becomes Prime Minister-designate of Slovenia.
November 8 – Brenda Christian becomes mayor of Pitcairn Island.
November 10 – Abdelbaki Hermassi is named foreign minister of Tunisia.
November 11 – Rauhi Fattouh becomes acting President of Palestine.
November 18 – New Zealand parliament passes legislation vesting ownership of all land up to the high tide mark in New Zealand with the Crown.
November 18 – Monyane Moleleki is named foreign minister of Lesotho.
November 20 – Alí Rodríguez Araque is named foreign minister of Venezuela.
November 22 – Mariya Bolshakova becomes acting governor of Ulyanovsk Oblast.
November 22 – Ralph Klein is re-elected as Premier of Alberta with 61 of 83 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.
December
December 1 – Martine Brunschwig Graf becomes president of the Council of State of Genève.
December 2 – Syed Sibtey Razi is appointed governor of Jharkhand.
December 2 – The new government of Latvian Prime Minister Aigars Kalvītis is approved.
December 3 – Ramush Haradinaj is elected Prime Minister of Serbia and Montenegro.
December 7 – Milos Vystrcil is elected governor of Vysocina.
December 8 – Ephraïm Inoni is appointed prime minister of Cameroon and Laurent Esso is appointed foreign minister.
December 9 – Cellou Dalein Diallo is appointed Prime Minister of Guinea.
December 11 – Ham Lini is elected Prime Minister of Vanuatu.
December 12 – Traian Băsescu is elected and as president of Romania.
December 14 – Jim Marurai is elected prime minister of the Cook Islands.
December 17 – Mikhail Kuznetsov takes office as governor of Pskov Oblast.
December 22 – Călin Popescu-Tăriceanu is nominated as Prime Minister of Romania.
December 23 – Song Xiulian becomes acting governor of Qinghai.
December 26 – Mihai-Răzvan Ungureanu is named foreign minister of Romania.
December 28 – Nikolay Denin takes office as governor of Bryansk Oblast.
Deaths
(Very partial list of politicians who died in 2004)
January 6 – Dominica prime minister Pierre Charles dies of heart problems.
January 15 – Maaruf al-Dawalibi, former Prime Minister of Syria.
January 16 – Kalevi Sorsa, former Prime Minister of Finland.
February 11 – Jozef Lenárt, former Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia.
February 24 – Indian politician Sikander Bakht, governor of Kerala state, dies of an illness.
February 26 – Macedonian president Boris Trajkovski is killed in a plane crash.
February 29 – Sir Harold Bernard St. John, former Prime Minister of Barbados.
March 1 – Tadjidine Ben Said Massounde, former Prime Minister of Comoros.
March 5 – Carlos Julio Arosemena Monroy, former President of Ecuador.
March 20 – Juliana of the Netherlands, former Queen of the Netherlands.
April 9 – Sein Lwin, former President of Myanmar.
April 18 – Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, former President of Fiji.
May 9 – Russian-backed Chechnyan president Akhmad Kadyrov is assassinated.
May 17 – Iraq Interim Governing Council president Ezzedine Salim is assassinated.
June 2 – Tesfaye Gebre Kidan, former acting President of Ethiopia.
June 5 – Former US President Ronald Reagan dies of Alzheimer's disease at the age of 93.
June 10 – Xenophon Zolotas, former Prime Minister of Greece.
June 16 – Thanom Kittikachor, former Prime minister of Thailand.
June 24 – Carlos Alberto Lacoste, former acting President of Argentina.
June 25 – L.F. Ramdat Misier, former acting President of Suriname.
Jule 5 – Hugh Lawson Shearer, former prime minister of Jamaica.
July 6 – Austrian president Thomas Klestil dies of a heart attack just two days before he was to retire.
July 10 – Maria de Lurdes Pintassilgo, former Prime Minister of Portugal.
July 19 – Zenko Suzuki, former Prime Minister of Japan.
September 12 – Ahmed Dini Ahmed, former Prime Minister of Djibouti.
September 23 – Winston Cinac, former Prime Minister of Saint Lucia.
November 11 – Former Palestinian President Yasser Arafat dies from a mysterious illness, aged 75.
November 18 – Alfred Maseng, former President of Vanuatu.
November 26 – Hans Schaffner, former President of Switzerland.
December 23 – P.V. Narasimha Rao, former Prime Minister of India.
See also
2004 Canadian federal election
2004 Australian federal election
2004 U.S. presidential election
2004 Serbian presidential election
2004 European Parliament election
2004 Annan Plan Referendum
External links
Rulers – Includes months in politics for 2004.
Politics by year
21st century in politics
2000s in politics |
419557 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan%20Pachachi | Adnan Pachachi | Adnan al-Pachachi or Adnan Muzahim Ameen al-Pachachi () (14 May 1923 – 17 November 2019) was a veteran Iraqi and Emirati politician and diplomat. Pachachi was Iraq's Permanent Representative to the United Nations from 1959 to 1965 and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iraq from 1965 to 1967, during the Six-Day War with Israel; he again served as Permanent Representative to the UN from 1967 to 1969. After 1971, he left Iraq in exile and became an Emirati Minister of State and political advisor to United Arab Emirates president Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Pachachi was an important figure in Iraqi politics, often described as Iraq's elder statesman. He rejected the role of president in the Iraqi Interim Government.
Childhood and education
Pachachi was born in Baghdad on 14 May 1923. As the son of Muzahim al-Pachachi, nephew of Hamdi al-Pachachi and the cousin of Nadim al-Pachachi, he was the scion of a Sunni Arab nationalist family with a long tradition in Iraqi politics and a graduate from Victoria College, Alexandria in Egypt. He supported the 1941 Iraqi coup d'état led by Rashid Ali Al-Gaylani as a member of the Kata'ib al-Shabab (Youth Brigade).
Pachachi completed his undergraduate studies in 1943 at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon, majoring in political science. While attending the university, he was inspired by the early emergence of the Arab Nationalist Movement on the campus. After his return to Iraq, his application for a job in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was refused by the Iraqi Criminal Investigation Department due to his participation in the Kata'ib al-Shabab and support for the 1941 coup.
Diplomatic and political career in Iraq
Eventually, in 1950, he was appointed assistant director of the Political Department in the Iraqi Ministry of Foreign Affairs and continued to work in the Foreign Service over the next eight years. In 1958, the union of Egypt and Syria was led by Gamal Abdel Nasser and the United Arab Republic was founded. Pachachi had been a vocal supporter of Nasser, particularly during the Suez War in 1956 although official Iraqi government policy at the time was aligned with the British against him. On his attraction to the Egyptian leader he wrote in his memoir "My feelings about Egypt and Jamal Abdul Nasser had deep-rooted origins. In the first place I shared my father's belief that Egypt was the most important Arab country and that Iraq should at all times should have the best relations with her. My father, in and out of power, consistently called for the closest ties with Egypt. It cost him his political career in 1950. He remained very close to Abdul Nasser and supported him during the fateful days of the Suez War. Being a fervent Arab nationalist, I was naturally attracted by Nasser's call for Arab unity, and during the Suez crisis I supported him without reservation. I admired Abdul Nasser because he personified more than anyone, the idea or Arab unity and seemed the only leader capable of achieving it." It was for this reason he was not trusted by Prime Minister Nuri as-Said and deemed to be a Nasserist. On 13 July 1958 he was dismissed and removed from the Iraqi Foreign Service due to his pro-Nasserite positions.
The very next day was the 14 July Revolution led by Abdul Karim Qassim. The Hashemite monarchy and Nuri as-Said were overthrown. Pachachi was promptly appointed Iraq's Permanent Representative to the United Nations in 1959 by Qassim's revolutionary regime. During this time Iraq formed a close relationship with the Soviet Union led by Nikita Khrushchev. Under Qassim, Iraq was a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1961 and Pachachi met with founding leaders Josep Broz Tito, Kwame Nkrumah, Jawaharlal Nehru, Fidel Castro, and Sukarno as a representative of his country. During his time at the United Nations he also met with well-known figures such as Patrice Lumumba and Malcolm X. The Qassim regime recognised the People's Republic of China and Pachachi argued very strongly for their inclusion at the United Nations. Despite the brutal 1963 coup which removed Qassim from power in Iraq, Pachachi remained the representative at the United Nations.
Pachachi wrote extensively about his time at the UN in his memoir, Iraq's Voice at the United Nations: 1959-1969. He expressed his dismay at the influence of the Zionist lobby over western media and speculated on the reasons for the support displayed for Israel. "The press of many Western countries abound with news commentaries and photographs extolling Israel's achievements and exploits, and scarcely hiding the perverse and malicious pleasure felt at the new tragedy that has befallen the people of Palestine. What can the meaning of all this be? Perhaps, in due course, some introspective and compassionate minds in the West might invest some time in soul-searching to analyse this curious phenomenon of Western, almost tribal, jubilation at Arab agony. Can it be that the temporary triumph of Zionist arms offers emotional compensation to some sections of the Western public for the post-Second World War retreat of Western colonialism before the advancing tide of Afro-Asian nationalism? Indeed, can we forget that Zionism is in fact chronologically the last wave of European demographic displacement at the expense of an Afro-Asian people?"
Following the announcement of his departure from the United Nations in December 1965, Pachachi was presented with a plaque by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) "in recognition and appreciation of his dedication to and distinguished services for Palestine in the United Nations." The PLO was considered by the United States and Israel to be a terrorist organization until the Madrid Conference in 1991 but has enjoyed observer status at the United Nations since 1974. Pachachi was then appointed Foreign Minister of Iraq in 1965 by President Abdul Salam Arif; he stated the belief that his appointment to this position was at the behest of Gamel Abdel Nasser. Pachachi served as the Foreign Minister of Iraq during the Six-Day War with Israel and on the eve of conflict at the 1345th meeting of the United Nations Security Council on 31 May 1967, he announced:
"We shall defend ourselves whatever the cost and however long and difficult the struggle may be. We are prepared to use every tool at our disposal. The conflict will be total and uncompromising. The day before I left Baghdad, my government decided to deny our oil resources to any state which takes part in or supports the Israeli aggression against the Arab states. We have invited all other Arab oil-producing and exporting countries to meet with us and co-ordinate our positions. This must prove that our people are prepared to bear any hardship and accept any sacrifice. But there will be no retreat. Make no mistake about that; make no miscalculations. For fifty years we witnessed the Zionist peril steadily advancing. From a mere promise given by a colonial power in time of war, Israel was able to carve for itself a precious part of our homeland, continually threatening and trying to intimidate our people with murderous attacks across the armistice lines which the Arab countries have not crossed once since 1949 but which the Israelis have crossed with their armies twelve times. And now they are not hesitating to threaten to unleash war on us, and maybe on the world, in order to keep their ill gotten gains."
Following the outbreak of war with Israel on 5 June, Iraq severed diplomatic relations with the United States, suspended oil shipments, refused to permit U.S. aircraft to overfly Iraq, and announced a boycott of U.S. goods. Pachachi later denounced the ceasefire which ended the Six-Day War, dismissing it as a "complete surrender to Israel." In his memoirs Pachachi described the Arab defeat in 1967 as "a traumatic experience from which I never really recovered." He then served as Permanent Representative to the UN for a second time from 1967 to 1969. The Ba'ath Party came to power in July 1968, in a coup which Pachachi claimed was supported by the CIA, in an effort to distance Iraq from Gemal Abdel Nasser. Pachachi resigned from his post in January 1969 because as he put it "I felt it was morally wrong to represent a regime whose values I don't share." At the United Nations he was remembered for his rejections of Zionism and his refusal to recognise Kuwait. He then left Iraq in 1971.
Exile and Diplomatic career in the UAE
He went into in exile in Abu Dhabi, which had become independent. Sheik Zayed appointed Pachachi as Minister of State in the first Government of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi; he took up his office on 1 July 1971. When the United Arab Emirates was formed on 2 December 1971, Pachachi immediately flew to New York and submitted the UAE's application for membership in the United Nations. Given his long career as Iraq's foreign minister and UN ambassador, Pachachi had many colleagues and contacts at the UN. "I saw that I had to convince two important permanent members of the Security Council, China and the Soviet Union, not to veto our application," he recalled.
"At the time, there were close relations with the Communist Party in the south of Yemen, who opposed the creation of the UAE," he said. "So I had long talks with them, and assured them that the UAE would not enter into any anti-Communist alliances, would not be bound by any treaty obligations, and would join the ranks of the non-aligned countries." In 1973, as a result of US military support for Israel in the October War the UAE imposed an oil embargo, a move followed by other Arab oil-producing countries, and Pachachi was selected as the spokesman to convey Sheikh Zayed's message at the European Summit in Copenhagen. "We told them the embargo was imposed because of the large-scale military assistance given to Israel by the US, and we demanded justice for the Palestinians and the settlement of the conflict on the basis of total withdrawal of Israeli forces from Arab territories occupied in the 1967 war," he said. Pachachi was granted UAE citizenship in 1974 and served on the board of directors for entities including Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia), and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Economic Development. He was also a member of the Abu Dhabi Executive Council and chairman of the General Projects Committee.
He described himself as a fervent Arab nationalist. In his memoirs he wrote that he was unable to accept Israel's existence and that Iraq and Syria should unite into one Arab state. During the Gulf war he wrote: "Whatever the outcome of the Kuwait crisis, the Arabs must continue their efforts to build a credible military alternative. The
first imperative step toward reaching this goal is to achieve unity between Iraq and Syria. Without the unity of these two countries, the Arabs can
never successfully resist Israel's armed might." Pachachi publicly opposed the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998 and only renounced his nearly 40-year-old view that Kuwait was part of Iraq in 1999.
Events of 2003–2004
In February 2003 he reportedly described the George W. Bush administration's foreign policy hawks as a "Zionist lobby". Pachachi dismissed US plans to redraw the map of the Middle East to benefit Washington and set up an American military administration in Baghdad. "These statements come from the Zionist lobby in the United States which thinks that overthrowing Saddam Hussein will bring Arab reconciliation with Israel. That is stupid because if a democratic regime is created in Iraq, it will display greater hatred for Israel. This lobby is opposed to me playing any role in Iraq, through the instigation of Ahmad Chalabi," Pachachi said. Unlike Chalabi, who had sought the support of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Pachachi said there would not be any relations between Iraq and Israel, as this would be antithetical to Iraqi interests.
On 15 February 2003, David Frum, a speechwriter for US President George W. Bush, who authored his “axis of evil” speech, described Pachachi as "an old-fashioned pan-Arabist.” Frum stated “Mr. Pachachi is more than 80 years old and in many ways a very disturbing figure – for three decades he advocated the annexation of Kuwait to Iraq." On 24 February 2003, Jed Babbin the United States Deputy Undersecretary of Defense described Pachachi as "an octogenarian Arab-nationalist hostile to the U.S." going on to state that "For 30 years, Pachachi insisted that Kuwait was part of Iraq, and not entitled to independence. Now, he refers to Bush administration hawks as a 'Zionist lobby'. Offering Pachachi a part in the new Iraq makes as much sense as inviting in one of the Iranian mullahs."
Pachachi had strongly opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq and was involved in creating an exile deal that the UAE offered Saddam Hussein in a last minute effort to avoid the impending war and suffering of the Iraqi people. Saddam allegedly accepted the offer to try to halt the invasion and bring elections to Iraq within six months, according to Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan; however, the invasion still went ahead. In February 2003, Pachachi refused a seat on the US-appointed six-member leadership council set up at a meeting of major opposition groups in the Kurdistan Region of northern Iraq.
Pachachi vocally opposed the process of awarding out contracts to US firms after the ousting of the Ba'ath regime and criticised Washington over the plans for a US-led civilian authority to hand out reconstruction contracts without the approval of an elected Iraqi government. In April 2003, the US government awarded the Bechtel Corporation a $680-million-contract to help rebuild Iraq's power, water and sewage systems as well as repair air and sea ports, Pachachi slammed this decision saying "No one has the right to commit Iraq to obligations and costs, only an Iraqi government can do that. A parliament should also endorse the agreements."
After much deliberation Pachachi agreed to be part of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) in July 2003 at the age of 80. The CounterPunch journalist Andrew Cockburn commented on the IGC: "I think one person who deserves credit is Adnan Pachachi. From the beginning when they moved into Baghdad and seized nice houses, he was the only one that insisted on paying rent. He has always exhibited integrity." Following the establishment of the Governing Council, Joel Mowbray wrote in the National Review "Pachachi is one of a number of people with uncomfortably tight ties to terrorism. When he was the foreign minister of Iraq in the 1960s, Pachachi was very close to the first generation of Palestinian terrorists. And after the Baath Party had come to power, Pachachi refused to condemn the hanging of Jews in Baghdad in 1969." Pachachi was also denounced by a Middle East specialist at the CIA, Reuel Marc Gerecht, as "a surreal specimen of sclerotic Pan-Arabism from 30 years ago." The New York Times journalist Judith Miller dismissed the inclusion of Pachachi in the Iraqi Governing Council as a "diplomatic flap", claiming that his involvement in the political process "at this late stage would backfire politically and could alienate Kuwait, an essential base of operations in any gulf war." Danielle Pletka, vice-president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), also denounced the inclusion of Pachachi in the IGC as "very disappointing".
Pachachi accused the US military of war crimes during the First Battle of Fallujah which was codenamed Operation Vigilant Resolve. In April 2004, during the US military operations in the city, he spoke out angrily claiming the actions taken by US forces were "illegal and totally unacceptable" he also accused them of "inflicting collective punishment on the residents of Fallujah" which is a war crime under the Fourth Geneva Convention. On 14 May, Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute made clear his preference for Chalabi over Pachachi, writing "Chalabi may be a controversial figure and a lightning rod for criticism, but unlike figures like Muqtada al-Sadr and Abdul Aziz Hakim, Chalabi has always voiced his dissent peacefully. Unlike Adnan Pachachi, he has never called for the elimination of a neighboring Arab state or condemned the United States."
On 29 May 2004, Pachachi said, referring to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, "The Americans thought they were marching into an underdeveloped country, expecting to face little resistance and be welcomed with flowers. The Americans quickly realized that the Iraqi is a patriot, one who defends his country, just as his ancestors have done for thousands of years. We are an educated people with a long history, and we are a cultured people. The Americans also did not expect the infrastructure they found in Iraq. They were surprised. They couldn't understand that a dictator like Saddam Hussein had invested a large share of oil revenues in infrastructure projects, such as highways, modern irrigation canals and industrial plants, which one doesn't find in just any country. The marines were confused by this new realization, as well as by their failure to achieve a swift victory and by the ongoing resistance. It also confounded the American concept, that is, if a sound and credible concept ever existed. No people in the world wishes to live with occupiers, and we Iraqis are no different." Pachachi also commented on the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse "What kind of reaction do you expect from the Iraqis? Regardless of age, profession and political affiliation, we are all horrified and furious about these atrocities. I had already heard about the brusque approach taken by the Americans during house searches early on. However, I was completely taken aback by the gruesome scope of the torture and human rights violations that have now come to light. Not just I, but all Iraqis demand a tough investigation and punishment of the perpetrators and the people behind them. We also need guarantees that such atrocities will cease once and for all. What has happened cannot be undone, and the long-term psychological consequences are unforeseeable."
On 1 June 2004, he was reportedly nominated to be the President of the Iraqi Interim Government by UN Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. He chose to decline the post publicly, stating that he turned down the position "because I was accused of being the choice of the Americans. I had to refuse this offer, in order to preserve my reputation and my honor. Trying to portray me as a little soft on the Americans when I have been struggling for Arab rights all my life is not only false, it is unfair. I find it really insulting." Pachachi later claimed he was forced to turn down the job because of a "shabby conspiracy" led by Chalabi. He said "There is a great deal of disinformation that I was the preferred candidate of the US. Nothing could be further from the truth." Paul Bremer in his memoirs indicated that Presidentr Bush himself urged the appointment of Ghazi al-Yawar as President of the Iraqi Interim Government, as Bush "had been favorably impressed by Ghazi's open thanks to the Coalition for overthrowing Saddam and by his determination to continue the process to sovereignty and eventual democracy." Brahimi promptly announced his resignation as UN Envoy, resulting from "great difficulties and frustration experienced during his assignment in Iraq." He expressed serious disappointment and frustration about his role stating "Bremer is the dictator of Iraq, He has the money. He has the signature. I will not say who was my first choice, and who was not my first choice. I will remind you that the Americans are governing this country."
Political activity after 2005
Pachachi put together a list of candidates called the Assembly of Independent Democrats (his party Democratic Centrist Tendency was included) to contest Iraq's January 2005 legislative election. Prior to the elections, Pachachi accused the United States of interfering in Iraq's affairs by insisting that the 30 January election go ahead on that date. Sunni Arab political and religious leaders, including Pachachi, called for a six-month delay arguing that the violence sweeping the country meant a free poll could not go ahead. "The strange thing is that America and Iran, who differ on everything, agree on one issue of holding elections on January 30," Pachachi told reporters. "It is not the business of the United States or Iran or any other country to talk about delaying or sticking to the date. We are very upset by such attempts as foreign states sharing their opinion in this issue. Let us try to agree among ourselves because external attempts might deter any agreement."
In May 2005 he commented "The current situation in this country is very serious, the security is terrible, the services are almost non-existent the provision of the essentials is extremely inadequate. There is rampant corruption and selfishness the Iraqi political class is only a bit better than that of the Congo."
For the December 2005 elections, he was elected as a member of the list headed by former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. Following Arab political tradition, Pachachi opened the first session of the Iraqi National Assembly in April 2005, as the oldest member elected.
At the time of the March 2010 parliamentary election, Pachachi again stood as a candidate on Allawi's Iraqi List. He expressed serious concerns about the credibility of the election: "There have been wide reports of intimidation of voters; there are certain to be attempts at voter fraud." Pachachi suggested that the government could be planning fraud due to its alleged printing of seven million unnecessary ballots. Nevertheless, he was hopeful, arguing that voters were more interested in the candidates' ability than in sectarian concerns and that "if they are allowed to [vote] without intimidation or fear, this could be a watershed moment and an example to the rest of the Middle East." However, after the elections in August 2010, he said "The idea that Iraq is being left in a good position is utter nonsense," and American officials should not "delude themselves." Later in August 2010, he was interviewed on the Al Jazeera programme Without Borders. When asked if he was satisfied with the performance of Paul Bremer as civilian administrator in Iraq, Pachachi replied "No, Bremer was receiving his instructions from the Pentagon and as I told you the Pentagon is controlled by a group of Zionist extremists." In August 2011 he said "The biggest beneficiaries of the deteriorating conditions of the Iraqi army and the elimination of Iraq's military power are Iran and Israel. As it stands there is no opposition to Iranian influence nor a deterrent to Israel's policy in the region." In December 2012, Pachachi told Al Arabiya that "Iraq is a failed state and in need of a revolution" further lamenting “Sorrow fills my heart that the Arab Spring has skipped Iraq. The wind of change that toppled regimes and rulers didn’t reach the country." He went on to blame the US invasion for the current state of the country and rampant sectarianism within it, stating "The Americans allowed a sectarian-based political system due to their beliefs that Iraqis are divided by their sectarian and ethnic background and that the political assembly must represent this truth. What the Americans did not understand was that Iraq long witnessed intermarriage between Sunnis and Shiites." As someone who has witnessed so much, and was involved in some of the most intense negotiations and treaties, he says one of his regrets is not seeing a different union succeed. "It is such a shame that Iraq and Syria did not unite, becoming the powerful heart of the Middle East. Instead, these two great nations, with such a great civilisation and such great hopes, became the heartache of the region," he says.
Awards
Pachachi was awarded with Abu Dhabi Awards, Emirate of Abu Dhabi's highest civilian award, by Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan in 2016 for his services.
Death
Pachachi died on 17 November 2019 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
References
External links
PACHACHI, Adnan International Who's Who. accessed 1 September 2006.
1923 births
2019 deaths
American University of Beirut alumni
Assembly of Independent Democrats politicians
Foreign ministers of Iraq
Government ministers of Iraq
Iraqi Arab nationalists
Iraqi dissidents
Iraqi exiles
Iraqi secularists
Iraqi Sunni Muslims
Members of the Council of Representatives of Iraq
Nasserists
Politicians from Baghdad
Permanent Representatives of Iraq to the United Nations
Victoria College, Alexandria alumni
Al-Pachachi family
Iraqi expatriates in the United Arab Emirates |
419563 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hasan%20ibn%20Ali | Hasan ibn Ali | Abū Muḥammad al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (; ) was a prominent early Islamic figure. He was the eldest son of Ali and Fatima and a grandson of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. He briefly ruled as caliph from January 661 until August 661. He is considered as the second Imam in Shia Islam, succeeding Ali and preceding his brother Husayn. As a grandson of the prophet, he is part of the and the , also is said to have participated in the event of Mubahala.
During the caliphate of Ali (), Hasan accompanied him in the military campaigns of the First Muslim Civil War. After Ali's assassination in 661, Hasan was acknowledged caliph in Kufa. His sovereignty was not recognized by Syria's governor Mu'awiya I (), who led an army into Kufa while pressing Hasan for abdication in letters. In response, Hasan sent a vanguard under Ubayd Allah ibn al-Abbas to block Mu'awiya's advance until he arrived with the main army. Meanwhile, Hasan was severely wounded in an abortive assassination attempt by the Kharijites, a faction opposed to both Ali and Mu'awiya. This attack demoralized Hasan's army and led to widespread desertion. Ubayd Allah and most of his troops also defected after Mu'awiya bribed him. In August 661, Hasan signed a peace treaty with Mu'awiya on the condition that the latter should rule in compliance with the Quran and the , a council should appoint his successor, and Hasan's supporters would receive amnesty. Hasan retired from politics and abdicated in Medina where he died either from illness or poisoning, though the early sources are nearly unanimous that he was poisoned. Mu'awiya is commonly viewed as the instigator in the murder of Hasan, which removed an obstacle to the succession of his son Yazid ().
Critics of Hasan call his treaty with Mu'awiya an indication of weakness, saying that he intended to surrender from the beginning. Given Mu'awiya's military superiority, supporters of Hasan maintain that his abdication was inevitable after his soldiers mutinied and that he was motivated by the desire for unity and peace among Muslims, which was reportedly predicted by Muhammad in a Sunni hadith. Another Sunni hadith, also attributed to Muhammad, predicted that the prophetic succession would last for thirty years, which was probably interpreted by some early Sunni scholars as evidence that Hasan's caliphate was rightly-guided (). In Shia theology, the divine infallibility () of Hasan as the second Shia Imam further justified his course of action. As the rightful successor of Muhammad in Shia Islam, Hasan's all-inclusive temporal and religious authority came from divinely-inspired designation (), which was not annulled by abdication to Mu'awiya, who usurped only the temporal authority. The imamate and caliphate are viewed as separate institutions in Shia Islam until such time that God would make the Imam victorious.
Early life
Birth
Hasan was born in Medina in . Sources differ on whether he was born in Ramadan or Shaban, though most early works give his birthdate as 15 Ramadan 3 AH (2 March 625 CE), which is annually celebrated by the Shia. Hasan was the firstborn of Muhammad's daughter Fatima and his cousin Ali. Their union holds a special spiritual significance for Muslims, write Nasr and Afsaruddin, and Muhammad said he followed divine orders to marry Fatima to Ali, narrates the Sunni al-Suyuti (), among others. Ali reportedly had chosen another name in Sunni sources but deferred to Muhammad who named the child Hasan (). To celebrate his birth, Muhammad sacrificed a ram, while Fatima shaved Hasan's head and donated the weight of his hair in silver.
Lifetime of Muhammad
Hasan was raised in Muhammad's household until the age of seven when his grandfather died. Early sources widely report Muhammad's love for Hasan and his brother Husayn, saying that Muhammad allowed the boys to climb on his back while he was prostrate in prayer, and interrupted a sermon to pick Hasan up after his grandson fell. On one occasion, Hasan later recalled, his grandfather took away a date from him and explained that receiving alms () was forbidden for his family.
A hadith () in the canonical Sunni collection Sunan ibn Majah names Hasan and Husayn as the s () of the youth in the paradise. Madelung adds that this hadith is widely reported, while Veccia Vaglieri () notes that its authenticity was disputed by the Umayyad Marwan (). The same source and the canonical Shia source Kitab al-Irshad narrate the prophetic hadith, "He who has loved Hasan and Husayn has loved me and he who has hated them has hated me." Similarly, the canonical Sunni source Sahih al-Tirmidhi ascribes to Muhammad, "Whoever loves me and loves these two [Hasan and Husayn] and loves their mother and father [Fatima and Ali], will be with me in my station on the Day of Resurrection."
Mubahala
After an inconclusive debate in 10/631-2, Muhammad and the Najranite Christians decided to engage in , where both parties would pray to invoke God's curse upon the liar. Madelung argues that Muhammad participated in this event alongside Hasan, Husayn, and their parents. This is also the Shia view. In contrast, most Sunni accounts by al-Tabari () do not name the participants of the event, while some other Sunni historians agree with the Shia view.
During the event, Muhammad gathered Hasan, Husayn, Ali, and Fatima under his cloak and addressed them as his , according to some Shia and Sunni sources, including the canonical Sahih Muslim and Sahih al-Tirmidhi. Madelung suggests that their inclusion by Muhammad in this significant ritual must have raised the religious rank of his family. A similar view is voiced by Lalani.
Death of Muhammad and Fatima (632)
Muhammad died in 11/632 when Hasan was about seven. As his family prepared for the burial, a group of Muslims gathered at the Saqifa and appointed Abu Bakr as Muhammad's successor, in the absence of his family and the majority of the Muhajirun (Meccan Muslims). Ali, Fatima, and some supporters did not recognize the caliphate of Abu Bakr, saying that Muhammad had appointed Ali as his successor, possibly referring to the Ghadir Khumm in 632.
Fatima died also in 632, within six months of Muhammad's death, at the age of about eighteen or twenty-seven years old. Shias hold that she miscarried her child and died from the injuries she suffered in an attack on her house, intended to subdue Ali, at the order of Abu Bakr. These allegations are rejected by Sunnis, who believe that Fatima died from grief after Muhammad's death and that her child died in infancy of natural causes.
Rashidun caliphate
Caliphates of Abu Bakr, Umar, and Uthman
Hasan did not play a major role under the first three caliphs, namely, Abu Bakr (), Umar (), and Uthman (). He might have had a share of five thousand dirhams in Umar's system of state pension. According to Ibn Isfandiyar, Hasan also took part in an expedition to Amol during the caliphate of Umar, though the veracity of such reports have been questioned by Paktchi et al.
Defying Uthman, Hasan joined his father in bidding farewell to Abu Dharr al-Ghifari (), who was exiled from Medina after he preached against the misdeeds of the powerful. When Uthman's half-brother al-Walid ibn Uqba was accused of drinking alcohol, Ali asked Hasan to carry out the punishment of forty lashes, though the latter reportedly refused and Abdullah ibn Ja'far instead administered the penalty. Veccia Vaglieri does not mention any disagreements and writes that Ali meted out the punishment himself. She also suggests that the young Hasan and his brother Husayn lived in a state of obedience to their father Ali, following Ali whenever he opposed Uthman.
In June 656, Uthman was besieged in his home by rebels. Hasan and Husayn were likely wounded while guarding Uthman's house at the request of Ali. In particular, the reports that Hasan was among the defenders are considered numerous and reliable by Madelung. On the final day, however, Hasan and most of the guards are said to have laid down their weapons at Uthman's request. Yet another report states that Hasan arrived at the scene of Uthman's murder in time to identify his assassins. According to Madelung, Hasan later criticized Ali for not doing enough to defend Uthman.
Caliphate of Ali
Ali was elected caliph after the assassination of Uthman. Immediately after his accession, the new caliph faced a rebellion led by Aisha, a widow of Muhammad, and Talha and Zubayr, two companions of Muhammad. Hasan and Ammar ibn Yasir () were subsequently sent to Kufa to rally support and raised an army of some 6,000 men. He also helped remove Abu Musa al-Ash'ari from the rule of Kufa, as the latter continued to hinder Ali's efforts against the rebels. Hasan later fought in the Battle of the Camel (656) against Aisha, Talha, and Zubayr.
Hasan also fought against Mu'awiya () in the Battle of Siffin (657), though (Sunni) sources do not view him as a prominent participant. Madelung writes that Hasan criticized Ali's alleged aggressive war policy, saying that it stoked division among Muslims. In contrast, the Sunni Ibn 'Abd al-Barr () lists Hasan as a commander at Siffin and the Shia Nasr ibn Muzahim () narrates that Mu'awiya offered Hasan to switch sides at Siffin but was rejected. Haj-Manouchehri writes that Hasan persuaded some neutral figures to support Ali at Siffin, including Sulayman ibn Surad al-Khuza'i. He adds that Hasan vigorously opposed the arbitration process after Siffin, alongside his father. In November 658, Ali placed Hasan in charge of his land endowments.
Caliphate of Hasan
In January 661, Ali was assassinated by the Kharijite Abd al-Rahman ibn Muljam. Hasan was subsequently acknowledged caliph in Kufa, the seat of Ali's caliphate. Madelung writes that Ali had apparently not nominated a successor before his sudden death but had often said that only members of Muhammad's household () were entitled to the caliphate. As Ali's legatee, Hasan must have been the obvious choice for the caliphate. Some Shia reports add that Ali also designated Hasan as his , thus giving him his own authority to command, and also his , responsible for punishing his assassin. Some authors have noted that Muhammad's surviving companions were primarily in Ali's army and must have therefore pledged allegiance to Hasan, as evidenced by the lack of any reports to the contrary.
In his inaugural speech at the Great Mosque of Kufa, Hasan praised the and quoted verse 42:23 of the Quran:
Ali's commander Qays ibn Sa'd was the first to pledge his allegiance to Hasan. Qays offered his oath based on the Quran, precedent (), and jihad against those who declared lawful () what was unlawful (). Hasan, however, avoided the last condition by saying that it was implicit in the first two. About this episode, Jafri () suggests that Hasan was probably already apprehensive about the Kufans' support and wanted to avoid unrealistic commitments. The oath stipulated that people "should make war on those who were at war with Hasan, and should live in peace with those who were at peace with him," writes the Sunni al-Baladhuri (), adding that this condition astonished the people, who suspected that he intended to make peace with Mu'awiya. In contrast, Madelung notes that the oath was identical to the one demanded earlier by Ali and denounced by the Kharijites. The view of Dakake is similar.
Conflict with Mu'awiya
Having been at war with Ali, Mu'awiya did not recognize the caliphate of his successor and prepared for war. He marched an army of sixty thousand men through al-Jazira to Maskin, about north of the present-day Baghdad. Concurrently, Mu'awiya also corresponded with Hasan, urging him to give up his claim to the caliphate. Jafri suggests that he might have hoped to force Hasan to abdicate or attack the Iraqi forces before they were fortified. Mu'awiya might have believed that Hasan would remain a threat even if he was defeated and killed, since another Hashemite could continue the fight. If Hasan abdicated in favor of Mu'awiya, he writes, such claims would have no weight. The view of Momen is similar.
Their letters revisit the succession of Muhammad. Hasan urged Mu'awiya to pledge allegiance to him with the same arguments advanced by Ali against Abu Bakr after Muhammad's death. Ali had said that if the Quraysh could successfully claim the leadership because Muhammad belonged to them, then Muhammad's family was the most qualified to lead. Mu'awiya replied that Muslims were not unaware of the merits of the but had selected Abu Bakr to keep the caliphate within the Quraysh. Hassan also wrote that Mu'awiya had no true merit in Islam and was the son of Muhammad's arch-enemy Abu Sufyan. Mu'awiya replied that he was better suited for the caliphate because of his age, governing experience, and superior military strength, thus implying that these qualities were more important than religious precedence. Jafri comments that Mu'awiya's response made explicit the separation of politics and religion, which later became a tenet of Sunni Islam. In contrast, Shia Islam vested all authority in the household of Muhammad.
Mobilization of Iraqi troops
As the news of Mu'awiya's advance reached Hasan, he ordered his local governors to mobilize and invited the Kufans to prepare for war, "God had prescribed the jihad for his creation and called it a loathsome duty ()," referring to verse 2:216 of the Quran. There was no response at first, possibly because some tribal chiefs were bribed by Mu'awiya. Hasan's companions now scolded the crowd and inspired them to leave in large numbers for the army campgrounds in Nukhayla. Hasan soon joined them and appointed Ubayd Allah ibn Abbas as the commander of a vanguard of twelve thousand men tasked with holding Mu'awiya back in Maskin until the arrival of Hasan's main army. Ubayd Allah was advised not to fight unless attacked and to consult with Qays ibn Sa'd, the second in command. Wellhausen () names Abd Allah ibn Abbas as the commander of the vanguard, but this is rejected by Madelung, who suggests that the choice of Ubayd Allah indicates Hasan's peace intentions because the former had earlier surrendered Yemen to Mu'awiya without a fight. This is the view of al-Zuhri (), the Umayyad-era historian who adopted the pro-Umayyad account that depicts a greedy Hasan eager to renounce his caliphate for money. This must have been the official Umayyad account, distributed to legitimize Mu'awiya's rule in the absence of a council () or election or designation (), suggests Jafri.
Mutiny
While the vanguard was awaiting his arrival in Maskin, Hasan faced a mutiny at his military camp near al-Mada'in. Among the five surviving accounts, Jafri prefers the one by Abu Hanifa Dinawari (), which states that Hasan was concerned about his troops' resolve by the time he reached the outskirts of al-Mada'in. He thus halted the army at Sabat and told them in a speech that he preferred peace over war because his men were reluctant to fight. According to al-Mada'ini (), Hasan also quoted Ali as saying, "Do not loathe the reign of Mu'awiya," which Madelung finds incredible.
Taking the speech as a sign that Hasan intended to pursue peace, Kharijite sympathizers in Hasan's army looted his tent and pulled his prayer rug from under him. Alternatively, Jafri and al-Ya'qubi () hold Mu'awiya responsible for the mutiny through his network of spies, about which letters were earlier exchanged between Mu'awiya and Hasan and Ubayd Allah. As he was being escorted away to safety, the Kharijite al-Jarrah ibn Sinan attacked and wounded Hasan while shouting, "You have become an infidel () like your father." Al-Jarrah was overpowered and killed, while Hasan, bleeding profusely, was taken for treatment to the house of Sa'd ibn Mas'ud al-Thaqafi, the governor of al-Mada'in. The news of this attack further demoralized Hasan's army and led to widespread desertions. Sa'd's nephew Mukhtar ibn Abi Ubayd () reportedly recommended the governor to surrender Hasan to Mu'awiya but was rejected.
Desertions
The Kufan vanguard arrived in Maskin and found Mu'awiya camped there. Through a representative, he urged them not to commence hostilities until he concluded his peace talks with Hasan. This was likely a false claim. The Kufans, however, insulted Mu'awiya's envoy and sent him back. Mu'awiya then sent the envoy to visit Ubayd Allah privately, telling him that Hasan had requested a truce and then offering Ubayd Allah a million dirhams to switch sides. Ubayd Allah accepted and deserted at night to Mu'awiya, who fulfilled his promise to him.
The next morning, Qays ibn Sa'd took charge of Hasan's troops as the second-in-command and denounced Ubayd Allah in a sermon. Mu'awiya now sent a contingent to force surrender but was pushed back twice. He then offered bribes to Qays in a letter, which he refused. As the news of the mutiny against Hasan and the attempt at his life arrived, however, both sides abstained from fighting and awaited further developments. Veccia Vaglieri writes that the Iraqis were reluctant to fight and a group deserted every day. By one account, 8,000 men out of 12,000 followed Ubayd Allah's example and joined Mu'awiya. When Hasan learned about this, al-Ya'qubi writes that he summoned the Iraqi nobles and reproached them for their unreliability and fickle-mindedness, echoing the speeches of Ali after Siffin.
Treaty with Mu'awiya
Mu'awiya now sent envoys to propose that Hasan abdicate in his favor to spare Muslim blood. In return, Mu'awiya was ready to designate Hasan as his successor, grant him safety, and offer him a large financial settlement. Hasan accepted the overture in principle and sent his representative(s) to Mu'awiya, who sent them back to Hasan with carte blanche, inviting him to dictate whatever he wanted. Hasan wrote that he would surrender the Muslim rule to Mu'awiya if he would comply with the Quran and , his successor would be appointed by a council (shura), the people would remain safe, and Hasan's supporters would receive amnesty. His letter was witnessed by two representatives, who carried it to Mu'awiya. Hasan thus renounced the caliphate in August 661 after a seven-month reign.
Terms of the treaty
Veccia Vaglieri finds certain variants of the treaty impossible to reconcile. She lists several conditions in the early sources and questions their veracity, including an annual payment of one or two million dirhams to Hasan, a single payment of five million dirhams from the treasury of Kufa, annual revenues from variously named districts in Persia, succession of Hasan to Mu'awiya or a council () after Mu'awiya, and preference for the Banu Hashim over the Banu Umayyad in pensions. Another condition was that Mu'awiya should end the ritual cursing of Ali in mosques, writes Mavani.
Jafri similarly notes that the terms are recorded differently and ambiguously by al-Tabari, Dinawari, Ibn Abd al-Barr, and Ibn al-Athir, while al-Ya'qubi and al-Mas'udi () are silent about them. In particular, Jafri finds the timing of Mu'awiya's carte blanche problematic in al-Tabari's account. Al-Tabari also mentions a single payment of five million dirhams to Hasan from the treasury of Kufa, which Jafri rejects because the treasury of Kufa was already in Hasan's possession at the time. He adds that Ali regularly emptied the treasury and distributed the funds among the public, and this is also reported by Veccia Vaglieri. Jafri then argues that the most comprehensive account is the one given by Ahmad ibn A'tham, probably taken from al-Mada'ini, who recorded the terms in two parts. The first part is the conditions proposed by Abd Allah ibn Nawfal, who negotiated on Hasan's behalf with Mu'awiya in Maskin. The second part is what Hasan stipulated in carte blanche. These two sets of conditions together encompass all the conditions scattered in the early sources.
Jafri thus concludes that Hasan's final conditions in carte blanche were that Mu'awiya should act according to the Quran, , and the conduct of the Rashidun caliphs, that the people should remain safe, and that the successor to Mu'awiya should be appointed by a council. These conditions are echoed by Madelung, who adds that Hasan made no financial stipulations in his peace proposal and Mu'awiya consequently made no payments to him, contrary to the "Umayyad propaganda" reflected in the account of al-Zuhri, quoted by al-Tabari. Since Ali and his house rejected the conduct of Abu Bakr and Umar in the after Umar in 23/644, Jafri believes that the clause about following the Rashidun caliphs was inserted by later Sunni authors. That Mu'awiya agreed to an amnesty for the supporters of Ali indicates that the revenge for Uthman was a pretext for him to seize the caliphate, according to Jafri.
Abdication
In the surrender ceremony, Mu'awiya demanded Hasan to publicly apologize. Hasan rose and reminded the people that he and Husayn were Muhammad's only grandsons and the right to the caliphate was his and not Mu'awiya's, but he had surrendered it to avoid bloodshed. Mu'awiya then spoke and recanted his earlier promises to Hasan and others, saying that those promises were made to shorten the war. As reported by the Mu'tazilite Ibn Abi'l-Hadid () and Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani (), Mu'awiya added that he had not fought the Iraqis so that they would practice Islam, which they were already doing, but to be their master (). Al-Baladhuri writes that Mu'awiya then gave the Kufans three days to pledge allegiance or be killed. After this, the people rushed to vow allegiance to Mu'awiya. Hasan left Kufa for Medina but soon received a request from Mu'awiya to subdue a Kharijite revolt near Kufa. He wrote back to Mu'awiya that he had given up his claim to the caliphate for the sake of peace and compromise, not to fight on his side.
Retirement
Between his abdication in 41/661 and his death in 50/670, Hasan lived quietly in Medina and did not engage in politics. In compliance with the peace treaty, Hasan declined requests from (often small) Shia groups to lead them against Mu'awiya. He was nevertheless considered the head of the house of Muhammad by the Banu Hashim and Ali's partisans, who had probably pinned their hopes on his succession to Mu'awiya. The Sunni al-Baladhuri in his Ansab writes that Hasan sent tax collectors to the Fasa and Darabjird provinces of Iran in accordance with the treaty but the governor of Basra, instructed by Mu'awiya, incited the people against Hasan and his tax collectors were driven out of the two provinces. Madelung regards this account as fictitious because Hasan had just refused to join Mu'awiya in fighting the Kharijites. He adds that Hasan had made no financial stipulations in his peace proposal and Mu'awiya consequently made no payments to him. Madelung suggests that the relations between the two men deteriorated when Mu'awiya realized that Hasan would not actively support his regime.
Death
Hasan most likely died on 2 April 670 (5 Rabi' al-Awwal 50 AH), though other given dates are 49, 50, 48, 58 and 59 AH. Veccia Vaglieri suggests that Hasan died from an illness or poisoning, while the early sources are nearly unanimous that Hasan was poisoned.
Complicity of Mu'awiya
Mu'awiya is usually identified as the instigator in the murder of Hasan. Aside from the Shia sources, this is also the view of some notable Sunni historians, including al-Waqidi (), al-Mada'ini, Umar ibn Shabba (), al-Baladhuri, al-Haytham ibn Adi (), and Abu Bakr ibn Hafs. These reports are nevertheless suppressed by al-Tabari, perhaps because he found them insignificant or far more likely because he was concerned for the faith of the common people () in this and similar instances, as suggested by Madelung and Donaldson (). Some other early Sunni sources deny the poisoning, saying that Hasan died of "consumption."
At the time of his abdication, Hasan was about thirty-eight years old while Mu'awiya was fifty-eight. Jafri suggests that the age difference presented a problem for Mu'awiya, who planned to designate his son Yazid () as his successor, in violation of the peace treaty with Hasan. Jafri thus believes that Mu'wiya should be suspected in the murder of Hasan, which removed an obstacle to the succession of his son. This view is echoed by Momen and Madelung.
Historical accounts
Hasan did not disclose who he suspected of his poisoning, fearing that the wrong person might be punished. The Shia al-Mufid () reports that Hasan's wife Ja'da bint al-Ash'ath poisoned him with the promise of 100,000 dirhams from Mu'awiya and marriage to his son Yazid. Jafri writes that the majority of Sunni and Shia reports are similar to this one, including those by Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani, al-Mas'udi (), and al-Ya'qubi. In contrast, Ahmed regards these reports as "Alid propaganda" against al-Ash'ath, Ja'da's father and the prominent Kufan tribal chief who undermined Ali at Siffin (657) by supporting the arbitration, and sabotaged Ali's campaign after being bribed by Mu'awiya, according to Madelung. As with Jafri, Veccia Vaglieri notes that many early sources hold Ja'da bin al-Ash'ath responsible for poisoning Hasan at the instigation of Mu'awiya, though she also observes that al-Ash'ath was regarded as a traitor by the Shia who might have transferred the blame to his daughter.
Alternatively, the Sunni al-Haytham ibn Adi identifies the daughter of Suhayl ibn Amr as the murderer. Another account by the Sunni al-Waqidi pins the crime on a servant of Hasan at the instigation of Mu'awiya. Yet another account is that Yazid proposed to Zaynab bint Ja'far ibn Abi Talib, who refused and instead married Hasan. The enraged Yazid subsequently had Hasan poisoned.
Forensics investigation
A recent article by Burke et al. examined the circumstances surrounding Hasan's death. Using mineralogical, medical, and chemical evidence, they suggested that the mineral calomel (mercury(I) chloride, Hg2Cl2), sourced from the Byzantine Empire, was the substance primarily responsible for Hasan's death. Because historical sources indicate that another member of Hasan's household also suffered similar symptoms, the article considers Hasan's wife to be the prime suspect. The article cites a historical document, according to which the Byzantine emperor (likely Constantine IV) sent Mu'awiya a poisoned drink at the request of the latter. The authors thus conclude that their forensic hypothesis is consistent with the historical narrative that Hasan was poisoned by his wife Ja'da at the instigation of Mu'awiya and with the involvement of the Byzantine emperor.
Burial
Before his death, Hasan had instructed his family to bury him next to Muhammad. According to Madelung, if they "feared evil," Hasan asked them to bury him near his mother in al-Baqi cemetery. The Umayyad governor of Medina, Sa'id ibn al-'As, was not opposed to burying Hasan near Muhammad, whereas Marwan strongly opposed it, arguing that Uthman had been buried in al-Baqi. In his opposition, Marwan was joined by Muhammad's widow Aisha, who is often considered hostile to Ali.
Muhammad's companion Abu Hurayra unsuccessfully attempted to persuade Marwan to allow Hasan's burial next to Muhammad by reminding him of Muhammad's high esteem for Hasan and Husayn. Supporters of Husayn and Marwan from the Banu Hashim and Banu Umayyad, respectively, soon gathered with weapons. Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyya reportedly intervened and reminded Hasan's burial request. He was then buried in al-Baqi. Dinawari writes the Umayyads shot arrows at the body during the standoff, and this is also the Shia view. Madelung suggests that Mu'awiya later rewarded Marwan for his stand by reinstating him as the governor of Medina. As Hasan's body was carried to al-Baqi, however, Marwan reportedly joined the procession and paid tribute to a man "whose forbearance () weighed mountains." Following the norms, the governor is said to have led the funeral prayer. Hasan's tomb was later made a domed shrine, which was destroyed twice by the Wahhabis first in 1806 and then 1927.
Family life
Sources differ about Hasan's wives and children. The account of Ibn Sa'd is considered the most reliable, reporting that Hasan had fifteen sons and nine daughters with six wives and three known concubines. His first marriage was contracted with Ja'da, daughter of the Kinda chief al-Ash'ath ibn Qays, soon after Ali relocated to Kufa. Madelung suggests that Ali with this marriage intended to establish ties with the powerful Yemeni tribes in Kufa. Hasan had no children with Ja'da, who is often accused of poisoning him. Umm Bashir was Hasan's second wife and bore him his eldest son Zayd, his daughter Umm al-Husayn, and probably another daughter Umm al-Hasan. Umm Bashir was the daughter of Abu Mas'ud Uqba ibn Amr, who had opposed the Kufan revolt against Uthman. Madelung writes that Ali was hoping to bring Abu Mas'ud to his side with the marriage.
After his abdication and return to Medina, Hasan married Khawla, daughter of the Fazara chief Manzur ibn Zabban. Khawla already had two sons and a daughter from Muhammad ibn Talha, who was killed in the Battle of the Camel. After her father protested that he had been ignored, Hasan presented Khawla to her father and remarried her with his approval. Khawla bore Hasan his son, Hasan. Hasan in Medina also married Hafsa bint Abd al-Rahman ibn Abi Bakr. It is said that al-Mundhir ibn al-Zubayr was in love with her and his rumors compelled Hasan to divorce her. The rumors also ended Hafsa's next marriage and she eventually married al-Mundhir. Hasan also married Umm Ishaq bint Talha ibn Ubayd Allah. Mu'awiya reputedly asked her brother Ishaq ibn Talha to marry her to Yazid but Ishaq married her to Hasan instead and she bore a son named Talha. Another wife of Hasan was Hind bint Suhayl ibn Amr, the widow of Abd al-Rahman ibn Attab, who was divorced by Abd Allah ibn Amir. Hasan had no children with Hind. Hasan's other children were probably from concubines, including Qasim and Abd Allah (or Abu Bakr), both of whom were killed in the Battle of Karbala (680), and Umm Abd Allah, who married Zayn al-Abidin and bore him Muhammad al-Baqir, the fifth Shia Imam. Hasan's descendants are usually known as , though the usage of the term is sometimes extended to Husayn's descendants as well.
Number of consorts
Tendentious (Sunni) reports describe that Hasan married seventy (or ninety) women in his lifetime and had a harem of three hundred concubines. Madelung regards these as absurd, and Pierce believes that these accusations were made by later Sunni writers who were nevertheless unable to list more than sixteen names. Madelung writes that most of the claims were by al-Mada'ini and were often vague; some had a clear defamatory intent. In particular, the ninety-wives allegation was first made by Muhammad al-Kalbi and later picked up by al-Mada'ini, who was unable to list more than eleven names, five of whom are uncertain or highly doubtful.
Veccia Vaglieri holds that the marriages of Hasan received little contemporary censure. In contrast, Lammens () suggests that Hasan married and divorced so frequently that he was called () and his behavior earned Ali new enemies. Madelung rejects this claim, saying that Hasanliving in his father's householdcould not enter into any marriages not arranged (or approved) by Ali. In particular, the narratives in which Ali warns the Kufans not to marry their daughters to Hasan are fabricated. Madelung believes that Hasan's marriages in Ali's lifetime were intended to strengthen political alliances, as evidenced by Hasan reserving his (Abu Muhammad) for his first son with his first freely-chosen wife Khawla. When Muhammad died in childhood, Hasan chose Khawla's second son Hasan as his primary heir.
Divorces
Hasan divorced his wife Hafsa out of propriety when she was accused by al-Mundhir. Hafsa's next marriage ended similarly. When she finally married al-Mundhir, Hasan visited the couple and forgave al-Mundhir for spreading those false rumors out of love for Hafsa. Hasan also returned Khawla to her father Manzur when he objected that he had been ignored and then remarried her with his approval. Hasan is also said to have divorced his wife Hind when he saw evidence of renewed love by her former husband.
For Madelung, Hasan's divorces do not indicate any inordinate sexual appetite. He also writes that Hasan comes across as noble and forbearing in dealing with his wives. Madelung cites Hasan's advice to Husayn to marry his widow Umm Ishaq after his death. When he was poisoned, Hasan also reputedly refrained from disclosing the suspect in his household to Husayn.
Assessment and legacy
Appearance and temperament
Hasan has been described as closely resembling Muhammad in his appearance. Madelung suggests that Hasan might have also inherited Muhammad's temperament and describes him as a pacifist. Veccia Vaglieri writes that he was of mild disposition (), generous, pious, and known to have made several pilgrimages on foot. While Hasan is described as a good orator, he might have also suffered from a speech defect, according to Abu al-Faraj al-Isfahani. In contrast to Hasan, Madelung suggests that Husayn might have inherited his father's "fighting spirit."
Abdication
The sources hostile to Hasan interpret his peace treaty with Mu'awiya as a sign of weakness, saying that Hasan intended to surrender from the beginning. Some authors instead suggest that Hasan's decision to abdicate was motivated by the lure of the life of ease and luxury, while Western historians tend to criticize Hasan for ceding the caliphate.
Other sources reject these criticisms, saying that Hasan's abdication was inevitable after the Kufans' mutiny, similar to Ali's acceptance of the arbitration proposal at Siffin (657). These sources contend that Hasan was motivated by the desire for unity and peace in the Muslim community, similar to Ali after Muhammad's death. Shia historians view Hasan's abdication as the only realistic course of action, given the Kufans' weak support and Mu'awiya's overwhelming military superiority. Their view is echoed by Veccia Vaglieri. Sunni sources maintain that Hasan abdicated because of his preference for peace and his aversion to bloodshed and bellicose politics. The first two of these three reasons are also given by the Shia Tabatabai ().
Representation in Islam
Hasan is a member of the (Muhammad's family) and belongs also to the , namely, Muhammad, Ali, Fatima, and their two sons. While all Muslims revere the , it is the Shia who hold them in the highest esteem, regarding them as the rightful leaders of the Muslim community.
Quran
Verse of Mubahala: After his unsuccessful debate with the Najranite Christians in 10/631-2, Muhammad is said to have received verse 3:61, which readsMadelung argues that 'our sons' in verse 3:61 must refer to Muhammad's grandsons, namely, Hasan and Husayn. Later at the , Muhammad gathered Ali, Fatima, Hasan, and Husayn under his cloak and addressed them as his , according to some Shia and Sunni sources, including the canonical Sahih Muslim and Sahih al-Tirmidhi. The five are thus known also as the (). Madelung writes that their inclusion by Muhammad in this significant ritual must have raised the religious rank of his family. A similar view is voiced by Lalani.
Verse of purification: The last passage of verse 33:33 reads
Shia Islam limits the to Muhammad, Ali, Fatima, Hasan, and Husayn. There are various views in Sunni Islam, though a typical compromise is to include also Muhammad's wives in the . Verse 33:33 is regarded in Shia Islam as evidence of the infallibility of the .
Verse of Mawadda: Verse 42:23 includes the passage
The word kinsfolk () in this verse is interpreted by the Shia as the , namely, Ali, Fatima, Hasan, and Husayn. Ibn Ishaq () narrates a prophetic hadith to this effect, and this is also the view of the Sunni Baydawi, al-Razi, and Ibn Maghazili, though most Sunni authors reject the Shia view and offer various alternatives. Hasan referred to verse 42:24 in his inaugural speech as the caliph in 661, saying that he belonged to the whose love God has made obligatory in the Quran.
Verses 76:5-22: These verses are connected to the in most Shia and some Sunni sources, including the works of the Shia al-Tabarsi (), and the Sunni al-Qurtubi () and al-Alusi (). According to these exegetes, verses 76:5-22 were revealed after Ali, Fatima, Hasan, and Husayn gave away their only meal of the day to beggars who visited their home, for three consecutive days. In particular, verses 76:7-12 read
Mu'tazila Islam
In Mu'tazila Islam, only a wrong deed by an unrepentant imam would disqualify him from the imamate after receiving oaths of allegiance. Otherwise, an imam cannot resign or willingly pledge his allegiance to another person. The Mu'tazilite al-Qadi Abd al-Jabbar () suggests that Hasan reluctantly made peace and unwillingly pledged his allegiance to Mu'awiya after realizing the Kufans' weak support for war. This reluctant pledge of allegiance did not disqualify him from the imamate or legitimize Mu'awiya's caliphate. The Mu'tazilite Ibn al-Malahimi () adds, "How can it be imagined that Hasan, who planned to fight Mu'awiya to secure his oath of allegiance, would agree to relinquish the caliphate without reluctance?"
Sunni Islam
During the eighth and ninth centuries, there was a diversity of opinions about which caliphs were "rightly-guided" (), meaning those whose actions and opinions were considered worthy of emulation from a religious point of view. After the ninth century, however, the first four caliphs became canonical in Sunni Islam: Abu Bakr (), Umar (), Uthman () and Ali (). The Umayyad Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz () was cited as the fifth caliph by the Sunni hadith collector Abu Dawud al-Sijistani (). Another five-caliph hypothesis may have included Hasan as the fifth caliph because his six-month reign was needed to complete the thirty-year period after Abu Bakr's ascension which was reportedly predicted by Muhammad as the length of the prophetic succession. This is also implied by Abu Dawud al-Tayalisi's version of this hadith, which avoided counting Hasan as the fifth caliph by adding six months to Umar's caliphate.
Sunni Muslims justify Hasan's peace treaty with Mu'awiya with a hadith, attributed to Muhammad, which reportedly predicted that Hasan would unite two warring Muslim parties. By legitimizing Mu'awiya's caliphate, they view the peace treaty as voluntary resignation from the caliphate. In particular, the year of the treaty is called () in a number of early Sunni sources.
More generally, an imam in Sunni Islam cannot be ousted or resign if he is aware of the divisiveness of his decision but he can abdicate if he considers his resignation to be in the best interest of Muslims. Hasan's abdication was a voluntary decision to avoid bloodshed.
Shia Islam
Hasan al-Mujtaba () is regarded by the Shia as their second imam. Even though his abdication was criticized by some contemporary followers, he continued to be regarded until his death in 670 as the leader (imam) of the supporters of Ali . Developed by the later Shia Imams, the Shia doctrine of Imamate explains that Muhammad was succeeded by Ali and then by Hasan through divine decrees. As the rightful successor of Muhammad in Shia Islam, Hasan's all-inclusive temporal and religious authority thus came from divinely-inspired designation (), which could not be annulled by abdication to Mu'awiya, who usurped only the temporal authority. Indeed, the imamate and caliphate are viewed as separate institutions in Shia Islam until such time that God would make the Imam victorious. A prophetic hadith in some Shia and Sunni sources states that Hasan and Husayn were imams "whether they stand up or sit down" (ascend to the caliphate or not).
As for the abdication, Shia theologians cite the disintegration of Hasan's corps, abandonment by his allies, the looting of his military campground, and his assassination attempt to justify Hasan's peace with Mu'awiya. Alternatively, Veccia Vaglieri suggests that the Shia views Hasan's abdication in light of his pious detachment. Hasan's infallibility () in Shia Islam further vindicates his course of action. The Shia Sharif al-Murtaza () writes that Hasan reluctantly made peace to end the civil war, and his subsequent pledge to Mu'awiya is viewed by the Shia as an act of . Shia theologians perceive the treaty as a ceasefire () or agreement () rather than an alliance with Mu'awiya. To support this claim, they cite Mu'awiya's violation of the treaty, the stipulation therein that Mu'awiya should not be called (), and Hasan's refusal to fight the Kharijites for Mu'awiya.
Miracles
According to Donaldson, fewer miracles are attributed to Hasan than to other Shia Imams. Veccia Vaglieri disagrees, listing the following: Hasan recited the Quran when he was born and praised God. Later in life, he resurrected a dead man and a dead palm tree bore fruits at his request. God sent down a meal for his companions from the skies.
Literature and TV
Literature
Persian literature about Hasan can be divided into two categories: historical and mystical. Historical literature includes Hasan's life, imamate, his peace with Mu'awiya, and his death. Mystical literature showcases his virtues and his prominent position in Shia spirituality.
Hasan's life has been the subject of poetry from Sanai () to the present. The themes are his virtues, Muhammad's admiration of him, and his suffering and death. Poets include Sanai (Hadiqat al Haqiqa), Attar of Nishapur, Ghavami Razi, Rumi, 'Ala' al-Dawla Simnani, Ibn Yamin, Khwaju Kermani, Salman Savoji, Hazin Lahiji, Naziri Neyshabouri, Vesal Shirazi, and Adib al-Malak Farahani.
Television
The series Loneliest Leader, directed in 1996 by Mehdi Fakhimzadeh, narrates Hasan's life, his peace with Mu'awiya, and the condition of the Islamic community after his assassination. The events leading up to Hasan's peace and his attempted assassination in al-Mada'in are also mentioned in the series Mokhtarnameh by Davood Mirbagheri. Muawiya, Hasan and Husayn is an Arab series about Hasan and Husayn which has been criticized as anti-Shia.
See also
The Fourteen Infallibles
Footnotes
References
Citations
Sources
External links
625 births
670 deaths
Family of Muhammad
Arab Muslims
Shia imams
Ismaili imams
Muslim martyrs
Sahabah martyrs
People of the Quran
7th-century caliphs
7th-century imams
Children of Ali
Assassinated Shia imams
Twelve Imams
Zaydi imams
Deaths by poisoning
Assassinated caliphs
Philanthropists
Burials at Jannat al-Baqī |
419570 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig%20Biggio | Craig Biggio | Craig Alan Biggio (; born December 14, 1965) is an American former baseball second baseman, outfielder and catcher who played 20 seasons in Major League Baseball for the Houston Astros, from 1988 to 2007. A seven-time National League (NL) All-Star often regarded as the greatest all-around player in Astros history, he is the only player ever to be named an All-Star and to be awarded Silver Slugger Award at both catcher and second base. With longtime teammates Jeff Bagwell and Lance Berkman, he formed the core of the "Killer B's" who led Houston to six playoff appearances from 1997 to 2005, culminating in the franchise's first World Series appearance in 2005. At the end of his career, he ranked sixth in NL history in games played (2,850), fifth in at bats (10,876), 21st in hits (3,060), and seventh in runs scored (1,844). His 668 career doubles ranked sixth in major league history, and are the second-most ever by a right-handed hitter; his 56 doubles in 1999 were the most in the major leagues in 63 years.
Biggio, who batted .300 four times and scored 100 runs eight times, holds Astros franchise records for most career games, at bats, hits, runs scored, doubles, total bases (4,711) and extra base hits (1,014), and ranks second in runs batted in (1,175), walks (1,160) and stolen bases (414). He also holds the NL record for most times leading off a game with a home run (53), and is one of only five players with 250 home runs and 400 steals. A four-time Gold Glove Award winner who led NL second basemen in assists six times and putouts five times, he retired ranking fourth in NL history in games at second base (1,989), sixth in assists (5,448) and fielding percentage (.984), seventh in putouts (3,992) and double plays (1,153), and eighth in total chances (9,596). He was the ninth player in the 3,000 hit club to collect all his hits with one team. Biggio also led the NL in times hit by pitch five times, with his career total of 285 trailing only Hughie Jennings' 287 in major league history.
One of the most admired players of his generation, Biggio received the 2005 Hutch Award for perseverance through adversity and the 2007 Roberto Clemente Award for sportsmanship and community service. The Astros retired the number 7 in his honor the year following his retirement. Since 2008, Biggio has served as special assistant to the general manager of the Astros. He was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2015, and is the first member of the Hall to be depicted in an Astros uniform on his plaque.
Early life
High school
Craig Biggio graduated from Kings Park High School in Kings Park, New York, where he excelled as a multi-sport varsity athlete. Most notably, after the 1983 season Biggio was awarded the Hansen Award, which recognized him as being the best football player in Suffolk County. However, Biggio's passion lay with baseball, such that he turned down football scholarships for the opportunity to play baseball for Seton Hall University.
College career
Although Biggio was an infielder, Seton Hall coach Mike Sheppard switched him to catcher because the team was in need of one. In 1986, he played collegiate summer baseball in the Cape Cod Baseball League for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox. Biggio was an All-American baseball player at Seton Hall, where he played with other future Major League Baseball stars Mo Vaughn and John Valentin. Biggio, Vaughn and Valentin, along with Marteese Robinson, were featured in the book The Hit Men and the Kid Who Batted Ninth by David Siroty, which chronicled their rise from college teammates to the major leagues.
Biggio was selected by the Houston Astros in the first round (22nd overall) of the 1987 draft. Biggio remains Seton Hall's leader in triples, second in runs scored, and is in the top 10 in 18 other single-season and career categories. In 1996, Biggio was inducted into the Seton Hall Hall of Fame and had his number 44 retired in 2012.
Major league career
Early career
As catcher
Biggio was called up as a catcher midway through the 1988 season, having batted .344 in his minor league career. In 1989, his first full season, Biggio became the Astros' starting catcher. He won the Silver Slugger Award in 1989. He was a very speedy runner, and an adept base stealer. Astros management, in an attempt to keep the rigors of catching from sapping Biggio's speed, tried him in the outfield part-time in 1990, as he had played 18 games there in the minors. Yogi Berra mentioned Biggio's height in his book You Can Observe A Lot By Watching, saying, "I always identified with short catchers—they don't have to stand up as far".
Emergence of the "Killer B's"
The Astros acquired first baseman Jeff Bagwell prior to the start of the 1991 season, who, like Biggio, spent his entire major league career with Houston. A power hitter with higher-than-normal on-base skills, Bagwell played 15 seasons, thus completely overlapping his career with Biggio's and wound up Houston's career leader in home runs. The pair came to be known as the "Killer B's", synonymous with the Astros throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. A prodigious offensive and defensive unit, during their 10 peak seasons from 1994 to 2003, they appeared in nine All-Star Games, won five Gold Gloves, ranked in the top five of the Most Valuable Player Award voting five times and averaged 226 runs scored. They totaled 689 home runs, 2,485 RBI and 3,083 runs scored while the Astros advanced to the postseason six times. Other players that the Astros later acquired whose names started with the letter B also were included in this distinction, including Derek Bell, Sean Berry, Lance Berkman, and Carlos Beltrán.
Biggio considered free agency with a team other than the Astros just once: after the 1995 season ended, teams such as the St. Louis Cardinals, Colorado Rockies, and the San Diego Padres; the Rockies and Cardinals were the most serious, with the former offering $20 million for four years while the latter approached him with a five-year, $25 million contract. However, Biggio took a four-year deal worth $22 million to stay with the Astros.
Shift to second base
The Astros finally convinced Biggio to convert to second base in spring training of 1992, even though Biggio had made the National League All-Star team as a catcher the year before. Biggio made the All-Star team for the second time in 1992, becoming the first player in the history of baseball to be an All-Star at both catcher and second base. It is rare for a major league catcher to make a successful transition to middle infielder; if a catcher changes positions, it is usually to first base, or occasionally to outfield or third base.
Biggio became known as a reliable, hustling, consistent leadoff hitter, with unusual power for a second baseman. He holds the National League record for most home runs to lead off a game, with 53. Manager Larry Dierker, hired in 1997 by the Astros, moved Biggio from the second spot in the lineup to leadoff. His statistics reflect this, having consistently good marks in hitting, on-base percentage, hit-by-pitch, runs, stolen bases, and doubles throughout his career. Between 1994 and 1999, Biggio led the National League in doubles three times, runs scored twice, and stolen bases once. Biggio was also known for intentionally keeping his batting helmet dirty. In 1997, he completed an entire season without grounding into a double play, becoming the fifth player to ever do so in MLB history. In 1998, he became the first player since Tris Speaker to collect fifty doubles and fifty stolen bases in the same season, doing so with his 50th stolen base on September 23 (Biggio and Speaker were the only players to record the feat in the 20th century). Biggio also excelled defensively at second base; between 1992 and 1999, Biggio led all National League second basemen in assists six times and putouts five times. He won four consecutive Gold Glove Awards from 1994 to 1997.
Career setbacks: Injury and the outfield
Biggio played 1,800 games without a trip to the disabled list until August 1, 2000, when he suffered a season-ending knee injury. In the play in which Biggio was injured, the Florida Marlins' Preston Wilson (who would later become Biggio's teammate) slid into second base, trying to stop a double play, and hit Biggio's planted left leg, tearing the ACL and MCL in Biggio's knee. Biggio rebounded with a good season in 2001, but had a lackluster performance in 2002, with only a .253 average, his lowest since entering the league; a highlight occurred on April 8, when he hit for the cycle for the only time in his career.
However, he improved slightly for the 2003 season, averaging .264 with 166 hits despite being asked by management to move to center field after the signing of free agent All-Star second baseman Jeff Kent. In 2004, he put up numbers more typical for his career, batting .281 with 178 hits, including a career-high 24 homers. Biggio moved to yet another new position, left field, midway through the 2004 season to accommodate Beltrán, who was acquired in a trade to help bolster the Astros' struggling offense. The Astros were 44-44 at the All-Star break. Having fired Jimy Williams for Phil Garner, the Astros went 48-26, which included a 36-10 stretch to end the year while narrowly clinching the NL wild card on the final day of the regular season. In the 2004 National League Division Series, the Astros were matched against the Atlanta Braves, which was the fourth time the two teams were playing each other in the past seven years, and the Braves had won each of the matchups. Biggio batted 8-for-20 (.400) in a series that went the full five game distance. In Game 4, he hit a home run, which was his first career postseason home run. In Game 5 in Atlanta, the Astros were attempting to clinch the series after blowing Game 4. In the seventh inning, leading 4-2 in the seventh inning, Biggio was at the plate with Jose Vizcaino at second base with two out. Biggio hit a single that drove Vizcaino in from second that would start a two-out rally, as Biggio and three further batters would go on to score to make a 9-2 lead. Two innings later, the Astros won the game 12-3 to clinch the first postseason series victory in Astros history. The Astros went to the 2004 National League Championship Series against the St. Louis Cardinals. Biggio went 6-for-32 (.188) as the series went the full distance. Biggio had one RBI in the series, which was a leadoff home run in Game 7. The Astros led 2-1 in the sixth inning before the Cardinals rallied to win 5-2 to end the season.
Late career: Return to second base and milestones
World Series appearance (2005)
In February 2005, Biggio and Bagwell were inducted into the Texas Sports Hall of Fame. After Kent left for the Dodgers, Biggio resumed playing at second base and set a new career-high with 26 home runs. He also reached 1,000 RBI, becoming the second Astro to do so, following Bagwell. On September 5 of that season, he helped the Astros against the Philadelphia Phillies in a critical game late in the season; the Astros were narrowly ahead of the Phillies (and other teams) for the lone Wild Card spot. The Phillies had taken the lead late 6-5 and had Billy Wagner in relief. However, with two out in the ninth inning and two men on base, Biggio hit a home run that gave the Astros the lead that they did not give up in an 8–5 victory (the Astros went on to win the Wild Card by one game).
As they had done the previous year, the Astros beat the Braves to advance to the NLCS. They avenged their previous loss to the St. Louis Cardinals in six games to win their first league pennant. In the clinching sixth game, Biggio did his part with a third inning single that drove in a run in the 5-1 victory. After having played 4,714 games and their entire major league careers together in Houston, Biggio and Bagwell appeared in their first and only World Series that year against the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox swept the Astros to secure the championship with the lowest run-scoring differential in a World Series sweep. Both Biggio and Bagwell received Baseball America'''s Lifetime Achievement Award after the 2005 season. On May 23, 2006, Biggio became the 23rd player in MLB history to reach 10,000 at-bats.
3,000 career hits (2007)
On June 28, 2007, Biggio became the 27th player in the history of Major League Baseball to join the 3,000 hit club, with a single against Colorado Rockies pitcher Aaron Cook. Though Biggio was tagged out on the play attempting to stretch it into a double, drawing the throw allowed a run to score. The game action paused while Biggio shared the moment with his wife and children. Longtime friend and former teammate Jeff Bagwell emerged from the Astros clubhouse to congratulate him. Biggio became the first player in Astros history to accumulate 3,000 hits. It was Biggio's third hit of the game, and he went on to accumulate two more later in the game, one in the ninth inning and one in the eleventh inning. He became the first player in history to record his 3,000th hit and have five hits in the same game. Biggio's 3,000th hit came on the same day that Frank Thomas hit his milestone 500th career home run, both marks which are considered to guarantee induction into the Hall of Fame.
In anticipation of Biggio's reaching 3,000 hits, the Astros installed a digital counter just left of center field displaying his current hit total.
With 668 doubles, he ended his career in fifth place on the all-time list. Biggio also holds the record for the most doubles by a right-handed hitter. He is the only player in the history of baseball with 3,000 hits, 600 doubles, 400 stolen bases, and 250 home runs. He ranks 20th on the all-time hits list, though of those 20 players he ranks 19th in career batting average.
Biggio fell nine home runs short of joining the career 300–300 club (300 homers and 300 stolen bases). He would have become only the seventh player to achieve the feat. Incidentally, this also caused him to fall short of the 3,000 hits, 300 homers and 300 stolen bases mark; he would have been only the second player in history to reach that club, the other being Willie Mays.
Retirement
On July 24, 2007, Biggio announced his retirement, effective at the end of the season (his 20th season with the club, a franchise record). Hours later, with the Astros locked in a 3–3 tie with the Los Angeles Dodgers, Biggio hit a grand slam in the 6th inning. The Astros went on to win the game 7–4.
In the penultimate game of his career, Biggio started as a catcher and caught 2 innings for the Astros. He also hit a double in his first at-bat of the game.
A sellout, record-breaking crowd packed Minute Maid Park on September 30, 2007, to witness Biggio's final game. He recorded his final career hit, a double in the first inning, and scored his final career run that same inning. In his final career at-bat, he grounded the ball to third baseman Chipper Jones, who threw out the hustling Biggio by half a step. He left the field to a standing ovation from the fans, and when he was replaced defensively in the top of the 8th inning he shook hands with umpires and teammates and left to another standing ovation as he waved to the fans. The Astros won the game 3–0.
Biggio finished his career with 3,060 career hits, 668 doubles, 291 home runs, 1,175 RBI, 414 stolen bases, and a .281 batting average.
Post-retirement
Biggio has been a special assistant to the general manager since 2008. In this role, he works in several areas, including with the baseball operations staff in its major and minor league player development programs with special emphasis on instruction, the amateur draft and scouting, and major and minor league talent evaluation. Biggio was involved in the selection of new Astros Manager Bo Porter in 2012. Additionally, Biggio participates in the club's community development program.
Hit by pitch
Over his career, Biggio gained a reputation for being hit by pitches; some observers criticized him due to the fact that many of the pitches hit him on his sizable elbow pad. Some have even gone so far as to proclaim him the "king of hit batsmen". On June 29, 2005, Biggio broke the modern-era career hit-by-pitch record, previously held by Don Baylor with 267. He is second to only Hughie Jennings on the all-time list with 287. Despite being hit by a record number of pitches, Biggio never charged the mound, and had no serious injuries as a result of being hit by a pitch.
In his final season, however, Biggio was only hit three times. He was hit fewer times total between 2006 and 2007 (nine times in 2006, total of 12) than he was in 10 of his previous 11 individual seasons. In August 2007, the satirical online newspaper The Onion referenced this in the article "Craig Biggio Blames Media Pressure For Stalling at 285 Hit-By-Pitches". Biggio sent an arm guard to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in recognition of his high hit-by-pitch total.
Number retirement
On May 23, 2008, during a pre-game ceremony, Biggio received an award for MLB.com's This Year in Baseball 2007 Moment of the Year award for his 3,000th hit. On June 28, the Astros announced that they would retire Craig Biggio's jersey. The Houston Astros retired his No. 7 jersey on August 17, 2008, prior to the start of a game versus the Arizona Diamondbacks. Biggio was the ninth player in Astros history to have his number retired.
Hall of Fame candidacy
Biggio first appeared on the writers' ballot for the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2013, the earliest possible year of consideration. He led all Hall of Fame vote-getters by being named on 68.2% of ballots cast. However, this was 39 votes shy of reaching the 75% threshold required by the BBWAA for induction. The following year he once again failed to garner enough votes to be inducted, finishing two votes shy with a voting percentage of 74.8%. This ties him with Nellie Fox (1985) and Pie Traynor (1947) for smallest margin not to get into the Hall, which received criticism.
On January 6, 2015, Biggio was rewarded for his career by being elected to the Hall of Fame. He received 82.7% of the votes and was inducted into the hall on July 26, 2015. He was the first member of the 3,000 hit club to be elected not on the first ballot. On July 29, 2021, Biggio was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame's board of directors.
Work in the community
Biggio has received awards from various organizations, including the Hutch Award (2005) and being named one of Sporting News''' Good Guys (2004). The Hutch Award is given to a player that shows competitiveness and never gives up. Part of the reason Biggio was given the award was for his multiple position changes, but also because of his work in the community and inspiring other teammates to participate as well. He also received the Roberto Clemente Award in 2007. The Roberto Clemente Award "recognizes the player who best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual's contribution to his team".
Biggio has been a supporter and lead spokesperson for the Sunshine Kids Foundation for over a decade and almost the entirety of his playing career. The organization supports children fighting cancer with exciting activities for themselves and their families. Biggio helps the organization by raising awareness of the organization by wearing a small yellow sun on his cap for interviews, batting practice, and spring training games and by holding a celebrity golf tournament in Houston each spring. Biggio hosts an annual party at Minute Maid Park for about 100 Sunshine Kids to play baseball with Biggio and some of his teammates.
With the 2006 annual golf tournament, Biggio has raised over $2 million for the organization. During 2007 spring training, MLB informed Biggio that he would no longer be allowed to wear the small yellow sun on his cap during interviews, photoshoots, or spring training. Biggio had worn the Sunshine Kids pin for over a decade. This edict was big news in Houston, and Houstonians, long known for their charitable nature and unconditional love of Biggio, reacted very negatively to MLB. After the public uproar, MLB relented and Biggio was allowed to wear the Sunshine Kids pin as he had done since becoming a spokesperson.
Personal life
Biggio was arrested in June 1989 and charged with drunk driving in Harris County, Texas. Astros teammate Ken Caminiti was a passenger in the car at the time of the arrest. At trial, the arresting officer testified that Biggio handed him $200 in what he believed was a bribery attempt. On October 5, he was found guilty. The following day, he was sentenced to two years of probation and 50 hours of community service and fined $350.
Biggio and his wife, the former Patty Egan, have three children: sons Conor and Cavan, and daughter Quinn. Cavan currently plays for the Toronto Blue Jays. They live in Houston. From 2008 to 2013, Biggio was the head varsity baseball coach at St. Thomas High School. Biggio coached St. Thomas to back-to-back Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS) Class 5A state baseball titles in 2010 and 2011.
Both of Biggio's sons played for the St. Thomas baseball team. Cavan hit a home run in the team's 2011 championship game, while older brother Conor provided the winning offense in St. Thomas' semi-final victory. In Summer 2012, Conor played left field for the North Adams SteepleCats of the New England Collegiate Baseball League; in Summer 2013, he played outfield and second base for the North Shore Navigators of the Futures Collegiate Baseball League.
Biggio and his family have a home in Spring Lake, New Jersey that they named "Home Plate". Biggio's father-in-law is Assemblyman Joseph V. Egan, a member of the New Jersey legislature. Biggio is Catholic.
Awards and highlights
Recognition
Statistical highlights
Annual statistical achievements
Notes: Per Baseball-Reference.com. †– led Major Leagues.
Other distinctions
Holds National League record for most career lead-off home runs in a career with 53, third in MLB behind Alfonso Soriano and Rickey Henderson
Second player with 50 stolen bases and 50 doubles in same season (1998). The only other player to accomplish this is fellow Hall of Famer Tris Speaker for the Boston Red Sox in 1912.
First player in baseball history not to hit into a single double play while playing an entire 162-game season (1997) Two players, Augie Galan (1935) and Dick McAuliffe (1968), had previously played an entire season with the same feat, but did not play in as many games in their respective seasons.
146 runs scored in 1997 was most of any National League player since the Phillies' Chuck Klein scored 152 in 1932
Hit for the cycle against the Colorado Rockies, the sixth in Astros history (April 8, 2002)
Craig, alongside his son, Cavan (who hit for the cycle for the Toronto Blue Jays on September 17, 2019), joined Gary Ward and his son Daryle as only the second father and son duo to hit for the cycle in MLB history.
Astros career leader on list for games played, at-bats, runs scored, hits, doubles and extra-base hits.
Holds the record for most regular-season games played before his first World Series appearance with 2,564.
See also
List of second-generation Major League Baseball players
3,000 hit club
Houston Astros award winners and league leaders
List of Houston Astros team records
List of Major League Baseball annual doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball annual stolen base leaders
List of Major League Baseball doubles records
List of Major League Baseball career assists leaders
List of Major League Baseball career doubles leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hit by pitch leaders
List of Major League Baseball career hits leaders
List of Major League Baseball career home run leaders
List of Major League Baseball career putouts as a second baseman leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs batted in leaders
List of Major League Baseball career runs scored leaders
List of Major League Baseball career total bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball career stolen bases leaders
List of Major League Baseball players who hit for the cycle
List of Major League Baseball players who spent their entire career with one franchise
List of Major League Baseball retired numbers
References
External links
Sabermetrically comical analysis following Craig's HBPs
1965 births
Living people
Asheville Tourists players
Gold Glove Award winners
High school baseball coaches in the United States
Houston Astros players
Major League Baseball catchers
Major League Baseball players with retired numbers
Major League Baseball second basemen
National Baseball Hall of Fame inductees
National League All-Stars
National League stolen base champions
Sportspeople from Smithtown, New York
Baseball players from Suffolk County, New York
People from Spring Lake, New Jersey
Baseball players from Monmouth County, New Jersey
Seton Hall Pirates baseball players
Silver Slugger Award winners
Tucson Toros players
All-American college baseball players
Yarmouth–Dennis Red Sox players
American Roman Catholics
American people of Italian descent
Catholics from New York (state) |
419589 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterior%20cingulate%20cortex | Anterior cingulate cortex | In the human brain, the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is the frontal part of the cingulate cortex that resembles a "collar" surrounding the frontal part of the corpus callosum. It consists of Brodmann areas 24, 32, and 33.
It is involved in certain higher-level functions, such as attention allocation, reward anticipation, decision-making, ethics and morality, impulse control (e.g. performance monitoring and error detection), and emotion.
Anatomy
The anterior cingulate cortex can be divided anatomically based on cognitive (dorsal), and emotional (ventral) components. The dorsal part of the ACC is connected with the prefrontal cortex and parietal cortex, as well as the motor system and the frontal eye fields, making it a central station for processing top-down and bottom-up stimuli and assigning appropriate control to other areas in the brain. By contrast, the ventral part of the ACC is connected with the amygdala, nucleus accumbens, hypothalamus, hippocampus, and anterior insula, and is involved in assessing the salience of emotion and motivational information. The ACC seems to be especially involved when effort is needed to carry out a task, such as in early learning and problem-solving.
On a cellular level, the ACC is unique in its abundance of specialized neurons called spindle cells, or von Economo neurons. These cells are a relatively recent occurrence in evolutionary terms (found only in humans and other primates, cetaceans, and elephants) and contribute to this brain region's emphasis on addressing difficult problems, as well as the pathologies related to the ACC.
Tasks
A typical task that activates the ACC involves eliciting some form of conflict within the participant that can potentially result in an error. One such task is called the Eriksen flanker task and consists of an arrow pointing to the left or right, which is flanked by two distractor arrows creating either compatible (<<<<<) or incompatible (>><>>) trials. Another very common conflict-inducing stimulus that activates the ACC is the Stroop task, which involves naming the color ink of words that are either congruent ( written in red) or incongruent ( written in blue). Conflict occurs because people's reading abilities interfere with their attempt to correctly name the word's ink color. A variation of this task is the Counting-Stroop, during which people count either neutral stimuli ('dog' presented four times) or interfering stimuli ('three' presented four times) by pressing a button. Another version of the Stroop task named the Emotional Counting Stroop is identical to the Counting Stroop test, except that it also uses segmented or repeated emotional words such as "murder" during the interference part of the task. Thus ACC affects decision making of a task
Functions
Many studies attribute specific functions such as error detection, anticipation of tasks, attention, motivation, and modulation of emotional responses to the ACC.
Error detection and conflict monitoring
The most basic form of ACC theory states that the ACC is involved with error detection. Evidence has been derived from studies involving a Stroop task. However, ACC is also active during correct response, and this has been shown using a letter task, whereby participants had to respond to the letter X after an A was presented and ignore all other letter combinations with some letters more competitive than others. They found that for more competitive stimuli ACC activation was greater.
A similar theory poses that the ACC's primary function is the monitoring of conflict. In Eriksen flanker task, incompatible trials produce the most conflict and the most activation by the ACC. Upon detection of a conflict, the ACC then provides cues to other areas in the brain to cope with the conflicting control systems.
Evidence from electrical studies
Evidence for ACC as having an error detection function comes from observations of error-related negativity (ERN) uniquely generated within the ACC upon error occurrences. A distinction has been made between an ERP following incorrect responses (response ERN) and a signal after subjects receive feedback after erroneous responses (feedback ERN).
Patients with lateral PFC damage show reduced ERNs.
Reinforcement learning ERN theory poses that there is a mismatch between actual response execution and appropriate response execution, which results in an ERN discharge. Furthermore, this theory predicts that, when the ACC receives conflicting input from control areas in the brain, it determines and allocates which area should be given control over the motor system. Varying levels of dopamine are believed to influence the optimization of this filter system by providing expectations about the outcomes of an event. The ERN, then, serves as a beacon to highlight the violation of an expectation. Research on the occurrence of the feedback ERN shows evidence that this potential has larger amplitudes when violations of expectancy are large. In other words, if an event is not likely to happen, the feedback ERN will be larger if no error is detected. Other studies have examined whether the ERN is elicited by varying the cost of an error and the evaluation of a response.
In these trials, feedback is given about whether the participant has gained or lost money after a response. Amplitudes of ERN responses with small gains and small losses were similar. No ERN was elicited for any losses as opposed to an ERN for no wins, even though both outcomes are the same. The finding in this paradigm suggests that monitoring for wins and losses is based on the relative expected gains and losses. If you get a different outcome than expected, the ERN will be larger than for expected outcomes. ERN studies have also localized specific functions of the ACC.
The rostral ACC seems to be active after an error commission, indicating an error response function, whereas the dorsal ACC is active after both an error and feedback, suggesting a more evaluative function (for fMRI evidence, see also ). This evaluation is emotional in nature and highlights the amount of distress associated with a certain error. Summarizing the evidence found by ERN studies, it appears to be the case that ACC receives information about a stimulus, selects an appropriate response, monitors the action, and adapts behavior if there is a violation of expectancy.
Evidence against error detection and conflict monitoring theory
Studies examining task performance related to error and conflict processes in patients with ACC damage cast doubt on the necessity of this region for these functions. The error detection and conflict monitoring theories cannot explain some evidence obtained by electrical studies that demonstrate the effects of giving feedback after responses because the theory describes the ACC as strictly monitoring conflict, not as having evaluative properties.
It has been stated that "The cognitive consequences of anterior cingulate lesions remain rather equivocal, with a number of case reports of intact general neuropsychological and executive function in the presence of large anterior dorsal cingulate lesions. For an alternative view of anterior cingulate, see Rushworth's review (2007).
Social evaluation
Activity in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) has been implicated in processing both the detection and appraisal of social processes, including social exclusion. When exposed to repeated personal social evaluative tasks, non-depressed women showed reduced fMRI BOLD activation in the dACC on the second exposure, while women with a history of depression exhibited enhanced BOLD activation. This differential activity may reflect enhanced rumination about social evaluation or enhanced arousal associated with repeated social evaluation.
The anterior cingulate cortex gyrus is involved in effort to help others.
Reward-based learning theory
A more comprehensive and recent theory describes the ACC as a more active component and poses that it detects and monitors errors, evaluates the degree of the error, and then suggests an appropriate form of action to be implemented by the motor system. Earlier evidence from electrical studies indicate the ACC has an evaluative component, which is indeed confirmed by fMRI studies.
The dorsal and rostral areas of the ACC both seem to be affected by rewards and losses associated with errors. During one study, participants received monetary rewards and losses for correct and incorrect responses, respectively.
Largest activation in the dACC was shown during loss trials. This stimulus did not elicit any errors, and, thus, error detection and monitoring theories cannot fully explain why this ACC activation would occur. The dorsal part of the ACC seems to play a key role in reward-based decision-making and learning. The rostral part of the ACC, on the other hand, is believed to be involved more with affective responses to errors. In an interesting expansion of the previously described experiment, the effects of rewards and costs on ACC's activation during error commission was examined. Participants performed a version of the Eriksen flanker task using a set of letters assigned to each response button instead of arrows.
Targets were flanked by either a congruent or an incongruent set of letters. Using an image of a thumb (up, down, or neutral), participants received feedback on how much money they gained or lost. The researchers found greater rostral ACC activation when participants lost money during the trials. The participants reported being frustrated when making mistakes. Because the ACC is intricately involved with error detection and affective responses, it may very well be that this area forms the bases of self-confidence. Taken together, these findings indicate that both the dorsal and rostral areas are involved in evaluating the extent of the error and optimizing subsequent responses. A study confirming this notion explored the functions of both the dorsal and rostral areas of the ACC involved using a saccade task.
Participants were shown a cue that indicated whether they had to make either a pro-saccade or an anti-saccade. An anti-saccade requires suppression of a distracting cue because the target appears in the opposite location causing the conflict. Results showed differing activation for the rostral and dorsal ACC areas. Early correct anti-saccade performance was associated with rostral activation. The dorsal area, on the other hand, was activated when errors were committed, but also for correct responses.
Whenever the dorsal area was active, fewer errors were committed providing more evidence that the ACC is involved with effortful performance. The second finding showed that, during error trials, the ACC activated later than for correct responses, clearly indicating a kind of evaluative function.
Role in consciousness
The ACC area in the brain is associated with many functions that are correlated with conscious experience. Greater ACC activation levels were present in more emotionally aware female participants when shown short 'emotional' video clips. Better emotional awareness is associated with improved recognition of emotional cues or targets, which is reflected by ACC activation.
The idea of awareness being associated with the ACC is supported by some evidence, in that it seems to be the case that, when subjects' responses are not congruent with actual responses, a larger error-related negativity is produced.
One study found an ERN even when subjects were not aware of their error. Awareness may not be necessary to elicit an ERN, but it could influence the effect of the amplitude of the feedback ERN. Relating to the reward-based learning theory, awareness could modulate expectancy violations. Increased awareness could result in decreased violations of expectancies and decreased awareness could achieve the opposite effect. Further research is needed to completely understand the effects of awareness on ACC activation.
In The Astonishing Hypothesis, Francis Crick identifies the anterior cingulate, to be specific the anterior cingulate sulcus, as a likely candidate for the center of free will in humans. Crick bases this suggestion on scans of patients with specific lesions that seem to interfere with their sense of independent will, such as alien hand syndrome.
Role in registering pain
The ACC registers physical pain as shown in functional MRI studies that showed an increase in signal intensity, typically in the posterior part of area 24 of the ACC, that was correlated with pain intensity. When this pain-related activation was accompanied by attention-demanding cognitive tasks (verbal fluency), the attention-demanding tasks increased signal intensity in a region of the ACC anterior and/or superior to the pain-related activation region. The ACC is the cortical area that has been most frequently linked to the experience of pain. It appears to be involved in the emotional reaction to pain rather than to the perception of pain itself.
Evidence from social neuroscience studies have suggested that, in addition to its role in physical pain, the ACC may also be involved in monitoring painful social situations as well, such as exclusion or rejection. When participants felt socially excluded in an fMRI virtual ball throwing game in which the ball was never thrown to the participant, the ACC showed activation. Further, this activation was correlated with a self-reported measure of social distress, indicating that the ACC may be involved in the detection and monitoring of social situations which may cause social/emotional pain, rather than just physical pain.
Pathology
Studying the effects of damage to the ACC provides insights into the type of functions it serves in the intact brain. Behavior that is associated with lesions in the ACC includes: inability to detect errors, severe difficulty with resolving stimulus conflict in a Stroop task, emotional instability, inattention, and akinetic mutism. There is evidence that damage to ACC is present in patients with schizophrenia, where studies have shown patients have difficulty in dealing with conflicting spatial locations in a Stroop-like task and having abnormal ERNs. Participants with ADHD were found to have reduced activation in the dorsal area of the ACC when performing the Stroop task. Together, these findings corroborate results from imaging and electrical studies about the variety of functions attributed to the ACC.
OCD
There is strong evidence that this area may have a role in obsessive–compulsive disorder. A recent study from the University of Cambridge showed that participants with OCD had higher levels of glutamate and lower levels of GABA in the anterior cingulate cortex, compared to participants without OCD. They used magnetic resonance spectroscopy to assess the balance of excitatory and inhibitory neurotransmission by measuring glutamate and GABA levels in anterior cingulate cortex and supplementary motor area of healthy volunteers and participants with OCD. Participants with OCD had significantly higher levels of glutamate and lower levels of GABA in the ACC and a higher Glu:GABA ratio in that region.
Recent SDM meta-analyses of voxel-based morphometry studies comparing people with OCD and healthy controls has found people with OCD to have increased grey matter volumes in bilateral lenticular nuclei, extending to the caudate nuclei, while decreased grey matter volumes in bilateral dorsal medial frontal/anterior cingulate cortex. These findings contrast with those in people with other anxiety disorders, who evince decreased (rather than increased) grey matter volumes in bilateral lenticular / caudate nuclei, while also decreased grey matter volumes in bilateral dorsal medial frontal / anterior cingulate gyri.
Anxiety
The ACC has been suggested to have possible links with social anxiety, along with the amygdala part of the brain, but this research is still in its early stages. A more recent study, by the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Centre, confirms the relationship between the ACC and anxiety regulation, by revealing mindfulness practice as a meditator for anxiety precisely through the ACC.
Depression
The adjacent subcallosal cingulate gyrus has been implicated in major depression and research indicates that deep-brain stimulation of the region could act to alleviate depressive symptoms. Although people with depression had smaller subgenual ACCs, their ACCs were more active when adjusted for size. This correlates well with increased subgenual ACC activity during sadness in healthy people, and normalization of activity after successful treatment. Of note, the activity of the subgenual cingulate cortex correlates with individual differences in negative affect during the baseline resting state; in other words, the greater the subgenual activity, the greater the negative affectivity in temperament.
Lead exposure
A study of brain MRIs taken on adults that had previously participated in the Cincinnati Lead Study found that people that had higher levels of lead exposure as children had decreased brain size as adults. This effect was most pronounced in the ACC (Cecil et al., 2008) and is thought to relate to the cognitive and behavioral deficits of affected individuals.
Autism
Impairments in the development of the anterior cingulate, together with impairments in the dorsal medial-frontal cortex, may constitute a neural substrate for socio-cognitive deficits in autism, such as social orienting and joint attention.
PTSD
An increasing number of studies are investigating the role of the ACC in post-traumatic stress disorder. PTSD diagnosis and related symptoms such as skin conductance response (SCR) to "potentially startling sounds" were found to be correlated with reduced ACC volume. Further, childhood trauma and executive dysfunction seem to correlate with reduced ACC connectivity to surrounding neural regions. In a longitudinal study, this reduced connectivity was able to predict high-risk drinking (binge drinking at least once per week for the past 12 months) up to four years later.
General risk of psychopathology
A study on differences in brain structure of adults with high and low levels of cognitive-attentional syndrome demonstrated diminished volume of the dorsal part of the ACC in the former group, indicating relationship between cortical thickness of ACC and general risk of psychopathology.
Additional images
See also
Cingulate cortex
Cingulate gyrus
Cingulate sulcus
subgenual cingulate cortex
subcallosal cortex
Reward system
References
Cerebral cortex
Medial surface of cerebral hemisphere |
419629 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eger | Eger | Eger ( , ; ; also known by other alternative names) is the county seat of Heves County, and the second largest city in Northern Hungary (after Miskolc). A city with county rights. Eger is best known for its medieval castle, thermal baths, baroque buildings, the northernmost Ottoman minaret, and red wines. Its population of around 53,000 (2017) makes it the 19th largest centre of population in Hungary according to the census. The town is located on the Eger Stream (a tributary of the Tisza river), on the hills between the Mátra and Bükk mountains.
Names and etymology
The origin of its name is still unknown. One suggestion is that the place was named after the alder ( in Hungarian) which grew so abundantly along the banks of the Eger Stream. This explanation seems to be correct because the name of the town reflects its ancient natural environment, and also one of its most typical plants, the alder, large areas of which could be found everywhere on the marshy banks of the Stream although they have since disappeared. The German name of the town: Erlau, from Erlen-au ('elder grove'), also speaks in favour of this supposition. And there is another theory which says that Eger's name comes from the Latin word: ager ('field'). This theory comes from more recent researchers who think that during the 11th and 12th centuries settlers with a Walloon origin (latins in Hungarian) moved to this territory.
The basin of Eger and the hilly region around it have always been very suitable for human settlements, and there are many archaeological findings from the early ages of history, which support this fact.
The other names of the town are in Latin Agria, in Serbian and Croatian Jegar / or Jegra / , in Czech and Slovene Jager, in Slovak Jáger, in Polish Jagier, and in Turkish Eğri. Nickname: the Hungarian Athens
Coat of arms
The shield of Eger developed from the shield of Bishop György Fenesy (1686–1689) after an agreement which was made with him in 1694. The bastion with the three gates on it refers to the existence of the fortress. The rampant unicorn between the two bastions on the side of the shield came from the bishop's shield. The sword in the fore-feet of the unicorn symbolises the manorial power of life and death. The snake twisting on the sword stands for the defeat of treachery and hatred by faith. The star and the sun symbolise the alternation of days and nights. And finally, the eagle with a gospel in its clutches refers to apostle and evangelist Saint John who is the patron saint of the Archdiocese of Eger.
History
Eger has been inhabited since the Stone Age.
Reign of Saint Stephen
Today's Eger was formed in the 10th century by St. Stephen (997–1038), the first Christian king of Hungary, who founded an episcopal see in Eger. The first cathedral of Eger was built on Castle Hill, within the present site of Eger Castle. Eger grew around this cathedral, and remains an important religious centre in Hungary.
This settlement took up an important place among the Hungarian towns even in the early Middle Ages. The natural fundamentals of the surroundings (meeting of plains and hills) made it possible to establish economic and cultural relations between the different parts of the country.
During the 11th and 12th centuries, Walloon settlers came from the areas beyond the Rhine. They settled with the kings' permission, bringing western culture to this region and acclimating the viticulture. The development of the town accelerated with their presence.
Mongol invasion
This development was blocked for a short time by the Mongol invasion in 1241, when the town was ransacked and burned down during the episcopacy of Cletus Bél.
After the withdrawal of the Mongols, Eger began to flourish all over again. Lampert, the bishop of Eger, received a permit from Béla IV for building a stone fortress. So the nearly destroyed town revived and reached the peak of its medieval development in the 14th and 15th centuries. During this period the forests which spread to the limits of the town were cleared for the most part, and vines were planted in their place. More and more town-houses were built in the settlement. Roads were constructed among which the ones in the inner town were narrow and twisting but those leading to the northern mining towns were wider. The various surrounding settlements such as Almagyar and Czigléd were built up along with Eger.
Reign of King Matthias
During the reign of King Matthias (1458–1490), Eger began to develop again. The gothic-styled Bishops Palace of Eger which can be seen at the present time was reconstructed by the order of bishop János Bekensloer. Building operations continued during the bishoprics of Orbán Dóczy and Tamás Bakócz. The beginning of the reconstruction (in late gothic style) of the cathedral fort can also be linked to their names. After the death of King Matthias, during the bishopric of Hyppolit the so-called Hyppolit Gate was built, this has recently been removed.
The siege of Eger
After the Battle of Mohács (1526) a sorrowful period began in the history of Eger. During the dual kingship the town changed hands almost every year and the Ottoman army came closer as well. This circumstance provided the reason for reinforcing the fortress. In the autumn of 1552, Captain István Dobó and his handful of soldiers were successful in defending the fortress and northern Hungary from the expanding Turkish Empire. The first writer of note to draw on the story was the Hungarian renaissance poet and musician Sebestyén Tinódi Lantos (–1556), whose account may have come partly from eyewitnesses. Géza Gárdonyi wrote his novel, "Eclipse of the Crescent Moon" in remembrance of this battle, and his work has been translated into numerous languages.
Despite the fact that István Dobó and his soldiers successfully defended the fortress, it was destroyed during the siege, so it was essential to wholly rebuild it. The reconstruction process of the fortress took place between 1553 and 1596 and Italian artificer officers planned the renovations. The famous Hungarian poet, Bálint Balassi also served here for a few years beginning in April 1578.
Ottoman rule
While István Dobó and his soldiers managed to defend the fortress in 1552, in 1596 the captain at that time and the foreign mercenaries under his rule handed it over. This was the beginning of the 91-year-long Turkish rule in Eger. The Eger minaret, which was built at the end of the 17th century, preserves the memory of this period. Among all the buildings of this type, the minaret of Eger is found in the northernmost point of the former Ottoman Empire. During the Turkish occupation Eger became the seat of a vilayet which is a Turkish domain including several sanjaks. Churches were converted into mosques, the castle rebuilt, and other structures erected, including public baths and minarets.
The rule of the Turks in Central Hungary began to collapse after a failed Ottoman attempt to capture Vienna. The Vienna-based Habsburgs, who controlled the rest of Hungary, apart from Transylvania, steadily expelled the Turks from the country. The castle of Eger was starved into surrender by the Crusader army led by Charles of Lorraine in 1687, after the castle of Buda had been retaken in 1686. Eger was relieved from Turkish rule in December, 1687. Although the reoccupation was effected by a siege (which starved out the defenders) and not by a bombardment, the town fell into a very poor state. According to the ... records there were only 413 houses in the area within the town walls which were habitable and most of these were occupied by left over Turkish families.
Habsburg rule
After the expelling of the Turks, the town was considered by the imperial regiment as a demesne of the Crown. Leopold I re-established Eger as a free royal borough in 1688, which meant that it was relieved from the ecclesiastic manorial burdens. This state lasted until 1695, when György Finesse, the returning bishop, had the former legal status of a bishopric town restored by the monarch.
Eger soon began to prosper again. The town was reclaimed by its bishops, which caused many local Protestants to leave. Although the town supported the Hungarian leader Prince Francis II Rákóczi in the 1703–1711 war of independence against the Habsburgs, the Hungarians were eventually defeated by the Imperial army. In 1709, Francis II Rákóczi and Ukranciev, the legate of Peter the Great, met here. It must be added that the legate died in Eger and was buried near the Serbian Church of Eger. Soon after that, the town was ravaged by plague. However, immigration into Eger was strong, and the population rose from 6000 to 10,000 between 1725 and 1750. Muslims were assimilated into the Christian population.
In the history of Eger, the 18th century was the period of development and prosperity. Many new buildings were built in Baroque and later in Rococo and Neoclassical style, including the cathedral, the Archiepiscopal Palace of Eger, the County Hall of Eger, the Eger Lyceum (now housing the Eszterházy College of Education) and several churches, while others were reclaimed from being mosques.
The building processes attracted many craftsman, merchants and artists with such talented ones among them as Kracker János Lukács, Anton Maulberts, Franz Sigrist, Josef Gerl, Jakab Fellner and Henrik Fasola. The town population grew suddenly. While in 1688 it was only 1200, in 1787 more than 17,000 people lived here. At this time, Eger was the 6th largest town of Hungary (based on the number of its inhabitants). Viticulture also reached its brightest period in these days. The wine-growing area was twelve times larger than it had been earlier.
The 18th century was also important because bishop Barkóczy and Eszterházy decided to found a university in Eger patterned after the ones in Nagyszombat and in Vienna. There were already precedents for this type of education because in 1700 Bishop István Telekessy, who took sides with Ferenc Rákóczy the Second, established a seminary in Eger. Then in 1740, Canon György Foglár founded a Faculty of Law and in 1754 bishop Barkóczy set up a school of philosophy. In 1769 the first medical school of Hungary was opened by the direction of Ferenc Markhot, but it was closed in 1755. Unfortunately the university of Eger could not begin its work because of appoint ... the monarch'. In the building which was marked out for the university we can find the Archdiocese's Library (the most beautiful baroque library in Hungary), and an astronomical museum with original equipment, which was the second museum of this type in Europe. Between 1946 and 1948 there were several more efforts to found a university in Eger all of which also ended in failure.
The 19th century began with disasters: a fire that destroyed half the town in 1800, and a collapse of the south wall of the Castle in 1801, which ruined several houses. Eger became the seat of an archbishopric in 1804, and the church remained in firm control of the town, despite efforts by its citizens to obtain greater freedom. In 1827, much of the town centre was damaged by fire again, and four years later over 200 were killed in an outbreak of cholera.
In 1804, a significant change occurred in the organisation of Eger's bishopric. The monarch made this town a centre of archbisphoric, but the bishoprics of Szatmár and Kassa separated from it.
The Period of Reforms
The Period of Reforms (1825–1848) left several lasting marks on the life of Eger, especially on its culture. Pyrker László János, the archbishop of that time, founded a gallery which he donated to the Hungarian National Museum because the town did not guarantee an appropriate place for it. It was Pyrker's present which served as a base for the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts that was opened in 1900. In 1828 Pyrker established the first Hungarian teachers training college in Eger and he was the one who ordered the construction of the basilica which was built in neo-classical style, in accordance with the plans of József Hild. On the basis of its size, this basilica is the second among the churches of Hungary. In 1837, János Joó, an art teacher, began to edit Hungary's first technical journal with the title "Héti Lapok".
Revolution and War of Independence
The inhabitants of Eger took an active part in the revolution in 1848. Even though the revolution was suppressed, the age of landowners and serfs had gone forever, and the municipality gained freedom from the rule of the archbishop in 1854.
Age of the monarchy
The main railway line between Miskolc and Pest bypassed the town, which was only reached later by a branch line from Füzesabony. Unfortunately (unlike other towns) Eger's civil development did not become faster, as distinguished from other towns, after 1849 and the Compromise of 1867. Industrial development was represented only by the mill, the tobacco factory and the sheet-iron works that were founded in the Reform Age.
During the decades after the turn of the century, the character of a school-town was dominant in Eger. Because of its schools and other cultural institutions, it became known as the Hungarian Athens.
At the beginning of the century, in 1904, the first independent theatre of stone was opened and the canalisation and the provision of public utilities began as well.
20th century
Economic recovery was slow after World War I, although the 1899 publication of Gárdonyi's "Eclipse of the Crescent Moon" made Eger popular as a tourist attraction and archaeological excavation of the castle resumed.
In 1933, Eger was one of those towns that first got the permission for opening a spa.
In 1910, 2,674 Jews lived in the village but in 1944 the Jewish community was murdered by Hungarians and Germans during the Holocaust.
In World War II, the city suffered under the retreating German Army and the arriving Soviet army, but it managed to escape major bombardment.
In the decades after 1945, industrialization of the town commenced because of the change of regime. As a consequence, Eger's former character of a cultural centre began to fade, which diminished the patina of the settlement.
It was of great fortune that in 1968 the baroque inner city was preserved. It was saved from the deterioration (and from the construction of unsuitable, modern buildings).
Eger is famous for its wines, most notably the "Egri Bikavér" (Bull's Blood of Eger). It is also well known for "Egri Víz", a type of brandy which originated in the 18th century, the "bujavászon" (a special Turkish tissue), as well as its thermal baths.
Today, Eger is a prosperous town and popular tourist destination with a charming Baroque town centre.
Ecclesiastical history
Eger is the seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Eger, an ecclesiastical province of Hungary founded as a bishopric in 1009 and made a Metropolitan archdiocese in 1804, by Pope Pius VII. The current archbishop-elect, Archbishop Csaba Ternyak, was previously Secretary for the Congregation For Clergy. He succeeds Archbishop István Seregely, who retired because of age. The constituent dioceses of the province were Košice (Kassa, Kaschau), Rožňava (Rozsnyó, Rosenau, now part of Slovakia), Szatmár, and Szepes (Zipo, Zipsen).
Geography
Climate
Eger has a humid continental climate (Köppen: Dfb) closely bordering on a oceanic climate (Cfb) or humid subtropical climate (Cfa). The annual average temperature of Eger is , and the warmest July has an average temperature of , while January is the only month below freezing, with an average temperature of . The annual precipitation is , of which January is the month with the least precipitation at , while July is the month with the most precipitation at . Temperature extremes ranged from on January 13, 2003 to on July 20, 2007.
Wine
Beside its historic sights and its thermal baths, Eger is famous for its wines. It produces both red and white wines of high quality. The famous and traditional varieties of the region are Egri Leányka, Egerszóláti Olaszrizling, Debrői Hárslevelű (whites), and Egri Bikavér (a red). More recently, Chardonnay and Pinot noir wines have appeared. The region's wines are said to bear a resemblance to those of Burgundy. Although the quality of the wines deteriorated in the second half of the 20th century, especially the cuvees, Eger is slowly recovering its reputation as a wine region. The most important terroir of the Eger Wine Region is the Nagy-Eged Hill, which is a Grand Cru terroir, where premium Grand Superior wines are produced.
Tourism
The majority of visitors come for a single day (mostly from Slovakia), not staying overnight. Ukrainians and Russians frequent the Eger Castle, along with many Italians. Around the town, one may encounter many German-speaking travelers (Germans, Austrians, and Swiss) as well. However, the town is getting more popular for Turkish tourists, because of the common historical memories.
Eger is mainly known for its castle, thermal baths (including an Olympic size swimming pool), historic buildings (including Eger minaret - the northernmost Turkish minaret) and, above all else, its famous Hungarian red wines.
Transport
Rail
The main railway station is located 1.5 km from the town centre. MÁV operates intercity train services to Budapest, and the trip is about 1 hours. Local trains to Füzesabony and Szilvásvárad also depart from this station.
There are also smaller stations located near the castle and in the Felnémet district that are served by the Eger–Szilvásvárad local trains.
Coach
The bus station is located close to the basilica. Buses depart approx. every 30 minutes to Budapest, and the trip to the capital is about 2 hours. Volánbusz operates an extensive network of suburban and long-distance buses. Other bus companies also offer connections to a variety of destinations. Taking the bus to Felsőtárkány gets you close to several hiking and mountain biking trails.
Local bus
Volánbusz also operates a fleet of local buses, serving most parts of the town, although the majority of buses run in a north–south direction. Line 12 is the busiest line in the town, and it has stops at the railway station, the bus station and in the town centre.
Culture
Districts
(Note: Most of these districts are historical, but they often appear on maps and street signs.)
Almagyar – This hill in the eastern part of the town is one of the smart areas of Eger, near the castle. The streets are steep, but there are fine views. The southern part contains some of the buildings (campus and dormitories) of Eszterházy College.
Almár – The northernmost part of the town, it consists mainly of weekend cottages and plots for gardeners.
Belváros (town centre) – The centre of Eger is often called "the Baroque Pearl of Europe". Here are located Dobó tér, the main square of the historical town, surrounded by Baroque houses and St. Anthony's Church. Other historic buildings nearby include the Cathedral and the Lyceum.
Berva is now a housing estate about 2 km to the NW of Eger. Founded in 1951, it was a huge industrial park by the name of Finomszerelvénygyár, privatized in 1992.
Castle of Eger – The oldest and most famous part of Eger.
Cifra hóstya – North of the centre, this part of town is full of small houses and narrow streets. You can find the Firefighters' Museum there.
Csákó – a suburban area with larger houses, east of the railway station.
Érsekkert (Bishop's Garden) – The largest park in Eger, with sport facilities, a small lake, and a fountain.
Felnémet – This village, north of the town, was annexed to Eger in 1961 but still has a rural character. The parish church (1715–1750s, designed by Gianni Battista Carlone, an Italian who settled in Eger) was started by Bishop Gábor Antal Erdődy as a votive church after an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1710, and completed by his successor. It was dedicated to St. Rosalia, a guardian against plague.
Felsőváros (Upper Town), formerly Csebokszári (Cheboksary – capital town of Chuvash Republic, Russia) – The largest housing estate of Eger, it is full of four and ten-storied concrete buildings, providing homes for one third of the town's population. There are three high schools there.
Hajdúhegy – a suburban area similar to Almagyar across the valley with downtown being in between these 2 hills.
Hatvani hóstya – The district is split by Highway 25. It contains the stadium and the Reformed church.
Industrial zone – Several multinational companies have moved into this area east of Lajosváros.
Károlyváros (Charles Town) – One of the largest districts of Eger, Károlyváros is west of downtown. It contains the High School for the Health Professions, and the Agria Park Shopping Mall.
Lajosváros (Louis Town) – This district in the southern part of the town has several high schools and student hostels. It consists mainly of detached houses. Also called Kanada.
Maklári hóstya, Tihamér – This district is one of the fastest developing parts of the town. It contains public swimming pools (designed by Imre Makovecz).
Pásztorvölgy – A suburban area in Felnémet. Also has a high school.
Rác hóstya – Another suburban area west from Upper Town.
Szépasszonyvölgy ("Valley of the Beautiful Woman") – An area of Eger famous for its red wines (Bikaver or Bulls Blood) and known for its wine cellars.
Tetemvár – Another suburban area. The name ("Corpses' Castle") derives from the legend that Turkish war dead were buried here in 1552.
Vécseyvölgy – A suburban area with a small airfield for sports purposes.
Main sights
The Castle of Eger, noted for its successful defence against the 1552 Ottoman invasion.
The 17th-century Eger minaret. The northernmost Turkish minaret in Europe is 40 meters high and one of only three survivors in Hungary. It can be climbed for a good view of the town centre.
The system of cellars near the cathedral, called the Város a város alatt (literally "Town under the town").
Dobó tér. The Baroque Minorite Church (1758–67), built to the designs of Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer of Prague with original ceiling frescoes by Márton Reindl, is the focal point of the town's most imposing square, flanked by the Town Hall and the old priory buildings, part of which contain the Palóc Museum, showing the artefacts of a distinctive regional ethnic community. The square and several of the retail streets around it are pedestrianized.
The Lyceum (Eszterházy College), designed by József Gerl and Jakab Fellner and built in 1765–85, is a splendid example of the restrained Zopf style. There are three remarkable 18th-century frescoed ceilings, of which only the one in the library is open to the public. Painted by the Viennese artist Johann Lukas Kracker in 1778, it depicts the Council of Trent of 1545–63, which launched the Counter-Reformation. Among the figures depicted are the Reformers Luther and Zwingli, whose "heretical" books are being struck by a bolt of lightning. After the death of Kracker in 1779, Esterházy commissioned the Austrian Franz Sigrist (1727–1803) to complete the painting programme. Sigrist painted the ceiling in the Great Hall of the west bay representing the four university faculties (1781–1782). The beautifully furnished library opened in 1793. There is a camera obscura or periscope at the top of the building, projecting images of the town onto a table.
The Turkish Bath, commissioned by Abdi Pasha the Albanian
The Provost Minor's Palace, 1758, is the finest Rococo building in the town. It also has a fine fresco by Kracker ("The Triumph of Virtue over Sin"), other 18th-century murals, and remarkable 18th-century wrought ironwork.
The Archbishop's Garden
The Fazola gates, late Baroque wrought ironwork by Henrik Fazola
The Archbishop's Palace, a 15th-century Gothic palace
The Egri Road Beatles Múzeum was established in Hotel Korona, in the heart of the historic town of Eger. Guests can get a glimpse of the life and career of the band and its members in the frames of a professional guided tour, which provides an experience supported by up-to-date technical solutions. Films and contemporary newsreels are played on screens and the songs of the band can be listened to through headphones, whereas contemporary media publications, garments, models and limited edition rarities are displayed in the showcases. The monumental show of the Sgt. Pepper album, various games and photo-taking activities take the visitors back to the legendary sixties.
Szépasszonyvölgy ("The Valley of the Beautiful Woman"). A valley on the southern edge of Eger which has numerous wine cellars, many with their own wine bar catering to tourists. A tram shuttles tourists to/from Dobó tér in the summer months.
Churches
Eger has 17 churches, but the notable ones include:
The cathedral or basilica, built in 1831–37 to Classicist designs by József Hild, contains some remarkable painting and sculpture. Late morning organ recitals are held frequently.
The Minorite Church, 18th-century Baroque church
The Serbian Orthodox Church (Rác-templom) is in Zopf style (1784–86). The interior was commissioned from Viennese artists by the rich local Serbian community of that time. It is dominated by an iconostasis.
St Bernard Cistercian Church, 18th-century Baroque church
Population
Politics
The current mayor of Eger is Ádám Mirkóczki (Egységben a Városért Egyesület).
The local Municipal Assembly, elected at the 2019 local government elections, is made up of 18 members (1 Mayor, 12 Individual constituencies MEPs and 5 Compensation List MEPs) divided into this political parties and alliances:
International relations
Turkey has a honorary consulate in the city.
Twin towns – sister cities
Eger is twinned with:
Cheboksary, Russia
Dolný Kubín, Slovakia
Esslingen am Neckar, Germany
Gheorgheni, Romania
Jericho, Palestine
Kutná Hora, Czech Republic
Mâcon, France
Mukachevo, Ukraine
Peja, Kosovo
Pori, Finland
Przemyśl, Poland
Sarzana, Italy
Notable people
Aaron Wise, rabbi
Péter Ács, chess grandmaster
Therese Benedek, Hungarian-American psychoanalyst
Aladár Bitskey, swimmer and trainer
Balázs Erdélyi, water polo player
Eva Erdelyi, swimmer
Géza Gárdonyi, historical novelist
Anna Gyarmati, snowboarder
Morris Koenig, Hungarian-American lawyer and judge
Kati Kovács, pop-rock singer
Klaudia Kovacs, film and theatre director
Norbert Madaras, water polo player, Olympic winner
Shimon Sofer, Rav of Eger
Yochanan Sofer, Erlauer Rebbe
Réka Szemerkényi, Ambassador to the United States
Gergő Zalánki, water polo player
See also
Stars of Eger (1968 film)
Notes
References
Attribution
External links
in Hungarian, English, German and Polish
The Complete Guide to Eger Sightseeing, accommodation, activities and wine tourism in the Eger area
A modern traveller's account of his visit to Eger
Eszterházy College Eszterházy College
Egervaros.hu
Aerial photography: Eger
Eger and its surroundings on old postcards (collection of the municipal library)
Eger – ShtetLink
Eger at funiq.hu
Cathedrals in Hungary
County seats in Hungary
Cities with county rights of Hungary
Populated places in Heves County
Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust |
419644 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative%20education | Alternative education | Alternative education encompasses many pedagogical approaches differing from mainstream pedagogy. Such alternative learning environments may be found within state, charter, and independent schools as well as home-based learning environments. Many educational alternatives emphasize small class sizes, close relationships between students and teachers and a sense of community.
The legal framework for such education varies by locality, and determines any obligation to conform with mainstream standard tests and grades.
Alternative pedagogical approaches may include different structures, as in the open classroom, different teacher-student relationships, as in the Quaker and free schools, and/or differing curricula and teaching methods, as in the Waldorf and Montessori schools. Synonyms for "alternative" in this context include "non-traditional," "non-conventional" and "non-standardized". Alternative educators use terms such as "authentic", "holistic" and " progressive".
History
Alternative education grew up in response to the establishment of standardized and compulsory education over the last two to three centuries. Educators including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Swiss humanitarian Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi; the American transcendentalists Amos Bronson Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Henry David Thoreau; founders of progressive education John Dewey and Francis Parker, and educational pioneers such as Friedrich Fröbel, Maria Montessori and Rudolf Steiner believed that education should cultivate the developing child on many levels: not only intellectually, but also morally and spiritually, emotionally and psychologically, and physically. After World War II an alternative Reggio Emilia approach to early-childhood education was developed in Italy, introduced by Loris Malaguzzi.
Cultural critics such as John Caldwell Holt, Paul Goodman, Frederick Mayer and George Dennison have examined education from individualist, anarchist, and libertarian perspectives. Other writers, from Paulo Freire to American educators Herbert Kohl and Jonathan Kozol, have criticized mainstream Western education from the viewpoint of liberal and radical politics. The argument for an approach catering to the interests and learning style of an individual is supported by research suggesting that a learner-responsible model is more effective than a teacher-responsible one. Ron Miller has identified five elements common to educational alternatives:
Respect for the person
Balance
Decentralization of authority
Noninterference among the political, economic, and cultural spheres of society
A holistic worldview.
In modern times, at least in some localities, the legal right to provide educational alternatives has become established alongside a duty to provide education for school age children.
Localities
Canada
Education in Canada falls under the jurisdiction of the provincial government. Alternative education is provided in some public schools, such as Mountainview Montessori School and Trille des Bois Waldorf school in Ottawa, as well as in independent schools, such as Toronto Montessori Schools and Vancouver Waldorf School.
Origins
Alternative education in Canada stems from two philosophical educational points of view, Progressive and Libertarian. According to Levin, 2006 the term "alternative" was adopted partly to distinguish these schools from the independent, parent-student-teacher-run "free" schools that preceded them (and from which some of the schools actually evolved) and to emphasize the boards' commitment to options within the public school system. Progressive educational tradition places emphasis on both the need to incorporate curriculum and teaching to match the stages of child development and the gradual integration of the child into adult society through planned experiential learning. The sources of stimulus would be from the philosopher John Dewey in the United States, from post WW1 New Schools in Great Britain and the Steiner/Waldorf schools in Europe. The Libertarian tradition focuses on the rights of the parents and children to make their own educational and life choices. As noted by Levin "It is rooted in the belief to uphold the individual freedom and the innate goodness of the child against institutional and social conformity and the corrupting influences of modern society."
School types
The 1980s saw a shift to special schools and/or programs for those students that excelled in academia, were artistically talented, or through programs linking schooling with the workplace in a co-operative venture. It might be considered as a natural evolution of education to offer options and not a regimented one size fits all approach. Most alternative high schools falling under public jurisdiction offered independent study programs, basic-skills programs, and were mini-high schools with a mixture of conventional and nonconventional courses, and schools with an arts focus. They also offered smaller classes, closer and more informal relations with teachers, and greater flexibility in course selection and timetabling. The most recent development within alternative education in Canada may be to follow the United States in their "Charter School" movement. In the US specific states have passed legislation permitting their departments of education or local school boards to issue "charters" directly to individual schools wishing to operate autonomously. Alberta is the first province that has already embraced this model.
India
Since the early 20th century, educators have discussed and implemented alternative forms of education, such as Rabindranath Tagore's Visva-Bharati University, Sri Aurobindo's Sri Aurobindo International Centre of Education, Jiddu Krishnamurti Schools. Traditional learning in India involved students living in gurukulas, where they received free food, shelter and education from a guru ("teacher" in Sanskrit). Progress was based on tests given by the gurus, and the system aimed to nurture students' creativity and personality development. Although mainstream education in India is based on the system introduced by Lord Macaulay, a few projects aim to rejuvenate the earlier method. Some students in these (and similar) projects conduct research in Sanskrit studies, Vedic studies, Vedic science, yoga and ayurveda. Others, after completing their education in a gurukula, enter mainstream higher education.
Japan
Japanese education is a nationwide, standardized system under the Ministry of Education. The only alternative options have been accredited, private schools with more freedom of curricula (including textbook choice; public schools are limited to government-approved textbooks), teaching methods and hiring guidelines. Nearly all private schools require a competitive entrance examination and charge tuition, with few scholarships available. Interest in alternative education was sparked during the 1980s by student violence and bullying, school refusal, social anxiety disorder and, in the worst cases, suicide; the desire to enable young people to keep up with a globalized economy is an additional impetus.
A free school is a non-profit group (or independent school) which specializes in the care and education of children who refuse to attend standard schools. The first democratic school was founded in 1985 as a shelter for children avoiding the school environment, and a number of other such schools have been established. In 1987 the first of seven Waldorf schools in Japan was founded, and other alternatives include a growing homeschooling movement.
In 1992 Dr Shinichiro Hori, formerly Professor of Education at Osaka City University, founded the first, Kinokuni Children's Village in Wakayama Prefecture, of several alternative, democratic schools. In all he created six schools in Fukui prefecture, Kitakyushu, and Yamanashi prefecture. As friend and Japanese translator of A.S. Neill his work has been inspired by Summerhill School.
In 2003 Japan introduced Special Zones for Structural Reform (構造改革特別区域), based on China's Special Economic Zone policy, which enable the opening of government-accredited schools providing alternative education. Two years later, the first such school was founded.
Despite the schools' high tuition, some parents send their children to international schools to acquire fluency in a foreign language (usually English). Although international schools are not certified by the Japanese government, many are approved by their native country (the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Korea and China) and some offer an International Baccalaureate program.
Philippines
Taiwan
Founded after the lifting of martial law in Taiwan, the () was the first alternative education school in Taiwan. It seeks to diverge from traditional Chinese education methodology and requires parents of their students to not hit or scold their children. The term 'forest school' has become a generalized term used by schools with alternative education approaches. There is also the case of the Caterpillar, which – like the Forest School – is housed in an unconventional campus and follows a creative and more fluid curriculum. Both these schools charge expensive tuition fees but more personalized instruction.
There is also alternative education that caters to learners with special needs such as the Taipei County's Seedling Elementary School, which opened in 1994. This school caters to native students, who need a different and less stressful learning environment. It integrates traditional courses with strategies that focus on enhancing the learner's bond with nature and aboriginal culture. Another example is the so-called "third-way" education that serves the needs of students that are not local but also not foreign such as the Taipei American School, which provides instruction to Taiwanese students with family in the United States or those with occupations that took them, including their children, abroad.
United Kingdom
In 2003, there were about 70 schools in the United Kingdom offering education based on philosophies differing from that of the mainstream pedagogy, about half of which are Steiner-Waldorf schools. Summerhill School, established by A.S. Neill in 1921, was the first democratic school; most have since closed, except for Summerhill, Sands School, Hebden Bridge School and democratic schools for children and young people. Though most alternative schools were until recently all fee-paying, state-funded Free Schools were introduced in 2011, only two of which alternative education: the Steiner Academy Frome, Somerset, and the Steiner Academy Hereford.
The United Kingdom also has alternative provision schools and centres, designed to prevent exclusions from mainstream school, or improve behavioural problems so that students can re-access mainstream education. Since 1993, some of the centres have been referred to as Pupil Referral Units (PRU). These units are run by the local authority.
In recent years, in addition to Pupil Referral Units, many privately funded units (operated by businesses or charities) have set up versions of PRUs. These are known as private providers of alternative provision.
The influx of private businesses entering the sector has led to concerns being raised by Ofsted and the Department for Education in relation to so called illegal schools operating. Illegal schools refer to alternative provision centres providing students with a full time education without first registering properly as a school. Operating in this way means that providers avoid inspection by Ofsted.
United States
A variety of educational alternatives exist at the elementary, secondary and tertiary level in four categories: school choice, independent schools and home-based education. The U.S. Department of Education's document State Regulation of Private Schools reports on the legal requirements that apply to K-12 private schools in each of the states, including any curriculum requirements. The report states that it is intended as a reference for public and nonpublic school officials and state policy-makers. The report confirms that similar areas of education are approached in a variety of ways. Trade schools and vocational colleges are also an alternate route to four year traditional college programs.
School choice
Public-school alternatives in the U.S. include separate schools, classes, programs and semi-autonomous "schools within schools". Public school-choice options are open to all students, although some have waiting lists. Among these are charter schools, combining private initiatives and state funding, and magnet schools, which attract students to a particular program (such as the performing arts).
Independent schools
Independent, or private, schools have flexibility in staff selection and educational approach. Many are Montessori and Waldorf schools (the latter also known as Steiner schools, after their founder Rudolf Steiner). Other independent schools include democratic or free schools, such as Clonlara School, which is the oldest, continually operating K-12 alternative school in the country, the Sudbury schools, open classroom schools, those based on experiential education and schools using an international curriculum such as the International Baccalaureate and Round Square schools.
Homeschooling
Families seeking alternatives for educational, philosophical or religious reasons, or if there is no nearby educational alternative may opt for home-based education. A minor branch is unschooling, an approach based on interest rather than a curriculum. Others enroll in umbrella schools which provide a curriculum. Homeschool courses give students in-depth, personal attention in any subject with which they struggle or excel. Some homeschool families form a cooperative, where parents with expertise in a subject may teach children from a number of families while their children are taught by other parents. There is great variation amongst families who homeschool, from parents who set up in-home "classrooms" and hold class for a set amount of time each day, to families that focus on experiential learning opportunities.
Self-education
Self-directed inquiry is recognized at all levels of education, from the "unschooling" of children to the autodidacticism of adults, and may occur separately from (or with) traditional forms of education.
See also
Alternative schools
Alternative university
Anarchism and education
Education
Education policy
Education reform#Alternatives to public education
European Convention on Human Rights, Article 2
Experiential education
Freedom of education
Free school movement
Homeschooling
Progressive education
Right to education
Special education
UnCollege
Unschooling
Forms and approaches of alternative education
Anarchistic free school
Artful Learning
Democratic education
Deschooling
Free school movement
Forest kindergarten
Jiddu Krishnamurti Schools
Sudbury school
Thomas Jefferson Education
Modern School Movement
Montessori education
Vocational education
Educators
John Dewey
Célestin Freinet
Friedrich Fröbel
Ivan Illich
Joseph Jacotot
Deborah Meier
Maria Montessori
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Rudolf Steiner
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Bill Nye
Organizations
European Democratic Education Community (EUDEC)
Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA)
Media
The Forbidden Education, a documentary film about alternative education
Public law on education in the US
Bennett Law
Oregon Compulsory Education Act
Meyer v. Nebraska
References
Further reading
Churchill, Christian J. and Gerald E. Levy. (2012) The Enigmatic Academy: Class, Bureaucracy, and Religion in American Education, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
External links
Map of alternative education schools and projects by REEVO, Alternative Education Network
Alternative Education Resource Organization (AERO)
International Association for Learning Alternatives
Informal Education
Special Education in Alternative Education Programs (ERIC Digest E585)
National Coalition of Alternative Community Schools
National Association for the Legal Support of Alternative Schools
Reggio Children Foundation
Eklavya (Indian educational NGO)
Iowa Association of Alternative Education
Oklahoma Technical Assistance Center
Learning for a Cause (in Japanese)
Alternative education
School types |
419660 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star%20Trek%20Customizable%20Card%20Game | Star Trek Customizable Card Game | The Star Trek Customizable Card Game is an out-of-print collectible card game based on the Star Trek universe. The name is commonly abbreviated as STCCG or ST:CCG. It was first introduced in 1994 by Decipher, Inc., under the name Star Trek: The Next Generation Customizable Card Game. The game now has two distinct editions, though both forms of the game have many common elements.
Standard elements
The standard central goal for a player of STCCG is to obtain 100 points, primarily by completing missions or objectives. This is done by bringing personnel, ships and equipment into play, then moving an attempting team to a mission. Once a mission attempt starts, the personnel will create away teams to encounter dilemmas which will challenge them in some way. Often if the personnel have the required skills or attributes they can overcome certain dilemmas' effects. Once the required dilemmas are passed, the personnel still active in the attempt must have the skills and/or attribute totals required by the mission to solve it. If the mission is solved, the player earns the printed points.
Other aspects of the game increase player interactions: ships and personnel can battle, or otherwise affect each other; cards like events and interrupts can alter the environment for one or more players; and points can be scored using methods other than mission solving.
One of the most attractive themes of the game is affiliations. These are groupings of ships and personnel based on the major interstellar powers of the Star Trek universe, and decks will be based around one, or perhaps more, of these groups.
First Edition
What is now known as First Edition (commonly abbreviated "1E" among players) is the original conception of the game, through various designers and iterations. It was first licensed only to cover Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the first three card sets were limited to that show's universe. As such, the only affiliations created were the Federation, Klingons, and Romulans, plus a group for other cards that didn't fit into the three main affiliations called Non-Aligned. This narrow scope caused little attraction for players, and it was felt that only five more sets could be released before running the full course of available material.
In 1997, Decipher announced that a wider scope had now been licensed for the game: Deep Space 9, Voyager and The Next Generation movies would soon be depicted in new cards, thus the game's name was shortened to the existing title. The First Contact set arrived late that year, based on the film Star Trek: First Contact; that set introduced the Borg affiliation, among other new concepts.
This was soon followed by several sets based on situations in Deep Space 9; these introduced affiliations for the Bajorans, Cardassians, Dominion, and Ferengi, along with enhanced systems for battling and capturing. The era of these expansions is considered by many players to be the 'golden age' of First Edition.
Two more sets featuring Original Series cards came next (when that property was added to the license), followed by sets drawing heavily on Voyager which introduced the new, but smaller Kazon, Vidiian, and Hirogen affiliations. It was after this that the game began a serious decline in popularity and sales.
Sales faltered during the release of the last two sets, based on the films and on holodeck scenarios. This dip in sales resulted in Decipher taking a serious look at the game's future.
Releases
Full expansions are listed in regular type, boutique/special cards in italics
1E Premiere (release: November, 1994) The first edition premiere set contained 363 cards (121 each of rare, uncommon, and common) and introduced the affiliations of the Federation, the Klingons, and the Romulans, along with Non-Aligned cards. It was available in randomized 60-card starter boxes (generally not playable right out of the box, with 2 rares, 13 uncommons, and 45 commons) and 15-card expansion packs (1 rare, 3 uncommons, and 11 commons). The initial 'limited edition' print run had a black border and the following 'unlimited edition' runs (December 1994 and 1995) had a white border, making the black-bordered cards rarer, even though that color would become the staple of all later sets. In fact, all printings after the first were planned to be white-bordered, but no more printings were made. The Limited Edition print run of 45.9 million cards consisted of 19,339 of each rare card, 78,843 of each uncommon card, and 281,157 of each common card. The white-bordered edition print run was 162 million cards. Both were printed by Carta Mundi in Belgium.
Data Laughing (release: 1995) A promotional card that had ties to the first three sets. It was originally available as a mail-in redemption included in the Official Player's Guide published by Brady Games. The card was later included in the Introductory 2-Player Game.
Warp Pack (release: August, 1995) The Warp Pack was a selection of 12 white-bordered common cards to help make decks playable out of the box. Two of the cards that had not been seen before would be released in the next set, Alternate Universe. The packs were available for free from the Decipher website.
Alternate Universe (release: December, 1995) Alternate Universe was a collection of 122 cards that focused on cards from the past, future, and alternate timelines. It also contained the first ultra-rare card, the Future Enterprise. It sold in 15-card expansion packs. The expansion marked the point where tournament play was sponsored by Decipher, Inc.
Collector's Tin (release: November, 1995) This collector's item had a limited run of 30000 units and contained one of each of the premiere set's 363 cards with a silver border.
Q Continuum (release: October, 1996) The next expansion, Q Continuum was another standard set of 121 cards and introduced the Q Continuum and the "Q-Flash" side deck to the game. An important mechanic introduced in this expansion was the "Q's Tent" sideboard.
Introductory 2-Player Game (release: January, 1997) This set contained two separate pre-constructed 60-card decks, one Federation and one Klingon, both of which are white bordered. Each edition included the same three premium cards (a black-bordered Admiral McCoy and Data Laughing and a white-bordered Spock) and 11 new white-bordered mission cards. Edition #1 (in a blue box) contained a set of three new black-bordered premium Federation cards and Edition #2 (in a red box) contained a set of three new black-bordered premium Klingon cards.
First Anthology (release: June, 1997) The First Anthology (a concept that would return twice more) included six premium cards that would all later be featured in upcoming sets and was the first to feature cards that were not exclusive to The Next Generation. The box also contained two white bordered Premiere 60-card starter sets, two 15-card packs of white-bordered Premiere, two 15-card packs each of Alternate Universe and Q Continuum, and the Warp Pack.
The Fajo Collection (release: December, 1997) This special collection contained 18 super-rare cards and had a print run of 40,000. Each set contains a presentation binder, a signed certificate of authenticity, a Fajo Collection rules document, a collectible art poster showcasing the entire Star Trek CCG universe at that time, a business card featured on one of the cards, and a stick of gum associated with another. The cards were available from a Decipher subsidiary, the Eccentric Order, and were promised not to be reprinted in order to retain their value. The collection introduced the concept of an "set icon" printed on every card in that set that would continue until the end of 1E. Because of the low print runs, Decipher was able to include some special features on the cards, including metallic ink, UV-light sensitive ink, better color saturation, artwork bleeding onto the card border, and even a card (Qapla'!) printed entirely in Klingon (the design for which is markedly different from every other card in the game).
First Contact (release: December, 1997) This set of 130 cards focused entirely on the movie Star Trek: First Contact, greatly changed gameplay and added the first new affiliation in the Borg. It was available in 9-card booster packs, greatly reducing the number of repeat common cards.
Away Team Pack (release: May, 1998) This pack contains two cards featuring The Traveler (from the episode "Where No One Has Gone Before" and The Emissary (Benjamin Sisko's role in the Bajoran religion). The cards were designed to honor Decipher's Star Trek CCG product managers Marcus Certa (The Emissary) and Kyle Heuer (The Traveler), who functioned as traveling game evangelists using those pseudonyms. The packs were made available as an insert in an issue of Scrye magazine and were also handed out by the traveling evangelists themselves.
Official Tournament Sealed Deck (OTSD) (release: May, 1998) The Official Tournament Sealed Decks contain the same fixed deck of twenty new cards, designed to allow any other cards to be able to work together in a sealed format. Also included in each set were four white-bordered Premiere expansion packs and one Alternate Universe expansion pack. There were six different box designs (each representing an affiliation: Bajoran, Borg, Cardassian, Federation, Klingon, and Romulan).
Deep Space Nine (release: July, 1998) This set of 276 cards introduced the characters, aliens, and more from Deep Space Nine as well as two new affiliations: the Bajorans and the Cardassians. The USS Defiant was a special "twice as rare" white-bordered preview card. The set was available in 60-card starter decks and 9-card expansion packs.
Starter Deck II (release: December, 1998) This set attempted to solve again the problems of playing the game straight from the box by including a 60-card Premiere starter deck along with eight new cards designed to allow the cards in the starter to work together. A collaboration with Activision included a giveaway of a Starter Deck II with the pre-order of Star Trek: Hidden Evil.
Enhanced First Contact (release: January, 1999) The Enhanced First Contact boxes consisted of four packs of the First Contact expansion packaged with three new cards and one transparent Borg assimilation overlay. There were four different assortments of the new cards, and each group of three would always occur together in the same package, along with the same transparent Borg overlay. A cutout on the back of the box allowed buyers to know which new cards they were buying.
The Dominion (release: January, 1999) This set of 130 cards introduced the Dominion affiliation. It also included four special white-bordered preview cards that would all be reprinted in subsequent expansions. It was sold in 9-card expansion packs.
Blaze of Glory (release: August, 1999) Blaze of Glory was a 130-card expansion that enhanced the battling mechanic that had remained unchanged since the beginning of the game. It also featured an 18-card foil subset - the first in any Star Trek CCG expansion. It was sold in 9-card expansion packs. Many players point to this expansion as the high point of the game.
Rules of Acquisition (release: December, 1999) This 130-card set introduced the Ferengi and their rules. It was sold in 9-card expansion packs.
U.S.S. Jupiter (release: 2000) This card was inserted into the PC game Star Trek: Armada by Activision as a promotional tie-in.
Second Anthology (release: March, 2000) The Second Anthology included six premium cards that would not be featured in upcoming sets. The box also contained two Starter Deck IIs, two First Contact expansion packs, two Deep Space Nine expansion packs, and two Dominion expansion packs.
The Trouble with Tribbles (release: July, 2000) This 141-card set introduces the Original Series and the "tribbles" side deck. The Original Series became a property of Decipher when SkyBox International lost its license and was premiered in this set. Special features include preconstructed starter decks with premium cards in each and the return of ultra-rare cards inserted into packs (there would be an ultra-rare in each expansion from that point forward). This expansion featured Dr. McCoy as its ultra-rare as a tribute to DeForest Kelley, who had died the previous year. Cards also began to list collector's information (card number and rarity) in the lower right corner. The expansion was sold in two preconstructed 60-card starter decks (one Federation, one Klingon) and 11-card expansion packs.
Tribbles (release: October, 2000) is non-collectible customizable card game. It is a subgame of the Trouble with Tribbles expansion and was a customizable card game. While this game is not playable with most cards from the customizable card game, this pre-constructed game could be expanded by collecting the tribbles cards from The Troubles with Tribbles expansion of the Star Trek CCG.
Reflections: The First Five Year Mission (release: November, 2000) This set consisted of 18-card packs that contained 17 random cards (from Premiere, Alternative Universe, Q Continuum, First Contact, The Dominion, and Deep Space Nine) and a special foil card. 105 of the best rare cards available were reproduced as foil versions; 100 were presented in the packs. Reflections also introduced "topper" cards. Four of these premium foil cards appeared randomly, one per display, on top of the packs inside the 30-pack display box. In addition, a case of display boxes was topped with a final Seven of Nine foil.
Enhanced Premiere (release: November, 2000) Six different Enhanced Premiere packages were available. Each contained four packs of white bordered Premiere and five new premium cards. There were a total of twenty-one new premium cards: twelve were fixed and nine were randomized. Nine were the second versions of missions that had originally appeared in the Premiere set. The cards were upgraded with new gameplay and either images of space stations found in Activision's video game Star Trek: Armada (as another cross-promotional tie) or wormholes (to help make the "Wormhole" card easier to use in the sealed environment). This set also introduced the Warp Speed format for quicker games and drafting capabilities. As with Enhanced First Contact, the product boxes had a cutout on the back so buyers knew which set of fixed cards they had selected.
Mirror, Mirror (release: December, 2000) This 131-card set introduced the Mirror Universe. This expansion's ultra-rare was Mirror Universe First Officer Spock. It was sold in 11-card expansion packs.
Voyager (release: May 23, 2001) This 201-card set introduced the Delta Quadrant faction of Voyager and her crew as well as the Kazon and Vidiian affiliations. This expansion's ultra-rare was The Pendari Champion (a character played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson in a WWF Smackdown! (now WWE Smackdown!) cross-promotion). The expansion was sold in 40-card starter decks (some of which were drawn from a set of 20 starter-only cards) and 11-card expansion packs. This set also introduced the Voyager-only environment for sanctioned gameplay. Starting with this expansion, dual-affiliation cards were printed with both color borders (with equal rarity).
The Borg (release: September 19, 2001) The Borg continued the introduction of the Delta Quadrant with 131 cards that introduced the Borg again and added the Hirogen affiliation. The expansion's ultra-rare was a Voyager-era Reginald Barclay. The expansion was sold in 11-card expansion packs.
Holodeck Adventures (release: December 21, 2001) Holodeck Adventures was a 131-card set that expanded on the holographic characters that had been available since the Premiere set. The expansion's ultra-rare was Jean-Luc Picard as Dixon Hill. The expansion was sold in 11-card expansion packs. The name of the set was originally going to be given to the fourth full set before the original license was expanded, and the set was designed with that nostalgia in mind, as it had links to Q Continuum.
Tournament / Redemption Foils (release: January 2001 – August 2002) A set of 18 foils of popular common and uncommon cards were provided by Decipher as prizes for sanctioned tournaments. Each card was available for two months. There were also seven additional foils provided as prizes for special tournaments, as incentives for retailer promotions, or given to attendees of DecipherCon in October 2000.
The Motion Pictures (release: April 17, 2001) The 131 cards in The Motion Pictures featured all nine of the Star Trek movies available at the time and the Voyager episode "Flashback", which ties into Star Trek VI: the Undiscovered Country. The expansion's ultra-rare was a 24th-century James T. Kirk. The expansion was sold in 11-card expansion packs. This was also the last set released before the announcement of the end of the game and the move to 2E.
All Good Things (release: July 9, 2003) All Good Things featured 41 new cards that provided new gameplay and mended the so-called "broken links" in the first edition – cards that were referenced directly or indirectly on other cards but had not yet been released. The "anthology-style" collector's box included ten Reflections expansion packs, a Starter Deck II, the USS Jupiter premium card, and a comprehensive card list. The name of the set comes from the last episode of The Next Generation and had been the proposed name for the fifth and final expansion before the license was expanded.
Enterprise Collection (release: July 7, 2006) With the inclusion of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2E, it was felt that 1E players should be able to have the tools necessary to play as the Enterprise-era "Starfleet" affiliation as well. This set of 18 foiled cards (and a supply of First Edition compatible cards from 2E) was intended to make that possible. The cards were sold exclusively from Decipher's website.
Genesis (release: November 13, 2006) Genesis was a 27-card expansion that has the distinction of being the only completely First Edition compatible set in 2E. Each card was designed to work in both versions of the game, with varying degrees of success. The cards were sold exclusively from Decipher's website.
Critical reception to First Edition
In the June 1995 edition of Dragon (Issue 218), Rick Swan admired the high production quality of the cards, and the fact that "a typical starter deck provides a good mix of all categories." Swan not only admired the streamlined game system, but also "its remarkable simulation of the elements of a good SF adventure." He did question the internal logic of some of the scenarios; for example, "some of the Missions must be undertaken by specific affiliations – why can't the Federation assist with the fever outbreak on Nahmi IV and why can't the Romulans hunt for artifacts on Barradas III?" Swan also questioned the rule that opposing sides can use the same Personnel, leading to the potential situation where "Lt. Worf might have to battle himself." Swan also criticized combat, which was little more than "a comparison of weapons ratings and shield ratings, but not particularly dramatic." He also questioned why a ship is removed if it loses two battles in the same turn. But in the end, Swan felt these were minor quibbles, giving the game a top rating of 6 out of 6, while calling the game "ingenious, gorgeous and addictive."
A year later, in the June 1996 edition of Dragon (Issue 230), Swan revisited the game to review the Alternate Universe expansion, and found the game "remains a delight." He gave the expansion set a rating of 4 out of 6, saying, "Alternate Universe doesn't do much to expand the rules, but it serves as a good excuse to revisit a terrific product."
The reviewer from the online second volume of Pyramid stated that "I hoped Decipher would continue to find new and innovative ways to release and market cards for their games. The Fajo Collection for the Star Trek Game gave me my wish."
First edition's problems
Some of Decipher's concerns included the complexity and bloat that the game had built over seven years; there was no balanced 'cost' system for cards, causing stopgap and complex systems to be added to the game over time. As well, the game had embraced many different and not fully compatible ideas over time; this made for long, corrective rules documents and a steep learning curve for beginners. In addition, the number of cards types went from nine to over seventeen in just a couple of years, which made the game much more difficult to learn.
Initial ideas
At first, the game designers sought to introduce an entire new game based on Star Trek; it would be simpler and be targeted to beginners, while the original game still produced expansions, but on a slower schedule. This concept was abandoned when the sales figures showed that the original game could not continue on its own merits.
Second edition
The solution was to reinvent the original game along the basic lines, still allowing a depth of gameplay but avoiding complex rules and concepts. The standard card types and gameplay would remain, allowing some new cards to be used with the original cards, known as backward-compatible cards, or First Edition Compatible (abbreviated as 1EC) and attempting to satisfy longstanding fans of the original game. These cards are able to be used in First Edition gameplay, though some key words need to be changed to fit the First Edition's old rules and setup. Further information on how to use Second Edition cards in First Edition gameplay are listed in the First Edition Conversion Rules. Many cards central to the new form of the game can only conform to the new rules and setup. Second Edition, commonly abbreviated "2E", was launched in 2002, and came to a close with its final expansion in December, 2007.
Because the game was essentially starting from scratch with the hindsight of seven years' work, the initial Second Edition set was able to progress quickly. As a result, six affiliations debuted in that set compared to three for the original. It could be argued that the number was really seven, because of a unique new system that divided the Federation affiliation into groupings based on the shows' casts. The focus of the Second Edition sets has been on characters and situations in The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, though 'supporting' cards have images and concepts drawn from every part of the canon Star Trek universe. Furthermore, the scope of each card type could be realized in the early planning and a permanent seven card types were created: "dilemmas", "equipment", "events", "interrupts", "missions", "personnel", and "ships". Decks would consist of five missions, at least twenty dilemmas in a dilemma pile (see below) and at least thirty-five cards made up of the other five card types.
Cost and resources
One major difference in Second Edition was the addition of a cost system to equipment, events, personnel, and ships. A card's cost is listed in the top left-hand corner of a card, directly preceding the card's title as a single digit number (currently anywhere from 0 to 9). A player receives seven 'counters' at the beginning of each turn; to play a card, the player must spend a number of counters equal to the cost of the card. Only interrupts (of the card types in a player's deck) do not have a cost and are treated as 0-cost.
Dilemma pile
Another major change in the gameplay of Second Edition was the new method of handling dilemmas. Instead of using First Edition's lengthy procedure of a 'seed phase', which could last upwards of 15 minutes, Second Edition employs an 'on-the-fly' method for constructing dilemma combinations. Whereas a First Edition player was constrained to using the same dilemmas in each game of a tournament, the Second Edition player has a side deck, or 'dilemma pile' from which to draw a random selection of dilemmas based on the number of personnel the opponent uses in a given mission attempt. This concept is similar to First Edition's Q-Flash side deck, and also to a rules variant of First Edition introduced by a group of players from the San Francisco area called 'Trek 1.5'. This more dynamic method of selecting dilemmas is dependent on a player's ability to remember which personnel his/her opponent has played and their ability to satisfy a dilemma's requirements.
Gameplay considerations
While First Edition attempted to sometimes literally represent instances from the Star Trek universe in the game, Second Edition has focused more on a consistency of gameplay as a priority over design consideration with regard to remaining faithful to the source material. Effects on cards sometimes lack the "Trek sense" that First Edition cards contained and can be purely conceptual, but are generally much more equitable when compared with other similarly costed effects.
Affiliation uniqueness
The affiliations found in Second Edition all follow rules that give them focus and distinguish them from one another, unlike most of the affiliations in First Edition. Playing an affiliation in Second Edition feels more like that affiliation than First Edition, given the themes.
Bajorans are religious and think about how the past affects their lives. This gives them strengths in one of the game's three attributes: Integrity. They can also manipulate the discard pile (conceptually, what has passed on).
Borg are half-mechanical lifeforms that use their superior numbers to overcome resistance and even make an enemy into one of their mindless number. This is represented by a number of abilities that manipulate decks and ignore or otherwise force through dilemmas. They also are very effective in taking over another player's resources, including their personnel. They do not work with any other affiliation.
Cardassians are wasteful in their pursuits of resources and can make great use of political prisoners. This is shown in a variety of drawing mechanisms, which allow players to find cards they want faster at a cost of discarding others. Also, they are the best at holding an opponent's personnel for gain.
The Dominion are a hierarchal society that, as the name implies, dominates other societies. They are conceived in the game as a kind of anti-Federation (see below) and often hurt all players to further their goals. Their personnel are usually Jem'Hadar, who act as shock-troopers and are treated as disposable, Vorta, who act as commanders and diplomats, and Changelings, who are the overall leaders of the Dominion, are protected at all costs, and often use their shape-shifting abilities to infiltrate an opponent's personnel, often meddling with their progress.
The Federation focuses on cooperation and mutual advancement and work to better themselves. In gameplay, their effects often help all players, but planning for this allows a player to take a larger advantage than his or her opponent who does not have advance warning. Their personnel are often the best individuals in the game, but most effects cost a little more to achieve. Each reporting icon (see below) has other themes unique to their show.
The Ferengi are the greedy capitalist of the future, but are mostly weak in each of the attributes. This is achieved in the game by giving them bonuses in almost all areas simply by having more of some resource than an opponent. Also, they will hoard their resources by stacking cards beneath their headquarters mission, using those resources to great effect later.
Non-Aligned personnel are a catch-all affiliation for personnel that do not fit in one of the other affiliations.
Klingons are brutal, but honorable warriors. They can achieve their goals by fighting an opponent either ship to ship or personnel to personnel. The average Klingon has a high Strength, which is one of the three attributes used by the game.
Romulans prefer espionage and sneaky tactics as opposed to direct confrontation. This is realized in the game by manipulating another player's deck, hand, and other resources. Rarely do they affect cards already in play, but they can mess with an opponent's ongoing attempts to score points.
Starfleet is based on the pre-Federation days as depicted in Star Trek: Enterprise. The humans in this era are eager to get out into space and get bonuses for completing a space mission first. As a result, they can be slow to start, but then can easily make up time.
Reporting icons
One aspect of affiliation uniqueness that Second Edition has continued is specialized reporting icons. While not a new idea (First Edition's Mirror, Mirror set first featured Empire and Alliance icons for affiliated personnel and ships), Second Edition's widespread utilization of the icon as a cultural identifier has allowed designers to introduce support cards that better represent the various Trek shows' themes. This is the primary tool to divide the Federation affiliation into separate groups (The Original Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, and Voyager each have an icon representing their personnel and ships). Other likeminded groups can have these icons as well; the Maquis incorporate members of four different affiliations into their arsenal, while the Terok Nor personnel and ships represent the brief period of Cardassian/Dominion command of Deep Space 9.
Releases
1. Second Edition (release: December 12, 2002) The 2E premier was a 415-card introduction into the new mechanics of the restarted game. It introduced the affiliations of the Bajorans, Cardassians, Federation (with Deep Space 9, The Next Generation, and Earth factions), Klingons, Non-Aligned, and Romulan. The cards were sold in Deep Space 9, Klingon, Romulan, and The Next Generation starter decks, which were pre-constructed to allow a player to have a playable deck right away, and in 11-card expansion packs.
2. Energize (release: May 21, 2003) Energize consisted of 180 cards intended to jumpstart the game from the premier. It introduced the Federation faction of the Maquis and expanded the core play of the game. The cards were sold in 11-card expansion packs.
3. Call to Arms (release: September 10, 2003) Call to Arms was a double-sized set at 208 cards. It introduced the affiliations of the Borg, Dominion, and the Ferengi (although the Ferengi consisted only of two cards that played with the Terok Nor faction of both the Cardassians and the Dominion; the full Ferengi affiliation would be released two years later in Strange New Worlds). The cards were sold in Borg and Dominion starter decks, which were pre-constructed to allow a player to have a playable deck right away, and in 11-card expansion packs.
4. Necessary Evil (release: March 17, 2004) Necessary Evil finally established the standard expansion size as 120 cards. Gameplay included personnel crossing affiliation lines and paying larger costs (including losing points and hurting future chances at stopping an opponent with dilemmas with a new keyword (Consume)) for bigger effects. This set also began a tradition of foiling a select eighteen rares and inserting them into one of every seven packs. The foil cards were further made important as 2004 was the 10th anniversary of Star Trek CCG, so a special Tenth Anniversary icon was added to the corner of these foils. The cards were sold in 11-card expansion packs. The set unfortunately suffered from a small print run and became a rare commodity. Efforts were made in Reflections 2.0 to offset this problem of unavailability.
0. Tenth Anniversary Collection (release: May 3, 2004) This set was a foiled promotional collection of eighteen unique ships and commanders. It was labeled with a set number of 0, which is otherwise associated with reprints of various cards with alternate images, as foils, and/or labeled with the promotion in place of the cards' otherwise descriptive, but non-gameplay related lore. The cards themselves were numbered 6 through 23, as five promotional cards had already been printed, and continued the declaration that all foils printed in 2004 would carry the Tenth Anniversary logo. This set, however, does include the last of the cards with that icon, even though Reflections 2.0 also had foil cards in 2004. The collection itself was later reprinted without the Tenth Anniversary logo and numbered 54 through 71. The cards were originally given away with a recommended $3.00 purchase of other Star Trek CCG products, one pair at a time, over a period of nine weeks. The reprints were available for purchase on the Decipher website.
5. Fractured Time (release: October 13, 2004) Fractured Time was a 40-card boutique product that introduced events that had an effect over time by use of a new keyword (Decay) and concepts involving alternate timelines, which the Star Trek universe has often called upon, including the first cards from the "Mirror Universe" that would eventually be revisited in three years with In a "Mirror, Darkly". The cards were sold as a complete set in boxes, complete with the icons of six different affiliations, designed to carry decks. The boxes also included a starter deck and some expansion packs from previous releases with the expectation that the game could be played right out of the box in a sealed tournament format.
6. Reflections 2.0 (release: December 8, 2004) Reflections 2.0 introduced 61 new foil cards to the game and 60 foil reprinted cards from 2E Premier, Energize, Call to Arms, and most importantly, Necessary Evil. The set featured cards that attempted to entice affiliations to try different missions, as mission selection among top decks had become fairly static. The cards were sold in 20-card expansion packs, which included two of the foiled cards and eighteen random cards from past expansions, including Necessary Evil.
7. Strange New Worlds (release: May 13, 2005) Strange New Worlds continued the standard expansion size of 120 cards. It introduced the full affiliation of the Ferengi. Gameplay included a personnel for each affiliation that further took advantage of alternate mission selection, like the personnel in Reflections 2.0. This set's eighteen-card foiled subset was the first to be called an archive foil subset and was numbered separately. In addition, two archive portrait cards were put in one out of every eighteen packs, featuring a larger picture area and restricted gameplay for upcoming cards. The archive foils in this expansion featured two female characters that male fans had historically liked: Seven of Nine (previewing the upcoming Voyager faction of the Federation) and T'Pol (previewing the upcoming Starfleet affiliation). The cards were sold in 11-card expansion packs. The set unfortunately suffered a stalled release date.
'Adversaries Anthology' (release: ??, 2005) The Adversaries Anthology was a collection of eighteen of the most popular Star Trek problems, enemies, and their ships in the game reprinted as foils. The archive foils in this set featured two movie villains: the Borg Queen and Shinzon. The cards were sold in a large card storage box.
8. To Boldly Go (release: August 18, 2006) To Boldly Go was another full 120-card expansion. It introduced the affiliation of Starfleet, the pre-Federation crew from Enterprise as the last full affiliation to be introduced in the game. Gameplay included affiliation-specific dilemmas and reusable events utilizing a new keyword (Replicate). The archive foils in this set featured two show captains: James T. Kirk (previewing the upcoming Original Series faction of the Federation) and Kathryn Janeway (previewing the upcoming Voyager faction of the Federation) . The cards were sold in 11-card expansion packs.
9. Dangerous Missions (release: September 1, 2006) Dangerous Missions was another attempt at making the Star Trek CCG draftable. In other words, players could make decks within a small pool of sealed cards and play. New rules were developed to make the game slightly smaller in scope to adjust for limited resources, including the allowance of a secondary affiliation that would supplement the one sponsored by the product. This draft method remains a sanctioned format. The set consists of nineteen cards broken up into three different boxes, each focusing on an episode or movie for featured personnel, ships, and missions. They also included one unique dilemma and one shared by all three boxes. The boxes also contained Reflections 2.0 packs and three packs from expansions.
10. Captain's Log (release: October 27, 2006) Captain's Log was another full 120-card expansion. It introduced the Federation faction of Voyager, which began with a unique ability to have an all-space deck. Gameplay included strategies based on having the right commander aboard his or her ship and following the opponent around. The archive foils in this set harkened back to the original archive foils. The cards were sold in 11-card expansion packs.
11. Genesis (release: November 13, 2006) Genesis was a 27-card expansion that has the distinction of being the only completely First Edition compatible set in 2E. Each card was designed to work in both versions of the game, with varying degrees of success and introduced the first Original Series personnel and the ability to have an all-planet deck. The cards were sold exclusively from Decipher's website.
12. These Are The Voyages (release: March 13, 2007) These Are the Voyages was another full 120-card expansion. It introduced the Federation faction of The Original Series. Gameplay included the new faction's ability to upgrade by paying more for enhanced abilities, dilemmas based entirely on The Original Series (specifically the slide show images at the end of the classic episodes), and new strategies with The Original Series' main enemies: the Klingons and the Romulans. The cards were sold in 11-card expansion packs.
13. In A Mirror, Darkly (release: June 25, 2007) In a Mirror, Darkly was another full 120-card expansion. Gameplay included cards named after each of the previous releases, more Mirror Universe content, and alternate versions of other personnel who had not been featured in the Mirror Universe, including a battleship version of The Next Generation crew from Yesterday's Enterprise and a historically inaccurate Voyager crew from Living Witness. The cards were sold in 11-card expansion packs.
14. What You Leave Behind (release: December 14, 2007) What You Leave Behind was the last full 120-card expansion. Gameplay included finishing some incomplete themes in the game so far, bonuses for attempting harder missions, and multiple versions of ships telling the story of those ships being commandeered. The cards were sold in 11-card expansion packs. The name of the set itself comes from the last episode of Deep Space 9. This set was sold exclusively through Hill's Wholesale Gaming.
The Continuing Committee
On December 5, 2007, Decipher announced that it would no longer be releasing new sets or officially supporting the game. Decipher have also since removed all Star Trek-related content from their website. A group of players came together and began work on The Continuing Committee (TCC). The name itself comes from the Romulan Continuing Committee, introduced in Deep Space 9, as the name was appropriate for the non-profit work being proposed. Since then, most of the game's faithful community has moved its activities to the new site and work has gone into producing "virtual sets" of cards to provide continuous new blood to the game. These activities are not unprecedented, as another Decipher game, the Star Wars Customizable Card Game had ended its run in January 2002 and had established its own players' committee to deal with the same type of issues. While the Star Wars Players' Committee was introduced by Decipher, the Continuing Committee was not. However, the CEO of Decipher endorsed the Star Trek game, saying "We think it's great that enthusiastic players continue to play the game".
References
Further reading
Preview in Scrye #4
Strategy in Scrye #52
Strategy in Scrye #58
Strategy in Scrye #68
External links
Review in Shadis
Card games introduced in 1994
Collectible card games
Customizable Card Game
Decipher, Inc. games
de:Star-Trek-Spiele |
419667 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missile%20guidance | Missile guidance | Missile guidance refers to a variety of methods of guiding a missile or a guided bomb to its intended target. The missile's target accuracy is a critical factor for its effectiveness. Guidance systems improve missile accuracy by improving its Probability of Guidance (Pg).
These guidance technologies can generally be divided up into a number of categories, with the broadest categories being "active", "passive", and "preset" guidance. Missiles and guided bombs generally use similar types of guidance system, the difference between the two being that missiles are powered by an onboard engine, whereas guided bombs rely on the speed and height of the launch aircraft for propulsion.
History
The concept of unmanned guidance originated at least as early as World War I, with the idea of remotely guiding an airplane bomb onto a target, such as the systems developed for the first powered drones by Archibald Low (the father of radio guidance).
In World War II, guided missiles were first developed, as part of the German V-weapons program. Project Pigeon was American behaviorist B.F. Skinner's attempt to develop a pigeon-guided bomb.
The first U.S. ballistic missile with a highly accurate inertial guidance system was the short-range PGM-11 Redstone.
Categories of guidance systems
Guidance systems are divided into different categories according to whether they are designed to attack fixed or moving targets. The weapons can be divided into two broad categories: Go-onto-target (GOT) and go-onto-location-in-space (GOLIS) guidance systems. A GOT missile can target either a moving or fixed target, whereas a GOLIS weapon is limited to a stationary or near-stationary target. The trajectory that a missile takes while attacking a moving target is dependent upon the movement of the target. A moving target can be an immediate threat to the missile launcher. The target must be promptly eliminated in order to preserve the launcher. In GOLIS systems, the problem is simpler because the target is not moving.
GOT systems
In every go-onto-target system there are three subsystems:
Target tracker
Missile tracker
Guidance computer
The way these three subsystems are distributed between the missile and the launcher result in two different categories:
Remote control guidance: The guidance computer is on the launcher. The target tracker is also placed on the launching platform.
Homing guidance: The guidance computers are in the missile and in the target tracker.
Remote control guidance
These guidance systems usually need the use of radars and a radio or wired link between the control point and the missile; in other words, the trajectory is controlled with the information transmitted via radio or wire (see Wire-guided missile). These systems include:
Command guidance – The missile tracker is on the launching platform. These missiles are fully controlled by the launching platform that sends all control orders to the missile. The two variants are
Command to line-of-sight (CLOS)
Command off line-of-sight (COLOS)
Line-of-sight beam riding guidance (LOSBR) – The target tracker is on board the missile. The missile already has some orientation capability meant for flying inside the beam that the launching platform is using to illuminate the target. It can be manual or automatic.
Command to line-of-sight
The CLOS system uses only the angular coordinates between the missile and the target to ensure the collision. The missile is made to be in the line of sight between the launcher and the target (LOS), and any deviation of the missile from this line is corrected. Since so many types of missile use this guidance system, they are usually subdivided into four groups: A particular type of command guidance and navigation where the missile is always commanded to lie on the line of sight (LOS) between the tracking unit and the aircraft is known as command to line of sight (CLOS) or three-point guidance. That is, the missile is controlled to stay as close as possible on the LOS to the target after missile capture is used to transmit guidance signals from a ground controller to the missile. More specifically, if the beam acceleration is taken into account and added to the nominal acceleration generated by the beam-rider equations, then CLOS guidance results. Thus, the beam rider acceleration command is modified to include an extra term. The beam-riding performance described above can thus be significantly improved by taking the beam motion into account. CLOS guidance is used mostly in shortrange air defense and antitank systems.
Manual command to line-of-sight
Both target tracking and missile tracking and control are performed manually. The operator watches the missile flight, and uses a signaling system to command the missile back into the straight line between operator and target (the "line of sight"). This is typically useful only for slower targets, where significant "lead" is not required. MCLOS is a subtype of command guided systems. In the case of glide bombs or missiles against ships or the supersonic Wasserfall against slow-moving B-17 Flying Fortress bombers this system worked, but as speeds increased MCLOS was quickly rendered useless for most roles.
Semi-manual command to line-of-sight
Target tracking is automatic, while missile tracking and control is manual.
Semi-automatic command to line-of-sight
Target tracking is manual, but missile tracking and control is automatic. It is similar to MCLOS but some automatic systems position the missile in the line of sight while the operator simply tracks the target. SACLOS has the advantage of allowing the missile to start in a position invisible to the user, as well as generally being considerably easier to operate. It is the most common form of guidance against ground targets such as tanks and bunkers.
Automatic command to line-of-sight
Target tracking, missile tracking and control are automatic.
Command off line-of-sight
This guidance system was one of the first to be used and still is in service, mainly in anti-aircraft missiles. In this system, the target tracker and the missile tracker can be oriented in different directions. The guidance system ensures the interception of the target by the missile by locating both in space. This means that they will not rely on the angular coordinates like in CLOS systems. They will need another coordinate which is distance. To make it possible, both target and missile trackers have to be active. They are always automatic and the radar has been used as the only sensor in these systems. The SM-2MR Standard is inertially guided during its mid-course phase, but it is assisted by a COLOS system via radar link provided by the AN/SPY-1 radar installed in the launching platform.
Line-of-sight beam riding guidance
LOSBR uses a "beam" of some sort, typically radio, radar or laser, which is pointed at the target and detectors on the rear of the missile keep it centered in the beam. Beam riding systems are often SACLOS, but do not have to be; in other systems the beam is part of an automated radar tracking system. A case in point is the later versions of the RIM-8 Talos missile as used in Vietnam – the radar beam was used to take the missile on a high arcing flight and then gradually brought down in the vertical plane of the target aircraft, the more accurate SARH homing being used at the last moment for the actual strike. This gave the enemy pilot the least possible warning that his aircraft was being illuminated by missile guidance radar, as opposed to search radar. This is an important distinction, as the nature of the signal differs, and is used as a cue for evasive action.
LOSBR suffers from the inherent weakness of inaccuracy with increasing range as the beam spreads out. Laser beam riders are more accurate in this regard, but they are all short-range, and even the laser can be degraded by bad weather. On the other hand, SARH becomes more accurate with decreasing distance to the target, so the two systems are complementary.
Homing guidance
Proportional navigation
Proportional navigation (also known as "PN" or "Pro-Nav") is a guidance principle (analogous to proportional control) used in some form or another by most homing air target missiles. It is based on the fact that two objects are on a collision course when the direction of their direct line-of-sight does not change. PN dictates that the missile velocity vector should rotate at a rate proportional to the rotation rate of the line of sight (line-Of-sight rate or LOS-rate) and in the same direction.
Radar homing
Active homing
Active homing uses a radar system on the missile to provide a guidance signal. Typically, electronics in the missile keep the radar pointed directly at the target, and the missile then looks at this "angle" of its own centerline to guide itself. Radar resolution is based on the size of the antenna, so in a smaller missile these systems are useful for attacking only large targets, ships or large bombers for instance. Active radar systems remain in widespread use in anti-shipping missiles, and in "fire-and-forget" air-to-air missile systems such as the AIM-120 AMRAAM and R-77.
Semi-active homing
Semi-active homing systems combine a passive radar receiver on the missile with a separate targeting radar that "illuminates" the target. Since the missile is typically being launched after the target was detected using a powerful radar system, it makes sense to use that same radar system to track the target, thereby avoiding problems with resolution or power, and reducing the weight of the missile. Semi-active radar homing (SARH) is by far the most common "all weather" guidance solution for anti-aircraft systems, both ground- and air-launched.
It has the disadvantage for air-launched systems that the launch aircraft must keep moving towards the target in order to maintain radar and guidance lock. This has the potential to bring the aircraft within range of shorter-ranged IR-guided (infrared-guided) missile systems. It is an important consideration now that "all aspect" IR missiles are capable of "kills" from head on, something which did not prevail in the early days of guided missiles. For ships and mobile or fixed ground-based systems, this is irrelevant as the speed (and often size) of the launch platform precludes "running away" from the target or opening the range so as to make the enemy attack fail.
SALH is similar to SARH but uses a laser as a signal. Another difference is that most laser-guided weapons employ turret-mounted laser designators which increase the launching aircraft's ability to maneuver after launch. How much maneuvering can be done by the guiding aircraft depends on the turret field of view and the system's ability to maintain a lock-on while maneuvering. As most air-launched, laser-guided munitions are employed against surface targets the designator providing the guidance to the missile need not be the launching aircraft; designation can be provided by another aircraft or by a completely separate source (frequently troops on the ground equipped with the appropriate laser designator).
Passive homing
Infrared homing is a passive system that homes in on the heat generated by the target. Typically used in the anti-aircraft role to track the heat of jet engines, it has also been used in the anti-vehicle role with some success. This means of guidance is sometimes also referred to as "heat seeking".
Contrast seekers use a video camera, typically black and white, to image a field of view in front of the missile, which is presented to the operator. When launched, the electronics in the missile look for the spot on the image where the contrast changes the fastest, both vertically and horizontally, and then attempts to keep that spot at a constant location in its view. Contrast seekers have been used for air-to-ground missiles, including the AGM-65 Maverick, because most ground targets can be distinguished only by visual means. However they rely on there being strong contrast changes to track, and even traditional camouflage can render them unable to "lock on".
Retransmission homing
Retransmission homing, also called "track-via-missile" or "TVM", is a hybrid between command guidance, semi-active radar homing and active radar homing. The missile picks up radiation broadcast by the tracking radar which bounces off the target and relays it to the tracking station, which relays commands back to the missile.
AI guidance
In 2017, Russian weapons manufacturer Tactical Missiles Corporation announced that it was developing missiles that would use artificial intelligence to choose their own targets. In 2019, the United States Army announced it was developing a similar technology.
GOLIS systems
Whatever the mechanism used in a go-onto-location-in-space guidance system is, it must contain preset information about the target. These systems' main characteristic is the lack of a target tracker. The guidance computer and the missile tracker are located in the missile. The lack of target tracking in GOLIS necessarily implies navigational guidance.
Navigational guidance is any type of guidance executed by a system without a target tracker. The other two units are on board the missile. These systems are also known as self-contained guidance systems; however, they are not always entirely autonomous due to the missile trackers used. They are subdivided by their missile tracker's function as follows:
Entirely autonomous – Systems where the missile tracker does not depend on any external navigation source, and can be divided into:
Inertial guidance
With a gimballed gyrostabilized platform or fluid-suspended gyrostabilized platform
With strapdown inertial guidance
Preset guidance
Dependent on natural sources – Navigational guidance systems where the missile tracker depends on a natural external source:
Celestial guidance
Astro-inertial guidance
Terrestrial guidance
Topographic reconnaissance (Ex: TERCOM)
Photographic reconnaissance (Ex: DSMAC)
Magnetic guidance
Dependent on artificial sources – Navigational guidance systems where the missile tracker depends on an artificial external source:
Satellite navigation
Global positioning system (GPS)
Global navigation satellite system (GLONASS)
Hyperbolic navigation
DECCA
LORAN C
Preset guidance
Preset guidance is the simplest type of missile guidance. From the distance and direction of the target, the trajectory of the flight path is determined. Before firing, this information is programmed into the missile's guidance system, which, during flight, maneuvers the missile to follow that path. All of the guidance components (including sensors such as accelerometers or gyroscopes) are contained within the missile, and no outside information (such as radio instructions) is used. An example of a missile using preset guidance is the V-2 rocket.
Inertial guidance
Inertial guidance uses sensitive measurement devices to calculate the location of the missile due to the acceleration put on it after leaving a known position. Early mechanical systems were not very accurate, and required some sort of external adjustment to allow them to hit targets even the size of a city. Modern systems use solid state ring laser gyros that are accurate to within metres over ranges of 10,000 km, and no longer require additional inputs. Gyroscope development has culminated in the AIRS found on the MX missile, allowing for an accuracy of less than 100 m at intercontinental ranges. Many civilian aircraft use inertial guidance using a ring laser gyroscope, which is less accurate than the mechanical systems found in ICBMs, but which provide an inexpensive means of attaining a fairly accurate fix on location (when most airliners such as Boeing's 707 and 747 were designed, GPS was not the widely commercially available means of tracking that it is today). Today guided weapons can use a combination of INS, GPS and radar terrain mapping to achieve extremely high levels of accuracy such as that found in modern cruise missiles.
Inertial guidance is most favored for the initial guidance and reentry vehicles of strategic missiles, because it has no external signal and cannot be jammed. Additionally, the relatively low precision of this guidance method is less of an issue for large nuclear warheads.
Astro-inertial guidance
Astro-inertial guidance is a sensor fusion-information fusion of inertial guidance and celestial navigation. It is usually employed on submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Unlike silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, whose launch point does not move and thus can serve as a reference, SLBMs are launched from moving submarines, which complicates the necessary navigational calculations and increases circular error probable. This stellar-inertial guidance is used to correct small position and velocity errors that result from launch condition uncertainties due to errors in the submarine navigation system and errors that may have accumulated in the guidance system during the flight due to imperfect instrument calibration.
The USAF sought a precision navigation system for maintaining route accuracy and target tracking at very high speeds. Nortronics, Northrop's electronics development division, had developed an astro-inertial navigation system (ANS), which could correct inertial navigation errors with celestial observations, for the SM-62 Snark missile, and a separate system for the ill-fated AGM-48 Skybolt missile, the latter of which was adapted for the SR-71.
It uses star positioning to fine-tune the accuracy of the inertial guidance system after launch. As the accuracy of a missile is dependent upon the guidance system knowing the exact position of the missile at any given moment during its flight, the fact that stars are a fixed reference point from which to calculate that position makes this a potentially very effective means of improving accuracy.
In the Trident missile system this was achieved by a single camera that was trained to spot just one star in its expected position (it is believed that the missiles from Soviet submarines would track two separate stars to achieve this), if it was not quite aligned to where it should be then this would indicate that the inertial system was not precisely on target and a correction would be made.
Terrestrial guidance
TERCOM, for "terrain contour matching", uses altitude maps of the strip of land from the launch site to the target, and compares them with information from a radar altimeter on board. More sophisticated TERCOM systems allow the missile to fly a complex route over a full 3D map, instead of flying directly to the target. TERCOM is the typical system for cruise missile guidance, but is being supplanted by GPS systems and by DSMAC, digital scene-matching area correlator, which employs a camera to view an area of land, digitizes the view, and compares it to stored scenes in an onboard computer to guide the missile to its target.
DSMAC is reputed to be so lacking in robustness that destruction of prominent buildings marked in the system's internal map (such as by a preceding cruise missile) upsets its navigation.
See also
Artillery fuze
Countermeasure
Electronic warfare
List of missiles
Magnetic proximity fuze
Precision bombing
Precision-guided munition
Proximity fuze
Proximity sensor
Terminal guidance
References
External links
Missile operation
Missile technology
Tracking
Targeting (warfare) |
419686 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedagogy | Pedagogy | Pedagogy (), from Ancient Greek παιδαγωγία (paidagōgía), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as an academic discipline, is the study of how knowledge and skills are imparted in an educational context, and it considers the interactions that take place during learning. Both the theory and practice of pedagogy vary greatly as they reflect different social, political, and cultural contexts.
Pedagogy is often described as the act of teaching. The pedagogy adopted by teachers shapes their actions, judgments, and teaching strategies by taking into consideration theories of learning, understandings of students and their needs, and the backgrounds and interests of individual students. Its aims may range from furthering liberal education (the general development of human potential) to the narrower specifics of vocational education (the imparting and acquisition of specific skills). Conventional western pedagogies view the teacher as knowledge holder and student as the recipient of knowledge (described by Paulo Freire as "banking methods"), but theories of pedagogy increasingly identify the student as an agent and the teacher as a facilitator.
Instructive strategies are governed by the pupil's background knowledge and experience, situation and environment, as well as learning goals set by the student and teacher. One example would be the Socratic method.
Definition and etymology
The meaning of the term "pedagogy" is often contested and a great variety of definitions has been suggested. The most common approach is to define it as the study or science of teaching methods. In this sense, it is the methodology of education. As a methodology, it investigates the ways and practices that can be used to realize the aims of education. The main aim is often identified with the transmission of knowledge. Other aims include fostering skills and character traits. They include helping the student develop their intellectual and social abilities as well as psychomotor and affective learning, which are about developing practical skills and adequate emotional dispositions, respectively.
However, not everyone agrees with this characterization of pedagogy and some see it less as a science and more as an art or a craft. This characterization puts more emphasis on the practical aspect of pedagogy, which may involve various forms of "tacit knowledge that is hard to put into words". This approach is often based on the idea that the most central aspects of teaching are only acquired by practice and cannot be easily codified through scientific inquiry. In this regard, pedagogy is concerned with "observing and refining one's skill as a teacher". A more inclusive definition combines these two characterizations and sees pedagogy both as the practice of teaching and the discourse and study of teaching methods. Some theorists give an even wider definition by including considerations such as "the development of health and bodily fitness, social and moral welfare, ethics and aesthetics". Due to this variety of meanings, it is sometimes suggested that pedagogy is a "catch-all term" associated with various issues of teaching and learning. In this sense, it lacks a precise definition.
According to Patricia Murphy, a detailed reflection on the meaning of the term "pedagogy" is important nonetheless since different theorists often use it in very different ways. In some cases, non-trivial assumptions about the nature of learning are even included in its definition. Pedagogy is often specifically understood in relation to school education. But in a wider sense, it includes all forms of education, both inside and outside schools. In this wide sense, it is concerned with the process of teaching taking place between two parties: teachers and learners. The teacher's goal is to bring about certain experiences in the learner to foster their understanding of the subject matter to be taught. Pedagogy is interested in the forms and methods used to convey this understanding.
Pedagogy is closely related to didactics but there are some differences. Usually, didactics is seen as the more limited term that refers mainly to the teacher's role and activities, i.e how their behavior is most beneficial to the process of education. This is one central aspect of pedagogy besides other aspects that consider the learner's perspective as well. In this wider sense, pedagogy focuses on "any conscious activity by one person designed to enhance learning in another".
The word pedagogy is a derivative of the Greek (paidagōgia), from (paidagōgos), itself a synthesis of (ágō), "I lead", and (, genitive , ) "boy, child": hence, "attendance on boys, to lead a child". It is pronounced variously, as , , or . The related word pedagogue has had a negative connotation of pedantry, dating from at least the 1650s; a related expression is educational theorist. The term "pedagogy" is also found in the English discourse, but it is more broadly discussed in other European languages, such as French and German.
History
Western
In the Western world, pedagogy is associated with the Greek tradition of philosophical dialogue, particularly the Socratic method of inquiry. A more general account of its development holds that it emerged from the active concept of humanity as distinct from a fatalistic one and that history and human destiny are results of human actions. This idea germinated in ancient Greece and was further developed during the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Age of Enlightenment.
Socrates
Socrates (470 – 399 BCE) employed the Socratic method while engaging with a student or peer. This style does not impart knowledge, but rather tries to strengthen the logic of the student by revealing the conclusions of the statement of the student as erroneous or supported. The instructor in this learning environment recognizes the learners' need to think for themselves to facilitate their ability to think about problems and issues. It was first described by Plato in the Socratic Dialogues.
Plato
Plato (428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BCE) describes a system of education in The Republic (375 BCE) in which individual and family rights are sacrificed to the State. He describes three castes: one to learn a trade; one to learn literary and aesthetic ideas; and one to be trained in literary, aesthetic, scientific, and philosophical ideas. Plato saw education as a fulfillment of the soul, and by fulfilling the soul the body subsequently benefited. Plato viewed physical education for all as a necessity to a stable society.
Aristotle
Aristotle (384–322 BCE) composed a treatise, On Education, which was subsequently lost. However, he renounced Plato's view in subsequent works, advocating for a common education mandated to all citizens by the State. A small minority of people residing within Greek city-states at this time were considered citizens, and thus Aristotle still limited education to a minority within Greece. Aristotle advocates physical education should precede intellectual studies.
Quintilian
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (35 – 100 CE) published his pedagogy in Institutio Oratoria (95 CE). He describes education as a gradual affair, and places certain responsibilities on the teacher. He advocates for rhetorical, grammatical, scientific, and philosophical education.
Tertullian
Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus (155 – 240 CE) was a Christian scholar who rejected all pagan education, insisting this was "a road to the false and arrogant wisdom of ancient philosophers".
Jerome
Saint Jerome (347 – 30 September 420 CE), or Saint Hieronymus, was a Christian scholar who detailed his pedagogy of girls in numerous letters throughout his life. He did not believe the body in need of training, and thus advocated for fasting and mortification to subdue the body. He only recommends the Bible as reading material, with limited exposure, and cautions against musical instruments. He advocates against letting girls interact with society, and of having "affections for one of her companions than for others." He does recommend teaching the alphabet by ivory blocks instead of memorization so "She will thus learn by playing." He is an advocate of positive reinforcement, stating "Do not chide her for the difficulty she may have in learning. On the contrary, encourage her by commendation..."
Jean Gerson
Jean Charlier de Gerson (13 December 1363 – 12 July 1429), the Chancellor of the University of Paris, wrote in De parvulis ad Christum trahendis "Little children are more easily managed by caresses than fear," supporting a more gentle approach than his Christian predecessors. He also states "Above all else, let the teacher make an effort to be a father to his pupils." He is considered a precursor of Fenelon.
John Amos Comenius
John Amos Comenius (28 March 1592 – 15 November 1670) is considered the father of modern education.
Johann Pestalozzi
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (January 12, 1746 – February 17, 1827), founder of several educational institutions both in German- and French-speaking regions of Switzerland and wrote many works explaining his revolutionary modern principles of education. His motto was "Learning by head, hand and heart".
Johann Herbart
The educational philosophy and pedagogy of Johann Friedrich Herbart (4 May 1776 – 14 August 1841) highlighted the correlation between personal development and the resulting benefits to society. In other words, Herbart proposed that humans become fulfilled once they establish themselves as productive citizens. Herbartianism refers to the movement underpinned by Herbart's theoretical perspectives. Referring to the teaching process, Herbart suggested five steps as crucial components. Specifically, these five steps include: preparation, presentation, association, generalization, and application. Herbart suggests that pedagogy relates to having assumptions as an educator and a specific set of abilities with a deliberate end goal in mind.
John Dewey
The pedagogy of John Dewey (20 October 1859 – 1 June 1952) is presented in several works, including My Pedagogic Creed (1897), The School and Society (1900), The Child and the Curriculum (1902), Democracy and Education (1916), Schools of To-morrow (1915) with Evelyn Dewey, and Experience and Education (1938). In his eyes, the purpose of education should not revolve around the acquisition of a pre-determined set of skills, but rather the realization of one's full potential and the ability to use those skills for the greater good (My Pedagogic Creed, Dewey, 1897). Dewey advocated for an educational structure that strikes a balance between delivering knowledge while also taking into account the interests and experiences of the student (The Child and the Curriculum, Dewey, 1902). Dewey not only re-imagined the way that the learning process should take place but also the role that the teacher should play within that process. He envisioned a divergence from the mastery of a pre-selected set of skills to the cultivation of autonomy and critical-thinking within the teacher and student alike.
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire (September 19, 1921 – May 2, 1997) was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. He is best known for his influential work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which is generally considered one of the foundational texts of the critical pedagogy movement.
Eastern
Confucius
Confucius (551–479 BCE) stated that authority has the responsibility to provide oral and written instruction to the people under the rule, and "should do them good in every possible way." One of the deepest teachings of Confucius may have been the superiority of personal exemplification over explicit rules of behavior. His moral teachings emphasized self-cultivation, emulation of moral exemplars, and the attainment of skilled judgement rather than knowledge of rules. Other relevant practices in the Confucian teaching tradition include the Rite and its notion of body-knowledge as well as Confucian understanding of the self, one that has a broader conceptualization than the Western individual self.
Pedagogical considerations
Hidden curriculum
A hidden curriculum refers to extra educational activities or side effect of an education, "[lessons] which are learned but not openly intended" such as the transmission of norms, values, and beliefs conveyed in the classroom and the social environment.
Learning space
Learning space or learning setting refers to a physical setting for a learning environment, a place in which teaching and learning occur. The term is commonly used as a more definitive alternative to "classroom", but it may also refer to an indoor or outdoor location, either actual or virtual. Learning spaces are highly diverse in use, learning styles, configuration, location, and educational institution. They support a variety of pedagogies, including quiet study, passive or active learning, kinesthetic or physical learning, vocational learning, experiential learning, and others.
Learning theories
Learning theories are conceptual frameworks describing how knowledge is absorbed, processed, and retained during learning. Cognitive, emotional, and environmental influences, as well as prior experience, all play a part in how understanding, or a world view, is acquired or changed and knowledge and skills retained.
Distance learning
Distance education or long-distance learning is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school. Traditionally, this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via post. Today it involves online education. Courses that are conducted (51 percent or more) are either hybrid, blended or 100% distance learning. Massive open online courses (MOOCs), offering large-scale interactive participation and open access through the World Wide Web or other network technologies, are recent developments in distance education. A number of other terms (distributed learning, e-learning, online learning, etc.) are used roughly synonymously with distance education.
Teaching resource adaptation
Adapting the teaching resource should suit appropriate teaching and learning environments, national and local cultural norms, and make it accessible to different types of learners. Key adaptations in teaching resource include:
Classroom constraints
Large class size – consider smaller groups or have discussions in pairs;
Time available – shorten or lengthen the duration of activities;
Modifying materials needed – find, make or substitute required materials;
Space requirements – reorganize classroom, use a larger space, move indoors or outdoors.
Cultural familiarity
Change references to names, food and items to make them more familiar;
Substitute local texts or art (folklore, stories, songs, games, artwork and proverbs).
Local relevance
Use the names and processes for local institutions such as courts;
Be sensitive of local behavior norms (e.g. for genders and ages);
Ensure content is sensitive to the degree of rule of law in society (trust in authorities and institutions).
Inclusivity for diverse students
Appropriate reading level(s) of texts for student use;
Activities for different learning styles;
Accommodation for students with special educational needs;
Sensitivity to cultural, ethnic and linguistic diversity;
Sensitivity to students' socioeconomic status.
Pedagogical approaches
Critical pedagogy
Critical pedagogy is both a pedagogical approach and a broader social movement. Critical pedagogy asserts that educational practices are contested and shaped by history, that schools are not politically neutral spaces, and that teaching is political. Decisions regarding the curriculum, disciplinary practices, student testing, textbook selection, the language used by the teacher, and more can empower or disempower students. It asserts that educational practices favor some students over others and some practices harm all students. It also asserts that educational practices often favor some voices and perspectives while marginalizing or ignoring others. Another aspect examined is the power the teacher holds over students and the implications of this. Its aims include empowering students to become active and engaged citizens, who are able to actively improve their own lives and their communities.
Critical pedagogical practices may include listening to and including students' knowledge and perspectives in class, making connections between school and the broader community, and posing problems to students that encourage them to question assumed knowledge and understandings. The goal of problem posing to students is to enable them to begin to pose their own problems. Teachers acknowledge their position of authority and exhibit this authority through their actions that support students.
Dialogic learning
Dialogic learning is learning that takes place through dialogue. It is typically the result of egalitarian dialogue; in other words, the consequence of a dialogue in which different people provide arguments based on validity claims and not on power claims.
Student-centered learning
Student-centered learning, also known as learner-centered education, broadly encompasses methods of teaching that shift the focus of instruction from the teacher to the student. In original usage, student-centered learning aims to develop learner autonomy and independence by putting responsibility for the learning path in the hands of students. Student-centered instruction focuses on skills and practices that enable lifelong learning and independent problem-solving.
Academic degrees
The academic degree Ped. D., Doctor of Pedagogy, is awarded honorarily by some US universities to distinguished teachers (in the US and UK, earned degrees within the instructive field are classified as an Ed.D., Doctor of Education, or a Ph.D., Doctor of Philosophy). The term is also used to denote an emphasis in education as a specialty in a field (for instance, a Doctor of Music degree in piano pedagogy).
Pedagogues across the world
The education of pedagogues, and their role in society, varies greatly from culture to culture.
Belgium
Important pedagogues in Belgium are Jan Masschelein and Maarten Simons (Catholic University of Leuven). According to these scholars, schools nowadays are often dismissed as outdated or ineffective. Deschoolers even argue that schools rest on the false premise that schools are necessary for learning but that people learn faster or better outside the classroom. Others critique the fact that some teachers stand before a classroom with only six weeks of teacher education. Against this background, Masschelein and Simons propose to look at school from a different point of view. Their educational morphology approaches the school as a particular scholastic 'form of gathering'. What the authors mean with that, is the following: school is a particular time-space-matter arrangement. This thus includes concretes architectures, technologies, practices and figures. This arrangement "deals in a specific way with the new generation, allows for a particular relation to the world, and for a particular experience of potentiality and of commonality (of making things public)".
Masschelein and Simons' most famous work is the book "Looking after school: a critical analysis of personalisation in Education". It takes a critical look at the main discourse of today's education. Education is seen through a socio-economic lens: education is aimed at mobilising talents and competencies (p23). This is seen in multiple texts from governing bodies, in Belgium and Europe. One of the most significant examples is quoted on page 23: "Education and training can only contribute to growth and job-creation if learning is focused on the knowledge, skills and competences to be acquired by students (learning outcomes) through the learning process, rather than on completing a specific stage or on time spent in school." (European Commission, 2012, p.7) This is, according to Masschelein and Simons a plea for learning outcomes and demonstrates a vision of education in which the institution is no longer the point of departure. The main ambition in this discourse of education is the efficient and effective realisation of learning outcomes for all. Things like the place and time of learning, didactic and pedagogic support are means to an end: the acquisition of preplanned learning outcomes. And these outcomes are a direct input for the knowledge economy. Masschelein and Simons' main critique here is that the main concern is not the educational institution (anymore). Rather, the focus lies on the learning processes and mainly on the learning outcomes of the individual learner.
Brazil
In Brazil, a pedagogue is a multidisciplinary educator. Undergraduate education in Pedagogy qualifies students to become school administrators or coordinators at all educational levels, and also to become multidisciplinary teachers, such as pre-school, elementary and special teachers.
Denmark
In Scandinavia, a pedagogue (pædagog) is broadly speaking a practitioner of pedagogy, but the term is primarily reserved for individuals who occupy jobs in pre-school education (such as kindergartens and nurseries). A pedagogue can occupy various kinds of jobs, within this restrictive definition, e.g. in retirement homes, prisons, orphanages, and human resource management. When working with at-risk families or youths they are referred to as social pedagogues (socialpædagog).
The pedagogue's job is usually distinguished from a teacher's by primarily focusing on teaching children life-preparing knowledge such as social or non-curriculum skills, and cultural norms. There is also a very big focus on the care and well-being of the child. Many pedagogical institutions also practice social inclusion. The pedagogue's work also consists of supporting the child in their mental and social development.
In Denmark all pedagogues are educated at a series of national institutes for social educators located in all major cities. The education is a 3.5-year academic course, giving the student the title of a Bachelor in Social Education (Danish: Professionsbachelor som pædagog).
It is also possible to earn a master's degree in pedagogy/educational science from the University of Copenhagen. This BA and MA program has a more theoretical focus compared to the more vocational Bachelor in Social Education.
Hungary
In Hungary, the word pedagogue (pedagógus) is synonymous with the teacher (tanár); therefore, teachers of both primary and secondary schools may be referred to as pedagogues, a word that appears also in the name of their lobbyist organizations and labor unions (e.g. Labor Union of Pedagogues, Democratic Labor Union of Pedagogues). However, undergraduate education in Pedagogy does not qualify students to become teachers in primary or secondary schools but makes them able to apply to be educational assistants. As of 2013, the 6-year training period was re-installed in place of the undergraduate and postgraduate division which characterized the previous practice.
Modern pedagogy
An article from Kathmandu Post published on 3 June 2018 described the usual first day of school in an academic calendar. Teachers meet their students with distinct traits. The diversity of attributions among children or teens exceeds similarities. Educators have to teach students with different cultural, social, and religious backgrounds. This situation entails a differentiated strategy in pedagogy and not the traditional approach for teachers to accomplish goals efficiently.
American author and educator Carol Ann Tomlinson defined Differentiated Instruction as "teachers' efforts in responding to inconsistencies among students in the classroom." Differentiation refers to methods of teaching. She explained that Differentiated Instruction gives learners a variety of alternatives for acquiring information. Primary principles comprising the structure of Differentiated Instruction include formative and ongoing assessment, group collaboration, recognition of students' diverse levels of knowledge, problem-solving, and choice in reading and writing experiences.
Howard Gardner gained prominence in the education sector for his Multiple Intelligences Theory. He named seven of these intelligences in 1983: Linguistic, Logical and Mathematical, Visual and Spatial, Body and Kinesthetic, Musical and Rhythmic, Intrapersonal, and Interpersonal. Critics say the theory is based only on Gardner's intuition instead of empirical data. Another criticism is that the intelligence is too identical for types of personalities. The theory of Howard Gardner came from cognitive research and states these intelligences help people to "know the world, understand themselves, and other people." Said differences dispute an educational system that presumes students can "understand the same materials in the same manner and that a standardized, collective measure is very much impartial towards linguistic approaches in instruction and assessment as well as to some extent logical and quantitative styles."
See also
Evidence-based education
Outline of education
Scholarship of teaching and learning
References
Sources
Further reading
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The Process of Education, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a Theory of Instruction. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belkapp Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1971). The Relevance of Education. New York, NY: Norton
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum
Montessori, M. (1910). Antropologia Pedagogica.
Montessori, M. (1921). Manuale di Pedagogia Scientifica.
Montessori, M. (1934). Psico Geométria.
Montessori, M. (1934). Psico Aritmética.
Piaget, J. (1926). The Language and Thought of the Child. London: Routledge & Kegan.
Karl Rosenkranz (1848). Pedagogics as a System. Translated 1872 by Anna C. Brackett, R.P. Studley Company
Karl Rosenkranz (1899). The philosophy of education. D. Appleton and Co.
Vygotsky, L. (1962). Thought and Language. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Post Scriptum: From Signature Pedagogies and Transpedagogy to Author Pedagogies. In Ojeda, D. (2019) I Shall Be Several, Studies in Art Education, 60:3, 186–202, DOI: 10.1080/00393541.2019.1640513
Didactics
Educational psychology
Teaching |
419710 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages%20with%20official%20status%20in%20India | Languages with official status in India | There is no national language in India. However, article 343(1) of the Indian constitution specifically mentions that "The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script. The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the international form of Indian numerals," while article 343(2) allowed for the continuation of English as an official language for another 15 years and 343(3) gave the parliament the power to provide for the use of English language after this period. The clause 3 of the Official Languages Act, 1963 allows for the continued use of English language for official purposes of the Union government and for parliamentary business. Hence Indian English and Modern Standard Hindi are the Official Languages of the Government of India.
Business in the Indian parliament may only be conducted in Hindi or in English. In addition to the official languages, the constitution recognises 22 regional languages, which include Hindi but not English, as scheduled languages (see below). According to Article 120, members of parliament are allowed to speak and present their views in any of the 22 scheduled languages recognised by the Constitution of India. English is allowed to be used for official purposes, including in parliamentary proceedings, the judiciary, and communications between the Central Government and a State Government. There are various official languages in India at the state/territory-level.
States can specify their own official language(s) through legislation. The section of the Constitution of India dealing with official languages, therefore, includes detailed provisions which deal not just with the languages used for the official purposes of the union, but also with the languages that are to be used for the official purposes of each state and union territory in the country, and the languages that are to be used for communication between the union and the states.
History
The official languages of British India before independence were English, Standard Urdu and later Modern Standard Hindi, with English being used for purposes at the central level. The origins of official Hindi usage traces back to 1900, when MacDonnell issued an order, which allowed the “permissive — but not exclusive — use” of Devanagari for Hindustani language in the courts of North-Western Provinces.
Following independence, the Constituent Assembly remained divided on the language issue, with some like R. V. Dulekar and Seth Govind Das favouring declaring Hindi written in devanagri the national language of India immediately, while within the camp favouring Hindi there were divisions over whether the script of the language should be devanagri or roman, whether Hindustani with both devanagri and urdu scripts be retained, and whether the numerals should be international or devanagri. Meanwhile some like Frank Anthony, T A Ramalingam Chettiar, and Naziruddin Ahmad wanted to continue the usage of English, while Nehru although supporting the dropping of English as an official language in favour of Hindi/Hindustani cautioned against forcefully doing so in face of opposition in the South. The Indian constitution, adopted in 1950; as a compromise, envisaged that English would be phased out in favour of Hindi, over a fifteen-year period, but gave Parliament the power to, by law, provide for the continued use of English even thereafter.
Plans to make Hindi the sole official language of the Republic were met with resistance in many parts of the country, especially in Tamil Nadu, which had a history of opposing imposition of the Hindi language dating back to 1937, when the Justice Party opposed the then Congress led Madras Government's decision to make Hindi compulsory in secondary schools.
English and Hindi continue to be used today, in combination with other (at the central level and in some states) official languages. The legal framework governing the use of languages for official purpose currently is the Official Languages Act, 1963, the Official Language Rules, 1976, and various state laws, as well as rules and regulations made by the central government and the states.
Scheduled languages of the Indian Constitution
The Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India contains a list of 22 "Scheduled Languages" (official languages) of the Republic of India.
The table below lists the 22 scheduled languages of the Republic of India as set out in the Eighth Schedule as of May 2008, together with the regions where they are widely spoken and used as the state's official language. However, states are not mandated to choose their official languages from the scheduled languages. Sindhi is not official in any states or union territories even though it is listed in the Eighth Schedule.
List
Benefits
For all the scheduled languages
The scheduled languages have the following benefits:
Best Feature Film in any of the scheduled languages are eligible for the National Film Awards.
Literary works in any of the scheduled languages are eligible for the Sahitya Akademi Awards, the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prizes and the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar.
Literary works in any of the scheduled languages are eligible for the Gyanpeeth Awards (Jnanpith Awards).
People who contribute to the literature of any of the scheduled languages are eligible for the Sahitya Akademi Fellowship, which is more honourable than even receiving the Sahitya Akademi Award.
Prose or poetry literary works in any of the scheduled languages are eligible for the Saraswati Samman, the highest among all the literary awards in India.
Writers who contribute to the literature of any of the scheduled languages are eligible for the Bhasha Samman Awards.
Candidates for Union Public Service Commission can appear examination for optional papers in any of the literature of the scheduled languages.
For some of the scheduled languages
11 out of the 22 scheduled languages are made available in the official website of the Indian Prime Minister's Office, namely Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Meitei (Manipuri), Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu in addition to English and Hindi.
14 out of the 22 scheduled languages are made available in the Press Information Bureau (PIB) by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting of the Government of India (GOI), namely Dogri, Punjabi, Bengali, Odia, Gujarati, Marathi, Meitei (Manipuri), Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Malayalam, Konkani and Urdu, in addition to Hindi and English.
13 out of the 22 scheduled languages are selected by the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) of the Government of India, to be made available in the conduction of the Multi-Tasking (Non-Technical) Staff examination across the country, namely Urdu, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Kannada, Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Konkani, Meitei (Manipuri), Marathi, Odia and Punjabi, in addition to Hindi and English.
Demands for scheduled language status
At present, as per the Ministry of Home Affairs, there are demands for inclusion of 38 more languages
in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. These are: Angika, Banjara, Bajjika, Bhojpuri, Bhoti, Bhotia, Bundelkhandi, Chhattisgarhi, Dhatki, English, Garhwali, Gondi, Gujjari, Ho, Kachhi, Kamtapuri, Karbi, Khasi, Kodava, Kokborok, Kumaoni, Kurukh, Kurmali, Lepcha, Limbu, Mizo, Magahi, Mundari, Nagpuri, Nicobarese, Pahari, Pali, Rajasthani, Sambalpuri, Shauraseni Prakrit, Saraiki, Tenyidi and Tulu.
Official languages of the Union
The Indian constitution, in 1950, declared Hindi in Devanagari script to be the official language of the union. Unless Parliament decided otherwise, the use of English for official purposes was to cease 15 years after the constitution came into effect, that is, on 26 January 1965. The prospect of the changeover, however, led to much alarm in the non-Hindi-speaking areas of India, especially Dravidian-speaking states whose languages were not related to Hindi at all. As a result, Parliament enacted the Official Languages Act, 1963, which provided for the continued use of English for official purposes along with Hindi, even after 1965.
In late 1964, an attempt was made to expressly provide for an end to the use of English, but it was met with protests from states and territories, including Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Punjab, West Bengal, Karnataka, Puducherry, Nagaland, Mizoram and Andhra Pradesh. Some of these protests also turned violent. As a result, the proposal was dropped, and the Act itself was amended in 1967 to provide that the use of English would not be ended until a resolution to that effect was passed by the legislature of every state that had not adopted Hindi as its official language, and by each house of the Indian Parliament.
The position was thus that the Union government continues to use English in addition to Hindi for its official purposes as a "subsidiary official language", but is also required to prepare and execute a program to progressively increase its use of Hindi. The exact extent to which, and the areas in which, the Union government uses Hindi and English, respectively, is determined by the provisions of the Constitution, the Official Languages Act, 1963, the Official Languages Rules, 1976, and statutory instruments made by the Department of Official Language under these laws.
Department of Official Language was set up in June 1975 as an independent Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Parliamentary proceedings and laws
The Indian constitution distinguishes the language to be used in Parliamentary proceedings, and the language in which laws are to be made. Parliamentary business, according to the Constitution, may be conducted in either Hindi or English. The use of English in parliamentary proceedings was to be phased out at the end of fifteen years unless Parliament chose to extend its use, which Parliament did through the Official Languages Act, 1963. Also, the constitution permits a person who is unable to express themselves in either Hindi or English to, with the permission of the Speaker of the relevant House, address the House in their mother tongue.
In contrast, the constitution requires the authoritative text of all laws, including Parliamentary enactments and statutory instruments, to be in English, until Parliament decides otherwise. Parliament has not exercised its power to so decide, instead merely requiring that all such laws and instruments, and all bills brought before it, also be translated into Hindi, though the English text remains authoritative. The Official Languages act, 1963 provides that the authoritative text of central acts, rules, regulations, etc., are published in Hindi as well in the official gazette by President of India.
Judiciary
The constitution provides, and the Supreme Court of India has reiterated, that all proceedings in the Supreme Court and the High Courts shall be in English. Parliament has the power to alter this by law but has not done so. However, in many high courts, there is, with consent from the president, allowance of the optional use of Hindi. Such proposals have been successful in the states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar.
Administration
The Official Language Act provides that the Union government shall use both Hindi and English in most administrative documents that are intended for the public, though the Union government is required by law to promote the use of Hindi. The Official Languages Rules, in contrast, provide for a higher degree of use of Hindi in communications between offices of the central government (other than offices in Tamil Nadu, to which the rules do not apply). Communications between different departments within the central government may be in English and Hindi (though the English text remains authoritative), although a translation into the other language must be provided if required. Communications within offices of the same department, however, must be in Hindi if the offices are in Hindi-speaking states, and in either Hindi or English otherwise with Hindi being used in proportion to the percentage of staff in the receiving office who have a working knowledge of Hindi. Notes and memos in files may be in English and Hindi (though the English text remains authoritative), with the Government having a duty to provide a translation into the other language if required.
Besides, every person submitting a petition for the redress of a grievance to a government officer or authority has a constitutional right to submit it in any language used in India.
Implementation
Various steps have been taken by the Indian government to implement the use and familiarisation of Hindi extensively. Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha headquartered at Chennai was formed to spread Hindi in South Indian states. Regional Hindi implementation offices at Bangalore, Thiruvananthapuram, Mumbai, Kolkata, Guwahati, Bhopal, Delhi and Ghaziabad have been established to monitor the implementation of Hindi in Central government offices and PSUs.
Annual targets are set by the Department of Official Language regarding the amount of correspondence being carried out in Hindi. A Parliament Committee on Official Language constituted in 1976 periodically reviews the progress in the use of Hindi and submits a report to the President. The governmental body which makes policy decisions and established guidelines for the promotion of Hindi is the Kendriya Hindi Samiti (est. 1967). In every city that has more than ten central Government offices, a Town Official Language Implementation Committee is established and cash awards are given to government employees who write books in Hindi. All Central government offices and PSUs are to establish Hindi Cells for implementation of Hindi in their offices.
In 2016, the government announced plans to promote Hindi in government offices in Southern and Northeast India.
The Indian constitution does not specify the official languages to be used by the states for the conduct of their official functions and leaves each state free to, through its legislature, adopt Hindi or any language used in its territory as its official language or languages. The language need not be one of those listed in the Eighth Schedule, and several states have adopted official languages which are not so listed. Examples include Kokborok in Tripura and Mizo in Mizoram.
Legislature and administration
The constitutional provisions in relation to use of the official language in legislation at the State level largely mirror those relating to the official language at the central level, with minor variations. State legislatures may conduct their business in their official language, Hindi or (for a transitional period, which the legislature can extend if it so chooses) English, and members who cannot use any of these have the same rights to their mother tongue with the Speaker's permission. The authoritative text of all laws must be in English unless Parliament passes a law permitting a state to use another language, and if the original text of a law is in a different language, an authoritative English translation of all laws must be prepared.
The state has the right to regulate the use of its official language in public administration, and in general, neither the constitution nor any central enactment imposes any restriction on this right. However, every person submitting a petition for the redress of a grievance to any officer or authority of the state government has a constitutional right to submit it in any language used in that state, regardless of its official status.
Besides, the constitution grants the central government, acting through the President, the power to issue certain directives to the government of a state in relation to the use of minority languages for official purposes. The President may direct a State to officially recognise a language spoken in its territory for specified purposes and in specified regions if its speakers demand it and satisfy him that a substantial proportion of the State's population desires its use. Similarly, States and local authorities are required to endeavour to provide primary education in the mother tongue for all linguistic minorities, regardless of whether their language is official in that State, and the President has the power to issue directions he deems necessary to ensure that they are provided these facilities.
State judiciary
States have significantly less freedom in relation to determining the language in which judicial proceedings in their respective High Courts will be conducted. The constitution gives the power to authorise the use of Hindi, or the state's official language in proceedings of the High Court to the Governor, rather than the state legislature and requires the Governor to obtain the consent of the President of India, who in these matters acts on the advice of the Government of India. The Official Languages Act gives the Governor a similar power, subject to similar conditions, in relation to the language in which the High Court's judgments will be delivered.
Four states—Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan— have been granted the right to conduct proceedings in their High Courts in their official language, which, for all of them, was Hindi. However, the only non-Hindi state to seek a similar power—Tamil Nadu, which sought the right to conduct proceedings in Tamil in the Madras High Court—had its application rejected by the central government earlier, which said it was advised to do so by the Supreme Court. In 2006, the law ministry said that it would not object to Tamil Nadu state's desire to conduct Madras High Court proceedings in Tamil. In 2010, the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court allowed lawyers to argue cases in Tamil.
Official status in states and territories
Official languages of States
List of official languages of states of India
Official languages of Union Territories
Official languages of Union Territories
Union–state and interstate communication
The language in which communications between different states, or from the union government to a state or a person in a state, shall be sent is regulated by the Official Languages Act and, for states other than Tamil Nadu, by the Official Languages Rules. Communication between states which use Hindi as their official language is required to be in Hindi, whereas communication between a state whose official language is Hindi and one whose is not, is required to be in English, or, in Hindi with an accompanying English translation (unless the receiving state agrees to dispense with the translation).
Communication between the union and states which use Hindi as their official language (classified by the Official Language Rules as "the states in Region A"), and with persons who live in those states, is generally in Hindi, except in certain cases. Communication with a second category of states "Region B", which do not use Hindi as their official language but have elected to communicate with the union in Hindi (currently Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Punjab) is usually in Hindi, whilst communications sent to an individual in those states may be in Hindi and English. Communication with all other states "Region C", and with people living in them, is in English.
Writing systems
Each official language has a designated official script using which it is written for official purposes.
See also
Languages of India
List of languages by number of native speakers in India
Indian States by most spoken scheduled languages
The Eighth Schedule to the Indian Constitution
Notes
References
External links
Department of Official Language (DOL) – Official webpage explains the chronological events related to Official Languages Act and amendments
Central Institute of Indian Languages – A comprehensive central government site that offers complete info on Indian Languages (archived 13 December 2004)
Reconciling Linguistic Diversity: The History and the Future of Language Policy in India by Jason Baldridge
Multilingualism and language policy in India (archived 7 February 2012)
Words and phrases in more than 30 Indian languages
India
Languages of India
Official languages |
419713 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard%20Russell%20Jr. | Richard Russell Jr. | Richard Brevard Russell Jr. (November 2, 1897 – January 21, 1971) was an American politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as the 66th Governor of Georgia from 1931 to 1933 before serving in the United States Senate for almost 40 years, from 1933 to 1971. Russell was a founder and leader of the conservative coalition that dominated Congress from 1937 to 1963, and at his death was the most senior member of the Senate. He was for decades a leader of Southern opposition to the civil rights movement.
Born in Winder, Georgia, Russell established a legal practice in Winder after graduating from the University of Georgia School of Law. He served in the Georgia House of Representatives from 1921 to 1931 before becoming Governor of Georgia. Russell won a special election to succeed Senator William J. Harris and joined the Senate in 1933. He supported the New Deal in his Senate career but helped establish the conservative coalition of Southern Democrats. He was the chief sponsor of the National School Lunch Act, which provided free or low-cost school lunches to impoverished students.
During his long tenure in the Senate, Russell served as chairman of several committees, and was the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services for most of the period between 1951 and 1969. He was a candidate for President of the United States at the 1948 Democratic National Convention and the 1952 Democratic National Convention. He was also a member of the Warren Commission.
Russell supported racial segregation and co-authored the Southern Manifesto with Strom Thurmond. Russell and 17 fellow Democratic Senators, along with one Republican, blocked the passage of civil rights legislation via the filibuster. After Russell's protégé, President Lyndon B. Johnson, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, Russell led a Southern boycott of the 1964 Democratic National Convention. Russell served in the Senate until his death from emphysema in 1971.
Early life
Richard B. Russell Jr. was born in 1897 as the first son of Georgia Supreme Court Chief Justice Richard B. Russell Sr. and Ina Russell. He eventually had a total of twelve adult siblings, as well as two who died before adolescence.
Throughout Russell Jr.'s childhood, his father made multiple attempts to run for higher political office. Though he was a well-liked state representative for Clarke County and a successful solicitor general for a seven-county circuit, he fared poorly in multiple attempts to become U.S. Senator for Georgia and Governor of Georgia. Due to his political failures, the Russell family lived below their financial means at times.
From an early age, the elder Russell trained his son to succeed his father's legacy in the state. Due to the family's loss of their ancestral plantation and mill during Sherman's March, Russell spent much time studying Civil War history.
Russell enrolled in the University of Georgia School of Law in 1915 and earned a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B.) degree in 1918. While at UGA, he was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society.
Dominated by white conservatives, Democrats controlled state government and the Congressional delegation. The Republican Party was no longer competitive, hollowed out in the state following the effective disenfranchisement of most blacks by Georgia's approval of a constitutional amendment, effective in 1908, requiring a literacy test, but providing a "grandfather clause" to create exceptions for whites.
Early political career
Following his time at college, Russell briefly worked at a law firm with his father before successfully running for the Georgia House of Representatives at the earliest opportunity. Six years into his tenure, Russell ran unopposed for the Speakership at the age of 29. His popularity among his legislator colleagues came from his perceived integrity and willingness to build coalitions.
Governor of Georgia, 1931–1933
As governor, Russell reorganized the bureaucracy, promoted economic development in the midst of the Great Depression, and balanced the state budget.
During Russell's governorship, World War I veteran Robert Elliot Burns released the autobiography I Am A Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang!, which had previously been serialized in True Detective magazine and would become a popular Paul Muni film in November 1932. The book details the multiple stints Burns served in the Georgian penal system and his attempts to escape.
Following the release of the book and the film adaptation, Russell attempted to extradite Burns from the state of New Jersey so Burns could continue to serve his sentence. Russell denounced Burns' depictions of the horrific hard labor in his state, calling New Jersey Governor A. Harry Moore's refusal to return Burns to Georgia "a slander on the state of Georgia and its institutions."
Senate career, 1933–1971
Russell supported the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression. In 1936, he defeated the former demagogic Governor Eugene Talmadge for the US Senate seat by defending the New Deal as good for Georgia. Russell was elected on a moderately progressive platform, and supported bailout and aid programmes for local governments. Once in the Senate, he became an ardent supporter of the Roosevelt administration and New Deal programs, and expressed his support for "the fullest measure of relief that the combined resources of this commonwealth will afford." Russell endorsed almost every New Deal act during the "Hundred Days" Congress session; once a rift in the Democratic Party emerged in 1935, resulting in filibusters and deadlocks, Russell continued to support the President and the New Deal. Howard N. Mead observes that even "when many other Southern politicians began to express some measure of discontent with the administration and its proposals, Russell remained firm in his support". When competing with conservative Talmadge for the Georgian Senate seat, Russell expressed his fervent support for income tax and social welfare, consistently praised the New Deal in his speeches, and attacked Talmadge for his fiscal conservatism.
Russell continued to be an outspoken economic progressive even after World War II, and was the main sponsor of the 1946 National School Lunch Act, which was named after him. He expanded and carried out projects to distribute surplus food of Georgia to poor families through food stamps and school lunch programs, and wished to tackle rural poverty. After the establishment of a national school lunch program, Russell continuously pushed for funding it further throghout 1950s and 1960s, and sought active promotion and implementation of Georgian foods such as peanuts in the program, and saw it as a way to promote the interests of Georgian farmers.
During World War II, Russell was known for his uncompromising position toward Japan and its civilian casualties. In the late months of the war, he held that the US should not treat Japan with more lenience than Germany, and that the United States should not encourage Japan to sue for peace.
Russell's support for first-term senator Lyndon B. Johnson paved the way for Johnson to become Senate Majority Leader. Russell often dined at Johnson's house during their Senate days. But, their 20-year friendship came to an end during Johnson's presidency, in a fight over the 1968 nomination as Chief Justice of Abe Fortas, Johnson's friend and Supreme Court justice.
In early 1956, Russell's office was continually used as a meeting place by Southern fellow senators Strom Thurmond, James Eastland, Allen Ellender, and John Stennis, the four having a commonality of being dispirited with Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 ruling by the US Supreme Court that said that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional.
In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy requested Russell place the Presidential wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns during an appearance at Arlington National Cemetery for a Memorial Day ceremony.
Russell scheduled a closed door meeting for the Senate Armed Services Committee for August 31, 1961, at the time of Senator Strom Thurmond requesting the committee vote on whether to vote to investigate "a conspiracy to muzzle military anti-Communist drives."
In late February 1963, the Senate Armed Services Committee was briefed by Defense Secretary Robert McNamara on policy in the Caribbean. Russell said afterward that he believed that American airmen would strike down foreign jets in international waters and only inquire on the aircraft’s purpose there afterward.
In January 1964, President Johnson delivered the 1964 State of the Union Address, calling for Congress to "lift by legislation the bars of discrimination against those who seek entry into our country, particularly those who have much needed skills and those joining their families." Russell issued a statement afterward stating the commitment by Southern senators to oppose such a measure, which he called "shortsighted and disastrous," while admitting the high probability of it passing. He added that the civil rights bill's true intended effect was to intermingle races, eliminate states' rights, and abolish the checks and balances system.
Although he had served as a prime mentor of Johnson, Russell and Johnson disagreed over civil rights. Johnson supported this as President. Russell, a segregationist, had repeatedly blocked and defeated federal civil rights legislation via use of the filibuster.
Unlike Theodore Bilbo, "Cotton Ed" Smith, and James Eastland, who had reputations as ruthless, tough-talking, heavy-handed race baiters, Russell never justified hatred or acts of violence to defend segregation. But he strongly defended white supremacy and apparently did not question it or ever apologize for his segregationist views, votes and speeches. Russell was key, for decades, in blocking meaningful civil rights legislation intended to protect African Americans from lynching, disenfranchisement, and disparate treatment under the law. After Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Russell (along with more than a dozen other southern Senators, including Herman Talmadge and Russell Long) boycotted the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City.
Russell was considered to be moderate in his support for segregation; in 1936, he often attacked his opponent's Talmadge race-baiting, such as the claim that New Deal legislation would mostly benefit Afro-Americans. W. J. Cash considered Russell "the better sort of Southerner", as he was ready to call out "ruffian appeals to race hatred" of his opponents. James Thomas Gay claimed that Russell "wished blacks no ill"; in the 1950s, Russell corresponded with a black voter from Dublin, Georgia Hercules Moore, who raised concerns that African-American children were being treated unfairly in the school lunch programme. Russell took the matter seriously and "later gave Moore satisfactory evidence that the program was being properly administered for children of both races.".
Russell strongly condemned President Truman's pro-desegregation stance and wrote that he was "sick at heart" over it, but unlike most Southern Democrats such as Strom Thurmond, he did not walk out of the convention. Russell was one of the strongest opponents of every desegregation measure in the Senate, but he remained loyal to the party. Although he called the 1960 Democratic Party platform a "complete surrender to the NAACP and the other extreme radicals at Los Angeles", he did agree to campaign for the Kennedy-Johnson ticket for the 1960 United States presidential election.
In 1952, Russell was a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination; while he did not discuss civil rights while campaigning, his platform named "local self-government" one of the major "Jeffersonian Principles". Russell claimed that the goal of his candidacy was to showcase the principles of "Southern Democracy" and to allow Southern Democrats to form a united front against the North. While he decisively defeated Estes Kefauver in the Florida primary, Russell was opposed by most of Democrats as he refused to support the civil rights plank of the party.
From 1963 to 1964, Russell was one of the members of the Warren Commission, which was charged to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963. Russell's personal papers indicated that he was troubled by the Commission's single-bullet theory, the Soviet Union's failure to provide greater detail regarding Lee Harvey Oswald's period in Russia, and the lack of information regarding Oswald's Cuba-related activities.
In June 1968, Chief Justice Earl Warren announced his decision to retire. President Johnson afterward announced the nomination of Associate Justice Abe Fortas for the position. David Greenburg wrote that when Russell "decided in early July to oppose Fortas, he brought most of his fellow Dixiecrats with him."
Russell was a prominent supporter of a strong national defense. He used his powers as chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1951 to 1969, and then as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee as an institutional base to gain defense installations and jobs for Georgia. He was dubious about the Vietnam War, privately warning President Johnson repeatedly against deeper involvement.
Legacy
Russell was seen as a hero by many of the pro Jim Crow South. While undoubtedly a skilled politician of immense influence, his legacy is marred by his lifelong support of white supremacy. Russell publicly said that America was “a white man’s country, yes, and we are going to keep it that way.” He also said he was vehemently opposed to “political and social equality with the Negro.” Russell also supported poll taxes across the South and called President Truman's support of civil rights for black Americans an “uncalled-for attack on our Southern civilization."
Russell has been honored by having the following named for him:
The Russell Senate Office Building, oldest of the three U.S. Senate office buildings. In 2018, Democratic Senate minority leader Charles Schumer called for the renaming of the building with the name of recently deceased Republican Senator John McCain.
The Richard B. Russell Special Collections Building at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, which houses the Hargrett Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Russell Library for Political Research and Studies, the Walter J. Brown Media Archives, and the Peabody Awards Collection.
Russell Hall, a co-ed dormitory for first-year students at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.
Russell Hall, a building at the University of Georgia College of Public Health that houses nineteen classrooms within the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia.
The Russell Auditorium at Georgia College and State University in Milledgeville, Georgia.
Richard B. Russell Dam and Lake, part of the Richard B. Russell Multiple Resource Area, located on the upper Savannah River between Elberton, Georgia, and Calhoun Falls, South Carolina. A Georgia state park on the shores of that lake also bears Russell's name.
The Richard B. Russell Airport in Rome, Georgia, the regional general aviation airport serving Floyd County, Georgia.
Senator Russell's Sweet Potatoes are a favorite southern dish around the holidays.
USS Richard B. Russell (SSN-687), a Sturgeon-class attack submarine.
Richard B. Russell Highway, a part of the Russell–Brasstown Scenic Byway
Richard B. Russell Parkway in Fort Valley, Georgia
Richard B. Russell Middle School in Winder, Georgia
In 2020, former Georgia Board of Regents Chairman Sachin Shailendra and then Chancellor Steve Wrigley of the University System of Georgia tasked an advisory group to review the names of buildings and colleges across all campuses within the USG. Members of the advisory group consisted of Marion Fedrick, the tenth and current president of Albany State University in Albany, Georgia, Michael Patrick of Chick-fil-A, retired judge Herbert Phipps of the Georgia Court of Appeals, current chairman of the University of Georgia Foundation, Neal J. Quirk Sr., and Dr. Sally Wallace, the current dean of the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies of Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia.
Despite recommendations from the advisory group to rename all buildings associated with Russell, the Georgia Board of Regents did not move forward with any of the final recommendations from the advisory group's report.
See also
References
Further sources
Primary sources
Logue, Calvin McLeod and Freshley, Dwight L., eds. (1997). Voice of Georgia: Speeches of Richard B. Russell, 1928–1969
Scholarly secondary sources
Campbell, Charles E. (2013). Senator Richard B. Russell and my Career as a Trial Lawyer. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press)
Caro, Robert A. (2002). The Years of Lyndon Johnson, vol 3: Master of the Senate
Fite, Gilbert (2002). Richard B. Russell Jr., Senator from Georgia
Finley, Keith M. (2008). Delaying the Dream: Southern Senators and the Fight Against Civil Rights, 1938–1965 Baton Rouge: LSU Press
Goldsmith, John A. (1993). Colleagues: Richard B. Russell and His Apprentice, Lyndon B. Johnson.
Grant, Philip A. Jr. "Editorial Reaction to the 1952 Presidential Candidacy of Richard B. Russell." Georgia Historical Quarterly 1973 57(2): 167–178.
Mann, Robert (1996). The Walls of Jericho: Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, Richard Russell and the Struggle for Civil Rights.
Mead, Howard N. "Russell vs. Talmadge: Southern Politics and the New Deal." Georgia Historical Quarterly 1981 65(1): 28–45.
Shelley II, Mack C. (1983). The Permanent Majority: The Conservative Coalition in the United States Congress
Ziemke, Caroline F. "Senator Richard B. Russell and the 'Lost Cause' in Vietnam, 1954–1968," Georgia Historical Quarterly'' 1988 72(1): 30–71.
External links
Richard Brevard Russell Jr. biography
Letter from Senator Russell to President Truman 7 August 1945 after Bombing of Hiroshima
The New Georgia Encyclopedia entry for Richard B. Russell Jr.
Richard B. Russell Library for Political Research and Studies
Russell Community and Hall at UGA
Richard B. Russell State Park
Legends of the Dead-Ball Era, 1909–1913: Childhood baseball card collection of Richard B. Russell Jr. from the Digital Library of Georgia
Russell House historical marker
1897 births
1971 deaths
20th-century American politicians
Candidates in the 1948 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 1952 United States presidential election
Deaths from emphysema
Democratic Party governors of Georgia (U.S. state)
Democratic Party United States senators from Georgia (U.S. state)
Georgia (U.S. state) lawyers
Gordon State College alumni
Democratic Party members of the Georgia House of Representatives
Members of the Warren Commission
Military personnel from Georgia (U.S. state)
Old Right (United States)
People from Winder, Georgia
Presidents pro tempore of the United States Senate
Speakers of the Georgia House of Representatives
United States Navy personnel of World War I
University of Georgia alumni
Sigma Alpha Epsilon members
Signatories of the Southern Manifesto |
419719 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger%20Wolfe%20Kahn | Roger Wolfe Kahn | Roger Wolfe Kahn (October 19, 1907 – July 12, 1962) was an American jazz and popular musician, composer, bandleader (Roger Wolfe Kahn and His Orchestra) and an aviator.
Life and career
Roger Wolfe Kahn (originally spelled "Wolff") was born in Morristown, New Jersey, into a wealthy German Jewish banking family. His parents were Adelaide "Addie" (Wolff) and Otto Hermann Kahn, a famous banker and patron of the arts. His maternal grandfather was banker Abraham Wolff. Otto and Roger Kahn were the first father and son to appear separately on the cover of Time magazine: Otto in November 1925 and Roger in September 1927, aged 19.
On 16 August 1926, Time magazine wrote: "If it is strange that Otto Hermann Kahn, sensitive patron of high art in Manhattan, should have a saxophone-tooting, banjo-plunking, clarinet-wailing, violin-jazzing son, it is stranger still that that son, Roger Wolfe Kahn, has become a truly outstanding jazzer at the perilous age of 18. Roger's ten orchestras, one of which he leads, have netted him some $30,000".
Kahn began studying the violin aged six and is said to have learned to play eighteen musical instruments before starting to lead his own orchestra in 1923, aged only 16. At the age of ten, Kahn had bought a ukulele in a Ditson Music Shop in Manhattan together with special-priced instruction on how to play; such was his keen interest in music. The ukulele lured him away from his studies at St. Bernard's School and turned his mind toward violins, pianos, banjos and jazz orchestras. At St. Bernard's he took no more interest in athletics than he did in studies or in social activities. By the age of sixteen, he’d rejected studying at college. Instead, he formed his own booking agency and organized a paying band and installed it at the Knickerbocker Grill in New York. He could play every instrument in the outfit, all self-taught, and his favorite instruments to play were the piano and saxophone. By the time he reached nineteen, he had eleven orchestras on his books that played in resorts and hotels from Newport, Rhode Island to Florida. They’d netted him personally an average of $50,000 a year for the four years of their existence. His success enabled him to pursue his passion for composing music and aviation.
In 1925, Kahn appeared in a short film made in Lee De Forest's Phonofilm sound-on-film process. Kahn hired many famous jazz musicians and singers of the day to play and sing in his band, especially during recording sessions (e.g.) Tommy Dorsey, Morton Downey, Joe Venuti, Eddie Lang, Artie Shaw, Jack Teagarden, Red Nichols, Libby Holman, Gertrude Niesen, Franklyn Baur, Dick Robertson, Elmer Feldkamp and Gene Krupa. Early on in his career Kahn made several recordings under the name Roger Wolfe Kahn and His Hotel Biltmore Orchestra. It was during September, 1925, that Joe Venuti joined the Kahn Orchestra during their residency at the New York Biltmore Hotel.
On 15 December 1925, Kahn and his Orchestra recorded four takes of the song Rhythm Of The Day for Victor Records and for some reason Victor chose not to release any of them. Undeterred, Kahn wrote the song Following You Around, which made him money and George Whiteman went on to arrange the score of Kahn’s stage musical Rhapsurdity. Another musical comedy Kahn wrote, (a satire on musical comedy) called Hearts and Flowers, was produced by Horace Liveright.
He made recordings for:
Victor 1925–29,
Brunswick 1929–30,
Columbia in 1932.
In February 1926, Kahn's recording of I'm Sitting On Top Of The World charted at #9. It was reported in Variety, (September 29, 1926); "Roger Wolfe Kahn and his original Victor orchestra of eleven are getting $4200 for five and a half days booking commencing October 4 at the New Orpheum Palace, Chicago, which Kahn's band will headline at the opening attraction. The Kahn outfit returns to the Albee, Brooklyn, NY followed by the Palace Theatre, New York, following which they commence rehearsals for their new cafe, Le Perroquet de Paris, scheduled for opening in November".
Kahn fronted several fashionable night clubs in New York. One of his own clubs, Le Perroquet de Paris, opened in New York in November 1926 with a five-dollar cover charge. On 16 August 1926, Time magazine wrote: "Last week, Roger announced his purchase of Giro's (night club) in Manhattan; his partner is Rene Racover of the Perroquet in Paris (France); his resort's new name is Perroquet de Paris." Kahn spent $250,000 of his father’s money on decorating the club and installing a silver stage proscenium. The club had a mirrored dance floor and aquariums beneath the individual tables and Kahn made a point of following the Parisian example of giving expensive souvenirs to the women that visited his clubs. At Le Perroquet de Paris he gave each female guest a bottle of premier perfume. Variety magazine reported Le Perroquet de Paris to be, "the last gasp in smart night clubs. Ultra artistic with an ultra 'In following' (with) the millionaire maestro's own crack dance band. Be sure to make it. $5 couvert."
In 1927, Kahn produced two Vitaphone film shorts called Night Club. One short featured an act called the Williams Sisters (a singing/dancing duo). Both shorts were filmed on February 14, 1927 at the Manhattan Opera House on 315 West 34th Street in New York, and the Williams Sisters were featured in the short numbered Vitaphone #469 as 'signing and dancing youngsters' performing a number titled "Thinking of You." The Vitaphone film was an early attempt at sound movies which used both film and disk for sound. A reviewer in the San Antonio Express, April 10, 1927 wrote: "Roger Wolfe Kahn's specialty on the Vitaphone is undoubtedly the best subject offered since the installation of the devise. His instrumental harmony is wonderful and original... and the Williams Sisters act brings the act above par for any circuit." A copy of the sound disk supposedly exits at the Library of Congress in Washington, but the film elements are missing and presumed lost.
In some respect, due to his father's prominence, Kahn’s imagined Gatsbyesque lifestyle made him a regular feature of gossip columns, although in reality he was carefully unobtrusive and shied away from company. Were it not for his precipitous enthusiasms and precocious successes he may well have attracted little more than statistical notice. Unlike his younger days when he took little interest in fashion, by the time he’d reached twenty, as an eligible bachelor he’d grown more debonair. During one trip to Europe in 1927, he returned to New York City with fifty new tailored-suits and untold neckties, shoes and hats. It was even reported in the press that during the trip he’d become engaged to marry a Miss Virginia Franck (a professional dancer), which turned out to be an untruth.
During 1927, Kahn hired Hannah Williams from the Williams Sisters to dance in a revue at his New York Night Club, Le Perroquet de Paris. It was during her engagement at the club that she popularised the song, "Hard Hearted Hannah (The Vamp of Savannah)".
In 1928, Kahn co-wrote the jazz standard "Crazy Rhythm" with Irving Caesar and Joseph Meyer for the Broadway musical Here's Howe.
Kahn always had fun leading and conducting his orchestra. Reportedly, when the band was playing especially well he used to throw himself onto the floor and wave his legs in the air.
However, the passion Kahn had for music was usurped by his deeper passion for flying and it was during his many trips accompanying his parents to Europe that Kahn developed his aviation skills. During one trip to France he chartered his own plane in Paris and flew it to London. Unlike the transatlantic hero, Charles Lindbergh, who after his triumphant arrival in Paris was to cross the English Channel by air the same day and had to postpone the flight on account of a heavy fog, Kahn flew anyway.
As well as owning a string of expensive motor vehicles and a speedboat, Kahn went on to purchase a stunt airplane, which he flew to compete in transcontinental races. Kahn’s love of ‘speed’ became an ongoing worry for his parents.
Aviation career
On March 29, 1934, Kahn’s father, Otto Hermann Kahn died. Doubtless, his father’s sudden and unexpected death played a major role in Kahn reassessing his own life and career. Kahn's interest in aviation was no secret; he was already a member of the Advisory Board for the American Society for the Promotion of Aviation. He joined as early as 1928 and in 1933, Kahn had become a test pilot for Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation on Long Island, a well-known aircraft manufacturer.
Kahn would later excel in the role of managing the technical service and sales division of Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation and Grumman built a special sales aircraft, known as a G-58B (a modified F8F Bearcat fighter plane), in which he toured numerous military bases across North America during his career with the company. In 1943, Kahn was chairman of the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences and later became its vice-president . In 1956, Kahn became a member of the Laura Taber Barbour Air Safety Award Board (LTBASAB). Kahn also became chairman of the National Aeronautic Association (NAA).
The Kahn Orchestra 1938 reunion concert
In 1938, the Kahn Orchestra reformed to perform a special one-off concert, in what could have been the Kahn Orchestra’s last concert. The show was held in honor of the unveiling of the Golden Age Aviation Mural installed at Roosevelt Field Airport: the mural was painted by the artist Aline Rhonie Hofheimer (a pilot herself) who had been commissioned to paint a fresco mural on the north brick wall of Roosevelt Field Hangar F. The mural commemorated the history of aviation from 1908 to 1927 ending with Charles Lindbergh's trans-Atlantic flight. After the mural was completed, there was an artist's reception and party held at Roosevelt Field Airport on October 15, 1938. The invitation’s read, ‘You are invited to attend a party and barn dance given in honor of Aline Rhonie commemorating her achievement in the completion of the world’s largest aviation fresco depicting the history of aviation.’ It was at this reception that ‘"A" Roger Wolfe Kahn Orchestra’ performed. That might have meant a tribute-type band, or it may have been that Rhonie was able to use her pilot network to coax Kahn to reform a band to perform during this special occasion. The party ran from ten in the evening until dawn. The New York Times on October 17, 1938 reported, 'The fresco was unveiled at a party on Saturday night, attended by more than 500 guests. This all-night party, with informal dress, was probably THE event for October at Roosevelt Field.' It doesn't mention in the report whether Kahn himself fronted the orchestra.
Discography
Hot Hot Hottentot
Mountain Greenery
One Night In the Jungle
Nobody Loves Me
Following You Around
One Summer Night
Cross Your Heart
Sometimes I'm Happy
I'm Sitting on Top of the World
Jersey Walk
Tell Me Tonight
Tonight You Belong to Me
A Cup of Coffee, a Sandwich and You
I Can't Believe That You're in Love with Me
Anything You Say
Crazy Rhythm (later used in Woody Allen's film Bullets Over Broadway (1994))
Imagination
Liza
Russian Lullaby
She's a Great Great Girl (the closing theme song of WAMU's Hot Jazz Saturday Night hosted by Rob Bamberger) Also notable for the lengthy early solo by Jack Teagarden.
A Shine On Your Shoes
Lazy Day
It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)
My Silent Love
Broadway shows
Vogues (1924) - revue
Here's Howe (1928) – musical – co-composer
Americana (1928) – revue – composer
9:15 Revue (11 February 1930) – revue - (Cohan Theatre, N. Y.) (contributing composer)
Filmography
The Yacht Party - (1932) Directed by Roy Mack – cast: Roger Wolfe Kahn, Gertrude Niesen, Melissa Mason (contortionist), Eaton Boys, Chauncey Morehouse (drums), Artie Shaw (clarinet). The film is shot on board a yacht and includes Kahn and his Orchestra playing "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", "Dinah" and "Lullaby of the Leaves". Footage towards the end of the film shows an aeroplane flying overhead performing stunts. It was rumoured that Roger Wolfe Kahn flew the plane that performed the stunts.
The Kahn Family
Roger Wolfe Kahn was born in Morristown, New Jersey, into a family surrounded by wealth, art and artistic people. He had one elder brother, Gilbert, and two elder sisters, Maude and Margaret Dorothy. It was at Morristown that the children grew up and where their days were carefully scheduled and regulated by their mother Adelaide Wolff Kahn. During week days the children followed a scheduled program of lessons interspersed with play. At the weekends, the routine was shattered with the arrival of their father, Otto Kahn, from New York. For when he was near his children, he was irrepressible and would constantly divert them and give them his undivided attention. Otto Kahn's wisdom in life was to "Live life. Love beauty. Be happy," and as such, young Kahn grew up with encouragement from his parents to pursue his dreams. When Kahn was five, he and his family moved from New Jersey to live in London where they resided for two years at St Dunstan's House in Regent's Park; this was rebuilt as Winfield House in the 1930s and is now the American Ambassador's residence. The house had the largest private garden in London second only to the garden at Buckingham Palace. The constant travelling Kahn experienced during his childhood accompanying his parents to Europe gave Kahn and his brother and sisters a broader education than most children would have received. Kahn's passion for aviation grew from these frequent trips abroad.
In 1931, Kahn made headlines on the New York society pages when he married Broadway musical comedy actress Hannah Williams on January 16, 1931. The wedding was held at Oheka Castle, his family's country estate on Long Island, and the marriage was kept secret from the public for two weeks, until the Broadway show Williams was appearing in, Sweet and Low, had had its final performances. The American public took the newlyweds to their hearts and Kahn referred to his wife as the "Cheerful Little Earful", after the song of the same name which his wife had sung on Broadway. The marriage did not last and the couple made headlines again when they divorced two years later and when, after only a few weeks, Williams married boxing champion Jack Dempsey. Three days after the divorce, on April 7, 1933, Roger Wolfe Kahn married Edith May Nelson, a Maine politician's daughter and they lived on Muttontown Road, Syosset, Long Island. Their marriage lasted until Kahn's death of a heart attack in New York City on July 12, 1962. By his second wife, he had two children, Peter W. Kahn and Dacia W. Kahn.
In popular culture
In the 1979 film The Jerk, listening to a version of Kahn's song Crazy Rhythm on the radio inspires Steve Martin's character to hitchhike to St. Louis, setting in motion his rise, fall, and eventual reunion with his adopted family.
Roger Wolfe Kahn and his Orchestra have four song entries in the ‘Top 1000 instrumentals of all time’, no. 360 - "Mountain Greenery", no. 782 - "A Little Bungalow", no. 823 - "Clap Yo' Hands", and at no. 889 - "I'm Sitting on Top of the World".
Two of Roger Wolfe Kahn's songs, "Into My Heart" and "Exactly Like You", were sampled by The Caretaker for his final project, "Everywhere at the end of time".
Further reading
Williams, Iain Cameron. The KAHNS of Fifth Avenue: the Crazy Rhythm of Otto Hermann Kahn and the Kahn Family, 2022, iwp publishing, - the book covers extensively Roger's music and aviation career.
Was Roger Wolfe Kahn America’s first popular music teen idol?
References
External links
Roger Wolfe Kahn and Otto H. Kahn
Roger Wolfe Kahn recordings at the Discography of American Historical Recordings.
Roger Wolfe Kahn and his Orchestra Red Hot Jazz Archive
The KAHNS of Fifth Avenue website and blog exploring the lives of Otto Hermann Kahn and the Kahn family including Roger Wolfe Kahn, with rare photographs of Roger and his Orchestra.
1907 births
1962 deaths
Jewish American jazz composers
American jazz bandleaders
American jazz composers
American male jazz composers
Musicians from Morristown, New Jersey
20th-century American composers
Victor Records artists
Big band bandleaders
Columbia Records artists
Brunswick Records artists
People from Long Island
Impresarios
American people of German-Jewish descent
Aviators from New Jersey
Aviation history of the United States
Aviation pioneers
St. Bernard's School alumni
Jewish jazz musicians
Jazz musicians from New York (state)
20th-century American male musicians
20th-century jazz composers
20th-century American Jews |
419720 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continental%20Navy | Continental Navy | The Continental Navy was the navy of the Thirteen Colonies (later the United States) during the American Revolutionary War. Founded on October 13, 1775, the fleet developed into a relatively substantial force throughout the Revolutionary War, owing partially to the substantial efforts of the Continental Navy's patrons within the Continental Congress. These Congressional Patrons included the likes of John Adams, who served as the Chairman of the Naval Committee until 1776, when Commodore Esek Hopkins received instruction from the Continental Congress to assume command of the force.
The initial force consisted of several converted merchantmen as a consequence of the lack of funds available for use by the navy, which was seen as of secondary importance by early American leaders amidst a land war with Britain. The Continental Navy had variable success in its primary goals of intercepting shipments of British matériel and disrupting British maritime commerce, meeting with success in only limited circumstances and ultimately having little impact on the outcome of the war. The fleet did, however, serve to highlight examples of Continental resolve and bolster American morale - notably, launching Captain John Barry into the limelight. Additionally, it provided needed experience for the first generation of American officers, who later went on to command the early United States Navy. With the Continental Army's victory in the Revolutionary War, the navy was dissolved, with its few remaining ships and assets sold off. The final vessel, Alliance, was auctioned off in 1785 to a private bidder.
The Continental Navy was the first precursor to what is now the modern United States Navy.
Congressional oversight of construction
The original intent was to intercept the supply of arms and provisions to British soldiers, who had placed Boston under martial law. George Washington had already informed Congress that he had assumed command of several ships for this purpose, and individual governments of various colonies had outfitted their own warships. The first formal movement for a navy came from Rhode Island, whose State Assembly passed a resolution on August 26, 1775, instructing its delegates to Congress to introduce legislation calling "for building at the Continental expense a fleet of sufficient force, for the protection of these colonies, and for employing them in such a manner and places as will most effectively annoy our enemies...." The measure in the Continental Congress was met with much derision, especially on the part of Maryland delegate Samuel Chase who exclaimed it to be "the maddest idea in the world." John Adams later recalled, "The opposition... was very loud and vehement. It was... represented as the most wild, visionary, mad project that had ever been imagined. It was an infant taking a mad bull by his horns."
During this time, however, the issue arose of Quebec-bound British supply ships carrying desperately needed provisions that could otherwise benefit the Continental Army. The Continental Congress appointed Silas Deane and John Langdon to draft a plan to seize ships from the convoy in question.
Creation
On June 12, 1775, the Rhode Island General Assembly, meeting at East Greenwich, passed a resolution creating a navy for the colony of Rhode Island. The same day, Governor Nicholas Cooke signed orders addressed to Captain Abraham Whipple, commander of the sloop Katy and commodore of the armed vessels employed by the government.
The first formal movement for the creation of a Continental navy came from Rhode Island because its merchants' widespread shipping activities had been severely harassed by British frigates. On August 26, 1775, Rhode Island General Assembly passed a resolution that there be a single Continental fleet funded by the Continental Congress. The resolution was introduced in the Continental Congress on October 3, 1775, but was tabled. In the meantime, George Washington had begun to acquire ships, starting with the schooner which was chartered by Washington from merchant and Continental Army Lt. Colonel John Glover of Marblehead, Massachusetts. Hannah was commissioned and launched on September 5, 1775, under the command of Captain Nicholson Broughton from the port of Beverly, Massachusetts.
The United States Navy decided in 1971 to recognize October 13, 1775 as the date of its official establishment, the passage of the resolution of the Continental Congress at Philadelphia that created the Continental Navy. On this day, Congress authorized the purchase of two vessels to be armed for a cruise against British merchant ships; these ships became and . The first ship in commission was which was purchased on November 4 and commissioned on December 3 by Captain Dudley Saltonstall. On November 10, 1775, the Continental Congress passed a resolution calling for two battalions of Marines to be raised for service with the fleet. John Adams drafted its first governing regulations, which were adopted by Congress on November 28, 1775, and remained in effect throughout the Revolutionary War. The Rhode Island resolution was reconsidered by the Continental Congress and was passed on December 13, 1775, authorizing the building of thirteen frigates within the next three months: five ships of 32 guns, five with 28 guns, and three with 24 guns.
When it came to selecting commanders for ships, Congress tended to be split evenly between merit and patronage. Among those who were selected for political reasons were Esek Hopkins, Dudley Saltonstall, and Esek Hopkins' son John Burroughs Hopkins. However, Abraham Whipple, Nicholas Biddle, and John Paul Jones managed to be appointed with backgrounds in marine warfare.
On December 22, 1775, Esek Hopkins was appointed the naval commander-in-chief, and officers of the navy were commissioned. Saltonstall, Biddle, Hopkins, and Whipple were commissioned as captains of the Alfred, Andrew Doria, Cabot, and , respectively.
Hopkins led the first major naval action of the Continental Navy in early March 1776 with this small fleet, complemented by (12), (8), and (10). The battle occurred at Nassau, Bahamas where stores of much-needed gunpowder were seized for the use of the Continental Army. However, success was diluted with the appearance of disease spreading from ship to ship.
On April 6, 1776, the squadron, with the addition of (8), unsuccessfully encountered the 20-gun in the first major sea battle of the Continental Navy. Hopkins failed to give any substantive orders other than to recall the fleet from the engagement, a move which Captain Nicholas Biddle described: "away we all went helter, skelter, one flying here, another there."
On Lake Champlain, Benedict Arnold ordered the construction of 12 war vessels to slow down the British fleet that was invading New York from Canada. The British fleet destroyed Arnold's fleet, but the US fleet managed to slow down the British after a two-day battle, known as the Battle of Valcour Island, and managed to slow the progression of the British Army.
As the war progressed, states began directing more resources toward naval pursuits. During the inaugural session of the Virginia General Assembly, the senate began acquiring lands for naval manufacturing. Charles O. Paullin states that "no other state owned as much land, properties, and manufactories devoted to naval purposes as Virginia. Sampson Mathews oversaw the operation stationed at Warwick on the James River, the most important of the works, which produced much sail material from flax grown in his home county of Augusta, as there was no money available to buy linen cloth for sails.
The thirteen frigates
By December 13, 1775, Congress had authorized the construction of 13 new frigates, rather than refitting merchantmen to increase the fleet. Five ships (, , , , and ) were to be rated 32 guns, five (, , , , and ) 28 guns, and three (, , and ) 24 guns. Only eight frigates made it to sea and their effectiveness was limited; they were completely outmatched by the Royal Navy, and nearly all were captured or sunk by 1781.
Washington, Effingham, Congress, and Montgomery were scuttled or burned in October and November 1777 before going to sea to prevent their capture by the British. , commanded by Captain James Nicholson, made a number of unsuccessful attempts to break through the blockade of Chesapeake Bay. On March 31, 1778, in another attempt, she ran aground near Hampton Roads, where her captain went ashore. Shortly after, and appeared on the scene to accept her surrender.
Guarding American commerce and raiding British commerce and supply were the principal duties of the Continental Navy. Privateers had some success, with 1,697 letters of marque being issued by Congress. Individual states, American agents in Europe and in the Caribbean also issued commissions; taking duplications into account more than 2,000 commissions were issued by the various authorities. Lloyd's of London estimated that 2,208 British ships were taken by Yankee privateers, amounting to almost $66 million, a significant sum at the time.
Most of the eight frigates that went to sea took multiple prizes and had semi-successful cruises before their captures, however, there were exceptions. On September 27, 1777, participated in a delaying action on the Delaware River against the British army pursuing George Washington's forces. The ebb tide arrived and left the Delaware stranded, leading to her capture. was blockaded in Providence, Rhode Island, shortly after her completion, and did not break out of the blockade until March 8, 1778. After a successful cruise under Captain John Burroughs Hopkins, she was assigned to the ill-fated Penobscot Expedition under Captain Dudley Saltonstall, where she was trapped by the British and burned on August 15, 1779, to prevent her capture. , captained by John Manley, managed to capture two merchantmen as well as the Royal Navy vessel . Later on July 8, 1777, however, the Hancock was captured by HMS Rainbow of a pursuing squadron, and became the British man of war Iris.
took five prizes in her early cruises. On March 7, 1778, she was escorting a convoy of merchantmen when the British 64-gun ship bore down on the convoy. Randolph, under the command of Captain Nicholas Biddle came to the defense of the merchantmen and engaged the heavily superior foe. In the ensuing engagement, the two ships were both severely manhandled but in the course of the action, the magazine of the Randolph exploded causing the destruction of the entire vessel and all but four of her crew. The falling debris from the explosion severely damaged the Yarmouth enough that she could no longer pursue the American ships.
, under the command of Captain John Barry, captured three prizes before being run aground in action on September 27, 1778. Her crew scuttled her, but she was raised by the British who refloated her for further use in the name of the Crown.
, under the command of Captains Hector McNeill and Samuel Tucker, had captured 17 prizes in earlier cruises and had carried John Adams to France in February and March 1778. She was captured (along with the frigate which had taken 14 prizes in her own service under Captain Abraham Whipple) in the fall of Charleston, South Carolina on May 12, 1780.
The final frigate to meet her end of Continental service was . Trumbull, which had not gone to sea until September 1779 under James Nicholson, had gained acclaim in bloody action against the Letter of Marque Watt. On August 28, 1781, she met HMS Iris and General Monk and engaged. In the action, Trumbull was forced to surrender to the former American naval vessels (the General Monk was the captured Rhode Island privateer General Washington, itself recaptured in April 1782 and placed in service with the Continental Navy).
French naval collaboration
Before the Franco-American Alliance, the royalist French government attempted to maintain a state of respectful neutrality during the Revolutionary War. That being said, the nation maintained neutrality at face value, often openly harboring Continental vessels and supplying their needs.
With the presence of American diplomats Benjamin Franklin and Silas Deane, the Continental Navy gained a permanent link to French affairs. Through Franklin and like-minded agents, Continental officers were afforded the ability to receive commissions and to survey and purchase prospective ships for military use.
Early in the conflict, Captains Lambert Wickes and Gustavus Conyngham operated out of various French ports for the purpose of commerce raiding. The French did attempt to enforce their neutrality by seizing and of the Continental Navy. However, with the commencement of the official alliance in 1778, ports were officially open to Continental ships.
The most prominent Continental officer to operate out of France was Captain John Paul Jones. Jones had been preying upon British commerce aboard but only now saw the opportunity for higher command. The French loaned Jones the merchantman Duc de Duras, which Jones refitted and renamed as a more powerful replacement for the Ranger. In August 1779, Jones was given command of a squadron of vessels of both American and French ownership. The goal was not only to harass British commerce but also to prospectively land 1,500 French regulars in the lightly guarded western regions of Britain. Unfortunately for the ambitious Jones, the French pulled out of the agreement pertaining to an invasion force, but the French did manage to uphold the plan regarding his command of the naval squadron. Sailing in a clockwise fashion around Ireland and down the east coast of Britain, the squadron captured a number of merchantmen. French commander Landais decided early on in the expedition to retain control of the French ships, thereby often leaving and rejoining the effort when he felt that it was fortuitous.
On September 23, 1779, Jones' squadron was off Flamborough Head when the British man-of-war and HM hired armed ship bore down on the Franco-American force. The lone Continental frigate Bonhomme Richard engaged Serapis. The rigging of the two ships became entangled during the combat, and several guns of Jones' ship had been taken out of action. The captain of Serapis asked Jones if he had struck his colors, to which Jones has been quoted as replying, "I have not yet begun to fight!" Upon raking the Serapis, the crew of the Bonhomme Richard led by Jones boarded the British ship and captured her. Likewise, the French frigate Pallas captured Countess of Scarborough. Two days later, Bonhomme Richard sank from the overwhelming amount of damage that she had sustained. The action was an embarrassing defeat for the Royal Navy.
The French also loaned the Continental Navy the use of the corvette . The one ship of the line built for service in the Continental Navy was the 74-gun , but it was offered as a gift to France on September 3, 1782, in compensation for the loss of Le Magnifique in service to the American Revolution.
France officially entered the war on June 17, 1778. Still, the ships that the French sent to the Western Hemisphere spent most of the year in the West Indies and only sailed near the Thirteen Colonies during the Caribbean hurricane season from July until November. The first French fleet attempted landings in New York and Rhode Island, but ultimately failed to engage British forces during 1778. In 1779, a fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Charles Henri, comte d'Estaing assisted American forces attempting to recapture Savannah, Georgia.
In 1780, a fleet with 6,000 troops commanded by Lieutenant General Jean-Baptiste, comte de Rochambeau landed at Newport, Rhode Island; shortly afterward, the British blockaded the fleet. In early 1781, Washington and de Rochambeau planned an attack against the British in the Chesapeake Bay area to coordinate with the arrival of a large fleet under Vice Admiral François, comte de Grasse. Washington and de Rochambeau marched to Virginia after successfully deceiving the British that an attack was planned in New York, and de Grasse began landing forces near Yorktown, Virginia. On September 5, 1781, de Grasse and the British met in the Battle of the Virginia Capes, which ended with the French fleet in control of Chesapeake Bay. Protected from the sea by the French fleet, American and French forces surrounded, besieged, and forced the surrender of the British forces under Lord Cornwallis, effectively winning the war and leading to peace two years later.
Administration
Governing bodies
The Second Continental Congress created a Naval Committee of three members on Oct. 13, 1775. At the end of the month it was expanded to seven members. By the end of January 1776 three members were not active and the remaining four were appointed members of the Marine Committee created already on Dec. 13, 1775, when Congress decided to build 13 warships. This committee had thirteen members, one from each of the United Colonies, and was authorized to direct the fleet and ships movements by order to naval officers, appoint officers, review the verdicts of naval court-martials, and build and purchase naval vessels. In September 1776 Congress created the Navy Board of the Middle Department with three members, not members of Congress, and seat in Philadelphia. In April 1777, the Navy Board of the Eastern Department was created for New England with seat in Boston. These boards were subordinate agencies under the Marine Committee and its successors. The Board of Admiralty was created Oct. 28, 1779 and contained two members of Congress and three other commissioners. Its mission was naval planning, the direction of ships and fleets, superintending the marine department, administering the supply of the navy and the settling of accounts. Dec. 8, Congress decided that the Board would take over all matters heretofore taken care of by the Marine Committee. Feb. 7, 1781, Congress decided to create the office of Secretary of Marine replacing the Board of Admiralty. No one was found willing and able to accept that office, so Congress instead created the officer of Agent of Marine Aug. 19, 1781 and on Sept. 7. 1781 made Robert Morris holder of that office while remaining Superintendent of Finance. When Morris resigned as superintendent of finance 1784, Congress did not appoint a successor as Marine Agent and when the USS Alliance was sold in 1785, the naval establishment of the United States ceased to exist without any formal decision.
The original three members of the Naval Committee were Silas Deane, John Langdon and Christopher Gadsden. The additional four were Stephen Hopkins, Joseph Hewes, Richard Henry Lee and John Adams. The thirteen original members of the Marine Committee were Josiah Bartlett, N.H.; John Hancock, Mass.; Stephen Hopkins, R.I.; Silas Deane, Conn.; Francis Lewis, N.Y.; Stephen Crane, N.J.; Robert Morris, Pa.; George Read, Del.; Samuel Chase, Md.; Richard Henry Lee, Va.; Joseph Hewes, N.C.; Christopher Gadsden, S.C. and John Houstoun, Ga. Original members of the Navy Board of the Middle Department were John Nixon (resigned 1778), John Wharton (resigned 1778), and Francis Hopkinson (resigned 1778). New members were William Smith (1778-1778), James Searle (1778-1778), John Wharton (reappointed 1778-1781), James Read (1778 only member late in 1781), William Winder (1778-1781). Members of the Navy Board of the Eastern Department were James Warren (until 1782), William Vernon (until 1781) and John Deshon (until 1781). Commissioners of the Board of Admiralty were Francis Lewis (from 1779) and William Ellery (from 1780), no third commissioner was ever appointed. Congressional members were James Forbes (1779-1780), William Ellery (1779-1780), James Madison (1780-1780), Daniel Huntington (1780-1780), Whitmill Hill (1780-1780), Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer (only congressional member 1781). Alexander McDougall refused the offer of becoming Secretary of Marine as the Congress did not allow him to retain his rank in the army. Robert Morris was Agent of Marine from 1781 to 1784.
Shore establishment
When the Marine Committee was created in 1775 it appointed Continental agents in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, Boston, Providence, Rhode Island, New London, Connecticut, New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Williamsburg, Virginia, Edenton, New Bern and Wilmington, North Carolina, and Charleston, South Carolina and Savannah, Georgia. They administered the building of warships in their respective ports and purchased cannons, anchors and sails as well provisions and all other items needed on a ship of war. Doing this they relied on the tradesmen and merchants that had sustained the colonial merchant marines. Established ship chandlers, provision merchants, ship's agents and other members of the business community put their experience to use by the Continental Navy. Most Continental agents were also in charge of the disposing of prizes. When established, the Navy Boards became purveyors and suppliers of ships stationed in Philadelphia and Boston, but the Continental agents continued in these roles in the other ports. The Boards gave orders to the Agents but they often bypassed the Boards and communicated directly with the Marine Committee and later the Board of Admiralty. The American commissioners in Paris filled the function of an overseas Navy Board They directed ships operations, commissioned officers, recruited crews, as well as purchasing, storing and distributing supply for the ships operating in European waters. When Benjamin Franklin became United States Minister to France, these tasks fell on him personally. He employed naval agents in both France and the Netherlands.
After 1780 naval administration deteriorated; Agents were dismissed for not submitting accounts, neglecting their assignments and sometimes for outright corruption. Members of the Board of Admiralty, the Navy Boards and Agents surrendered their commissions disgusted with the existing administrative and financial chaos. The accounting system collapsed in 1781. Lack of funds for new ships and heavy ship's losses reduced the Continental Navy to three ships. When Robert Morris became Agent of Marine in 1781 he closed all navy offices except the Eastern Navy Board as they still had USS Alliance and USS Deane to outfit. He appointed Naval Agents in Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia with the task of auditing and settling accounts. In June 1783 Joseph Pennell was appointed Commissioner for Settling the Accounts of the Marine Department with branch offices at Boston, New York City and Philadelphia. Morris resigned as Marine Agent in 1784 and the Commissioner was transferred to the Department of the Treasury in 1785.
Operating forces
When late in 1775, Esek Hopkins was commissioned Commander-in-Chief of the Fleet of the United Colonies he was put in charge of receiving monthly reports of the strength, supply situation and the state of each ship of war, and forwarding them to Congress. It was his duty to issue orders and instructions necessary for the good of the service and to develop a good leadership culture in the Navy. The captain of each ship was responsible for its administration; muster rolls and accounts of provisions and other stores were kept under his responsibility. Change of command required a thorough inventory of ship's stores, provisions and equipage and then the ongoing commander had to sign for it. Pursers were civilian officers in civilian clothes who had learned their job as supercargoes in the colonial merchant marines. There were very few pursers serving in the Continental Navy as it was more profitable for competent persons to take employment with the large number of privateers outfitted during the war. The administrative functions aboard a Continental man of war was instead fulfilled by petty officers: captain's clerks and stewards. Ship's provisions were drawn from Continental Agents or Navy Boards, and transfers took place between ships and even with Continental Army units as necessity required.
End of the Continental Navy
Of the approximately 65 vessels (new, converted, chartered, loaned, and captured) that served at one time or another with the Continental Navy, only 11 survived the war. The Treaty of Paris in 1783 ended the Revolutionary War and, by 1785, Congress had disbanded the Continental Navy and sold the remaining ships.
The frigate fired the final shots of the American Revolutionary War; it was also the last ship in the Navy. A faction within Congress wanted to keep her, but the new nation did not have the funds to keep her in service, and she was auctioned off for $26,000. Factors leading to the dissolution of the Navy included a general lack of money, the loose confederation of the states, a change of goals from war to peace, and more domestic and fewer foreign interests.
Continental Navy uniforms
The Marine Committee issued a uniform instruction on Sept. 5, 1776, with the following specifications:
Captains, blue cloth, with red lapels, slash cuff, stand-up collar, flat yellow buttons, blue breeches and red waistcoat with narrow lace
Lieutenants, blue cloth, with red lapels, round cuff faced with red, stand-up collar, flat yellow buttons, blue breeches and red waistcoat, plain.
Masters, blue cloth with lapels, round cuff, blue breeches and red waistcoat.
Midshipmen, blue cloth with lapels, round cuff faced with red, stand-up collar red at the button and buttonhole, blue breeches and red waistcoat.
No instructions were issued for the dress of petty officers and seamen. The paucity of fabric at this time made it necessary for the officers to dress in what was available they would not always be dressed according to instructions. Besides, many naval officers did not really like the uniforms prescribed and a group of them met in Boston in 1777 and agreed on a new uniform. The dress selected looked very much like a Royal Navy uniform. The agreement contained the following particulars:
Captains, blue cloth lined and faced with white and trimmed with gold lace with an epaulet on the right shoulder, blue cloth lined and faced with white and trimmed with gold lace with an epaulet on the right shoulder, white waistcoat and white breeches.
Lieutenants, blue cloth lined and faced with white, no trim and without epaulet, blue cloth lined and faced with white and trimmed with gold lace with an epaulet on the right shoulder, white waistcoat and white breeches.
Masters and midshipmen, blue cloth lined with white, no lapels, white waistcoat and white breeches.
Continental Navy pay
Pay table in dollars per calendar month, adopted by the Continental Congress, Nov. 15, 1775.
At the same time the pay table was adopted, Congress resolved how the rank of the Naval officers be to the rank of officers in the Land Forces: commodore as brigadier general, captain of a ship of 40 guns and upwards as colonel, captain of a ship of 20 to 40 guns as lieutenant colonel, captain of a ship of 10 to 20 guns as major, lieutenant in the Navy as captain.
See also
Naval battles of the American Revolutionary War
Quasi War
United States Navy
Bibliography of early American naval history
List of American Revolutionary War battles
List of George Washington articles
References
Bibliography
William M. Fowler, Rebels Under Sail (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976)
McBarron, H. Charles (1966). Uniforms of the United States Navy, 1776-1898. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of the Navy
Paulin, Charles O. (1906). The Navy of the American Revolution. Chicago.
Perrenot, Preston B. (2010). United States Navy Grade Insignia 1776-1852. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform.
Schmitt, Frederick P. (1970). "Supplying the Continental Navy." Navy Supply Corps Newsletter 33(2): 22-33.
Smith, Charles R. (1975). Marines in the Revolution. Washington, D.C., Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps
Wehmann, Howard H. (1989) A guide to pre-federal records in the National Archives. National Archives and Records Administration.
Further reading
Disbanded navies
Military history of the United States
Military units and formations established in 1775
Military units and formations disestablished in 1785 |
419750 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone%20Wolf%20and%20Cub | Lone Wolf and Cub | is a Japanese manga series created by writer Kazuo Koike and artist Goseki Kojima. First published in 1970, the story was adapted into six films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama, four plays, and a television series starring Kinnosuke Yorozuya, and is widely recognized as an important and influential work.
Lone Wolf and Cub chronicles the story of Ogami Ittō, the shōguns executioner who uses a dōtanuki battle sword. Disgraced by false accusations from the Yagyū clan, he is forced to take the path of the assassin. Along with his three-year-old son, Daigorō, they seek revenge on the Yagyū clan and are known as "Lone Wolf and Cub".
Lone Wolf and Cub is considered to be among the most influential manga ever created. It has been cited as the origin for the trope of a man protecting a child on a journey across a dangerous landscape. This is known as the Lone Wolf and Cub trope or genre, which has since inspired numerous books, comics, films, television shows and video games.
Plot
Ogami Ittō, formidable warrior and a master of the suiō-ryū swordsmanship, serves as the Kogi Kaishakunin (the Shōgun's executioner), a position of high power in the Tokugawa shogunate during the 1700s. Along with the oniwaban and the assassins, Ogami Ittō is responsible for enforcing the will of the shōgun over the daimyōs (lesser domain lords). For those samurai and lords ordered to commit seppuku, the Kogi Kaishakunin assists their deaths by decapitating them to relieve the agony of disembowelment; in this role, he is entitled and empowered to wear the hollyhock crest of the Tokugawa clan, in effect acting in place of the shōgun.
After Ogami Ittō's wife Azami gives birth to their son, Daigorō, Ogami Ittō returns to find her and all of their household brutally murdered, with only the newborn Daigorō surviving. The supposed culprits are three former retainers of an abolished clan, avenging the execution of their lord by Ogami Ittō. However, the entire matter was planned by Ura-Yagyū (Shadow Yagyu) Yagyū Retsudō, leader of the Ura-Yagyū clan, in order to seize Ogami's post as part of a masterplan to control the three key positions of power: the spy system, the official assassins and the Shogunate Decapitator. During the initial incursion, an ihai (funeral tablet) with the shōguns crest on it was placed inside the Ogami family shrine, signifying a supposed wish for the shogun's death. When the tablet is "discovered" during the murder investigation, its presence condemns Ittō as a traitor and thus he is forced to forfeit his post and is sentenced, along with Daigorō, to commit seppuku.
The one-year-old Daigorō is given a choice by his father: a ball or a sword. If Daigorō chose the ball, his father would kill him to send Daigorō to be with his mother; however, the child crawls toward the sword and reaches for its hilt; this assigns him the path of a rōnin. Refusing to kill themselves and fighting free from their house imprisonment, father and son begin wandering the country as "demons"—the assassin-for-hire team that becomes known as "Lone Wolf and Cub", vowing to destroy the Yagyū clan to avenge Azami's death and Ittō's disgrace.
On meifumadō ("The Road to Hell"), the cursed journey for vengeance, Ogami Ittō and Daigorō experience numerous adventures. They encounter (and slay) all of Yagyū Retsudō's children (both legitimate and illegitimate) along with the entire Kurokuwa ninja clan, eventually facing Retsudō himself. When Retsudō and the Yagyū clan are unable to kill Ittō, the shogunate officially proclaims him and Daigorō outlaws with a price on their heads, authorizing all clans to try and arrest/kill them and permitting anyone to go after them for the bounty. The last duel between Ogami Ittō and Yagyū Retsudō runs 178 pages—one of the longest single fight-scenes ever published in a manga.
Toward the end of their journey, Ogami Ittō's dōtanuki sword is surreptitiously tampered with and damaged by a supposed sword-polisher who is really an elite "Grass" ninja of the Yagyū clan. When Ittō is finally attacked by the last of the (kusa) Grass ninja, the sword breaks and Ittō receives wounds that are ultimately fatal. Deadlocked in mid-battle with Retsudō, Ittō's spirit leaves his body after years of fatigue and bloodshed, unable to destroy his longtime enemy and ending his path of meifumadō.
The story finishes with Daigorō taking up Retsudō's broken spear and charging in fury. Retsudō opens his arms, disregarding all defense, and allows Daigorō to drive the spear into his body. Embracing Daigorō with tears, Retsudō names him "grandson of my heart", closing the cycle of vengeance and hatred between the clans and concluding the epic.
Many of the stories are written in a non-chronological order, revealing different parts of the narrative at different times. For example, Ogami's betrayal is not revealed until the end of the first volume, after many stories have already passed.
Creation and conception
In crafting a weakness for his protagonist (in order to make the story interesting), writer Kazuo Koike was inspired by the legendary Sigurd, who is made invulnerable by bathing a dragon's blood—except for where a leaf shields part of his back and retains his mortality. The character of Daigorō was created to satisfy this need.
Koike stated in an interview that he crafted the manga to be based upon the characters themselves and that the "essential tension between [Ittō's] imperative to meet these challenges while keeping his son with him on the journey" drove the story. According to Koike, "Having two characters as foils of each other is what sets things in motion" and that "If you have a strong character, the storyline will develop naturally, on its own."
Less than a year after the manga's debut, Tomisaburo Wakayama came to Koike to propose starring in the films, to which he immediately agreed.
According to Koike, he knew from the beginning that being killers themselves, both Ogami and Retsudō must die at the end, while Daigorō should survive. Both the producers of the 1970s television series and magazine publisher opposed this, so he had to end his story in his way "without their permission".
Characters
—The shogun's executioner, Ittō decides to avenge the death of his wife, and to restore his clan.
—The son of Ittō and Azami, Daigorō becomes a stronger warrior as the story progresses.
—The leader of the Shadow Yagyū clan, Retsudō tries everything in his power to ensure that Ittō dies.
—The shogun's food taster and a master of poisons; originally ordered to assist Retsudō in disposing of Ittō, Tanomo dishonorably tries to kill Ittō, Daigorō and Retsudō in order to seize power for himself. In the original TV series, his character was introduced in Episode 13 of the third series, "Moon of Desire".
Media
Manga
Japan
When Lone Wolf and Cub was first released in Japan in 1970, it became wildly popular for its powerful, epic samurai story and its stark and gruesome depiction of violence during Tokugawa era Japan. As of 2014, the manga had sold 8.3 million copies in Japan, and 11.8 million worldwide.
Lone Wolf and Cub is one of the most highly regarded manga due to its epic scope, detailed historical accuracy, masterful artwork and nostalgic recollection of the bushido ethos. The story spans 28 volumes of manga, with over 300 pages each (totaling over 8,700 pages in all). Many of the panels of the series are depictions of nature, historical locations in Japan, and traditional activities. A couple of years into the series, a story depicts the fate of Yamada Asaemon, the main character of Samurai Executioner, also created by Koike and Kojima. One reviewer notes that Asaemon looks different in this appearance, apparently due to Ogami Ittō having been designed so similarly to the original Asaemon.
North America
Lone Wolf and Cub was initially released in North America in a translated English edition by First Comics in 1987. The monthly series of comic-book-sized issues featured covers by Frank Miller, Bill Sienkiewicz, Matt Wagner, Mike Ploog, and Ray Lago. Sales were initially strong but fell sharply as the company went into a general decline. First Comics shut down in 1991 without completing the series, publishing less than a third of the total series over 45 issues.
Starting in September 2000, Dark Horse Comics began to release an English translation of the full series in 28 smaller-sized trade paperback volumes with longer page-counts (from 260 to over 300 pages), similar to the volumes published in Japan. Dark Horse completed the presentation of the entire series, fully translated, with the publication of the 28th volume in December 2002. Dark Horse reused all of Miller's covers from the First Comics edition, as well as several done by Sienkiewicz, and commissioned Wagner, Guy Davis, and Vince Locke to produce new covers for several volumes of the collections. In October 2012, Dark Horse completed the release of all 28 volumes in digital format, as part of their "Dark Horse Digital" online service.
Volumes
Dark Horse Omnibus collected editions
Starting in May 2013, Dark Horse began publishing their translated editions of Lone Wolf and Cub in value-priced Omnibus editions.
Partial volumes collected in Omnibus form are marked with an asterisk (*).
Sequels and follow-up series
In 2002, a "reimagined" version of the story, Lone Wolf 2100, was created by writer Mike Kennedy and artist Francisco Ruiz Velasco with Koike's indirect involvement. The story was a post-apocalyptic take on the tale with several differences, such as a female cub and a worldwide setting: Daisy Ogami, daughter of a renowned scientist, and Itto, her father's cybernetic bodyguard and Daisy's subsequent protector, attempt to escape from the Cygnat Owari Corporation's schemes.
Dark Horse announced at the 2006 New York Comic Con that they had licensed Shin Lone Wolf & Cub, Kazuo Koike and Hideki Mori's follow-up to Lone Wolf and Cub, starring Ogami Itto's son Daigoro, the famous child in the baby cart. In this new series, which picks up immediately after the climactic battle of the original series, the bodies of Ogami Itto and Yagyu Retsudo are left lying on the beach with Daigoro left alone standing over his father's body (since no one, for political reasons, dares to bury either body or take charge of Daigoro). A bearded samurai, Tōgō Shigetada of the Satsuma clan and master of the Jigen-ryū style of swordsmanship (based on the actual historical personage Tōgō Shigetaka, creator of Jigen-ryū), wanders onto the battlefield and assists Daigoro with the cremation/funeral of Ogami Itto and Yagyu Retsudo. Tōgō, who is on a training journey and also carries a dotanuki sword similar to Ogami's (and crafted by the same swordsmith), then assumes guardianship of Daigoro, including retrieving the baby cart and teaching/training Daigoro in Jigen-ryū.
The two soon become enmeshed in a plot by the Shogunate conceived by the ruthless Matsudaira Nobutsuna and spearheaded by his chief henchman Mamiya Rinzō (also based on an actual historical character) to topple the Satsuma clan and assume control of that fiefdom's great wealth, using Tōgō as an unwitting pawn. When Tōgō discovers that he has been tricked and used, he and Daigoro embark on the road of meifumado in a quest to kill the Shogun (which would force Matsudaira out into the open). However, Rinzō, who is not only a master of disguise but also Matsudaira's natural son, may have an even more devious plan of his own, including subverting the Shogun's own ninja and using opium to ensnare and enslave the Shogun himself. This series also introduces non-Japanese characters into the plotlines. Dark Horse began publishing the follow-up series, under the title New Lone Wolf and Cub, in June 2014; as of December 2016, all eleven volumes have been released.
Films
A total of six Lone Wolf and Cub films starring Tomisaburo Wakayama as Ogami Ittō and Tomikawa Akihiro as Daigoro were produced based on the manga. They are also known as the Sword of Vengeance series, based on the English-language title of the first film, and later as the Baby Cart series, because young Daigoro travels in a baby carriage pushed by his father.
The first three films, directed by Kenji Misumi, were released in 1972 and produced by Shintaro Katsu, Wakayama's brother and the star of the 26-part Zatoichi film series. The next three films were produced by Wakayama himself and directed by Buichi Saitō, Kenji Misumi and Yoshiyuki Kuroda, released in 1972, 1973, and 1974, respectively. Wakayama quit making the films after the popular television series began to air.
Shogun Assassin (1980) was an English language compilation for the American audience, edited mainly from the second film, with 11 minutes of footage from the first. Also, the third film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Baby Cart to Hades was re-released on DVD in the US under the name Shogun Assassin 2: Lightning Swords of Death.
In 1992 the story was again adapted for film, Lone Wolf and Cub: Final Conflict also known as Handful of Sand or A Child's Hand Reaches Up (Kozure Ōkami: Sono Chiisaki te ni, literally In That Little Hand), directed by Akira Inoue and starring Masakazu Tamura as Ogami Itto.
In addition to the six original films (and Shogun Assassin in 1980), various television movies have aired in connection with the television series as pilots, compilations or originals. These include several starring Kinnosuke Yorozuya (see section Television series), in 1989 a TV movie called Lone Wolf With Child: An Assassin on the Road to Hell better known as Baby Cart In Purgatory where Hideki Takahashi plays Ogami Ittō and Tomisaburo Wakayama co-stars as Retsudo Yagyu.
Hollywood remake
In the 2000s, Darren Aronofsky attempted to get an official Hollywood version of Lone Wolf and Cub off the ground, but could not secure the rights.
In March 2012, Justin Lin was announced as the director on an American version of Lone Wolf and Cub. In June 2016, it was announced that producer Steven Paul had acquired the rights.
Television series
Two full-fledged television series based on the manga have been broadcast to date.
The first, Lone Wolf and Cub (Kozure Ōkami), was produced in a typical jidaigeki format and broadcast for three seasons from 1973 to 1976, each episode 45 minutes long. Season one originally aired 27 episodes, but the original 2nd episode "Gomune Oyuki (Oyuki of the Gomune)" was subsequently deleted from all rebroadcasts in Japan and VHS and DVD releases; the reasons why this episode has been excluded are currently unclear. Seasons two and three ran for 26 episodes each. Kinnosuke Yorozuya played Ogami Ittō, and later reprised the role in a 1984 TV movie; Daigoro was played by Katzutaka Nishikawa in the first two seasons and by Takumi Satô in the final season.
The series was co-produced by Union Motion Picture Co, Ltd. (ユニオン映画) and Studio Ship (スタジオシップ), a company formed by manga author Kazuo Koike, and originally aired on Nippon TV in Japan. It was subsequently broadcast in the United States as The Fugitive Samurai in the original Japanese with English subtitles, and released for the Toronto, Canada market by CFMT-TV (now OMNI 1) in the original Japanese with English subtitles as The Iron Samurai. It has also been aired in Germany dubbed in German, in Italy dubbed in Italian; around 1980, a Portuguese dub was aired in Brazil as O Samurai Fugitivo (The Fugitive Samurai) on TVS, actually SBT, and in Spanish, as El Samurai Fugitivo on the American Spanish TV station Univision.
The first season was released on DVD in Japan on December 20, 2006, apparently without subtitles. Twelve of the first 13 episodes were released on DVD in Germany as Kozure Okami, with audio in Japanese and German. In the U.S., Media Blasters released the first season on DVD on April 29, 2008, under its Tokyo Shock Label, containing the original Japanese with English subtitles. All of these releases excluded the deleted-from-distribution 2nd episode "Gomune Oyuki".
The latest television series, also titled Lone Wolf and Cub (Kozure Ōkami), aired from 2002 to 2004 in Japan with Kin'ya Kitaōji in the role of Ogami Ittō and Tsubasa Kobayashi as Daigoro. This series has not yet been made commercially available on DVD or Blu-ray; however, in September 2023 English-subtitled episodes began being uploaded to the YouTube website, courtesy of the "Samurai vs. Ninja" YouTube Channel.
Games
In 1987, video game manufacturer Nichibutsu released a beat 'em up arcade video game based on the series, named Kozure Ōkami in Japan and Samurai Assassin overseas. Players guide Ogami Itto through an army of assassins while carrying his infant son on his back. A baby cart powerup enables Ookami to mow down enemies with blasts of fire. The game was only released in arcades.
In the PlayStation 2 video game Final Fantasy X by Square Enix, there is an aeon named Yojimbo, a being the summoner Yuna can summon to battle, along with his dog Daigoro. He must be paid the game's form of money to use attacks varying in strength and weapon. With his design resembling that of Ancient Japanese designs, his worker-employer relationship with Yuna, the aesthetic with his weaponry and mannerisms, and the name of his dog, many elements from Ittō were used to design this summon.
In 1989, Mayfair Games published Lone Wolf and Cub Game, a board game designed by Matthew Costello based on the franchise. GM Magazine reviewed the game, highlighting the illustrations, well-written encounters, and sturdy components; however, the reviewer found that the basic rules and limited options made for a dull experience on repeat plays.
In 2012, a pachinko game adaptation called Kozure Ōkami was released in Japan.
Library requests
By 1990, many libraries understood the rise of graphic novels as a medium. Many were advised to purchase copies of various graphic novels to keep up public demand, listing many popular publications. One of the most prominent graphic novels listed was Lone Wolf and Cub, focusing on the Japanese elements in the storytelling. They would continue to add the volumes of the graphic novel well into 2003.
Influence
Lone Wolf and Cub is considered to be among the most influential manga ever created, having inspired numerous artists, animators and filmmakers across the world, as well as creating the "Lone Wolf and Cub" trope.
Lone Wolf and Cub has influenced American comics, notably Frank Miller in his Sin City and Ronin series. Other examples of artists inspired by it include filmmakers such as Hong Kong action cinema's John Woo when he produced Heroes Shed No Tears (1986), American comic book artists such as Justin Jordan and Mike Kennedy, and animators such as Russia's Genndy Tartakovsky. Indian comic-book writer Suhas Sundar acknowledged that he drew some inspiration from Lone Wolf and Cub to create his Odayan comic book series.
Homages to Lone Wolf and Cub have appeared in many works. Examples include a 1973 television commercial for Momoya chansai seasoning, episode 77 of the anime series Urusei Yatsura (1983), Samurai Champloo episode 22 (2005), Gintama episode six (2006), the third season of Crayon Shin-chan Gaiden (2017) subtitled "Kazokukure Ōkami" ("Lone Wolf and Family"), Busō Shōjo Machiavellism episode six (2017), Hug! Pretty Cure episode 44 (2018), and Rick and Morty: The Anime episode "Samurai & Shogun" (2020).
Lone Wolf and Cub trope
Lone Wolf and Cub has been cited as the origin for the narrative trope/genre where a man protects a child on a journey across a dangerous landscape. Known as the Lone Wolf and Cub trope or genre, it has since been used in numerous works, with examples including films such as Léon: The Professional (1994) and Logan (2017), television shows such as Stranger Things and Game of Thrones, and media franchises such as The Witcher and The Last of Us.
The samurai anime film Sword of the Stranger (2007) has been described as "Lone Wolf and Cub" meets Rurouni Kenshin. There are also variations of the Lone Wolf and Cub trope involving a mother and daughter, with examples including films such as Birds of Prey (2020) and Gunpowder Milkshake (2021).
Novelist Max Allan Collins acknowledged the influence of Lone Wolf and Cub on his graphic novel Road to Perdition (1998). In an interview to the BBC, Collins declared that "Road to Perdition is 'an unabashed homage' to Lone Wolf and Cub". In turn, writer Neil Druckmann cited Road to Perdition as a direct influence on The Last of Us video game (2013) and television show (2023); The Last of Us actor Pedro Pascal cited Lone Wolf and Cub as the origin of the trope of a man protecting a child on a journey across a dangerous landscape.
"Wolf and Cub" is an episode from the first season of the TV series Person of Interest; the title is assumed to be inspired by Lone Wolf and Cub. Themes of vengeance and being a rōnin are interspersed throughout the episode.
Episode 20 of the fifth season of the television series Bob's Burgers, "Hawk & Chick", is a parody inspired by Lone Wolf and Cub. A follow-up episode, "The Hawkening: Look Who's Hawking Now!" from the show's tenth season, features a missing scene that parallels the suppressed episode of the 1973 Lone Wolf and Cub TV series.
The Star Wars streaming series The Mandalorian has a premise influenced by Lone Wolf and Cub, with the titular character guarding an alien child from various threats. The Mandalorian spin-off series The Book of Boba Fett includes a scene modeled on Daigorō's choice between ball and sword as depicted in Sword of Vengeance. Obi-Wan Kenobi also uses a variation of the trope.
The Lone Wolf and Cub trope has also been used in numerous video games. Examples include the adaptation Kozure Ōkami (1987), Hanjuku Hero 4 (2005) by Square Enix, The Witcher series, The Last of Us, Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding (2019), and FromSoftware's Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (2019).
References
External links
Dark Horse Comics: Lone Wolf and Cub manga
Samurai and Son: The Lone Wolf and Cub Saga an essay by Patrick Macias at the Criterion Collection
1970 manga
Crossover comics
Dark Horse Comics titles
Eisner Award winners
Epic anime and manga
Fiction set in 18th-century Edo period
First Comics titles
Futabasha manga
Gekiga
Japanese film series
Kazuo Koike
Manga adapted into films
Anime and manga about revenge
Samurai in anime and manga
Seinen manga |
419797 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LATAM%20Airlines | LATAM Airlines | LATAM Airlines, formerly LAN Airlines, LAN-Chile and LATAM Chile, is a Chilean multinational airline based in Santiago, Chile and one of the founders of LATAM Airlines Group, the largest airline holding company in Latin America. The main hub is Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport in Santiago, with secondary hubs in São Paulo, Lima, Bogotá, Quito, Guayaquil and Asunción airports.
LAN was the flag carrier of Chile until its privatization in the 1990s; it is the predominant airline in Chile, Ecuador and Peru, and the second-largest carrier in Colombia, through its local subsidiaries. LAN is the largest airline in Latin America, serving Latin America, Northern America, the Caribbean, Oceania, Asia, and Europe. The carrier was a member of the Oneworld airline alliance from 2000 to 2020.
LATAM Airlines Group was formed after the takeover by LAN and Brazilian TAM Linhas Aéreas, which was completed on June 22, 2012. In August 2015, it was announced that the two airlines would fully rebrand as LATAM, with one livery to be applied on all aircraft by 2018. Currently, LATAM Chile and LATAM Brasil continue to work as separate companies, under LATAM Airlines Group acting as the executive management. LATAM Airlines Group is currently the largest airline corporation in Latin America.
History
Early years
The airline was founded by Chilean Air Force Commodore Arturo Merino Benítez (after whom Santiago International Airport is named), and began operations on March 5, 1929, as Línea Aeropostal Santiago-Arica (English: Postal Air Line Santiago-Arica), under the government of President Carlos Ibáñez del Campo. In 1932 It was rebranded as Línea Aérea Nacional de Chile (English: National Air Line of Chile), using the acronym LAN Chile as its commercial name. LAN Chile's first fleet consisted of de Havilland Moth planes.
Merino Benitez was a strong defender of Chilean carriers exclusivity on domestic routes, differing from most Latin American countries which easily granted the authorization on domestic flights to US-based Panagra, influenced by the propaganda made by Charles Lindbergh's Atlantic crossing. Also because of this reason, US-built airplanes became more difficult to incorporate to LAN's fleet until the beginning of WWII. In 1936, 2 French Potez 560 airplanes were purchased while in 1938, 4 German Junkers Ju 86Bs were incorporated into the fleet. During that same year, a cooperation agreement was established with Lloyd Aéreo Boliviano and the Peruvian carrier Faucett. Another agreement with Lufthansa was signed for flights to and from Europe and America's Atlantic coast.
In 1940, given the restrictions imposed during WWII on access to spare parts for the Junker's BMW engines, LAN Chile had to replace them with Lockheed Model 10A Electras, adding in 1941 further Lockheed Lodestar C-60 and Douglas DC-3 in 1945.
Post-war and international service expansion
On August 23, 1945, LAN Chile became a member of the newly formed IATA. In October 1946, it started international service to Buenos Aires at Morón Airport and in 1947 to Punta Arenas, Chile's most distant continental destination.
In December 1954, LAN Chile made its first commercial flight to Lima, Perú. On December 22, 1956, a LAN Chile Douglas DC-6B made the world's first commercial flight over Antarctica. Since then, all of LAN's DC-6 fleet had painted on their fuselage Primeros sobre la Antártica ("The first over Antarctica"), using this same aircraft type for its first commercial service to Miami International Airport in 1958.
LAN Chile entered the jet era in 1963, purchasing three French Sud Aviation Caravelle VI-R, which initially flew to Miami, Guayaquil, Lima, Panama City and within Chile to Punta Arenas, Puerto Montt and Antofagasta.
In 1966, LAN Chile purchased its first Boeing 707 from Lufthansa, in exchange for flying rights in the Lima-Santiago route. With this aircraft model, the company developed new long haul routes to the US, Oceania and Europe. LAN-Chile started on April 15, 1967, the route Santiago-John F. Kennedy International Airport and Santiago-Easter Island on April 8. In October 1967 a LAN Chile Sud Aviation Caravelle made the first ILS landing in South America at Lima's Jorge Chávez International Airport. On January 16, 1968, the Santiago-Easter Island flight was extended to Papeete-Faa'a International Airport, in Tahiti, French Polynesia using a Douglas DC-6B. The airline then introduced Boeing 707 jet service on the Santiago – Easter Island –Papeete, Tahiti route in April 1970. On September 4, 1974, this route was extended to Fiji.
In 1969, LAN Chile expanded its destinations to Rio de Janeiro, Asunción and Cali with new Boeing 727s. In 1970, with Boeing 707s, LAN Chile opened its first transatlantic routes to Madrid–Barajas Airport, Frankfurt Airport and Paris-Orly.
Since its inception and until 1970, the airline had its headquarters, main hub and maintenance center at Los Cerrillos Airport, in southwest Santiago. The restrictions imposed by the growing metropolitan area of Santiago and the need for modern, jet-era airport facilities that could safely accommodate both domestic and intercontinental flights, drove the need to relocate the Chilean capital's principal airport from Los Cerrillos in the denser southwest metropolitan region of Santiago to the more rural northwest metropolitan area. For this reason, Santiago International Airport in Pudahuel was built between 1961 and 1967, fully moving LAN Chile's flights to this new airport in 1970.
On February 10, 1974, a LAN-Chile Boeing 707 flown by captain Jorge Jarpa Reyes made the world's first transpolar non-stop flight between South America (Punta Arenas Airport) and Australia (Sydney Kingsford-Smith Airport).
In 1980, the company replaced its Boeing 727s with the Boeing 737-200 on its domestic routes. Also, McDonnell Douglas DC-10-30s, LAN Chile's first wide-body jets, were added for use on routes to Los Angeles, Miami, and New York. That same year, the maintenance facilities were relocated from Los Cerrillos to Arturo Merino Benítez Airport.
In 1985, LAN-Chile implemented a program of flights around the world called Cruceros del Aire ("Air Cruises"), pioneers and unique in Latin America. The initial version included two flights per year (April 26 and September 26) on a Boeing 707 named Three Oceans because it crossed the Atlantic, Indian and South Pacific oceans, visiting 18 different places. The aircraft was specially prepared for these flights. It had 80 seats in first class, thus providing passengers with ample room for their comfort. Eighty tourists were selected for a 31-day tour that included visits to the main cities of Africa, Asia and Oceania. Such flights were made until 1989, marketed according to their route under various names such as "Around the World", "Three Oceans", "Three Continents", "Mediterranean","East-West China", etc.
In June 1986, Boeing 767-200ERs replaced the DC-10 fleet, with a new route to Montréal–Mirabel International Airport.
In 1988, LAN Chile started construction of its maintenance center at Santiago Airport and added a Boeing 747-100 on lease from Aer Lingus to its fleet during the summer season for its US flights.
Privatization and internationalization
In September 1989, the Chilean government privatized the carrier, selling a majority stake in the company to Icarosan and Scandinavian Airlines (49%), which subsequently sold its stake a few years later to local investors. Since 1994, major shareholders have been the Cueto Family and businessman Sebastián Piñera (until 2010), who sold his shares when taking office as President of the Republic of Chile.
The approval from the Chilean Anti-Trust Authority resulted in the acquisition of the country's second-largest airline Ladeco on August 11, 1995. In October 1998, LAN-Chile merged its cargo subsidiary Fast Air Carrier with Ladeco, forming LAN Express.
In 1998 LAN Airlines established a joint venture with Lufthansa called LLTT (Lufthansa-LAN Technical Training S.A.) with the aim to satisfy the needs for aircraft maintenance training in Latin America. LLTT is based at LAN's hangars in Arturo Merino Benítez Airport. LLTT is the only A320 Maintenance Simulator (CMOS) training provider in Latin America.
In 2000, LAN Cargo opened up a major operations base at Miami International Airport and currently operates one of its largest cargo facilities there.
In 2002, LAN Chile started its internationalization process through LAN Perú and LAN Ecuador.
In March 2004, LAN-Chile and its subsidiaries, LAN Perú, LAN Ecuador, LAN Dominicana and LAN Express, became unified under the unique LAN brand and livery, eliminating each airline country name on the brands. On June 17, 2004, LAN-Chile changed its formal name to LAN Airlines (which was said to mean Latin American Network Airlines, even though the airline says LAN is no longer an acronym) as part of this re-branding and internationalization process; although, when founded in 1929, LAN originally meant "Línea Aérea Nacional" (National Airline).
In March 2005, LAN opened its subsidiary LAN Argentina in Argentina and operates national and international flights from Buenos Aires, and is the third-largest local operator behind Aerolíneas Argentinas and Austral. This subsidiary is also under the LAN brand.
As of August 1, 2006, LAN merged first and business classes of service into a single class, named Premium Business.
On October 28, 2010, LAN acquired 98% of the shares of AIRES, the second-largest air carrier in Colombia. On December 3, 2011, AIRES started operating as LAN Colombia under the unified LAN livery.
Since May 5, 2016, LAN has been operating as LATAM Airlines. The airline opened many routes during 2017, one of them being the longest flight in their history: Santiago to Melbourne, which started operating October 5 of that year.
LATAM Airlines Group
On August 13, 2010, LAN Airlines signed a non-binding agreement with Brazilian airline TAM Linhas Aéreas to merge, and form the LATAM Airlines Group. The merger was completed on June 22, 2012. The Administrative Council of Economic Defense of Brazil ("CADE") and the Tribunal de Defensa de la Libre Competencia (Chilean Court at Law for Antitrust) ("TDLC") approved the merger subject to mitigation measures. The airlines have to surrender four daily São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport slot pairs to other airlines willing to fly the Santiago-São Paulo route, to give up membership in either Star Alliance (of which TAM Linhas Aéreas was a member) or Oneworld, and to interline deals with other airlines that operate selected routes, among other provisions. It still continued to use their call sign "LAN CHILE" as well as their IATA and ICAO identifies after the merger for their flights operated by LATAM.
During the first half of 2018, the airline was struggling due to the Rolls-Royce engines on their Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet, having grounded at least six of them since February 2018. In April 2018, their domestic subsidiary LATAM Express experienced a major worker strike. This has caused several economic losses for the airline. Later that same year they started recovering from that and are expecting to resume 787 deliveries by 2019, which resumed with CC-BGO in November of that year.
Corporate affairs
The airline has its headquarters on the 20th floor of the 5711 Avenida Presidente Riesco Building in Las Condes, Santiago Province. Previously its headquarters were in Estado 10 in downtown Santiago de Chile.
Subsidiaries
LATAM Brasil
LATAM Colombia
LATAM Ecuador
LATAM Chile
LATAM Paraguay
LATAM Perú
Cargo branches
LATAM Cargo Brasil
LATAM Cargo Chile
LATAM Cargo Colombia
Former subsidiaries
Aeroasis
Ladeco
LAN Dominicana
LATAM Argentina
Fast Air Carrier
Florida West International Airways
Mas Air
Destinations
LATAM operates in 30 international destinations in 16 countries along with 17 domestic in Chile. With the delivery of more Airbus A320s and Airbus A321s, it will start new destinations in South America; it has considered Panama, San Jose de Costa Rica, Curitiba, Asunción, Manaus, Rosario, Cuzco and others. LATAM Chile was a popular choice for surfers traveling to South America because of their policy of not charging extra baggage fees. However, starting on December 19, 2016, they changed their policy and now charge US$200 per way for a surfboard bag of up to three boards.
On October 5, 2017, LATAM inaugurated their direct route between Santiago and Melbourne, a 15-hour (westbound) and flight. It is currently the southernmost commercial point-to-point flight. The flight's great circle passes south of the Antarctic Circle, at a distance of approx 800 km off the Antarctic mainland. The flight numbers are LA805 (westbound) and LA804 (eastbound).
In November 2017, the company announced the opening of a direct air route to the continent of Asia. The route operated with a flight departing from Santiago, Chile with a stop in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and from there it proceeded a direct flight to Tel Aviv, Israel. The flights were operated three times a week starting from December 2018 until 2020, using the company's Boeing 787. This was the second air route operated by a South American company from South America to Asia.
Codeshare agreements
LATAM codeshares with the following airlines:
Aeroméxico
Air China
Alaska Airlines
British Airways
Cathay Pacific
Finnair
Iberia
Japan Airlines
Jetstar
Korean Air
LATAM Brasil (Subsidiary)
LATAM Paraguay (Subsidiary)
Malaysia Airlines
Qantas
Qatar Airways
WestJet
Fleet
Current fleet
, LATAM operates the following aircraft:
Fleet development
LAN became the launch customer for the Pratt & Whitney PW6000 engine on the Airbus A318. Its Airbus A319s and Airbus A320s are equipped with the IAE V2500s or CFM56s engines. LATAM Chile renovated its Boeing 767s, adding amenities like flat bed seats in Premium Business class, which offers 180 degrees of recline, and new touch screen personal TVs with on-demand content.
In May 2008, LAN Chile retired its last 737 from service and was replaced by the Airbus A320s. In addition to its A320 family aircraft and Boeing 767, LATAM Chile bought the Boeing 787 for its long haul routes such as Auckland, Sydney and European routes, replacing its Airbus A340-300s, that left the fleet in April 2015. With this new aircraft, they plan to open new routes like Chicago O'Hare and Rome-Fiumicino. In 2011, LAN Chile ordered 10 A318s but has since sold these to Avianca Brasil, to purchase another 128 airliners from the A320 family and 1 more order of A340-300. That year the airline placed orders for more Airbus A320 and brand new Airbus A321 aircraft. LATAM Chile is the American launch customer for the Sharklets for its A320 fleet.
In 2012, LAN Chile became the launch customer in the Americas of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
On November 23, 2014, the airline received their first Airbus A321. This has been the domestic flagship of the airline ever since.
On April 17, 2015, the airline officially retired the Airbus A340-300 from their fleet, the last one being CC-CQA.
In December 2017 the airline received their first Airbus A320neo. However, months later these were grounded due to an issue with the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G engines. LATAM faced many problems caused by both groundings of A320neo and Boeing 787 aircraft during 2018. Later that year, they started recovering from that.
In 2021, LATAM acquired four Boeing 787-9 aircraft that used to fly for Norwegian Air Shuttle, which will enter service by late 2022 towards 2023.
Former fleet
LATAM had also operated these following aircraft since it started services on the Santiago-Ovalle, Copiapó-Antofagasta-Iquique-Arica route with a de Havilland Gipsy Moth in 1929.
LATAM Pass
LATAM Chile created the LANPASS frequent flyer program to reward customer loyalty. There are currently over four million members. Every year, over 250,000 LANPASS members fly for free. LANPASS members earn miles every time they fly with LATAM Chile, a LANPASS-affiliated airline or by using the services of any LANPASS-associated business around the world.
The LANPASS Program has five Elite membership categories:
Gold
Gold Plus
Platinum
Black
Black Signature
On May 5, 2016, LANPASS became known as LATAM Pass, once LAN Chile fully transitioned into LATAM Chile.
Lounges
LATAM Airlines operates VIP passenger lounges at the following airports:
Mistral Lounge at Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport, in Santiago de Chile
Neruda Lounge at Arturo Merino Benítez International Airport, in Santiago de Chile
Ezeiza International Airport, in Buenos Aires, Argentina
El Dorado International Airport, in Bogotá, Colombia
Miami International Airport
São Paulo–Guarulhos International Airport
These lounges are accessible for passengers travelling in LATAM First Class, Premium Business, Business and Premium Economy, as well as senior members of the LATAM PASS program (Black, Platinum levels).
The new and renovated LATAM Chile Passenger lounges are designed by Chilean architect Mathias Klotz and Parisian Studio Putman Olivia Putman.
Accidents and incidents
On April 3, 1961, LAN Chile Flight 621, a Douglas C-47A registered as CC-CLD, on a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Temuco Airport (now Maquehue Airport, later La Araucania Airport) to Santiago, crashed into a hillside due to inclement weather near La Gotera Hill, Chile. On board were many members of the Chilean association football club C.D. Green Cross. All four crew members and all twenty passengers on board were killed.
On February 6, 1965, a Douglas DC-6, operating LAN Chile Flight 107 from Santiago to Ezeiza, Argentina, flew into a mountain near the San José Volcano in the Las Melosas area of the Andes shortly after takeoff. All of the 87 passengers and crew on board died in what is as of 2012 the worst aircraft accident in Chile.
On April 28, 1969 LAN Chile Flight 160 crashed short of runway at Colina, Chile. None of the 60 passengers and crew were injured in the accident.
On December 5, 1969, a Douglas C-47A registration CC-CBY, crashed shortly after takeoff from El Tepual Airport, Puerto Montt. The aircraft was operating a cargo flight; all three people on board survived.
On May 25, 1972, a Boeing 727-100 registration CC-CAG, made an emergency landing at Sir Donald Sangster International Airport after a pipe bomb exploded on board. The aircraft was operating a passenger flight from Tocumen International Airport to Miami International Airport; there were no fatalities or injuries.
On August 3, 1978, a Boeing 707 registered as CC-CCX was approaching Ministro Pistarini International Airport in thick fog when it struck trees in a gentle descent, some 2500 metres short of the runway threshold and 300 metres out of line with the runway centreline. All 63 people on board the aircraft survived the accident.
On August 4, 1987, a Boeing 737-200, while on the approach at El Loa Airport, landed short of the displaced threshold of runway 27. The nosegear collapsed and the aircraft broke in two. A fire broke out 30 minutes later and destroyed the aircraft. The threshold was displaced by 880m due to construction work. There was one fatality.
On February 19, 1991, a chartered BAe 146–200 operating LAN Chile Flight 1069, overran the runway on landing at Puerto Williams in southern Chile and sank in the nearby waters. Of the 73 people aboard, 20 perished.
On May 18, 2013, an Airbus A340, departing for Sydney from Auckland Airport lined-up on what was thought to be the centre line of the runway. Instead, it was actually the lights on the edge of the runway and the crew took off without noticing it. The damage wasn't discovered until a runway inspection was made.
On 26 October 2022, LATAM Chile Flight 1325, an Airbus A320-214, was on approach to Silvio Pettirossi International Airport when the aircraft encountered a hail storm. The aircraft lost most of its nose radome, suffered damage to its windshield and lost both engines which led to the Ram Air Turbine being deployed. The aircraft made an emergency landing at Asunción with no injuries aboard.
On 18 November 2022, LATAM Perú Flight 2213, an Airbus A320-271N operated by LATAM Chile, struck a fire truck during its rejected takeoff roll at runway 16 of Jorge Chávez International Airport. The right main landing gear of the aircraft collapsed and the right hand engine separated from the collision, which started a fire. Everyone aboard the aircraft survived with 24 people sustaining injuries, however both firefighters aboard the fire truck were killed.
On 14 August 2023, LATAM Chile Flight 505, a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, was cruising 120 miles north of Panama City when the Captain, Ivan Aduar, became incapacitated and collapsed in the restroom. The relief captain and first officer diverted the aircraft to Panama City's Tocumen International Airport. Sadly, the captain was pronounced dead by medical crews on landing.
See also
List of airlines of Chile
References
External links
LAN Airlines inflight magazine
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Airlines of Chile
Latin American and Caribbean Air Transport Association
Chile
Chilean brands
Multinational companies headquartered in Chile
Airlines established in 1929
Airline holding companies
Chilean companies established in 1929
Holding companies of Chile
Former Oneworld members |
419835 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English%20folklore | English folklore | English folklore consists of the myths and legends of England, including the English region's mythical creatures, traditional recipes, urban legends, proverbs, superstitions, and folktales. Its cultural history is rooted in Celtic, Christian, Nordic and Germanic folklore.
During the Renaissance in the 16th century, England looked to more European texts to develop a national identity. English folklore has continued to differ according to region, although there are shared elements across the country.
Its folktales include the traditional Robin Hood tales and the Brythonic-inspired Arthurian legend, and their stories often contained a moral imperative stemming from Christian values. The folktales, characters and creatures are often derived from aspects of English experience, such as topography, architecture, real people, or real events.
History
Before England was founded in the year 927, Wessex and its surrounding areas' cultures were transformed by the invasion of the Danish King Guthrum between 865 and 878. The king of Wessex, King Alfred, prevailed against King Guthrum's troops in 878 and King Guthrum was baptised and became the ruler of East Anglia. This continued the process of the assimilation of Norse words into the English language. Eventually English folklore melded with Norse traditions such as in their iconography, which became more Greek, and in their clothing and folktales which adopted more Nordic elements. The folklore of the people of England continued to be passed down through oral tradition.
During the Renaissance, artists captured these customs in the written word; such as Shakespearean plays' reflections of English folklore through their witches, fairies, folk medicine, marriage and funeral customs, superstitions, and religious beliefs.
The Grimm brothers' publications such as German Legends and Grimms' Fairy Tales were translated from their original German and distributed across Europe in 1816. Their stories inspired publishers such as William Thoms to compile legends from within English folklore and without to compose an English identity. The stories that the Grimm brothers collected were integrated into the English school curriculum throughout the 19th century as educators of morality.
Characteristics
Although English folklore has many influences, its largest are Christian, Celtic and Germanic. Non-Christian influences also defined English folklore up to the eleventh century, such as in their folksongs, celebrations and folktales. An example is the 305 ballads collected by Francis James Child published during the English revival in the 19th century. During the English folksong revival, English artists scrambled to compose a national identity consisting of England's past folksongs and their contemporary musical influences. Authors such as Francis James Child, Arthur Hugh Clough, and Chaucer made English folksong supranational due to the willingness to import other languages' words, pronunciations, and metres. Other examples of non-Christian influences include the Wild Hunt which originates from wider Europe, and Herne the Hunter which relates to the Germanic deity Woden. The Abbots Bromley Horn Dance may represent a pre-Christian festival and the practice of Well dressing in the Peak District, which may date back to Anglo-Saxon or even Celtic times. May Day celebrations such as the Maypole survive across much of England and Northern Europe. Christmas practices such as decorating trees, the significance of holly, and Christmas carolling were born from the desire to escape from the harshness of winter around Europe.
These combine to form a folklore which teaches that, through an upright and virtuous character, a person can achieve a successful life. Lullabies, songs, dances, games, folktales, and superstitions all imparted a religious and moral education, and form a person's sense of justice and Christianity. Children's games would often contain counting songs or gamifications of manners to ensure that a child was happy, healthy, and good.
English folklore also included beliefs of the supernatural, including premonitions, curses, and magic, and was common across all social classes. It was not regarded with the same validity as scientific discoveries, but was made to be trusted by the repeated accounts of a magician or priest's clients who saw the ritual's spectacle and so believed in its efficacy. Even when such rituals failed, such as a 15th-century physician using a golden artifact to heal his patients, their failures were attributed to the fickleness of magic.
As for English folktales, some such as Weber argue that they were passed down for the purpose of reflecting the grim realities of a child's life and hence instilled valued English morals and aesthetics. Others such as Tatar would counter that these folktales' fantasies were so removed from reality that they were a form of escapism, imaginative expression, and linguistic appreciation. Most folklorists would agree that the purpose of English folklore is to protect, entertain, and instruct on how to participate in a just and fair society.
Folktales
Folklorists have developed frameworks such as the Aarne–Thompson-Uther index which categorise folktales first by types of folktales and then by consistent motifs. While these stories and characters have differences according to the region of their origin, these motifs are such that there is a national identity of folktales through which these regions have interacted.
There are likely many characters and stories that have never been recorded and hence were forgotten, but these folktales and their evolutions were often a product of contemporary figures, places, or events local to specific regions. The below are only a small fraction of examples from the folktale types of English folklore.
Creatures
Dragons are giant winged reptiles that breathe fire, poison and acid. They are usually associated with treasure rooms, waterfalls, and hollowed out tree stumps. Dragons are also present in Chinese, Egyptian, Mesoamerican and many other mythologies of the world. In the cultures of India, they are found in the mythologies and folklore of Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism.
A Wyvern is a smaller relative of dragons with two legs rather than four. It also has smaller wings and cannot breathe fire.
The black dog is a creature which foreshadows calamity or causes it. It is a combination of Odysseus' Argos and Hades' Cerberus from Greek mythology, and Fenrir from Norse mythology. The first collection of sightings of the black dog around Great Britain, Ethel Rudkin's 1938 article reports that the dog has black fur, abnormally large eyes, and a huge body. The black dog is a common motif in folklore and appears in many traditional English stories and tales. They often denote death and misfortune close at hand and appear and disappear into thin air.
A boggart is, depending on local or regional tradition, a malevolent genius loci inhabiting fields, marshes or other topographical features. The household boggart causes objects to disappear, milk to sour, and dogs to go lame. They can possess small animals, fields, churches, or houses so they can play tricks on the civilians with their chilling laugh. Always malevolent, the boggart will follow its family wherever they flee. In Northern England, at least, there was the belief that the boggart should never be named, for when the boggart was given a name, it could not be reasoned with nor persuaded, but would become uncontrollable and destructive.
A brownie is a type of hob (household spirit), similar to a hobgoblin. Brownies are said to inhabit houses and aid in tasks around the house. However, they do not like to be seen and will only work at night, traditionally in exchange for small gifts or food. Among food, they especially enjoy porridge and honey. They usually abandon the house if their gifts are called payments, or if the owners of the house misuse them. Brownies make their homes in an unused part of the house.
A dwarf is a human-shaped entity that dwells in mountains and in the earth, and is associated with wisdom, smithing, mining, and crafting. The term had only started to be used in the 19th century as a translation for the German, French, and Scandinavian words which describe dwarves.
Ogres are usually tall, strong, violent, greedy, and remarkably dull monsters and they originate from French culture. In folktales they are likely to be defeated by being outsmarted.
The Will-o'-the-wisp is a folk explanation of strange, flickering lights seen around marshes and bogs. Some perceive them as souls of unbaptized infants which lead travellers off the forest path and into danger, while others perceive them as trickster fairies or sprites.
Characters and personifications
King Arthur is the legendary king of the Britons, the Once and Future King and True Born King of England. The origins of King Arthur and his exploits are vague due to the many reproductions of his character. The and the reference many battles of an Arthur, also referencing Mordred, a rival, and Merlin, a wise mentor. Although these sources have been used as proof for Arthur's origins, their credibility has been disputed as mythology rather than history. As English folklore has progressed, King Arthur's retellings have been classified into romances such as Malory's , chronicles such as Geoffrey's , and fantasies such as (whose author is unknown).
Robin Hood was a vicious outlaw who expressed the working-class' disenchantment with the status quo. Through Robin Hood, the forest (called the "greenwood" by folklorists) transformed from the dangerous, mystical battleground of Arthur to a site of sanctuary, comradery, and lawlessness. Rather than a philanthropic thief of the rich, Robin Hood's tales began in the 15th century as a brutal outlaw, ballads revelling in his violent retaliation to threats. Robin Hood fought to protect himself and his group the Merry Men, regardless the class, age, or gender of their enemy. In stories such as 'Robin Hood and the Widow's Three Sons' and 'The Tale of Gamelyn', the joyful ending is in the hanging of the sheriff and the officials; in 'Robin Hood and the Monk', Robin Hood kills a monk and his young helper. Paradoxical to English values of strict adherence to the law and honour, Robin Hood was glorified in ballads and stories for his banishment from society.
Robin Goodfellow, or Puck, is a shape-changing fairy known for his tricks. Since some English superstition suspected that fairies were demons, 17th century publications such as 'Robin Good-Fellow, his Mad Prankes and Merry Jests' and 'The Anatomy of Melancholy' portrayed him as a demon.
Lob, also called loby, looby, lubbard, lubber, or lubberkin, is the name given to a fairy with a dark raincloud as a body. It has a mischievous character and can describe any fairy-like creature from British folklore. It can be confused with Lob Lie-By-The-Fire, a strong, hairy giant which helps humans.
Stories
Beowulf is an anonymous Old English historical epic of 3182 lines which describes the adventures of its titular character, prince Beowulf of Geats. The story goes that Beowulf slays Grendel, a monster who has tormented the hall of Hrothgar King of the Danes for twelve years. Grendel's mother seeks to gain revenge and Beowulf slays her also, after which Beowulf becomes king of the Danes himself. After 50 years, Beowulf's people are tormented by a dragon and Beowulf dies while slaying her. Original speculation was that Beowulf was a Scandinavian epic translated to English, theorised due to the story's Scandinavian settings. However, Beowulf was cemented as an Old English epic through the study that heroes of folklore are not ordinarily natives of the country they save.
The Brown Lady of Raynham is a story of the ghost of a woman of Norfolk, Lady Dorothy Walpole. After her adultery was discovered, she was confined to her chambers until death and roamed the halls of Raynham, named after the brown brocade she wears. Differing versions of the story attest that she was locked in by her husband, Lord Townsend, or by the Countess of Wharton.
The Legend of the Mistletoe Bough is a ghost story which has been associated with many mansions and stately homes in England. The tale describes how a new bride, playing a game of hide-and-seek during her wedding breakfast, hid in a chest in an attic and was unable to escape. She was not discovered by her family and friends, and suffocated. The body was allegedly found many years later in the locked chest.
Other types of folklore
Beliefs and motifs
Standing stones are man-made stone structures made to stand up. Some small standing stones can also be arranged in groups to form miniliths. Similar to these geological artefacts are hill figures. These are figures drawn into the countryside by digging into the ground and sometimes filling it in with a mineral of a contrasting colour. Examples are the Cerne Abbas Giant, the Uffington White Horse, and the Long Man of Wilmington and are the focus for folktales and beliefs.
The Green Man is a description originating in 1939 which describes the engraved sculpture of a face with leaves growing from it in English architecture. His presence symbolises nature, but he is depicted differently according to where he is engraved and who carves him; on a church he may symbolise either inspiration or lust, or he may symbolise an ancient protector of travellers in a forest. The phrase originated from 'whifflers' who dressed in leaves or hair to make way for processions during pageants from the 15th to 18th centuries.
There was a belief that those born at the chime hours could see ghosts. The time differed according to region, usually based around the times of monk's prayer which were sometimes marked by a chime.
Crop circles are formations of flattened cereal. While they have been speculated to have mysterious and often extraterrestrial origins, most crop circles have been proven to be hoaxes. Those made by Doug Bower and Dave Chorley across England in 1991 have since started chains of copycats around the world.
Cunning folk was a term used to refer to male and female healers, magicians, conjurers, fortune-tellers, potion-makers, exorcists, or thieves. Such people were respected, feared and sometimes hunted for their breadth of knowledge which was suspected as supernatural.
The wild hunt was a description of a menacing group of huntsmen which either rode across the sky or on lonely roads. Their presence was a hallmark of the perception of the countryside as a wild and mystical place.
Practices
On May Day, the first day of May, a tall, decorated pole is put up as a symbol of fertility called a maypole. The maypole represents a phallic object impregnating the earth at the end of spring to ensure a bountiful summer. The maypoles were decorated originally with flowers and carved from the branches of trees about to bloom to symbolise the birth of new life. Eventually the flowers were replaced with ribbons and May day became a day for celebration and dancing in which a May queen and sometimes a May king would be crowned to also symbolise fertility.
A parish ale is a type of party in the parish usually held to fundraise money for a particular purpose.
Plough Monday was a custom in which, on the first Monday after Christmas, men visited people's doorsteps at night and asked for a token for the holiday. They carried whips and a makeshift plough and dug up the house's doorstep or scraper if the house refused to give them an item.
Corn dollies are a form of straw work made as part of harvest customs of Europe before the First World War. Their use varied according to region: it may have been decorative, an image of pride for the harvest, or a way to mock nearby farms which had not yet collected their harvest. There has been a recent resurgence in their creation lead by Minnie Lambeth in the 1950s and 1960s through her book A Golden Dolly: The Art, Mystery, and History of Corn Dollies.
A superstition among children was that, if the first word uttered in the month was "Rabbit!", then that person would have good luck for the rest of the month. Variants include: "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit!", "rabbit, rabbit, white rabbit!", and "white rabbit!".
After a person died, a poor person was hired to take on their sins by eating before or after the funeral over their body- a sin-eater. The sin-eater would hence ensure that the recently deceased would be taken to heaven.
Items
Sir Francis Drake's Drum is a legend about the drum of an English admiral who raided Spanish treasure fleets and Spanish ports. He was believed to have white magic which enabled him to turn into a dragon (as hinted by his name, Drake meaning dragon in Latin). When he died, the drum which he brought on his voyage around the world was sung about- that in England's peril, they could strike it and he would come to their aid. Eventually the legend evolved to be that the drum would strike itself in England's peril, and it has been heard struck since.
A hagstone, also called a holed stone or adder stone, is a type of stone, usually glassy, with a naturally occurring hole through it. Such stones have been discovered by archaeologists in both Britain and Egypt. In England it was used as a counter-charm for sleep paralysis, called hag-riding by tradition.
A petrifying well is a well which, when items are placed into it, they appear to be covered in stone. Items also acquire a stony texture when left in the well for an extended period of time. Examples in England include Mother Shipton's Cave in Knaresborough and Matlock Bath in Derbyshire.
Common folklore
Charivari
Elfshot
Green Man
Merry England
Nursery rhyme / Mother Goose
Pillywiggin
Saint George's Day in England
Sir Gowther
Tudor myth
Folklore local to specific areas
Folklore of East Anglia
St. Audrey
Babes in the Wood at Wayland Wood
The Black Shuck – A Black Dog
Borley Rectory
Caxton Gibbet
St. Edmund of East Anglia
Green children of Woolpit
St. Guthlac of Croyland
Hereward the Wake
Hyter sprites
Jack Valentine
Lantern man
The mermaid of Upper Sheringham
Molly dance
King Cole and St. Helena
The Pedlar of Swaffham
Religious visions at Walsingham
Tom Hickathrift
Turpin's Cave
Witch Bottles Bottles filled with nails buried under the hearth to ward off evil spirits.
Gnome A small fat creature depicted with a white beard and moustache. (Female: Wombies).
Folklore of London and the South East
Sir Bevis of Hampton
Biddenden Maids
Bran the Blessed's Head at the Tower of London
Brutus of Troy, the legendary founder of London
Clapham Wood, an area of strange activity
Devil's Jumps, Churt
Devil's Jumps, Treyford
Devil's Punch Bowl
Electric Horror of Berkeley Square
St. Frideswide
Ghost of Rahere
Gog and Magog, legendary giants and guardians of the City of London
Hengest and Horsa, legendary founders of Saxon England
Herne the Hunter – a related to the Wild Hunt
Highgate Vampire
Hoodening
Kit's Coty House
Lady Lovibond
Lazy Laurence
London Bridge is falling down
London Stone
King Lud, connected with the City of London
Mallard Song
Mowing-Devil of Hertfordshire
Oranges and Lemons
The Ratman of Southend
Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
Ravens of the Tower of London
Rollright Stones
Stockwell ghost
Spring Heeled Jack
Swan Upping
Swearing on the Horns
Wayland the Smith
Yernagate, the giant guardian of the New forest
Folklore of the Midlands
Alkborough Turf Maze
Belgrave Hall and its ghosts
Black Annis
Black Lady of Bradley Woods
Border Morris
Bottle-kicking
Byard's Leap
Chained Oak
The Derby Ram
Dun Cow
Fulk FitzWarin
Godiva
Guy of Warwick
Haxey Hood Game
Jack of Kent
Lincoln Imp
Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
Madam Pigott
Major Oak
Mermaid's Pool
Nanny Rutt
Old Jeffrey
Relics of St. Oswald
Robin Hood
Royal Shrovetide Football
Stiperstones
Tiddy Mun
Wise Men of Gotham
Witches of Belvoir
The Giant of the Wrekin
Yallery-Brown
Folklore of Yorkshire and the North East
The Barghest
The Cauld Lad of Hylton
St. Cuthbert
The Devil's Arrows
Dunnie
Duergar
The Hedley Kow
Jack-In-Irons
Jingling Geordie's Hole
Halifax Gibbet
Kilburn White Horse
Laidly Worm
The Lambton Worm
Legend of Upsall Castle
Long Sword dance
My Own Self
Peg Powler
Rapper sword
Redcap
Robin Hood
Sedgefield Ball Game
Ursula Southeil
Folklore of the North West
Adam Bell
The Wizard of Alderley Edge
Arthur o' Bower
D'ye ken John Peel (song)
Folklore of Lancashire
Furness Abbey and its ghosts
Grindylow
Gytrash
Jenny Greenteeth
John Middleton
Long Meg and Her Daughters
Pendle Witches
Samlesbury witches
Wild Boar of Westmorland
Folklore of the South West
Abbotsbury Garland Day
Barber surgeon of Avebury
Tom Bawcock
Belas Knap
Bowerman's Nose
Brutus Stone
Cerne Abbas Giant
Cheese rolling
Childe's Tomb
Corineus, legendary founder of Cornwall
Crazywell Pool
Devil's Footprints
Dorset Ooser
St. Dunstan is the origin of the lucky horseshoe
Folklore of Stonehenge
Glastonbury and its abbey
Glastonbury Thorn
Goblin Combe
Hairy hands
Hunky punk
Jack the Giant Killer and Galligantus
Jan Tregeagle
Jay's Grave
Lyonesse
Moonrakers, the story of how the inhabitants of Wiltshire got their nickname
The Obby Oss of Padstow
Pixies
Punkie Night
The Great Thunderstorm, Widecombe
Three hares (Tinners' Rabbits)
Tintagel, legendary birthplace of King Arthur
Warren House Inn
Widecombe Fair
Witch of Wookey Hole
See also
Cornish mythology
English mythology
Once upon a time
Scottish mythology
Welsh mythology
Cycles of legend in the British Isles
Matter of Britain
Matter of England
Related figures
Cecil Sharp
Sabine Baring-Gould
References
Sources
Further reading
Briggs, K. M. "Possible Mythological Motifs in English Folktales". Folklore 83, no. 4 (1972): 265–71. Retrieved June 18, 2020. .
Williamson, Craig; Kramer, Michael P; Lerner, L. Scott (2011). A Feast of Creatures: Anglo-Saxon Riddle-Songs. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. .
Sax, Boria (2015). "The Magic of Animals: English Witch Trials in the Perspective of Folklore". Anthrozoös. 22: 317–332 – via Taylor & Francis Online.
Keegan-Phipps, Simon (29 Mar 2017). "Identifying the English: essentialism and multiculturalism in contemporary English folk music". Ethnomusicology Forum. 26: 3–25 – via Taylor & Francis Online.
Opie, Iona; Tatem, Moira (1992). A Dictionary of Superstitions. New York: Oxford University Press. .
Paynter, William H.; Semmens, Jason (2008). The Cornish Witch-finder: William Henry Paynter and the Witchery, Ghosts, Charms and Folklore of Cornwall. .
Vickery, Roy (1995). A dictionary of plant-lore. New York: Oxford University Press. .
Westwood, Jennifer; Simpson, Jacqueline (2005). The Lore of the Land: A Guide to England's Legends, from Spring-heeled Jack to the Witches of Warboys. Penguin Books. .
Wright, Arthur Robinson (2013). English Folklore. Read Books. .
Fee, Christopher R.; Leeming, David Adams (2004). Gods, Heroes, & Kings: The Battle for Mythic Britain. Oxford University Press. .
External links
"Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales" (1849), by James Halliwell, a discussion on the origin of English folk tales and rhymes.
"Weather and Folk Lore of Peterborough and District:, by Charles Dack, 1911, from Project Gutenberg
Project-IONA a repository of folk tales from England and the islands of the North Atlantic
Folklore Society (UK)
Pretanic World – Folklore and Folkbeliefs
Dartmoor Legends
Folklore |
419852 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swimfin | Swimfin | Swimfins, swim fins, diving fins, or flippers are finlike accessories worn on the feet, legs or hands and made from rubber, plastic, carbon fiber or combinations of these materials, to aid movement through the water in water sports activities such as swimming, bodyboarding, bodysurfing, float-tube fishing, kneeboarding, riverboarding, scuba diving, snorkeling, spearfishing, underwater hockey, underwater rugby and various other types of underwater diving.
Swimfins help the wearer to move through water more efficiently, as human feet are too small and inappropriately shaped to provide much thrust, especially when the wearer is carrying equipment that increases hydrodynamic drag. Very long fins and monofins used by freedivers as a means of underwater propulsion do not require high-frequency leg movement. This improves efficiency and helps to minimize oxygen consumption. Short, stiff-bladed fins are effective for short bursts of acceleration and maneuvering, and are useful for bodysurfing.
History
Early inventors, including Leonardo da Vinci and Giovanni Alfonso Borelli, toyed with the concept of swimfins, taking their inspiration from ducks' feet. Benjamin Franklin made a pair of early swimfins (for hands) when he was a young boy living in Boston, Massachusetts near the Charles River; they were two thin pieces of wood, about the shape of an artist's palette, which allowed him to move faster than he usually did in the water.
Modern swimfins are an invention by the Frenchman Louis de Corlieu, capitaine de corvette (Lieutenant Commander) in the French Navy. In 1914 Corlieu made a practical demonstration of his first prototype for a group of navy officers, Yves le Prieur among them who, years later in 1926, invented an early model of scuba set. Corlieu left the French Navy in 1924 to fully devote himself to his invention. In April 1933 he registered a patent (number 767013, which in addition to two fins for the feet included two spoon-shaped fins for the hands) and called this equipment propulseurs de natation et de sauvetage (which can be translated literally as "swimming and rescue propulsion device").
After struggling for years, even producing his fins in his own flat in Paris, Louis de Corlieu finally started mass production of his invention in France in 1939. The same year he issued a licence to Owen Churchill for mass production in the United States. To sell his fins in the USA Owen Churchill changed the French Corlieu's name (propulseurs) to "swimfins", which is still the common English name. Churchill presented his fins to the US Navy, which decided to acquire them for its Underwater Demolition Team (UDT). American UDT and British COPP frogmen (COPP: Combined Operations Pilotage Parties) used the "Churchill fins" during all prior underwater deminings, thus enabling in 1944 the Normandy landings. During the years after World War II had ended, De Corlieu spent time and efforts struggling in civil procedures, suing others for patent infringement.
In Britain, Dunlop made frogman's fins for World War II, but after the war saw no market for them in peacetime, and, after the first supply of war-surplus frogman's kit was used up, the British public had no access to swimfins (except for home-made attempts such as gluing marine plywood to plimsolls), until Oscar Gugen began importing swimfins and swimming goggles from France.
In 1946 Lillywhites imported about 1,100 pairs of swimfins; they all sold in under 3 months.
In 1948 Luigi Ferraro, collaborating with the Italian diving equipment company Cressi-sub, designed the first full-foot fin, the Rondine, named after the Italian word for swallow. A distinctive feature of Cressi's continuing Rondine full-foot fin line is the embossed outline of the bird on the foot pockets and the blades.
After The Amphibians Club, the UK's first post-war sport diving club, was founded by Ivor Howitt and friends in 1948 in Aberdeenshire, "swim fins were made by wiring stiff rubber piping each side of a flap of inner tube rubber. Very uncomfortable, but they worked. As secretary of The Amphibians, (Howitt) wrote to the Dunlop Rubber Company in February 1949, as they had made the naval frogmen's fins during the war. Incredibly, they replied that they could see no commercial market for swim fins in peacetime. This response reflected the virtual non-existence of sport diving in the UK at that time."
Seven military, national and international standards relating to swimfins are known to exist: US military standard MIL-S-82258:1965; USSR and CIS standard GOST 22469—77 (Active); German standard DIN 7876:1980; Polish Industry Standard BN-82/8444-17.02. (Active). Austrian standard ÖNORM S 4224:1988; Malaysian standards MS 974:1985; MS 974:2002 (Active); and European standard EN 16804:2015 (Active).
Types
Types of fins have evolved to address the requirements of each community using them. Recreational snorkellers generally use lightweight flexible fins. Free divers favour extremely long fins for efficiency of energy use. Scuba divers need large wide fins to overcome the water resistance caused by their diving equipment, and short enough to allow acceptable maneuvering. Ocean swimmers, bodysurfers, and lifeguards favour smaller designs that stay on their feet when moving through large surf and that make walking on the beach less awkward. Participants in the sports of underwater hockey or underwater rugby use either full-foot or open-heel fins, and the chosen fin style is usually a compromise in performance between straight-line power and turning flexibility - carbon fibre blades are popular at higher levels of competition, but the over-riding requirement is that the fins must not have sharp or unprotected edges or points, nor buckles, which could injure other competitors. Structurally, a swimfin comprises a blade for propulsion and a means of attaching the blade to the wearer's foot.
Fins vs monofins
The vast majority of fins come as a pair, one fin is worn on each foot. This arrangement is also called bifins, to distinguish it from monofins. A monofin is typically used in finswimming and free-diving and it consists of a single fin blade attached to twin foot pockets for both the diver's feet. Monofins and long bifin blades can be made of glass fibre or carbon fibre composites. The diver's muscle power and swimming style, and the type of activity the fins are used for, determine the choice of size, stiffness, and materials.
Full-foot vs open-heel
Full-foot or closed-heel fins fit like a shoe and are designed to be worn over bare feet or soft neoprene socks; they are sometimes called "slipper" fins. Most fins with complete foot coverage have toe openings for comfort and for ease of water drainage inside the foot pocket. If a larger size is chosen, however, full-foot fins can also be worn over thicker neoprene socks or thin-soled booties. They are commonly used for surface swimming, and come in non-adjustable sizes.
Open-heel fins have a foot pocket with an open heel area, and the fin is held to the foot by springs or straps which are usually adjustable and so will fit a limited range of foot sizes. They can be worn over boots and are common in diving, in particular where a diver has to walk into the water from a shore and requires foot protection. Some manufacturers produce fins with the same blade architecture but a choice of heel type.
Paddle vs split
Paddle fins have simple plastic, composite, or rubber blades that work as extensions of the feet while kicking. Some paddle fins have channels and grooves claimed to improve power and efficiency though it has been shown that the desired effect does not usually occur. Relatively stiff paddle fins are widely believed to be the most versatile and have improved swimming economy in men. Tests in women showed a more flexible fin to be more economical, most likely due to lower leg power. Stiff paddle fins are required for certain types of kicks — such as back kicks and helicopter turns — performed by scuba divers trained in cave diving and wreck diving to avoid stirring up sediment.
Some swimfins have a split along the centreline of the blade. The manufacturers claim that split fins operate similarly to a propeller, by creating lift forces to move the swimmer forwards. The claim is that water flowing toward the center of the fin's "paddle" portion also gains speed as it focuses, creating a "suction" force. A 2003 study by Pendergast et al called this into question by showing that there was no significant change in performance for a particular split fin design when the split was taped over. The technology used in most commercial split fin designs is patented by the industrial design firm Nature's Wing, and is used under license.
Paddle variations
Vented
Vented fins were first designed in 1964 by Georges Beuchat and commercialised as Jetfins. The Jetfin tradename and design were sold to Scubapro in the 1970s. Vented fins are generally stiff paddle fins that have vents at the base of the foot pocket. The vents are intended to allow for the passage of water during the recovery stroke, but prevent passage during power strokes due to the blade angle, attempting to lessen effort during recovery and improve kick efficiency. A review and study by Pendergast et al in 2003 concluded that vented fins did not improve economy, implying that water does not pass through the vents. The study is only partially significant because it only considers the flutter kick, whereas the jetfin is mostly used with frog kick in the technical diving community. There is a risk of objects snagging in the vents.
Freediving
These are very similar to paddle fins, except they are far longer, and designed to work with slow stiff-legged kicks that are claimed to conserve oxygen and energy. The vast majority are made in the "full-foot" design with very rigid footpockets, which serves to reduce weight and maximize power transfer from the leg into the fin. Freediving fin blades are commonly made of plastic, but are also often made from composite materials using fibreglass or carbon fibre reinforcement. The composite blades are more resilient and absorb less energy when flexing, but are relatively fragile and more easily damaged.
Swimming training
The value of fins as an active aid in the teaching, learning and practice of swimming has long been recognised. In the US, as early as 1947, they were used experimentally to build the confidence of reluctant beginners in swimming, while a 1950 YMCA lifesaving and water safety manual reminded swimming instructors how "flippers can be used to great advantage for treading water, surface diving, towing, underwater searching and supporting a tired swimmer". In 1967, research was conducted on fin use in teaching the crawl stroke. During the 1970s, the so-called "flipper-float" method came into vogue in Europe with the aim of helping beginners learn to swim faster and more safely, while the deployment of fins to assist competitive swimmers in building sprint swimming speed skills also came under scrutiny. By 1990, ready-made short-bladed fins such as Marty Hull's "Zoomers" and cut-down longer-bladed fins became popular for lap swimming as swim workouts grew to be more nuanced and less regimented. Training fins, as they are now called, continue to be popular tools in an aquatic athlete's swimbag well into the new millennium, for recreational reasons as well as skill-building purposes.
Bodysurfing
Fins intended for bodyboarding or bodysurfing are usually relatively short with a stiff-blade, designed to produce a short burst of power and assist in catching a wave. Some versions have blades which are shorter at the inside edge. They are often made with an integral strap but an open heel, allowing sand to wash out more easily.
Attachment
Open heel fins are secured to the foot by a strap which passes around the back of the ankle. These are usually elastic and may be adjustable. Early fins used rubber straps connected to the fin by a wire buckle, and were not readily adjustable. Later versions incorporated swivels, buckles, quick release connectors and adjustable tension, but the increased complexity and decreased reliability, and tendency of the loose strap ends to hook on things triggered a return by some manufacturers and aftermarket accessory manufacturers to simpler systems. These include stainless steel spring straps and bungee straps, which once set up, are not adjustable, and which reduce the number of potential failure points and places where the fin can snag on obstructions like net, line and seaweed. Some heel straps have a loop for better grip with wet hands or gloves.
Some fins designed for surf use have integral straps which can neither be replaced nor adjusted, but are simple and have no projections which can snag or scratch the swimmer's legs. They are much like full foot pocket fins without the back part of the sole, but do not trap as much sand when used in the surf.
A full-foot swimming fin is designed to be secured on the foot by the elasticity of the fin's heelpiece. If this fin has a slightly oversized foot pocket, it may fall off when the user is swimming in choppy waters, but a pair of fin grips can help avert this mishap. Fixe-palmes, fin retainers, or fin grips, were invented and patented in 1959 by the French diving equipment company Beuchat in Marseilles. Widely copied during the 1970s, they are simple flat rings with three loops or straps made from thin high stretch rubber. These Y-shaped anchor straps are worn over the arch, the heel and the instep of each foot in order to secure strapless shoe-fitting (full foot) swim fins (see Figure 3). Although they are not designed to hold open-heel and strap models on, some swimmers and divers use them for this purpose. One loop is pulled over the foot above the ankle and the swim fin fitted to the foot. The second loop is pulled under the heel of the fin, leaving the remaining loop at the back of the heel. This procedure is illustrated in Figures 4–7.
Use
Techniques
The use of swimfins for propulsion can be divided into propulsion and maneuvering aspects.
Propulsion
Three basic modes of propulsive finning can be distinguished:
Scissor or flutter kick involves alternate motion of the fins parallel to the sagittal plane of the swimmer. As the one leg thrusts in the ventral direction in the power stroke, the other performs the return stroke, which provides some thrust, but is significantly less powerful in most cases as the ankle tends to feather the blade. The blade must bend during the power stroke to thrust water away from the diver and thereby provide propulsion along the centreline. Efficient propulsion requires a low drag attitude in the water, and thrust along the direction of movement.
Frog kick involves the simultaneous and laterally mirrored motion of both legs together, mostly parallel to the frontal plane. The power stroke is provided by thrusting the fins distally and towards the centreline by extending hips, knees and ankles, while rotating the fins to maximise thrust. The recovery stroke pulls the feathered fins towards the centre of mass and apart by flexing the hips, knees and ankles.
Dolphin kick uses both legs together in a parallel motion. The movements are similar to those of flutter kick, but both legs perform the power and recovery strokes together. There is more use of the back and abdominal muscles, and considerable power can be exerted, but this requires equivalent effort, and can be stressful on people with lower back problems. Dolphin kick can be used with all fin types, and is the only option available when using a monofin.
Modified styles of flutter and frog kick can be used to reduce down-flow of water which can disturb silt and reduce visibility, and are used when finning close to silty surfaces, such as inside caves and wrecks, or near the bottom of quarries, dams, lakes and some harbours.
Maneuvering
Turning on the spot and reversing are possible with suitable fins and skills.
The back kick is used to provide thrust along the length of the body, but in the opposite direction to normal propulsion. Back kick reversing is considered maneuvering rather than propulsion as it is relatively very inefficient and only used when necessary.
A helicopter turn is the rotation of the horizontal swimmer around a vertical axis through the body, by paddling movements of one or both fins, using mostly lower leg and ankle movement. The use of a separate fin on each foot allows far more freedom of motion for manoeuvering, as they can be used independently, in parallel or in opposition to produce thrust in a wide variety of directions. Manoeuverability with a monofin is relatively restricted.
Training
Divers are initially taught to fin with legs straight, without excess bending of the knee, the action coming from the hips; a leg action with much upper leg flexion with bent knees like riding a bicycle is inefficient and is a common fault with divers who have not learned properly how to fin swim. This leg action feels easier because it is actually producing less thrust. Fins with differing characteristics (e.g. stiffness) may be preferred, depending on the application, and divers may have to learn a modified finning style to match.
Power
The upper sustainable limit of a diver's fin-kick thrust force using a stationary-swimming ergometer was shown to be . The maximum thrust averaged over 20 seconds against a strain gauge has been measured as high as . Resistive respiratory muscle training improves and maintains endurance fin swimming performance in divers.
Ergonomics
Experimental work suggests that larger fin blades are more efficient in converting diver effort to thrust, and are more economical in breathing gas for similar propulsive effect. Larger fins were perceived to be less fatiguing than smaller fins.
See also
References
External links
Fins For Laps Swimming
Diver propulsion equipment
Sports footwear
Swimming equipment |
419900 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent%20control%20in%20the%20United%20States | Rent control in the United States | In the United States, rent control refers to laws or ordinances that set price controls on the rent of residential housing to function as a price ceiling. More loosely, "rent control" describes several types of price control:
"strict price ceilings", also known as "rent freeze" systems, or "absolute" or "first generation" rent controls, in which no increases in rent are allowed at all (rent is typically frozen at the rate existing when the law was enacted);
"vacancy control", also known as "strict" or "strong" rent control, in which the rental price can rise but continues to be regulated in between tenancies (a new tenant pays almost the same rent as the previous tenant); and
"vacancy decontrol", also known as "tenancy" or "second-generation" rent control, which limits price increases during a tenancy but allows rents to rise to market rate between tenancies (new tenants pay market rate rent but increases are limited as long as they remain).
As of 2022, seven states (California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Maine, Oregon, and Minnesota) and the District of Columbia have localities in which some form of residential rent control is in effect (for normal structures, excluding mobile homes). Thirty-seven states either prohibit or preempt rent control, while seven states allow their cities to enact rent control but have no cities that have implemented it. For localities with rent control, it often covers a large percentage of that city's stock of rental units. For example, in New York City as of 2017, 45% of rental units were "rent stabilized" and 1% were "rent controlled" (these are different legal classifications in NYC). In the District of Columbia as of 2019, about 36% of rental units were rent controlled. In San Francisco as of 2014, about 75% of all rental units were rent controlled, and in Los Angeles in 2014, 80% of multifamily units were rent controlled.
In 2019, Oregon's legislature passed a bill which made the state the first in the nation to adopt a state-wide rent control policy. This new law limits annual rent increases to inflation plus 7 percent, includes vacancy decontrol (market rate between tenancies), exempts new construction for 15 years, and keeps the current state ban on local rent control policies (state level preemption) intact. In November 2021, voters in Saint Paul, Minnesota, passed a rent control ballot initiative that capped annual rent increases at 3 percent, included vacancy control, and did not exempt new construction or allow inflation to be added to the allowable rate increase. This resulted in an 80% reduction in requests for new multifamily housing permits, while in neighboring Minneapolis, where voters authorized the city council to craft a rent control ordinance which might exempt new construction, permits were up 70%.
There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of rental housing units. Other observers see rent control as benefiting the renter, preventing excessive rent increases and unfair evictions. Rent control may stabilize a community, promoting continuity, and it may mitigate income inequality.
History
In the United States during World War I, rents were "controlled" through a combination of public pressure and the efforts of local anti-rent-profiteering committees. Between 1919 and 1924, a number of cities and states adopted rent- and eviction-control laws. Modern rent controls were first adopted in response to the Great Depression and WWII- era shortages. Because of these shortages and the overall national economic crisis, the federal government called for emergency price control on consumer goods and rent control in 1942. However, not all states decided to implement these rent control laws.
It was not until the 1970s, during the economic recession, that Richard Nixon temporarily implemented a national wage and price controls to combat hyperinflation, but this did not last for long and began to phase out in 1973. Nonetheless, tenants particularly in Berkeley kept organizing and brought rent stabilization to the June 6, 1973 L972 ballot. They won and Berkeley became the first city in California to have rent control since World War II. Other cities around the country followed and some still remain in effect or have been reintroduced in certain cities with large tenant populations, such as New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Oakland, California. Many smaller communities also have rent control — notably the California cities of Santa Monica, Berkeley, and West Hollywood — along with many small towns in New Jersey. In the early 1990s, rent control in some cities, such as Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts, was ended by state referendums. When rent control ended in Cambridge, the city realized a 20% increase in new development and an increase in property values, according to a study by the MIT Center for Real Estate.
History reveals that these regulations are constantly in flux and adapting to situations such as natural disasters, economic crises, and pandemics. These changes do not always look the same and vary within each state and city. For example, due to COVID-19, Oakland, California implemented a moratorium to prevent evictions from happening, which ended in February 2021. Whereas in Massachusetts the eviction moratorium ended on October 17, 2020, and there was a CDC moratorium that stopped physical removals in cases where tenants owed rent due to illness or job loss until December 31, 2020.
New York
New York State has had the longest history of rent controls, since 1920. New York City contains the majority of units covered by rent control. Rent control laws have stayed on the books for decades in New York because of an inadequate supply of "decent, affordable housing". The worsening in the rental market led to the enactment of the Rent Stabilization Law of 1969, which aimed to help increase the number of available rental units. The current system is very complicated, and most of the protected renters are elderly. William A. Moses, the founder of the Community Housing Improvement Program, a trade association that represents the owners of over 4,000 apartment buildings in New York City, said in 1983 that rent control was "the principal reason for neighborhood deterioration" and that at least 300,000 apartment units would have been built in New York City without it. Moses argued that landlords might not maintain their property if they were not allowed to collect adequate rent. Urban planning scholar Peter Marcuse said in 1983 that rent control was not the reason for some landlords abandoning their NYC properties at the low end of the market – instead, such abandonment stemmed from the inability of low-income renters to pay the maximum rent allowed by law. New York expanded rent control to encompass other municipalities in 2019 through the passage of the Housing Stability and Tenant Protection Act of 2019. Since then, opponents have argued these new rent control regulations hinder investment in multifamily properties in New York City. New York's rent control laws have also received criticism for inadvertently benefiting affluent tenants who might not otherwise need rental assistance. Additionally, a survey of property owners who own or manage rent stabilized units in New York City found that rent regulations would lead to fewer non-essential improvements and proactive maintenance at their buildings.
California
In California, municipal enactment of rent controls followed the high inflation of the 1970s (causing rents to continually rise) and the 1979 statewide Proposition 13, which set property tax rates at 1%, and capped yearly increases at 2%. Leading the campaign to enact Proposition 13, California politician Howard Jarvis tried to get tenants to vote for Prop 13 by claiming that landlords would pass tax savings along to tenants; when most failed to do so, it became an additional motivating factor for rent control.
In 1985, California adopted the Ellis Act, eliminating municipalities' ability to prohibit the removal of properties from rental activities after the California Supreme Court in Nash v. City of Santa Monica ruled that municipalities could prevent landlords from "going out of business" and withdrawing their properties from the rental market.New Study Calls for Ellis Act Reform
"Strong" or "vacancy control" rent control laws were in effect in five California cities (West Hollywood, Santa Monica, Berkeley, East Palo Alto, and Cotati) in 1995, when AB 1164 (known as the Costa-Hawkins Rental Housing Act) preempted some elements of municipal rent control ordinances and eliminated strong rent-control in California (except in special cases like mobile home parks).
In 2018, a statewide initiative (Proposition 10) attempted to repeal the Costa-Hawkins law, which, if passed, would have allowed cities and municipalities to enact "strong" or "vacancy control" systems, allowed rent control to be applied to buildings built after 1995, and would have allowed rent control on single-family homes. All are currently prohibited by Costa-Hawkins. The proposition failed 59% to 41%.
In 2019, the California legislature passed and the governor signed AB 1482, which created a statewide rent cap for the next 10 years. The Tenant Protection Act of 2019 caps annual rent increases at 5% plus regional inflation. For example, had the bill been in effect in 2019, rent increases in Los Angeles would have been capped at 8.3%, and in San Francisco at 9%. The increases are pegged to the rental rate as of March 15, 2019. The new law does not apply to buildings built within the prior 15 years, or to single-family homes (unless owned by corporations or institutional investors). It also includes a requirement to show "just cause" for evictions, and retains "vacancy decontrol", meaning that rents can increase to market rate between tenants.
In 2020, Michael Weinstein, the founder of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, sponsored and financed a second ballot initiative to allow more rent control, because he felt that AB 1482 (above) did not provide enough tenant protections, such as limiting rent increases between tenants. 2020 California Proposition 21, like its predecessor 2018 California Proposition 10, was funded almost exclusively by Weinstein's AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and failed by an almost identical margin.
Massachusetts
Rent control existed in Massachusetts between 1970 and 1994 when it was repealed by ballot initiative. During its existance, those who lived in rent controlled apartments included Ruth Abrams, a Justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, and Frederik, Crown Prince of Denmark. It was blamed for the death of at least one landlord, due to the stress caused by a ruling from a rent control board that would require him to raise his entire house to create a new, legal apartment in the basement.
Mobile homes
In some regions, rent control laws are more commonly adopted for mobile home parks. Reasons given for these laws include residents owning their homes while renting the land the home sits on, the high cost of moving mobile homes, and the loss of home value when they are moved. California, for example, has only 13 local apartment rent control laws but over 100 local mobile home rent control laws. No new mobile home parks have been built in California since 1991.
Law
Rent control laws define which rental units are affected, and may only cover larger complexes, or units older than a certain date. To attempt to not disincentivise investment in new housing stock, rent control laws often exempt new construction. For example, San Francisco's Rent Stabilization Ordinance exempts all units built after 1979. New York State generally exempts units built after 1974 anywhere in the state (although owners can agree to rent stabilization in exchange for tax benefits).
The frequency and degree of rent increases are limited, usually to the rate of inflation defined by the United States Consumer Price Index or to a fraction thereof. San Francisco, for example, allows annual rent increases of 60% of the CPI, up to a maximum 7%.
Rent control laws are often administered by nonelected rent control boards. Officers in city government assign members of the board, which will ensure mixed numbers of tenants and property owners to balance out their benefits. As stated in Goodman's research, a typical rent control board in New York is structured by two tenants, two landlords, and one homeowner. (Gilderbloom & Markham, 1996).
Federal law
Rent regulation in the United States is an issue for each state. In 1921, the Supreme Court of the United States case of Block v. Hirsh held by a majority that regulation of rents in the District of Columbia as a temporary emergency measure was constitutional, but shortly afterwards in 1924 in Chastleton Corp v. Sinclair the same law was unanimously struck down by the Supreme Court. After the 1930s New Deal, the Supreme Court ceased to interfere with social and economic legislation, and a growing number of states adopted rules. In the 1986 case of Fisher v. City of Berkeley, the US Supreme court held that there was no incompatibility between rent control and the Sherman Act.
State and local law
Oregon and California are the only states with statewide rent control laws, both enacted in 2019. Six states—California, New York, New Jersey, Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota—have localities in which some form of residential rent control is in effect. The District of Columbia also has rent control for some rental units; publicly owned or assisted properties, properties built in 1978 or later, and properties held by an owner with fewer than five rental units are exempt from D.C.'s rent-control law.
Thirty-seven states either prohibit or preempt rent control, while eight states allow their cities to enact rent control, but have no cities that have implemented it.
As of 2019, about 182 U.S. municipalities have rent control: 99 in New Jersey, 63 in New York, 18 in California, one in Maryland, and Washington, D.C. The five most populous cities with rent control are New York City; Los Angeles; San Francisco; Oakland; and Washington, D.C. The sole Maryland municipality with rent control is Takoma Park.
Impact
There is a consensus among economists that rent control reduces the quality and quantity of housing. A 2009 review of the economic literature by Blair Jenkins found that "the economics profession has reached a rare consensus: Rent control creates many more problems than it solves". In a 2013 analysis of the body of economic research on rent control by Peter Tatian at the Urban Institute (a think tank described both as "liberal" and "independent"), he stated that "The conclusion seems to be that rent stabilization doesn't do a good job of protecting its intended beneficiaries—poor or vulnerable renters—because the targeting of the benefits is very haphazard.", and concluded that: "Given the current research, there seems to be little one can say in favor of rent control." Two economists from opposing sides of the political spectrum, Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman (who identifies as an American liberal or European social democrat), and Thomas Sowell, (who stated that "libertarian" might best describe his views) have both criticized rent regulation as poor economics, which, despite its good intentions, leads to the creation of less housing, raises prices, and increases urban blight. Writing in 1946, economists Milton Friedman and George J. Stigler said: "Rent ceilings, therefore, cause haphazard and arbitrary allocation of space, inefficient use of space, retardation of new construction and indefinite continuance of rent ceilings, or subsidization of new construction and a future depression in residential building."
Historically, there have been two types of rent control – vacancy control (where the rent level of a unit is controlled irrespective of whether the tenant remains in the unit or not) and vacancy decontrol (where the rent level is controlled only while the existing tenant remains in the unit). In California prior to 1997, both types were allowed (the Costa/Hawkins bill of that year phased out vacancy control provisions). A 1990 study of Santa Monica, CA showed that vacancy control in that city protected existing tenants (lower increases in rent and longer stability). However, the policy potentially discouraged investors from building new rental units.
A 2000 study that compared the border areas of four California cities having vacancy control provisions (Santa Monica, Berkeley, West Hollywood, East Palo Alto) with the border areas of adjoining jurisdictions (two of which allowed vacancy decontrol, including Los Angeles, and two of which had no rent control) showed that existing tenants in the vacancy control cities had lower rents and longer tenure than in the comparison areas. Thus, the ordinances helped protect the existing tenants and, therefore, increased community stability. However, there were fewer new rental units created in the border areas of the vacancy controlled cities over the 10-year period.
A study that compared the effects of local rent control measures (both vacancy control and vacancy decontrol) with other local growth management measures in 490 California cities and counties (including all the largest ones) showed that rent control was stronger than individual land use restrictions (but not the aggregate effect of all growth restrictions) in reducing the number of rental units constructed between 1980 and 1990. The measures (both rent control and growth management) helped displace new construction from the metropolitan areas to the interiors of the state with low income and minority populations being particularly impacted.
In 1994, San Francisco voters passed a ballot initiative which expanded the city's existing rent control laws to include small multi-unit apartments with four or less units, built prior to 1980 (about 30% of the city's rental housing stock at the time).
In 2017, Stanford economics researcher Rebecca Diamond and others published a study which examined the effects of this specific rent control law on the rental units newly controlled compared to similar style units (multi-unit apartments with four or less units) not under rent control (built after 1980), as well as this law's effect on the total city rental stock, and on overall rent prices in the city, covering the years from 1995 to 2012.
They found that while San Francisco's rent control laws benefited tenants who had rent controlled units, it also resulted in landlords removing 30% of the units in the study from the rental market, (by conversion to condos or TICs) which led to a 15% citywide decrease in total rental units, and a 7% increase in citywide rents.
The authors stated that "This substitution toward owner occupied and high-end new construction rental housing likely fueled the gentrification of San Francisco, as these types of properties cater to higher income individuals."
The authors also noted that "...forcing landlords to provide insurance against rent increases leads to large losses to tenants. If society desires to provide social insurance against rent increases, it would be more desirable to offer this subsidy in the form of a government subsidy or tax credit. This would remove landlords' incentives to decrease the housing supply and could provide households with the insurance they desire."
The rental-accommodation market suffers from information asymmetries and high transaction costs. Typically, a landlord has more information about a home than a prospective tenant can reasonably detect. Moreover, once the tenant has moved in, the costs of moving again are very high. Unscrupulous landlords could conceal defects and, if the tenant complains, threaten to raise the rent at the end of the lease. With rent control, tenants can request that hidden defects, if they exist, be repaired to comply with building code requirements, without fearing retaliatory rent increases. Rent control could thus compensate somewhat for inefficiencies of the housing market. In older buildings, rent control may broaden incentives to renovate individual units: tenants may invest sweat equity and their own money to improve their homes if they are protected from landlords trying to capture the added value, while vacancy decontrol preserves landlords' financial incentive to renovate vacant units because it allows them to re-rent at market value.
According to a 2018 review of new research by Rebecca Diamond, new research showed that rent control benefitted tenants in the short-run, but had adverse effects for tenants and neighborhood stability in the long-run by reducing affordability, increasing gentrification, and creating negative spillovers for nearby neighborhoods. Landlords frequently responded to rent control policies by reconverting rentals into buildings exempt from rent control or by allowing rentals to decay.
A 2019 NBER working paper, which evaluated the efficacy of different housing affordability government policies, found that better targeting of rent control (towards the neediest households) could be welfare improving. A 2021 study modelled rent control policies and found that they may raise housing prices and reduce housing quantities, but that "well-designed rent control may help policymakers to stabilize housing market dynamics, even without creating housing market distortions".
Commentary
In 2000, New York Times columnist and Princeton University economist Paul Krugman published a frequently cited column on rent control. He wrote, "The analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and – among economists anyway – one of the least controversial. In 1992, a poll of the American Economic Association found 93 percent of its members agreeing that 'a ceiling on rents reduces the quality and quantity of housing."
In light of recent legislative activity and ballot initiatives, several editorial boards have weighed in on rent control. In March 2019, the Chicago Tribune noted, "The cost of rent control would be borne throughout the city in ways that, over time, would leave Chicago worse off. Even for many renters." In September 2019, the Washington Post argued, "Rent-controlled laws can be good for some privileged beneficiaries, who are often not the people who really need help. But they are bad for many others." In September 2019, the Wall Street Journal wrote, "Economists of all stripes agree rent control doesn't work. A mere 2% think it has positive effects, according to a 2012 survey by the IGM Forum."
Tenants' rights activists argue that rent control is necessary in times of long term housing shortages (See California housing shortage) to reduce the human suffering caused by increasing rents and the homelessness which results when people who can no longer afford the rent increases get evicted. Milton Friedman argued that rent control restricts the property rights of property owners, as it limits what they may do with their property, requiring petitioning and other processes by law, prior to taking action against a renter.
See also
Affordable housing
Price ceiling
Subsidized housing
Rent control in New York
Rent control in California
Rent regulation
People
Don A. Allen, member of the California State Assembly and of the Los Angeles City Council in the 1940s and 1950s, urged lifting of wartime rent controls in Los Angeles
Notes
References
Baar, Kenneth K. (1983). "Guidelines for Drafting Rent Control Laws: Lessons of a Decade." Rutgers Law Review, Vol. 35 No. 4 (Summer 1983).
Baar, Kenneth K. (1992). "The Right to Sell the "Im"mobile Manufactured Home in Its Rent Controlled Space in the "Im"mobile Home Park: Valid Regulation or Unconstitutional Taking?" The Urban Lawyer, Vol. 24 pp. 157–221.
Downs, Anthony (1996). A Reevaluation of Residential Rent Controls. Washington, D.C. : Urban Land Institute, .
Friedman, Milton, and George J. Stigler (1946). Roofs or Ceilings? The Current Housing Problem. Irvington-on-Hudson, N.Y.: Foundation for Economic Education.
Gilderbloom, John I., editor (1981). Rent Control: A Source Book. Center for Policy Alternatives; 3rd edition, June 1, 1981. .
Keating, Dennis, editor (1998). Rent Control: Regulation and the Housing Market. Center for Urban Policy Research, .
McDonough, Cristina (2007). "Rent Control and Rent Stabilization as Forms of Regulatory and Physical Taking." Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, Vol. 34 pp. 361–85.
Niebanck, Paul L., editor (1986). The Rent Control Debate. University of North Carolina Press, .
Tucker, William (1991). Zoning, Rent Control and Affordable Housing. .
Turner, Margery Austin (1990). Housing Market Impacts of Rent Control. Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, .
External links
Rent Control Around the World: Pros and Cons
California cities with rent control
additional California cities with rent regulation
New York communities with rent control
Pro-rent control article from tenant.net
New York Magazine article on Rent Control including interviews with tenants
Rent Control in the New Millennium by Dennis Keating
Almanac of Policy Issues – Rent Controls
Rent Controls and Housing Investment
Pro-rent control article from Dollars & Sense magazine
Four Thousand Years of Price Control – Mises Institute
Affordable housing
Housing in the United States
Price controls
United States
Real property law in the United States
Housing law
Regulation in the United States
fr:Contrôle des loyers
sv:Hyresreglering |
419986 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osteoblast | Osteoblast | Osteoblasts (from the Greek combining forms for "bone", ὀστέο-, osteo- and βλαστάνω, blastanō "germinate") are cells with a single nucleus that synthesize bone. However, in the process of bone formation, osteoblasts function in groups of connected cells. Individual cells cannot make bone. A group of organized osteoblasts together with the bone made by a unit of cells is usually called the osteon.
Osteoblasts are specialized, terminally differentiated products of mesenchymal stem cells. They synthesize dense, crosslinked collagen and specialized proteins in much smaller quantities, including osteocalcin and osteopontin, which compose the organic matrix of bone.
In organized groups of disconnected cells, osteoblasts produce hydroxyapatite, the bone mineral, that is deposited in a highly regulated manner, into the organic matrix forming a strong and dense mineralized tissue, the mineralized matrix. The mineralized skeleton is the main support for the bodies of air breathing vertebrates. It is also an important store of minerals for physiological homeostasis including both acid-base balance and calcium or phosphate maintenance.
Bone structure
The skeleton is a large organ that is formed and degraded throughout life in the air-breathing vertebrates. The skeleton, often referred to as the skeletal system, is important both as a supporting structure and for maintenance of calcium, phosphate, and acid-base status in the whole organism. The functional part of bone, the bone matrix, is entirely extracellular. The bone matrix consists of protein and mineral. The protein forms the organic matrix. It is synthesized and then the mineral is added. The vast majority of the organic matrix is collagen, which provides tensile strength. The matrix is mineralized by deposition of hydroxyapatite (alternative name, hydroxylapatite). This mineral is hard, and provides compressive strength. Thus, the collagen and mineral together are a composite material with excellent tensile and compressive strength, which can bend under a strain and recover its shape without damage. This is called elastic deformation. Forces that exceed the capacity of bone to behave elastically may cause failure, typically bone fractures.
Bone remodeling
Bone is a dynamic tissue that is constantly being reshaped by osteoblasts, which produce and secrete matrix proteins and transport mineral into the matrix, and osteoclasts, which break down the tissues.
Osteoblasts
Osteoblasts are the major cellular component of bone. Osteoblasts arise from mesenchymal stem cells (MSC). MSC give rise to osteoblasts, adipocytes, and myocytes among other cell types. Osteoblast quantity is understood to be inversely proportional to that of marrow adipocytes which comprise marrow adipose tissue (MAT). Osteoblasts are found in large numbers in the periosteum, the thin connective tissue layer on the outside surface of bones, and in the endosteum.
Normally, almost all of the bone matrix, in the air breathing vertebrates, is mineralized by the osteoblasts. Before the organic matrix is mineralized, it is called the osteoid. Osteoblasts buried in the matrix are called osteocytes. During bone formation, the surface layer of osteoblasts consists of cuboidal cells, called active osteoblasts. When the bone-forming unit is not actively synthesizing bone, the surface osteoblasts are flattened and are called inactive osteoblasts. Osteocytes remain alive and are connected by cell processes to a surface layer of osteoblasts. Osteocytes have important functions in skeletal maintenance.
Osteoclasts
Osteoclasts are multinucleated cells that derive from hematopoietic progenitors in the bone marrow which also give rise to monocytes in peripheral blood. Osteoclasts break down bone tissue, and along with osteoblasts and osteocytes form the structural components of bone. In the hollow within bones are many other cell types of the bone marrow. Components that are essential for osteoblast bone formation include mesenchymal stem cells (osteoblast precursor) and blood vessels that supply oxygen and nutrients for bone formation. Bone is a highly vascular tissue, and active formation of blood vessel cells, also from mesenchymal stem cells, is essential to support the metabolic activity of bone. The balance of bone formation and bone resorption tends to be negative with age, particularly in post-menopausal women, often leading to a loss of bone serious enough to cause fractures, which is called osteoporosis.
Osteogenesis
Bone is formed by one of two processes: endochondral ossification or intramembranous ossification. Endochondral ossification is the process of forming bone from cartilage and this is the usual method. This form of bone development is the more complex form: it follows the formation of a first skeleton of cartilage made by chondrocytes, which is then removed and replaced by bone, made by osteoblasts. Intramembranous ossification is the direct ossification of mesenchyme as happens during the formation of the membrane bones of the skull and others.
During osteoblast differentiation, the developing progenitor cells express the regulatory transcription factor Cbfa1/Runx2. A second required transcription factor is Sp7 transcription factor. Osteochondroprogenitor cells differentiate under the influence of growth factors, although isolated mesenchymal stem cells in tissue culture may also form osteoblasts under permissive conditions that include vitamin C and substrates for alkaline phosphatase, a key enzyme that provides high concentrations of phosphate at the mineral deposition site.
Bone morphogenetic proteins
Key growth factors in endochondral skeletal differentiation include bone morphogenetic proteins (BMPs) that determine to a major extent where chondrocyte differentiation occurs and where spaces are left between bones. The system of cartilage replacement by bone has a complex regulatory system. BMP2 also regulates early skeletal patterning. Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β), is part of a superfamily of proteins that include BMPs, which possess common signaling elements in the TGF beta signaling pathway. TGF-β is particularly important in cartilage differentiation, which generally precedes bone formation for endochondral ossification. An additional family of essential regulatory factors is the fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) that determine where skeletal elements occur in relation to the skin
Steroid and protein hormones
Many other regulatory systems are involved in the transition of cartilage to bone and in bone maintenance. A particularly important bone-targeted hormonal regulator is parathyroid hormone (PTH). Parathyroid hormone is a protein made by the parathyroid gland under the control of serum calcium activity. PTH also has important systemic functions, including to keep serum calcium concentrations nearly constant regardless of calcium intake. Increasing dietary calcium results in minor increases in blood calcium. However, this is not a significant mechanism supporting osteoblast bone formation, except in the condition of low dietary calcium; further, abnormally high dietary calcium raises the risk of serious health consequences not directly related to bone mass including heart attack and stroke. Intermittent PTH stimulation increases osteoblast activity, although PTH is bifunctional and mediates bone matrix degradation at higher concentrations.
The skeleton is also modified for reproduction and in response to nutritional and other hormone stresses; it responds to steroids, including estrogen and glucocorticoids, which are important in reproduction and energy metabolism regulation. Bone turnover involves major expenditures of energy for synthesis and degradation, involving many additional signals including pituitary hormones. Two of these are adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) and follicle stimulating hormone. The physiological role for responses to these, and several other glycoprotein hormones, is not fully understood, although it is likely that ACTH is bifunctional, like PTH, supporting bone formation with periodic spikes of ACTH, but causing bone destruction in large concentrations. In mice, mutations that reduce the efficiency of ACTH-induced glucocorticoid production in the adrenals cause the skeleton to become dense (osteosclerotic bone).
Organization and ultrastructure
In well-preserved bone studied at high magnification via electron microscopy, individual osteoblasts are shown to be connected by tight junctions, which prevent extracellular fluid passage and thus create a bone compartment separate from the general extracellular fluid. The osteoblasts are also connected by gap junctions, small pores that connect osteoblasts, allowing the cells in one cohort to function as a unit. The gap junctions also connect deeper layers of cells to the surface layer (osteocytes when surrounded by bone). This was demonstrated directly by injecting low molecular weight fluorescent dyes into osteoblasts and showing that the dye diffused to surrounding and deeper cells in the bone-forming unit. Bone is composed of many of these units, which are separated by impermeable zones with no cellular connections, called cement lines.
Collagen and accessory proteins
Almost all of the organic (non-mineral) component of bone is dense collagen type I, which forms dense crosslinked ropes that give bone its tensile strength. By mechanisms still unclear, osteoblasts secrete layers of oriented collagen, with the layers parallel to the long axis of the bone alternating with layers at right angles to the long axis of the bone every few micrometers. Defects in collagen type I cause the commonest inherited disorder of bone, called osteogenesis imperfecta.
Minor, but important, amounts of small proteins, including osteocalcin and osteopontin, are secreted in bone's organic matrix. Osteocalcin is not expressed at significant concentrations except in bone, and thus osteocalcin is a specific marker for bone matrix synthesis. These proteins link organic and mineral component of bone matrix. The proteins are necessary for maximal matrix strength due to their intermediate localization between mineral and collagen.
However, in mice where expression of osteocalcin or osteopontin was eliminated by targeted disruption of the respective genes (knockout mice), accumulation of mineral was not notably affected, indicating that organization of matrix is not significantly related to mineral transport.
Bone versus cartilage
The primitive skeleton is cartilage, a solid avascular (without blood vessels) tissue in which individual cartilage-matrix secreting cells, or chondrocytes, occur. Chondrocytes do not have intercellular connections and are not coordinated in units. Cartilage is composed of a network of collagen type II held in tension by water-absorbing proteins, hydrophilic proteoglycans. This is the adult skeleton in cartilaginous fishes such as sharks. It develops as the initial skeleton in more advanced classes of animals.
In air-breathing vertebrates, cartilage is replaced by cellular bone. A transitional tissue is mineralized cartilage. Cartilage mineralizes by massive expression of phosphate-producing enzymes, which cause high local concentrations of calcium and phosphate that precipitate. This mineralized cartilage is not dense or strong. In the air breathing vertebrates it is used as a scaffold for formation of cellular bone made by osteoblasts, and then it is removed by osteoclasts, which specialize in degrading mineralized tissue.
Osteoblasts produce an advanced type of bone matrix consisting of dense, irregular crystals of hydroxyapatite, packed around the collagen ropes. This is a strong composite material that allows the skeleton to be shaped mainly as hollow tubes. Reducing the long bones to tubes reduces weight while maintaining strength.
Mineralization of bone
The mechanisms of mineralization are not fully understood. Fluorescent, low-molecular weight compounds such as tetracycline or calcein bind strongly to bone mineral, when administered for short periods. They then accumulate in narrow bands in the new bone. These bands run across the contiguous group of bone-forming osteoblasts. They occur at a narrow (sub-micrometer) mineralization front. Most bone surfaces express no new bone formation, no tetracycline uptake and no mineral formation. This strongly suggests that facilitated or active transport, coordinated across the bone-forming group, is involved in bone formation, and that only cell-mediated mineral formation occurs. That is, dietary calcium does not create mineral by mass action.
The mechanism of mineral formation in bone is clearly distinct from the phylogenetically older process by which cartilage is mineralized: tetracycline does not label mineralized cartilage at narrow bands or in specific sites, but diffusely, in keeping with a passive mineralization mechanism.
Osteoblasts separate bone from the extracellular fluid by tight junctions by regulated transport. Unlike in cartilage, phosphate and calcium cannot move in or out by passive diffusion, because the tight osteoblast junctions isolate the bone formation space. Calcium is transported across osteoblasts by facilitated transport (that is, by passive transporters, which do not pump calcium against a gradient). In contrast, phosphate is actively produced by a combination of secretion of phosphate-containing compounds, including ATP, and by phosphatases that cleave phosphate to create a high phosphate concentration at the mineralization front. Alkaline phosphatase is a membrane-anchored protein that is a characteristic marker expressed in large amounts at the apical (secretory) face of active osteoblasts.
At least one more regulated transport process is involved. The stoichiometry of bone mineral basically is that of hydroxyapatite precipitating from phosphate, calcium, and water at a slightly alkaline pH:
In a closed system as mineral precipitates, acid accumulates, rapidly lowering the pH and stopping further precipitation. Cartilage presents no barrier to diffusion and acid therefore diffuses away, allowing precipitation to continue. In the osteon, where matrix is separated from extracellular fluid by tight junctions, this cannot occur. In the controlled, sealed compartment, removing H+ drives precipitation under a wide variety of extracellular conditions, as long as calcium and phosphate are available in the matrix compartment. The mechanism by which acid transits the barrier layer remains uncertain. Osteoblasts have capacity for Na+/H+ exchange via the redundant Na/H exchangers, NHE1 and NHE6. This H+ exchange is a major element in acid removal, although the mechanism by which H+ is transported from the matrix space into the barrier osteoblast is not known.
In bone removal, a reverse transport mechanism uses acid delivered to the mineralized matrix to drive hydroxyapatite into solution.
Osteocyte feedback
Feedback from physical activity maintains bone mass, while feedback from osteocytes limits the size of the bone-forming unit. An important additional mechanism is secretion by osteocytes, buried in the matrix, of sclerostin, a protein that inhibits a pathway that maintains osteoblast activity. Thus, when the osteon reaches a limiting size, it deactivates bone synthesis.
Morphology and histological staining
Hematoxylin and eosin staining (H&E) shows that the cytoplasm of active osteoblasts is slightly basophilic due to the substantial presence of rough endoplasmic reticulum. The active osteoblast produces substantial collagen type I. About 10% of the bone matrix is collagen with the balance mineral. The osteoblast's nucleus is spherical and large. An active osteoblast is characterized morphologically by a prominent Golgi apparatus that appears histologically as a clear zone adjacent to the nucleus. The products of the cell are mostly for transport into the osteoid, the non-mineralized matrix. Active osteoblasts can be labeled by antibodies to Type-I collagen, or using naphthol phosphate and the diazonium dye fast blue to demonstrate alkaline phosphatase enzyme activity directly.
Isolation of Osteoblasts
The first isolation technique by microdissection method was originally described by Fell et al. using chick limb bones which were separated into periosteum and remaining parts. She obtained cells which possessed osteogenic characteristics from cultured tissue using chick limb bones which were separated into periosteum and remaining parts. She obtained cells which possessed osteogenic characteristics from cultured tissue.
Enzymatic digestion is one of the most advanced techniques for isolating bone cell populations and obtaining osteoblasts. Peck et al. (1964) described the original method that is now often used by many researchers.
In 1974 Jones et al. found that osteoblasts moved laterally in vivo and in vitro under different experimental conditions and escribed the migration method in detail. The osteoblasts were, however, contaminated by cells migrating from the vascular openings, which might include endothelial cells and fibroblasts.
See also
List of human cell types derived from the germ layers
List of distinct cell types in the adult human body
References
Further reading
William F. Neuman and Margaret W. Neuman. (1958). The Chemical Dynamics of Bone Mineral. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. .
Netter, Frank H. (1987). Musculoskeletal system: anatomy, physiology, and metabolic disorders. Summit, New Jersey: Ciba-Geigy Corporation .
External links
Skeletal system
Connective tissue cells
Human cells |
419988 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silva | Silva | Silva is a surname in Portuguese-speaking countries, such as Portugal and Brazil. Origin: Latin toponymic
/natural world word , meaning "forest" or "woodland". It is the family name of the House of Silva.
The name is also widespread in Galician-speaking regions of Spain (mostly in Galicia) and even more so in regions of the former Portuguese Empire in the Americas (being the most common surname in Brazil), in Africa and Asia, notably in India and Sri Lanka. It is also quite common in Spanish-speaking Latin America.
Movement of people has led to the name being used in many places. Due to emigration from Portuguese-speaking countries, Silva (and the variants Da Silva and De Silva) is the fifth most common surname in the French department of Val-de-Marne, outside Paris, and it was the 19th most common family name given to newborns between 1966 and 1990 in France. It is also the seventh most common surname (and the most common non-German, non-French) in Luxembourg. It is also among the top 20 surnames in Andorra, Angola, Cape Verde and Switzerland.
Geographical distribution
As of 2014, 64.7% of all known bearers of the surname Silva were residents of Brazil (frequency 1:57), 5.3% of Mexico (1:417), 5.1% of Portugal (1:37), 3.2% of Mozambique (1:152), 2.8% of Venezuela (1:192), 2.7% of the United States (1:2,361), 2.3% of Chile (1:136), 2.2% of Argentina (1:349), 2.2% of Peru (1:263), 2.0% of Colombia (1:424) and 1.1% of Guinea-Bissau (1:29).
In Brazil, the frequency of the surname was higher than national average (1:57) in the following states:
Maranhão (1:24)
Bahia (1:32)
Roraima (1:32)
Pará (1:35)
Acre (1:38)
Amapá (1:39)
Alagoas (1:39)
Sergipe (1:40)
Amazonas (1:43)
Rio Grande do Norte (1:47)
Pernambuco (1:51)
Goiás (1:53)
Paraíba (1:53)
Piauí (1:54)
Ceará (1:55)
Federal District (1:55)
Arts
Actors
Adele Silva, British actress
António Silva (actor) (1886–1971), Portuguese actor
Deepani Silva, Sri Lankan actress
Douglas Silva, Brazilian actor
Fernando Ramos da Silva (1967–1987), Brazilian actor
Frank Silva (1950–1995), American actor and set dresser
Freddie Silva (1938–2001), Sri Lankan actor, comedian and playback singer
Gertrudes Rita da Silva (1825–1888), Portuguese actor
Henry Silva (1926–2022), American actor
Howard da Silva, American actor and director
Sadiris Master (died 1958), Sri Lankan Sinhalese actor, musician
Hilarion "Larry" Silva (1937–2004), Filipino actor, comedian and politician
Leena de Silva (born 1936), Sri Lankan Sinhala film, television, and theater actress
Leslie Silva, American actress
Nicole da Silva, Australian actress
Palitha Silva, Sri Lankan actor
Paulo Rogério da Silva, Brazilian actor also known as Gero Camilo
Rafael L. Silva, Brazilian-American actor
Roy de Silva (1937–2018), Sri Lankan Sinhalese actor and film director
Sanjit De Silva, Sri Lankan American actor and director
Simone Silva (1928–1957), Egyptian-born French film actress, also briefly in British films
Musicians
Da Silva (singer), French singer, songwriter of Portuguese origin
Alan Silva, American free jazz double bassist
Amancio D'Silva (1936–1996), Indian jazz guitarist and composer
Andrew Conrad De Silva, Sri Lankan Australian R&B and rock vocalist and instrumentalist
Dawn Silva, American funk vocalist
Deepal Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese playback singer and actor
Desmond de Silva, Sri Lankan vocalist
Francisco Manuel da Silva (1795–1865), Brazilian composer and music professor
Henry Silva, Cape Verdean band leader/singer
Humberto Rodríguez Silva (1908–1952), Cuban composer and judge
Horace Silver (1928–2014), American jazz pianist, composer and bandleader
Luis Silva (1943–2008), American Tejano songwriter
Lúcio Silva da Souza, known artistically as Silva, Brazilian singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist
Malcolm "Mac" Silva (1947–1989), Aboriginal Australian musician, who appeared in the film Country Outcasts
Rui da Silva, Portuguese DJ
Stuart de Silva, Sri Lankan Australian jazz pianist
Virajini Lalithya de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese vocalist
Vivian Wilson da Silva Fernandes, Indian Rapper from Mumbai, India, also known as DIVINE
Vivienne de Silva Boralessa (1930–2017), Sri Lankan vocalist (Buddhist devotional music)
Yohani Diloka de Silva, Sri Lankan singer, songwriter, rapper, music producer, YouTuber and businesswoman, also known as Yohani
Painters and sculptors
António Carvalho de Silva Porto, Portuguese naturalist painter
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (Diego Velázquez), Spanish painter
Francis Augustus Silva, American painter
Manuel Pereira da Silva, Portuguese sculptor
Marilyn da Silva, American metalsmith
Maria Helena Vieira da Silva, Portuguese painter
William Posey Silva, American painter
Writers
First name
Silva Kaputikyan, Armenian poet, writer, academician and public activist
Surname
Alfreda de Silva (1920–2001), Sri Lankan Sinhala poet, journalist, and screenwriter
António Diniz da Cruz e Silva, Portuguese heroic-comic poet
António José da Silva, eighteenth-century Brazilian Converso playwright known as "The Jew"
Arménio Adroaldo Vieira e Silva (Arménio Vieira), Portuguese journalist
Baltasar Lopes da Silva, Cape Verdean writer
Daniel Silva (novelist), American author
John de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese playwright
José Gabriel Lopes da Silva (Gabriel Mariano), Cape Verdean poet and essayist
Joseph Silva, a pseudonym of American author Ron Goulart
Luís Filipe Silva, Portuguese writer
Nihal De Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese novelist
Sugathapala de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese dramatist, novelist, radio play producer, and translator
Wellawattearachchige Abraham Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese novelist
Wilson da Silva, Australian/Portuguese science writer, editor and filmmaker
Other arts
Ena de Silva, re-established Sri Lanka's batik industry
Ingrid Silva, Brazilian ballet dancer
Maria José Marques da Silva, Portuguese architect
Minnette de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese architect
Historical figures
Bernardo Peres da Silva, the first and only native Goan governor of Portuguese India
Lucius Flavius Silva, Roman governor of Judea who crushed Jewish resistance at Masada in 73 AD
José Joaquim da Silva Xavier (1746–1792), known as Tiradentes, Brazilian independence leader
Mariana de Silva-Bazán y Sarmiento (1739-1784), Spanish aristocrat, writer, painter, and translator
Pedro da Silva, first post courier of Canada (17th–18th century)
Ruy Gómez de Silva (1516–1573), nobleman and cousin of Philip II of Spain
Media
Chantal Da Silva, Canadian journalist working in the United Kingdom
Dayananda de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese radio journalist at Radio Ceylon
João Silva (photographer), South African photographer
Martin Silva, Portuguese-Canadian politician and radio personality
Sampath Lakmal de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese journalist specializing in defense issues
Tatiana Silva Braga Tavares, Belgian model, Miss Belgium 2005
Tom Silva, general contractor on the PBS show This Old House
Thotawatte Don Manuel Titus de Silva, known as Titus Thotawatte, Sri Lankan director and editor
Yohani Diloka de Silva, Sri Lankan singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, and YouTuber
Political and military figures
Alexander Edmund de Silva Wijegooneratne Samaraweera Rajapakse (1866–1937), Sri Lankan Sinhala politician
Amaro Silva, municipal politician in Winnipeg (Manitoba), Canada
Aníbal Cavaco Silva, President of Portugal
Anthony Emmanuel Silva, Sri Lankan Tamil Member of Parliament
António Maria da Silva, Portuguese politician
Artur da Costa e Silva, Brazilian military officer and politician
Asoka de Silva, 9th Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy
Asoka de Silva, 42nd Chief Justice of Sri Lanka
Benedita da Silva, Brazilian politician
Charles Percival de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese politician
Charles de Silva Batuwantudawe (1877–1940), Sri Lankan Sinhala lawyer and politician
Chitta Ranjan De Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese lawyer, Chairman of the Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission, 40th Attorney General of Sri Lanka, 39th Solicitor General of Sri Lanka
Colvin Reginald de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese Trotskyist Member of Parliament, Cabinet Minister of Plantation Industries and Constitutional Affairs
Crishantha de Silva, 21st Commander of the Sri Lanka Army
Desmond Lorenz de Silva, Sri Lankan Briton lawyer, former United Nations Chief War Crimes Prosecutor in Sierra Leone
D. G. Albert de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese Member of Parliament
Duleep de Silva Wickramanayake, Sri Lankan Sinhala army major-general
Duminda Silva, Sri Lankan politician
Estanislau da Silva, East Timorese politician and member of the Revolutionary Front for an Independent East Timor
Eunice Silva, Cape Verdean civil engineer and politician
Francisco de Paula Vieira da Silva de Tovar, 1st Viscount of Molelos, Portuguese politician
Frank de Silva (born 1935), Inspector-General of Sri Lanka Police from 1993–1995
Fredrick de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese lawyer and politician
Gardiye Punchihewage Amaraseela Silva, 34th Chief Justice of Sri Lanka
George E. de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese lawyer and politician
G.E.S. de Silva, Commanding Officer of the Sri Lanka Volunteer Naval Force
G. H. De Silva, 13th Commander of the Sri Lanka Army
Golbery do Couto e Silva, Brazilian politician
G. P. S. de Silva, 40th Chief Justice of Sri Lanka
George Reginald de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese politician
Gratian Silva (1933–2015), Sri Lankan Sinhala army major general
H. A. Silva, 11th Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy
Hélio José da Silva Lima (born 1960), Brazilian politician known as Hélio José
Herman Leonard de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese lawyer and diplomat, 12th Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations in New York
Israel Pinheiro da Silva, Brazilian politician and engineer
Jaime Silva, former Minister of Agriculture, Rural Development and Fisheries of Portugal
Jayatilleke De Silva (1938–2019), Sri Lankan Sinhala Communist guerrilla
Jim Silva, American politician
José Albino Silva Peneda, Portuguese politician
José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, Brazilian activist
K. L. A. Ranasinghe Silva, 41st Surveyor General of Sri Lanka
Leopold James de Silva Seneviratne, Sri Lankan Sinhala civil servant
Lucien Macull Dominic de Silva (1893–1962), Sri Lankan Sinhala member of the Privy Council
Luís Alves de Lima e Silva, Duke of Caxias, Brazilian military commander
Luís da Silva Mouzinho de Albuquerque, Portuguese politician
Luis Roberto da Sliva (born 1977), East Timorese politician
Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, current President of Brazil
Lydia Méndez Silva, Puerto Rican politician affiliated with the Popular Democratic Party
Makalandage Johnny Terrence De Silva Gunawardena, 8th Commander of the Sri Lanka Air Force
Manikku Wadumestri Hendrick de Silva, 26th Attorney General of Sri Lanka
Manuel António Vassalo e Silva, Portuguese politician
Manuel Carvalho da Silva, coordinator of the Portuguese Labour union federation
Marina Silva, Brazilian environmentalist and politician
Mario Silva, Canadian politician
Osmund de Silva, 13th Inspector General of the Sri Lanka Police
Pandikoralalage Sunil Chandra De Silva, 35th Attorney General of Sri Lanka
Patrick de Silva Kularatna, Sri Lankan Sinhalese politician and educationist
Pettagan Dedreck Weerasingha de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese Member of Parliament
Mervin Rex de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese fighter pilot who served in the Royal Air Force during World War II
Mervyn Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese politician
Mohan Priyadarshana De Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese Member of Parliament for Galle Electoral District
Nilenthi Nimal Siripala de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese politician, Sri Lankan Minister of Transport
Peduru Hewage William de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese Trotskyist politician, Cabinet Minister of Industries and Fisheries 1956–1959
Piyal De Silva, Commander of the Sri Lanka Navy
Piyal Nishantha de Silva (born 1970), Sri Lankan Sinhala Cabinet Minister
Prasanna de Silva (born 1961), Sri Lankan Sinhala Army major-general
Ranjith de Silva, Sri Lanka Light Infantry major-general
Rupika De Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhala women's rights and peace activist
Sampathawaduge Stephen Anthony Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese Member of Parliament
Sarath N. Silva, 41st Chief Justice of Sri Lanka
Shan Wijayalal De Silva, 5th Chief Minister of Southern Province, Sri Lanka
Sharon Quirk-Silva (born 1962), American politician
Shavendra Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese general and diplomat
Sonia Silva, American politician
Stephen de Silva Jayasinghe (1911–1977), Sri Lankan Sinhala politician
Thakur Artha Niranjan Joseph De Silva Deva Aditya (born 1948), Sri Lankan Briton politician
T. N. De Silva, former Commandant of the Sri Lanka Army Volunteer Force
Vincent Stuart de Silva Wikramanayake (1876–1953), Sri Lankan Sinhala lawyer and politician
Wilmot Arthur de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese politician, veterinary surgeon, and philanthropist, Minister of Health in the second State Council of Ceylon
Walwin Arnold de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese civil servant
Religion
Saint Beatrice of Silva, Portuguese Dominican nun
Clarence Richard Silva, United States Catholic bishop
Hezekiah da Silva, Jewish author born in Livorno, Italy, and teacher in Jerusalem
Blessed João Mendes de Silva (Amadeus of Portugal), Portuguese Hieronymite and later Franciscan
Kanishka de Silva Raffel (born 1964), Sri Lankan Australian Anglican priest, 12th Dean of St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney
Lynn de Silva, Sri Lankan Methodist theologian
Maxwell Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhala Catholic priest, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Colombo
Raúl Silva Henríquez, Chilean cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church
Robert D'Silva, Pakistani Catholic priest
Scholars
Agostinho da Silva, Portuguese philosopher
Arjuna Priyadarsin de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese gastroenterologist
Chandra Richard de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese academic, historian, and author
Clarence de Silva, Canadian engineer
Dudley Kenneth George de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese educationist
Harendra de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese pediatrician
H. Janaka de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese physician
Jayathi De Silva, Sri Lankan scientist and model
José Sebastião e Silva, Portuguese mathematician
Kingsley De Silva, Sri Lankan obstetrician and gynaecologist
Kingsley Muthumuni de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese academic, historian, and author
Kongahage Anslem Lawrence de Silva (born 1940), Sri Lankan Sinhala biologist and herpetologist
Maria Nazareth F. da Silva, Brazilian zoologist
Maurício Rocha e Silva, Brazilian physician
Mohan De Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese surgeon
Moisés Silva, Cuban-born American professor of biblical studies
Nalin de Silva, Sri Lankan Scholar
Primus Thilakaratne de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese senior consultant physician
Ranjith Premalal De Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese professor of agricultural engineering
Sammu Raghu De Silva Chandrakeerthy, Sri Lankan Sinhalese engineering professor
Vajiranath Lakshman De Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese doctor, founder of the Saukyadana Movement
Alcino J. Silva, Portugal-born American neuroscientist
Sports
Many people on this list are not generally known as Silva.
Auto racing
Ayrton Senna da Silva, also known as Ayrton Senna or Senna, Brazilian Formula One triple world champion
Ollie Silva, American automobile racer .
Basketball
Chris Silva (Chris Silva Obame Correia), Gabonese player
Filipe da Silva, Portuguese player
Maria Paula Silva, Brazilian player
Oscar da Silva (born 1998), German basketball player
Paulo César da Silva or Giant Silva (born 1962), Brazilian national player, later wrestler and mixed martial artist
Beach volleyball
Jackie Silva, Brazilian beach volleyball player
Paulo Emilio Silva, Brazilian beach volleyball player
Cricket
Alankara Asanka Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Amal Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Amila Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Aravinda De Silva, Sri Lankan international cricketer
Aruna de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese first-class cricketer
Ashen Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese first-class cricketer
Ashley de Silva, Sri Lankan international cricketer
Asiri de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Asoka de Silva, Sri Lankan international cricketer
Bertie de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer who played for the University of Oxford
Chalana de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Chamara Silva, Sri Lankan international cricketer
Chamod Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Chirantha de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Damitha Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Dandeniya Premachandra de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Dandeniyage Somachandra de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese international cricketer
Dedunu Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Denagamage Praboth Mahela de Silva Jayawardena, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Deva Lokesh Stanley de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese ODI cricketer
Dhananjaya Maduranga de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Elle Hennadige Shadeep Nadeeja Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer who played for United Arab Emirates
Emmanuel Nadhula de Silva Wijeratne, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Ganga de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese woman cricketer
Gayashan Ranga de Silva Munasinghe, Sri Lankan Italian cricketer
Gihan De Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Ginigalgodage Ramba Ajit de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Granville Nissanka de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Hanthana Dewage Rashmi Sewandi Silva (born 2000), Sri Lankan Sinhala cricketer for Sri Lanka Navy Sports Club
Hasitha Lakmal de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Hendahewage Sanjeewa Gayan Sameera Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer for the United Arab Emirates
Janith Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Jayan Kaushal Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese test cricketer
Joshua Da Silva, Trinidadian cricketer, test match wicket keeper/batsman for the West Indies cricket team
Kariyawasam Thantrige Gayan Thilanka de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese Bahraini cricketer
Karunakalage Sajeewa Chanaka de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Kasun de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Kelaniyage Jayantha Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Lanka de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese international cricketer
Liyana de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Malinga de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Mangamuni Gamini Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese first-class cricketer
Manelker De Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Milroy Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Muthumuni Raween Lakshitha de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Nilakshi de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Nilan De Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Patiharamada Juwan Hewage Sanath Ranjan Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Pinnaduwage Chaturanga de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Pinnaduwage Wanindu Hasaranga De Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Pradeep de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Ramindu de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Richard Martin M. de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Rodrigo Hennedige Sanjeewa Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Roshan Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Roshen Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese test cricketer
Roy Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Rumesh Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Sammu Nirwantha Thikshila de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Sampathwaduge Amal Rohitha Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese international cricketer
Sanath de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Senal de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Shaluka Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Sripal Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
T. Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Warshamannada Pradeep de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Weddikkara Ruwan Sujeewa de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese test cricketer
Woshantha Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Yakupiti Gayan Asanka de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese cricketer
Yohan de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese first-class cricketer
Football
Brazil
Male international players
Afonso Guimarães da Silva, Afonsinho
Alexandre da Silva Mariano
Alexandre Rodrigues da Silva, Alexandre Pato
Cleonésio Carlos da Silva
Dani Alves, Daniel Alves da Silva
Gilberto Silva
Gilberto da Silva Melo
Giovanni Silva de Oliveira
Heurelho da Silva Gomes, Heurelho Gomes
Jackson Coelho Silva
João Alves de Assis Silva, Jô
Jorge Luís Andrade da Silva
José Roberto da Silva Júnior, Zé Roberto
Leônidas da Silva
Lucimar Ferreira da Silva, Lúcio
Luiz Alberto da Silva Oliveira
Mauro Silva, Mauro da Silva Gomes
Nélson de Jesus Silva, Dida (footballer born 1973)
Neymar, Neymar da Silva Santos Júnior
Nilmar Honorato da Silva, Nilmar
Oscarino Costa Silva
Roberto Carlos da Silva Rocha, Roberto Carlos
Sean de Silva
Thiago Emiliano da Silva, Thiago Silva
Willian, Willian Borges da Silva
Female international players
Cristiane Rozeira de Souza Silva
Kátia, Kátia Cilene Teixeira da Silva
Marta (footballer), Marta Vieira da Silva
Thaís Helena da Silva
Others
Adaílton da Silva Santos
Adriano Pereira da Silva
Aílton Gonçalves da Silva
Airton Ferreira da Silva (Airton Pavilhão)
Alan Osório da Costa Silva
Ana Paula Pereira da Silva Villela
André Luiz Silva do Nascimento
Antônio da Silva (footballer)
David da Silva
Deivson Rogério da Silva (Bobô (footballer, born 1985))
Diego da Silva Costa
Elisérgio da Silva (Serginho Baiano)
Elpídio Silva
Fábio da Silva Alves
Fábio do Nascimento Silva
Fábio Ferreira da Silva
Fábio Pereira da Silva
Hugo Veloso Oliveira Silva
Jefferson Teixeira Silva (Jefferson Luis)
Johnathan Aparecido da Silva
José Fábio da Silva
Josualdo Alves da Silva Oliveira
Lauro Antonio Ferreira da Silva
Lucenilde Pereira da Silva
Luciano José Pereira da Silva
Luís Cláudio Carvalho da Silva
Manoel de Oliveira da Silva Júnior
Márcio Pereira da Silva
Marcos Roberto da Silva Barbosa
Marcus Lima Silva
Michael Anderson Pereira da Silva
Otacilio Jales da Silva
Paulo Sérgio Oliveira da Silva
Rafael Pereira da Silva, footballer, born 1980
Rafael Pereira da Silva, footballer, born 1990
Renan Teixeira da Silva
Sérgio Severino da Silva
Tiago Silva dos Santos
Ueslei Raimundo Pereira da Silva
Vitor Silva Assis de Oliveira Júnior (Vitor Júnior)
Víctor Domingo Silva
Wender Coelho da Silva (Teco (footballer))
Wéverton Pereira da Silva
William da Silva Barbosa
Croatia
Eduardo da Silva
England
Jay Dasilva
Equatorial Guinea
Emmanuel Danilo Clementino Silva (Danilo Clementino)
Paraguay
Anthony Domingo Silva
Paulo da Silva
Portugal
Adrien Silva
André Miguel Valente da Silva (André Silva)
Anthony da Silva
António Conceição da Silva Oliveira
Bernardo Silva, Bernardo Mota Veiga de Carvalho e Silva
Carlos da Silva
Jose Bosingwa Da Silva
Daniel da Silva Soares
David Mendes da Silva
Edson Rolando Silva Sousa
Eusébio da Silva Ferreira
José Carlos da Silva José
José Manuel da Silva Fernandes (Zé Manel (footballer))
João Nuno da Silva Cardoso Lucas (João Lucas)
João Paulo da Silva Gouveia Morais
José Paulo Sousa da Silva
João Pedro da Silva Pereira (João Pereira (Portuguese footballer))
Lourenço da Silva (Luís Lourenço)
Marco Silva, Marco Alexandre Saraiva da Silva
Mário Silva (footballer)
Paulo da Silva (Paulo César da Silva Barrios)
Paulo Monteiro (Paulo Armando da Silva Monteiro)
Ricardo Emídio Ramalho Silva
Spain
David Silva, David Josué Jiménez Silva
Donato Gama da Silva
Fernando Macedo da Silva
Sri Lanka
Anton Silva
Dillon De Silva (born 2002), Sinhala footballer
Uruguay
Bruno Silva
Darío Silva
Martín Silva
Néstor Silva
Pablo Silva
Santiago Silva
Managers and referees
Carlos Silva Valente, Portuguese football referee
Fred Silva, United States American-football official
Telê Santana da Silva, Brazilian football manager
Vanderlei Luxemburgo da Silva, Brazilian football coach
Martial arts
Anderson Silva, Brazilian mixed martial artist
Antônio Silva, Brazilian mixed martial artist
Assuerio Silva, Brazilian mixed martial artist
Edinanci Silva, Brazilian judoka
Erick Silva, Brazilian mixed martial artist
Giant Silva (Paulo César da Silva), Brazilian mixed martial artist
Jay Silva, Brazilian mixed martial artist
Jussier da Silva, Brazilian mixed martial artist
Natália Falavigna da Silva, Brazilian taekwondo athlete
Thiago Silva (fighter), Brazilian mixed martial artist
Wanderlei Silva, Brazilian mixed martial artist
Track and field
Adhemar da Silva, Brazilian athlete
Anísio Silva, Brazilian triple jumper
Carlos Silva (hurdler) (born 1974), Portuguese hurdler
Fábio Gomes da Silva, pole vaulter
Fátima Silva, Portuguese long-distance runner
Germán Silva, Mexican long distance runner
Jani Chathurangani Chandra Silva Hondamuni, Sri Lankan Sinhalese sprinter
Joaquim Silva (athlete), Portuguese long-distance runner
Joseildo da Silva, Brazilian long-distance runner
Osmiro Silva, Brazilian long-distance runner
Pedro da Silva (athlete), Brazilian decathlete
Robson da Silva, Brazilian sprinter
Rui Silva (athlete), Portuguese Olympic athlete
Vânia Silva, Portuguese hammer thrower
Other sports
Carlos Silva (baseball), Venezuelan baseball player
Chandrika de Silva, Sri Lankan badminton player
Cherantha de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese swimmer
Daniel Silva (golfer), Portuguese golfer
Eden Giselle Silva, Sri Lankan Briton tennis player
Emanuel Silva, Portuguese flatwater canoeist
Eurico Rosa da Silva, Brazilian-born Canadian jockey
Fabiola da Silva, Brazilian inline skater
Frederico Ferreira Silva, Portuguese tennis player
Garth da Silva, New Zealand boxer
Inoka Rohini de Silva, Sri Lankan badminton player
Jamie Silva, American football safety
Jason Silva, American rock climber
John da Silva, New Zealand wrestler and boxer
Luis Cardoso da Silva, Brazilian paracanoeist
Luís Mena e Silva, Portuguese horse rider
Neuza Silva, Portuguese tennis player
Raquel Silva, Brazilian volleyball player
Roberto Silva Nazzari, Uruguayan chess master
Rogério Dutra Silva, Brazilian tennis player
Other professions
A. E. de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese businessman
Eugenia Silva, Spanish model
Sir Ernest de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese business magnate, banker, and barrister
George David Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese Australian mass murderer
João Marques Silva, Portuguese researcher
José da Silva Pais, Portuguese soldier
Kamaj Silva (born 1983), Sri Lankan Sinhala entrepreneur
Moises Teixeira da Silva, Brazilian robber
Palmira Silva, British murder victim
Riccardo Silva (born 1970), Italian businessman
Quentin D'Silva, Pakistani businessman
Steven Silva, American chef
Thakurartha Devadithya Guardiyawasam Lindamulage Nalin Kumara de Silva, Sri Lankan Sinhalese promoter of pseudoscience
Jean Charles da Silva e de Menezes, known as Jean Charles de Menezes, Brazilian man killed by British police in 2005
Fictional characters
Silva (Shaman King), in Shaman King
Silva, a mystical speaking necklace in GARO
Raoul Silva, the antagonist of the James Bond film Skyfall
Rose Da Silva, Christopher Da Silva and Sharon Da Silva, fictional characters in the film Silent Hill
Kristen De Silva, protagonist in Child's Play 3, played by Perrey Reeves
Noelle Silva, a character in Black Clover
Octavio Silva, a playable character known as Octane in Apex Legends
See also
Name disambiguation page
Alexandre da Silva (disambiguation)
Daniel Silva (disambiguation)
Fábio Silva (disambiguation)
Tomás Silva (disambiguation)
Washington Silva (disambiguation)
More specific surname disambiguation page
Alves da Silva
Pereira da Silva
Silva Oliveira and Oliveira Silva
References
Bibliography
BOUZA ZERRANO, José. Da Descendência de Don Francisco Prieto Gayoso'. Edição do Autor, 1ª Edição, Lisboa, 1980.
COROMINES, Joan. Onomasticon Cataloniæ (vol. I-VIII). Barcelona: 1994.
SOUSA, Manuel de. As origens dos apelidos das famílias portuguesas. Sporpress, 2001.
TÁVORA, D. Luis de Lancastre e. Dicionário das Famílias Portuguesas''. Quetzal Editores, 2ª Edição, Lisboa, pág. 324.
Surnames of Uruguayan origin
Portuguese-language surnames
Galician-language surnames
Italian-language surnames
Surnames of Sinhalese origin
Surnames of Sri Lankan origin |
420020 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preschool | Preschool | A preschool (sometimes spelled as pre school or pre-school), also known as nursery school, pre-primary school, play school or creche, is an educational establishment or learning space offering early childhood education to children before they begin compulsory education at primary school. It may be publicly or privately operated, and may be subsidized from public funds.
Terminology
Terminology varies by country. In some European countries the term "kindergarten" refers to formal education of children classified as ISCED level 0 – with one or several years of such education being compulsory – before children start primary school at ISCED levellt 1.
The following terms may be used for educational institutions for this age group:
Pre-primary or creche from 6 weeks old to 6 years old- is an educational childcare service a parent can enroll their child(ren) in before primary school. This can also be used to define services for children younger than kindergarten age, especially in countries where kindergarten is compulsory. The pre-primary program takes place in a nursery school.
Nursery school (UK and US) from 0 months to 5 years old- is a pre-primary educational child care institution which includes Preschool.
Daycare (US) from 0 months to 2½ years old – held in a Nursery School, but can also be called "a child care service" or a "crèche".
Preschool (US and UK) from 2 to 5 years old- held in a Nursery School; readiness has to do with whether the child is on track developmentally, and potty training is a big factor, so a child can start as early as 2 years old. Preschool education is important and beneficial for any child attending nursery school because it gives the child a head start through social interactions. Through cognitive, psychosocial and physical development-based learning a child in preschool will learn about their environment and how to verbally communicate with others. Children who attend Preschool learn how the world around them works through play and communication.
Pre-K (or Pre-Kindergarten) from 4 to 5 years old- held in Nursery School and is an initiative to improve access to pre-primary schools for children in the USA. There is much more than teaching a child colors, numbers, shapes and so on.
Kindergarten (US) from 5 to 6 years old- held in a Nursery School and/or some primary elementary schools; in many parts of world (less so in English speaking countries) it refers to the first stages of formal education.
History
Origins
In an age when school was restricted to children who had already learned to read and write at home, there were many attempts to make school accessible to orphans or to the children of women who worked in factories.
In 1779, Johann Friedrich Oberlin and Louise Scheppler founded in Strassbourg an early establishment for caring for and educating pre-school children whose parents were absent during the day. At about the same time, in 1780, similar infant establishments were established in Bavaria In 1802, Pauline zur Lippe established a preschool center in Detmold.
In 1816, Robert Owen, a philosopher and pedagogue, opened the first British and probably globally the first infant school in New Lanark, Scotland. In conjunction with his venture for cooperative mills Owen wanted the children to be given a good moral education so that they would be fit for work. His system was successful in producing obedient children with basic literacy and numeracy.
Samuel Wilderspin opened his first infant school in London in 1819, and went on to establish hundreds more. He published many works on the subject, and his work became the model for infant schools throughout England and further afield. Play was an important part of Wilderspin's system of education. He is credited with inventing the playground. In 1823, Wilderspin published On the Importance of Educating the Infant Poor, based on the school. He began working for the Infant School Society the next year, informing others about his views. He also wrote "The Infant System, for developing the physical, intellectual, and moral powers off all children from one to seven years of age".
Spread
Countess Theresa Brunszvik (1775–1861), who had known and been influenced by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, was influenced by this example to open an Angyalkert ('angel garden' in Hungarian) on 27 May 1828 in her residence in Buda, the first of eleven care centers that she founded for young children. In 1836 she established an institute for the foundation of preschool centers. The idea became popular among the nobility and the middle class and was copied throughout the Hungarian kingdom.
Friedrich Fröbel (1782–1852) opened a Play and Activity institute in 1837 in the village of Bad Blankenburg in the principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, Thuringia, which he renamed Kindergarten on 28 June 1840. That same year the educator Emily Ronalds was the first British person to study his approach and Fröbel urged her to transplant his concepts in England.
Later, women trained by Fröbel opened Kindergartens throughout Europe and around the World. The First Kindergarten in the United States was founded in Watertown, Wisconsin in 1856 and was conducted in German. Elizabeth Peabody founded America's first English-language kindergarten in 1860 and the first free kindergarten in America was founded in 1870 by Conrad Poppenhusen, a German industrialist and philanthropist, who also established the Poppenhusen Institute and the first publicly financed kindergarten in the United States was established in St. Louis in 1873 by Susan Blow. Canada's first private kindergarten was opened by the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island in 1870 and by the end of the decade, they were common in large Canadian towns and cities. The country's first public-school kindergartens were established in Berlin, Ontario in 1882 at Central School. In 1885, the Toronto Normal School (teacher training) opened a department for Kindergarten teaching.
Elizabeth Harrison wrote extensively on the theory of early childhood education and worked to enhance educational standards for kindergarten teachers by establishing what became the National College of Education in 1886.
Head Start was the first publicly funded preschool program in the US, created in 1965 by President Johnson for low-income families—only 10% of children were then enrolled in preschool. Due to large demand, various states subsidized preschool for low-income families in the 1980s.
Developmental areas
The most important years of learning begin at birth. The first three years of a child's life are critical for setting the foundation for language acquisition, socialization, and attitudes to learning. During the early years and especially during the first 3 to 5 years, humans are capable of absorbing a lot of information. The brain grows most rapidly in the early years. High quality and well trained teachers and preschools with developmentally-appropriate programmes can have a long-term effect on improving learning outcomes for children. The effects tend to be more marked for disadvantaged students i.e. children coming from impoverished backgrounds with very little or no access to healthy food, socialization, books and play resources.
The areas of development that preschool education covers varies. However, the following main themes are typically offered.
Personal, social, economic and emotional development
Communication (including sign language), talking and listening
World knowledge and World Understanding
Creative and aesthetic development
Mathematical awareness
Physical development
Physical health
Play
Teamwork
Self-help skills
Social skills
Scientific thinking
Literacy
Preschool systems observe standards for structure (administration, class size, student–teacher ratio, services), process (quality of classroom environments, teacher-child interactions, etc.) and alignment (standards, curriculum, assessments) components. Curriculum is designed for differing ages. For example, counting to 10 is generally after the age of four.
Some studies dispute the benefits of preschool education, finding that preschool can be detrimental to cognitive and social development. A study by UC Berkeley and Stanford University on 14,000 preschools revealed that while there is a temporary cognitive boost in pre-reading and math, preschool holds detrimental effects on social development and cooperation. Research has also shown that the home environment has a greater impact on future outcomes than preschool.
There is emerging evidence that high-quality preschools are "play based," rather than attempting to provide early formal instruction in academic subjects. "Playing with other children, away from adults, is how children learn to make their own decisions, control their emotions and impulses, see from others' perspectives, negotiate differences with others, and make friends," according to Peter Gray, a professor at Boston College and an expert on the evolution of play and its vital role in child development. "In short, play is how children learn to take control of their lives."
In 2022, 68% of 4-year-olds in the United States attended preschool, with 32% not participating, highlighting the importance of early childhood education.
Research by the American Psychological Association indicates that preschool attendees tend to achieve higher scores in cognitive and language assessments, demonstrating the positive impact of early education on intellectual development.
High-quality preschool programs are essential for low-income children, and the Economic Policy Institute emphasizes that they provide long-term economic benefits. Investments in preschool lead to higher earnings, increased tax revenues, and a reduction in social costs.
Preschools have adopted various methods of teaching, such as Montessori, Waldorf, Head Start, HighScope, Reggio Emilia approach, Bank Street and Forest kindergartens.
Funding
While a majority of American preschool programs remain tuition-based, support for some public funding of early childhood education has grown over the years. As of 2008, 38 states and the District of Columbia invested in at least some preschool programs, and many school districts were providing preschool services on their own, using local and federal funds. The United States spends .04% of its GDP or $63 billion on preschool education.
The benefits and challenges of a public preschool reflect the available funding. Funding can range from federal, state, local public allocations, private sources, and parental fees. The problem of funding a public preschool occurs not only from limited sources but from the cost per child. As of 2007, the average cost across the lower 48 states was $6,582. Four categories determine the costs of public preschools: personnel ratios, personnel qualifications, facilities and transportation, and health and nutrition services. These costs depend heavily on the cost and quality of services provided. The main personnel factor related to cost is teacher qualifications. Another determinant of cost is the length of the school day. Longer sessions cost more.
Collaboration has helped fund programs in several districts. Collaborations with area Head Start and other private preschools helped fund a public preschool in one district. "We're very pleased with the interaction. It's really added a dimension to our program that's been very positive". The National Head Start Bureau has been looking for more opportunities to partner with public schools. Torn Schultz of the Bureau states, "We're turning to partnership as much as possible, either in funds or facilities to make sure children get everything necessary to be ready for school".
Curriculum
Curricula for preschool children have long been a hotbed for debate. Much of this revolves around content and pedagogy; the extent to which academic content should be included in the curriculum and whether formal instruction or child-initiated exploration, supported by adults, is more effective. Proponents of an academic curriculum are likely to favour a focus on basic skills, especially literacy and numeracy, and structured pre-determined activities for achieving related goals. Internationally, there is strong opposition to this type of early childhood care and education curriculum and defence of a broad-based curriculum that supports a child's overall development including health and physical development, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, social competence, intellectual development and communication skills. The type of document that emerges from this perspective is likely to be more open, offering a framework which teachers and parents can use to develop curricula specific to their contexts.
National variations
Preschool education, like all other forms of education, is intended by the society that controls it to transmit important cultural values to the participants. As a result, different cultures make different choices about preschool education. Despite the variations, there are a few common themes. Most significantly, preschool is universally expected to increase the young child's ability to perform basic self-care tasks such as dressing, feeding, and toileting.
China
The study of early childhood education (ECE) in China has been intimately influenced by the reforms and progress of Chinese politics and the economy. Currently, the Chinese government has shown interest in early childhood education, implementing policies in the form of The Guidance for Kindergarten Education (Trial Version) in 2001 and The National Education Reform and Development of Long-Term planning Programs (2010–2020) in 2010. It has been found that China's kindergarten education has dramatically changed since 1990. In recent years, various Western curricula and pedagogical models have been introduced to China, such as Montessori programs, Reggio Emilia, Developmentally Appropriate Practice (DAP), and the Project Approach. Many kindergartens have faced difficulties and challenges in adapting these models in their programs. Therefore, a heated debate about how the Western curricula can be appropriated in the Chinese cultural context has been initiated between early childhood researchers and practitioners. Research has revealed that the most important aim for promoting curriculum reform is to improve kindergarten teachers' professional knowledge, such as their understanding of the concept of play and pedagogy, and perceptions of inclusion and kindergarten-based curriculum. Furthermore, within the process of reform, family education and family collaborations cannot be ignored in child development.
Early childhood education in China has made dramatic progress since the 1980s. In Tobin, et al. 2009, which studies across three cultures, the continuity and change across the systems of early childhood education are evident. The project report Zhongguo Xueqian Jiaoyu Fazhan Zhanlue Yanjiu Ketizu 2010 reflects upon the development of China's early childhood education and locates the current situation of the development of early childhood education. The historical development of Chinese early childhood education indicates three distinct cultural threads, including traditional culture, communist culture, and Western culture, that have shaped early childhood education in China, as demonstrated in Zhu and Zhang 2008 and Lau 2012. Furthermore, currently, administrative authorities intend to establish an independent budget for the ECE field in order to support early childhood education in rural areas (Zhao and Hu 2008). A higher quality of educational provisions for children living in rural areas will be another goal for the Chinese government. Many researchers have detailed the important issues of early childhood education, especially teacher education. The exploratory study in Hu and Szente 2010 (cited under Early Childhood Inclusive Education) has indicated that Chinese kindergarten teachers hold negative attitudes toward inclusion of children with disabilities, as they do not have enough knowledge and skills for working with this population. This indicates that kindergarten teachers need to improve their perceptions of children with disabilities. Furthermore, Gu 2007 has focused on the issues of new early childhood teachers' professional development and puts forward some feasible suggestions about how new teachers deal with key events in their everyday teaching practices. With regard to families' support of their children's early development at home, family education should be focused and the collaborative partnership between kindergarten and family needs to be enhanced. Teachers' attitudes toward family intervention are a vital aspect of teacher-family collaboration. Therefore, kindergarten teachers should support family members in their role as the child's first teacher and build collaborative partnerships with family, as presented in Ding 2007. Furthermore, kindergarten teachers should be considered as active researchers in children's role play. This supports the co-construction of their teaching knowledge in relation to children's initiation/subjectivity in role play (Liu, et al. 2003).
India
Preschool education in India is not yet officially recognized by the government and is largely run by privately held companies. The demand for play schools that cater to caring for very young children is high, with the rise in families in which both parents are working. However, a positive step forward in the direction of formalising preschool education has come forth through the NEP (National Education Policy) 2020. The NEP 2020 has placed a great deal of importance on early childhood care and education, advocating that the foundational stage (3 to 8 years) is critical and requires official/formal intervention. In fact, NEP 2020 has advocated replacing the traditional 10 + 2 schooling system with a 5+3+3+4 system.
In India there are not just the preschools as an individual institutions but there are hundreds of preschools who operate as a chain of preschools. These preschools work on franchise models and let other entrepreneurs operate preschool under their brand. In 2021 there are almost 450 preschool franchise providers in India.
Ireland
Starting in the year of 2010, Ireland passed a law stating that all children of the age 3 years and 2 months and less than 4 years and 7 months are qualified to attend a preschool free of charge. Before this law was passed there was a large number of children who did not attend an Early Childhood Education Program. The programs that were offered operated voluntary and required the parents to pay a steep fee per child. This left many families with no option but to keep the kids at home. The government soon realized that a large number of children were having trouble in their first years of primary school and parents were having to stay home becoming jobless. Once the government issued the free preschool scheme, Ireland's preschool enrollment rate increased to about 93%.
Japan
In Japan, development of social skills and a sense of group belonging are major goals. Classes tend to have up to 40 students, to decrease the role of the teacher and increase peer interactions. Participation in group activities is highly valued, leading some schools to, for example, count a child who is standing still near a group exercise session as participating. Children are taught to work harmoniously in large and small groups, and to develop cooperativeness, kindness and social consciousness. The most important goal is to provide a rich social environment that increasingly isolated nuclear families do not provide; unstructured play time is valued.
Children are allowed to resolve disputes with each other, including physical fighting. Most behavioral problems are attributed to the child's inappropriately expressed emotional dependency. Remedies involve accepting the child, rather than treatment with drugs or punishment. Japanese culture attributes success to effort rather than inborn talent, leading teachers to ignore innate differences between children by encouraging and praising perseverance. They work to ensure that all students meet the standard rather that each reaches his or her own potential. Although preschools exhibit great variety, most target age-appropriate personal development, such as learning empathy, rather than academic programs. Academic programs tend to be more common among Westernized and Christian preschools.
Boisterous play is accepted. Kids are allowed to play with water guns or to make toy swords out of paper. Gun control is extensive, and real firearms are rarely seen in Japan, but playing with toy weapons is acceptable and encouraged.
Lithuania
According to the Law on Education (article 6, 1991, as last amended in April 2016), pre-school education is a part of non-formal education. According to the 7th article of the Law, "the purpose of pre-school education shall be to help a child satisfy inherent, cultural (including ethnic), social and cognitive needs." Despite the provision of pre-school education being an independent function of a municipality, the Law regulates the pre-school curriculum to be "prepared in compliance with the criteria of pre-school curricula approved by the Minister of Education, Science and Sport, [and] shall be implemented by pre-school education schools, general education schools, freelance teachers or other education providers" (article 7 part 4). The ownership of pre-school education facilities (namely, kindergartens) according to the Law could be public (state or municipality) as well as private.
North Korea
Preschool education in North Korea is public and provides a variety of activities, such as dance, math, drawing and Korean, as well as basic abilities such as using a spoon and respecting elders. North Korean kindergarten education includes themes common to North Korean propaganda. Subjects include the life of Kim Il Sung, the Japanese occupation of Korea, and the Korean War. Children are taught to enjoy military games and to hate the miguk nom, or "American bastards".
Turkey
Preschool education in Turkey starts at the age of 5 while primary level education begins at the age of 6.
United Kingdom
In the UK, pre-school education in nursery classes or schools has some local government funding for children aged between two and four. Pre-school education can be provided by childcare centres, playgroups, nursery schools and nursery classes within primary schools. Private voluntary or independent (PVI sector) nursery education is also available throughout the UK and varies between structured pre-school education and a service offering child-minding facilities.
Nursery in England is also called FS1 which is the first year of foundation before they go into primary or infants.
The curriculum goals of a nursery school are more specific than for childcare but less strenuous than for primary school. For example, the Scottish Early Years Framework and the Curriculum for Excellence define expected outcomes even at this age. In some areas, the provision of nursery school services is on a user pays or limited basis while other governments fund nursery school services.
England
A voucher system for nursery provision was introduced in England and Wales under the Major government, providing for 15 hours per week free childcare or education for three and four-year-olds, much of it provided through reception classes in primary schools. This was replaced by the Blair government with direct funding by local education authorities. Every child in England at the first school term after their third birthday is now entitled to 15 hours per week free childcare funding.
The Early Years Foundation Stage sets the standards that all early years providers must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. It promotes teaching and learning to ensure children’s ‘school readiness’ and gives children the broad range of knowledge and skills that provide the right foundation for good future progress through school and life.
Pre-schools in England follow the Early Years Foundation Stage statutory framework for education produced by the Department for Education, which carries on into their first year of school at the age of four. This year of school is usually called Reception. All pupils in the Early Years must follow a programme of education in seven areas, divided into 'prime areas' and 'specific areas'.
The three prime areas:
communication and language
physical development
personal, social and emotional development
The four specific areas:
literacy
mathematics
understanding the world
expressive arts and design
Until the mid-1980s, nursery schools only admitted pupils in the final year (three terms) leading up to their admission to primary school, but pupils now attend nursery school for four or five terms. It is also common practice for many children to attend nursery much earlier than this. Many nurseries have the facilities to take on babies, using the 'Early Years Foundation Stage', framework as a guide to give each child the best possible start to becoming a competent learner and skilful communicator.
Wales
Provision in Wales followed England until devolution and subsequently diverged. Now early years education in Wales is provided half-time for children aged 3–4 (Nursery) and full-time for those between the ages of 4 and 5 (Reception). Since 2005 it has been a statutory duty for all Local Education Authorities to secure sufficient nursery education in their area for children from the term following their third birthday.
Currently, the Early Years curriculum in Wales, produced by the Welsh Assembly Government Department for Children, Education, Lifelong Learning and Skills, is set out in the booklet "Desirable Outcomes for Children's Learning Before Compulsory School Age". However, a new 'Foundation Phase' covering 3- to 7-year-olds is being rolled out across Wales from 2008, with a focus on 'learning through play', which covers seven areas of learning:
Personal and Social Development and Well Being
Language, Literacy and Communication Skills
Mathematical Development
Bilingualism and Multi-cultural Understanding
Knowledge and Understanding of the World
Physical Development
Creative Development
Northern Ireland
In Northern Ireland funded Nursery School places can be applied for from ages 3 and up.
Preschool education is delivered also by PreSchools, also referred to as Playschools or Playgroups. A Nursery School is allowed to enrol up to 26 children into a class, with the curriculum being delivered by a qualified teacher and a Nursery Assistant. A preschool, which delivers the same curriculum, is also permitted to admit a maximum of 26 children to any single session. However, the regulations for personnel differ. The Preschool must have a Supervisor with an NVQ 3 qualification in Child Care (or Equivalent). There must be one qualified and vetted adult for every 8 children. Funding is applied for through PEAGs (Preschool Education Advisory Group). Both nursery and preschool settings are inspected by the Education and Training Inspectorate. Preschools are also subject to inspection by local Social Services.
Scotland
In Scotland a voucher system for part-time pre-school provision was introduced in parallel with England and Wales under the Major government, but with a strong emphasis on age-appropriate education rather than simply childcare, and avoiding the use of reception classes in primary schools. Now children are entitled to a place in a nursery class when they reach their third birthday. This gives parents the option of two years of funded pre-school education before beginning primary one, the first year of compulsory education. Nursery children who are three years old are referred to as ante-pre-school whilst children who are four years old are termed pre-school. Pre-school education in Scotland is planned around the Early Level of the Curriculum for Excellence which identifies Outcomes & Experiences around the following eight curricular areas:
Expressive Arts,
Health & Wellbeing,
Languages,
Mathematics,
Religious & Moral Education,
Sciences
Social Studies
Technologies
Responsibility for the review of care standards in Scottish nurseries rests with the Care Commission.
United States
In the United States, nursery school is provided in a variety of settings. In general, preschool is meant to be voluntary and promote development in children through planned programs. Preschool is defined as: "center-based programs for four-year olds that are fully or partially funded by state education agencies and that are operated in schools or under the direction of state and local education agencies". Preschools, both private and school sponsored, are available for children from ages three to five. Many of these programs follow similar curriculum as pre-kindergarten.
In the United States, preschool education emphasizes individuality. Children are frequently permitted to choose from a variety of activities, using a learning center approach. During these times, some children draw or paint, some play house, some play with puzzles while some listen to the teacher read a story aloud. Activities vary in each session. Each child is assumed to have particular strengths and weaknesses to be encouraged or ameliorated by the teachers. A typical belief is that "children's play is their work" and that by allowing them to select the type of play, the child will meet his or her developmental needs. Preschools also adopt American ideas about justice, such as the rule of law and the idea that everyone is innocent until proven guilty. Teachers don't always actively intervene in disputes and encourage children to resolve disputes independently by using verbal strategies ("use your words"), stating objectively what the problem or issues are, and then discussing what steps can be taken to resolve it. Punishments that may or may not include time outs are rarely carried out by teachers. Children are encouraged to apologize after understanding what has happened rather than blindly apologize. Children are also encouraged to think through steps they can take to make up for their misbehavior. Teachers assist children by explaining what happened and what was wrong in their behavior, before any decision to punish is made. Self-expressive language skills are emphasized through informal interactions with teachers and through structured group activities such as show and tell exercises to enable the child to describe an experience to an adult. Resources vary depending on the wealth of the students, but generally are better equipped than other cultures. Most programs are not subsidized by government, making preschools relatively expensive even though the staff is typically poorly compensated. Student-teacher ratios are lower than in other cultures, ideally about 15 students per group. Parents and teachers see teachers as extensions of or partial substitutes for parents and consequently emphasize personal relationships and consistent expectations at home and at school.
In contrast to many other cultures, including Japan and the UK, American preschools frequently ban squirt guns and pretend play involving toy or imaginary weapons, and may have zero-tolerance policies that require punishing children who bring or make toy guns at school.
In the United States, students who may benefit from special education receive services in preschools. Since the enactment of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Public Law 101–476 in 1975 and its amendments, PL 102-119 and PL 105–17 in 1997, the educational system has moved away from self-contained special education classrooms to inclusion, leading special education teachers to practice in a wider variety of settings. As with other stages in the life of a child with special needs, the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) or an Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) is an important way for teachers, administrators and parents to set guidelines for a partnership to help the child succeed in preschool.
Cooperative preschools
Formally starting in 1916, cooperative preschools are common throughout much of America and focus on providing a preschool environment for children and parents which is in line with cooperative ideals.
Parent involvement
Parent participation
Parent education in early childhood education programs
Head Start
The goal of Head Start and of Early Head Start is to increase the school preparedness of young children in low-income families. These programs serve children from birth to age five, pregnant women, and their families. Head Start was started by the Federal Government in 1964 to help meet the needs of under-privilleged pre-school children.
The office of Economic Opportunity launched Project Head Start as an eight-week summer program in 1965. It was then transferred to the Office of Child Development in the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1969. Today it is a program within the Administration on Children, Youth and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services. Programs are administered locally by school systems and non-profit organizations.
Services provided by Head Start
Disabilities – All programs fully include children with disabilities
Education – The goal of Head Start is to ensure that those children enrolled in the program are ready to begin school. Activities are geared towards skill and knowledge domains.
Family and Community Partnerships – both groups are involved in the operation, governance, and evaluation of the program.
Health – Health is seen as an important factor in a child's ability to thrive and develop. The program provides screenings to evaluate a child's overall health, regular health check-ups, and good practices in oral health, hygiene, nutrition, personal care, and safety.
Program Management and Operations – "focus on delivering high-quality child development services to children from low-income families."
See also
Children's television series
Daycare
Education theory
Heutagogy
Pedagogy
Poisonous pedagogy
Pre-kindergarten
Reggio Emilia approach
Waldorf education
Miriam Roth (1910–2005) – Israeli writer and scholar of children's books, kindergarten teacher, and educator
References
Sources
Further reading
Center for Public Education. (March 2007). Retrieved 2 July 2009, from
Condillac, E. B. (1746/1970, 2001). Essai sur l'origine des connaissances [Essay on the origin of human knowledge] in Oeuvres Completes Tome 1. Genève: Slatkine reprints. Retrieved from Slatkine. In addition, translated from the French of the Abbé de Condillac by Hans Aarsleff, Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.
Condillac, E. B. (1749/1970, 1982). Traité des systèmes [Treatise on the systems] in Oeuvres Completes Tome 2. Genève: Slatkine reprints. Retrieved from Slatkine. In addition, translated from the French of the Abbé de Condillac by Franklin Philip, Philosophical Writings of Etienne Bonnot, Abbé de Condillac (Vol. I), Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Condillac, E. B. (1754/1982). Traité des sensations [Treatise on the sensations]. Genève: Slatkine reprints. Retrieved from Slatkine. In addition, translated from the French of the Abbé de Condillac by Franklin Philip, Philosophical Writings of Etienne Bonnot, Abbé de Condillac, and (Vol. I), Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Translated from the French of the Abbé de Condillac by Thomas Nugent.
Fay, J. & Funk, D. (1995). Teaching with love & logic. Golden, CO: The Love & Logic Press, Inc.
Glasser, W. (1984). Self-importance boosts learning. The School Administrator 45, 16–18.
Heyman, G., Dweck, C., & Cain, K. (1992). Young children's vulnerability to self-blame and helplessness: Relationship to beliefs about goodness. Child Development, 63, 401–415.
Individuals with Disabilities Individualizing Education Act (IDEA) Data. (2006). Part B child count data [Table]. Retrieved 25 May 2008, from Part B Data & Notes
Itard, J. M. G. (1962). The wild boy of Aveyron. (G. Humphrey & M. Humphrey, Trans.). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts. (Original works published 1801 and 1806).
Symposium conducted at the meeting of the AEFA Annual Conference, Baltimore, Maryland.
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External links
School types |
420024 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain%20general | Captain general | Captain general (and its literal equivalent in several languages) is a high military rank of general officer grade, and a gubernatorial title.
History
The term "Captain General" started to appear in the 14th century, with the meaning of Commander in Chief of an army (or fleet) in the field, probably the first usage of the term General in military settings. A popular term in the 16th and 17th centuries, but with various meanings depending on the country, it became less and less used in the 18th century, usually replaced with, simply, General or Field Marshal; and after the end of the Napoleonic Wars it had all but disappeared in most European countries, except Spain and former colonies. See also Feldhauptmann ("field captain"). Other ranks of general officer, as distinct from field officer, had the suffix "general"; e.g. major general, lieutenant general, brigadier general, colonel general.
Republic of Venice
In the Republic of Venice, it meant the commander in chief in war time. The captain general of the land forces was usually a foreign mercenary or condottiere, but the Venetian navy was always entrusted to a member of the city's patriciate, who became Captain general of the Sea. It is at least documented since 1370 and was used up to the fall of the Republic of Venice in 1797.
Great Britain
From 30 June to 22 October 1513, Catherine of Aragon held the titles Governor of the Realm and Captain General of the King's Forces as Queen Regent of England, winning the Battle of Flodden against a Scottish invasion while Henry VIII was in France fighting the Battle of the Spurs.
Commander-in-Chief of the Forces
In the mid-17th century, with the first establishment in England of something akin to a standing army, the title Captain General was used (either alongside or in place of that of Commander-in-Chief of the Forces) to signify its commanding officer. In 1645 Thomas Fairfax was appointed "Captain General and Commander-in-Chief all the armies and forces raised and to be raised within the Commonwealth of England." After the Restoration, King Charles II likewise designated General Monck "Captaine Generall of all our Armies and land forces and men … in and out of our Realmes of England, Scotland and Ireland and Dominion of Wales"; (he was also referred to on occasion as 'Lord Generall' and 'Commander in Chief of all His Majesty's Forces'). The office then remained in abeyance until 1678 when it was granted to the Duke of Monmouth, but he was deprived of this and other titles the following year. There were no subsequent appointments until the reign of Queen Anne.
In the 18th century, the office of Captain General was held by the Duke of Marlborough (1702 to 1711), the Duke of Ormonde (1711 to 1714) and the Duke of Marlborough again (1714 to 1722). Thereafter there was no permanent Commander-in-Chief or equivalent appointed until 1744; the following year the office of Captain General was vested in Prince William, Duke of Cumberland. Cumberland resigned in 1757; his successors in command were for the most part appointed Commander-in-Chief but not Captain General, with one exception: the last appointment of a Captain General of the Forces was that of Prince Frederick, the Duke of York in 1799.
Any distinction that there may have been at this time between the office of 'Captain General' and 'Commander-in-Chief' is unclear. One difference is that the Commander-in-Chief was appointed by commission and the Captain General by patent, leading some to surmise that the appointment of Captain General was 'one of dignity, not of power'; however the matter is somewhat academic as most Captains General held the appointment of Commander-in-Chief simultaneously (and from 1757 the appointment of Commanders-in-Chief was itself done by patent).
Other uses
Since the 17th century the title Captain General has been in use in England for the titular head of the Honourable Artillery Company and in Scotland for the senior officer of the Royal Company of Archers.
In 1947 the position of Colonel-in-Chief, Royal Marines was changed by its incumbent, King George VI, to that of Captain General Royal Marines; likewise, the position of Colonel-in-Chief of the Royal Regiment of Artillery was changed by its incumbent, George VI, to Captain General.
The formal head of the Combined Cadet Force is also titled Captain General.
New South Wales
From 1787 (the year before the arrival in Australia of the First Fleet) to 1837, the Governor of New South Wales was referred to as Captain-General.
Prussia
In Prussia a Generalkapitän was the commander of the castle guard and lifeguards.
United States
In the Thirteen United Colonies and, later, the United States of America, during the American Revolutionary War, George Washington was the "Captain-General and Commander in Chief of the Forces." George Washington is the only general in the United States to be referred to as "Captain-General" of the armed forces.
Connecticut
In Connecticut, the state Constitution of 1965 states that the Governor is also the Captain General of the Connecticut State Militia.
Rhode Island
In Rhode Island, the Governor holds two different military titles. According to Article IX, section 3 of the Rhode Island Constitution, the Governor holds the titles of "captain-general" and "Commander-in-Chief".
Vermont
The 1786 Constitution of Vermont, which became effective when Vermont was an independent country and continued in effect for two years after Vermont's admission to the Union in 1791, says "The Governor shall be captain-general and commander-in-chief of the forces of the State, but shall not command in person, except advised thereto by the Council, and then only as long as they shall approve thereof." The language remained in the 1793 Constitution of Vermont.
Netherlands
Maurice of Nassau was appointed to the office of "Captain General of the Union" (commander-in-chief of the Dutch States Army) and "Admiral General" of the Dutch Republic in 1587. This was a "confederal" office, under the States General of the Netherlands. He was also stadtholder of five of the seven provinces, which was a provincial appointive office, under the sovereign States of the several provinces. Maurice's nephew William Louis, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg was concurrently also a stadtholder (in two provinces) but he held a normal commission in the States Army. The office was not hereditary, but after 1747 only members of the House of Orange-Nassau could be appointed to it.
Spain
By the late 15th century, the title Captain General, besides being the usual meaning of commander-in-chief in the field, was also linked to the highest commander of specialized military branches (artillery, royal guards, etc.), usually signaling the independence of that particular corps.
No later than the fall of Granada (1492) the title was conferred also on officers with full jurisdiction of every person subject to fuero militar (military obligations) in a region. Those officers usually also acted as commanders for the troops and military establishments in their area and, as time passed, those duties (and the title) were mostly united in the highest civilian authority of the area. During the period of Spanish rule in much of Latin America there were several Captaincies of the Spanish Empire. The military post of captain general as highest territorial commander lasted in Spain until the early 1980s.
Army
In the late 17th or very early 18th century, a personal rank of captain general was created in the Spanish Army (and Navy) as the highest rank in the hierarchy, not unlike the Marechal de France. When wearing uniform, the kings used captain general insignia. Valeriano Weyler, Governor General of Cuba in 1896–97 during the period preceding the Spanish–American War, held the rank. Briefly abolished by the Second Spanish Republic, it was restored during the regime of Francisco Franco in 1938; Franco himself was the only officer of this rank. Later King Juan Carlos I (1975), Agustín Muñoz Grandes (1956) and Camilo Alonso Vega (1972) were promoted while on active duty; a few posthumous promotions and promotions of retired officers to this rank were also made. In 1999, the rank was reserved to the reigning monarch.
Navy
The evolution of the title in the Spanish Navy is parallel to that of the army. During the 16th and 17th century the two main naval captain general posts were Capitán-General de la Armada del Mar Océano and Capitán-General de Galeras, roughly CIC for the Atlantic and the Mediterranean respectively.
A peculiar usage of the rank arose in the Spanish Navy of the 16th century. A capitán-general was appointed by the king as the leader of a fleet (although the term 'squadron' is more appropriate, as most galleon fleets rarely consisted of more than a dozen vessels, not counting escorted merchantmen), with full jurisdictional powers. The fleet second-in-command was the 'almirante' (admiral), an officer appointed by the capitan-general and responsible for the seaworthiness of the squadron. One captain-general that sailed under the Spanish flag that is now well known was Ferdinand Magellan, leader of the first fleet to sail around the world.
Under the Nationalist regime of 1939–1975, the only holder of the rank of capitán general de la armada was the Caudillo, Generalísimo Francisco Franco.
Air force
The rank of Captain General of the Air Force, originally created by Franco for himself, currently is reserved for the reigning monarch.
Portugal
Army
The title was given, in 1508, to the commander-in-chief of the Ordenanças (the territorial army of the crown).
During the Portuguese Restoration War, after 1640, the "Captain-General of the Arms of the Kingdom", became the commander-in-chief of the Portuguese Army, under the direct authority of the War Council and the King. In 1762 the post of the captain-general was replaced by the title marechal-general – fieldmarshall-general.
Navy
Like in the Army, the Capitão-General da Armada Real (Captain-General of the Royal Navy) was the commander-in-chief of the Portuguese Navy in the 17th and 18th centuries.
France
The title has been only sporadically used in France. During the 17th century, and for a short while, a rank between Lieutenant General and Marshal of France of this denomination was created. The king of France was the Captain General of the Army, but was represented in the field by lieutenant generals who commanded in his absence.
Kingdom of Bavaria
In the former Kingdom of Bavaria, the generalkapitän was the leader of the royal Hartschier guard. The position was associated with the highest class ranking in the Hofrangordnung (court order of precedence).<ref>[http://www.zeno.org/Meyers-1905//AHofrangordnung ''Hofrangordnung] (German) Meyers Großes Konversations-Lexikon.</ref>
Papal States
During the time of the Papal States the title of Captain General of the Church was given to the de facto commander-in-chief of the Papal Army. It existed parallel to the office of Gonfalonier of the Church, which was a more ceremonial position than a tactical military command position. Both offices were abolished by Pope Innocent XII and replaced with the office of Flag-bearer of the Holy Roman Church.
Bohemia, Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine
The term "Captain General" as Hetman (the word from the German Hauptmann "Capitan") is a political title from Eastern Europe, historically assigned to military commanders. It was the title of the second-highest military commander (after the monarch) in 15th- to 18th and 20th-century.
Siam
The rank Captain General () was used as the highest rank in Wild Tiger Corps, this rank was exclusively for King Vajiravudh but in 1915 he created rank General of the Wild Tiger Corps () for members who are leaders of corps. The rank was equivalent to Brigadier.
Current usage as a military rank and dignity
Bolivia
In Bolivia, the President of Bolivia for the duration of his or her tenure in the office has the rank and dignity of Captain General as head of the Armed forces, despite being a civilian. He or she is responsible for the overall command of the forces.
Commonwealth realms
In the armies of various Commonwealth realms, the term Captain General (Captain-General in Canada) is used generally when describing the ceremonial head of a corps or unit. As such, Charles III, the monarch of each of the realms, is the Captain General of the British Royal Artillery and the Honourable Artillery Company, the Royal Regiment of Canadian Artillery, Royal Australian Artillery, and Royal New Zealand Artillery and Royal New Zealand Armoured Corps.
One other appointment of Captain General is in the Royal Company of Archers (The King's Body Guard for Scotland), a position currently held by the Earl of Airlie.
Chile
If the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and the Head of State are reunited in the same person, they are promoted to the permanent military rank of Captain General (). It has only happened three times in Chile's history (Bernardo O'Higgins, Ramón Freire and Augusto Pinochet). Current electoral provisions (as of 2008) forbid the Commander-in-Chief becoming president.
Spain
In Spain, the title Captain General (capitán general) is the highest military rank, and has since 1999 been exclusively borne by the Spanish monarch (currently Felipe VI).
Administrative positions
The term "captain general" can also be used to translate Spanish capitán general or Portuguese capitão-general, administrative titles used in the Spanish Empire and the Portuguese Empire, especially in the Americas. Each was in charge of a captaincy.
In the Spanish Empire and Latin AmericaCapitán General was the military title given to the Spanish military governor of a province of the Spanish Empire, in the colonies usually also the president of the civilian audiencia (court of law).
In the Portuguese Empire
In the Portuguese Empire, a capitão-general (plural capitães-generais) was a governor of a capitania geral (captaincy general), with a higher rank than a capitão-mor (captain-major) and directly subordinated to the Crown. A captaincy general had a higher category than the simple captaincies (also referred as subaltern captaincies). Sometimes, a captaincy general included one or more subaltern captaincies. The governors of the captaincies general were usually styled "governor and captain-general", with the term "governor" referring to his administrative role and the term "captain-general" referring to his military role as commander-in-chief of the troops in his captaincy.
The title capitão-general was also associated to the roles of Governor-General or Viceroy of Portuguese India and of Brazil. Thus, in Brazil, besides the captains-generals that were governors of the several captaincies general, existed a central captain-general that was the governor-general or Viceroy.
In fiction
In J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Boromir is described as "Captain-General" of the armies of Gondor.
In the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan, "captain-general" is the highest rank of the Ever Victorious Army of Seanchan, excepting only the rank of marshal-general, which may be temporarily assigned to a captain-general given the command of a theatre of war. In addition, captain-general is also the title of both the leader of the Queen's Guard of Andor and the head of the Green Ajah of the Aes Sedai.
In the BattleTech universe, captain-general is the title of the military and political leader of the Free Worlds League. Since the 25th century, captain-generals have been members of the Marik family.
In Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood, Cesare Borgia is depicted in the office of Captain General of the Papal Army, a position he did in fact hold along with Gonfalonier of the Church.
In the Ring of Fire'' universe (created by Eric Flint), Gustav II Adolf, King of Sweden, is granted the newly created hereditary title of "Captain General of the State of Thuringia" (later known as the State of Thuringia-Franconia) at the end of the first book, entitled '1632'. This was a recognition of his authority over Thuringian territory as an integral part of the "Confederated Principalities of Europe", a Protestant substitute for the Holy Roman Empire which he created, while allowing the Thuringian government to continue to claim that it was a republic and not a monarchy.
In the Warhammer 40,000 universe, the title Captain-General of the Adeptus Custodes is given to the head of the Adeptus Custodes, the elite 10,000 genetically engineered supersoldiers who acted as the God-Emperor of Mankind's elite bodyguard, joining him in battle during the Great Crusade and Horus Heresy. During the Horus Heresy, the Captain-General was Constantin Valdor, called the "Emperor's Spear". In the aftermath, the Captain-General was granted a position as a High Lord of Terra and ultimate authority over who could approach the Golden Throne, where the Emperor was interred after his battle with the Warmaster Horus.
See also
Colonel-in-Chief
Captain-major
Captaincy, an administrative division in the Spanish and Portuguese colonial empires, governed by a captain general.
Five-star rank
General, a description of the various general officer ranks, including the full general which is the successor to captain general
General Captaincy
Generalissimo
List of senior officers of the British Army
Queen Elizabeth II's honorary military positions
References
Gubernatorial titles
Military ranks
Military history of Spain
Portuguese colonization of the Americas
Prince William, Duke of Cumberland |
420030 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weeb%20Ewbank | Weeb Ewbank | Wilbur Charles "Weeb" Ewbank (May 6, 1907 – November 17, 1998) was an American professional football coach. He led the Baltimore Colts to consecutive NFL championships in 1958 and 1959 and the New York Jets to victory in Super Bowl III in January 1969. He is the only coach to win a championship in both the National Football League (NFL) and American Football League (AFL).
Raised in Indiana, Ewbank attended Miami University in Ohio, where he was a multi-sport star who led his baseball, basketball, and football teams to state championships. He immediately began a coaching career after graduating, working at Ohio high schools between 1928 and 1943, when he entered the U.S. Navy during World War II. While in the military, Ewbank was an assistant to Paul Brown on a service football team at Naval Station Great Lakes outside of Chicago. Ewbank was discharged in 1945 and coached college sports for three years before reuniting with Brown as an assistant with the Cleveland Browns, a professional team in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). The Browns won all four AAFC championships. They joined the NFL with the league's merger in , winning the championship that year.
Ewbank left the Browns after the 1953 season to become head coach of the Colts, a young NFL team that had struggled in its first season. In 1956, Ewbank brought in quarterback Johnny Unitas, who quickly became a star and helped lead a potent offense that included wide receiver Raymond Berry and fullback Alan Ameche to an NFL championship in 1958. The Colts repeated as champions in 1959, but the team's performance slipped over the next three seasons and Ewbank was fired three weeks after their final game of the 1962 season. He was soon picked up by the Jets, a team in the still new AFL. While his first few years were unsuccessful, Ewbank helped build the Jets into a contender after signing Alabama quarterback Joe Namath in 1965. The Jets won the AFL championship in 1968, and then went on to win Super Bowl III in one of the biggest upsets in NFL history.
Ewbank, who was known as a mild-mannered coach who favored simple but well-executed strategies, retired after the 1973 season and settled in Oxford, Ohio. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in , and died twenty years later in Oxford on November 17, 1998, the 30th anniversary of the "Heidi Game".
Early years
Born in Richmond, Indiana, Ewbank's father was a grocer who owned two stores in the small city. He attended Morton High School and played quarterback on the football team, was an outfielder in baseball, and was a member of the basketball team. He captained the football and basketball teams when he was a senior. As a teenager, Ewbank and his father drove to Dayton, Ohio, to see early football star Jim Thorpe and the Canton Bulldogs play. One of his younger brothers could not pronounce "Wilbur" correctly and called him "Weeb", the nickname he was known by for the rest of his life.
After graduating from high school in 1924, Ewbank attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. He played on the school's football team as a quarterback under head coach Chester Pittser. He was also the center fielder on the baseball team and a forward on the basketball team. While Ewbank was small in stature – he was only and weighed – he was one of Miami's best athletes. He shared quarterback duties with Eddie Wohlwender on a squad that finished with an 8–1 win–loss record and won the Ohio Athletic Conference championship in 1927, his senior year. Miami's baseball team also won the Ohio Conference when he was a sophomore and took the Buckeye Athletic Association title when he was a senior. The basketball team won a state title when he was a junior. Ewbank was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity while at Miami.
Coaching career
Shortly after graduating from Miami in 1928, Ewbank took his first coaching job at Van Wert High School in Van Wert, Ohio, overseeing the football, basketball, and baseball teams. He remained there until 1930, when he moved back to Oxford and took a position coaching football and basketball at McGuffey High School, a private institution run by Miami University. He also taught physical education at Miami. Ewbank took a break from coaching in 1932 to pursue a master's degree at Columbia University in New York City and filled in as Miami's basketball coach in 1939 after the previous coach left for another job, but otherwise held his coaching positions at McGuffey until 1943. Under his tutelage, the school's Green Devils football team had a win–loss record of in thirteen seasons. This included a streak of three undefeated seasons between 1936 and 1939 and one season – 1936 – where the team did not allow any scoring by opponents.
Ewbank joined the U.S. Navy in 1943 as American involvement in World War II intensified. He was assigned for training to Naval Station Great Lakes north of Chicago, where Paul Brown, a former classmate who succeeded him as Miami's starting quarterback, was coaching the base football team. Brown had become a successful high school coach in Ohio before being named head football coach at Ohio State University in 1941. At Great Lakes, Ewbank was an assistant to Brown on the football team and coached the basketball team.
Following his discharge from the Navy at the end of the war in 1945, Ewbank became the backfield coach under Charles "Rip" Engle at Brown University. He also was head coach of the basketball team in the 1946–47 season, his only one at Brown.
Ewbank's next stop was as head football coach at Washington University in St. Louis for the 1947 and 1948 seasons. Ewbank guided the Bears to a 14–4 record in two seasons, (5–3 in 1947, 9–1 in 1948).
Cleveland Browns
Despite his success in St. Louis, Ewbank quit his job when he was given the chance to serve as an assistant under Paul Brown, who by 1949 was coaching the Cleveland Browns, a professional team in the All-America Football Conference (AAFC). Ewbank was brought in to oversee the Browns' linemen after backfield coach John Brickels quit to take a job at Miami University and tackles coach Bill Edwards left to become the head coach at Vanderbilt University. Ewbank expected to coach quarterbacks, having played the position in college, but Brown insisted that he oversee the tackles. "He knew I'd have to work very hard at this job and bring a fresh approach", Ewbank said many years later.
Led by quarterback Otto Graham, fullback Marion Motley, and ends Dante Lavelli and Mac Speedie, the Browns won the AAFC championship in 1949, their fourth straight title. The AAFC folded after the season, and the Browns were absorbed by the more established National Football League (NFL). The team finished the 1950 season with a 10–2 record and won the NFL championship by beating the Los Angeles Rams. The Browns reached the NFL championship each year between 1951 and 1953, but lost once to the Rams and twice to the Detroit Lions.
Baltimore Colts
Ewbank got his first professional head coaching job in early 1954 for the NFL's Baltimore Colts, a franchise that had started play the previous year. While it was a step up for Ewbank, Brown encouraged him not to take the job and told him he would not be successful. After Ewbank took the job, Brown accused him of passing information about the Browns' draft targets to the Colts. Brown had insisted that he stay with the Browns through the 1954 draft, and NFL commissioner Bert Bell agreed. During the draft, Ewbank allegedly sent the names of players Brown liked to the Colts through Baltimore sportswriter John Steadman, including end Raymond Berry, who went on to have a long and successful career.
The Colts struggled in Ewbank's first years as head coach, posting records of 3–9 in 1954 and 5–6–1 in 1955. In 1956, however, the team signed quarterback Johnny Unitas after he was cut by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Ewbank brought in Otto Graham to tutor Unitas, who complemented an improving team that included Berry, fullback Alan Ameche, halfback Lenny Moore and defensive back Don Shula.
The Colts began the 1956 season with a 3–3 record, and calls for Ewbank's firing intensified – just as they had the previous year. Team owner Carroll Rosenbloom supported him, however, saying that while he had considered a coaching change in the past, Ewbank could stay with the Colts "forever – or until he fouls up". When he came to Baltimore, Ewbank had promised to create a system like Paul Brown's in Cleveland, but said he would need time to turn the team into a winner. The Colts finished 1956 with a 5–7 record.
The team made a turnaround the following year, posting a 7–5 record, but still finished third in the NFL's Western Division behind the San Francisco 49ers and Detroit Lions. The team improved further in 1958, winning the Western Division with a 9–3 record and earning a spot in the NFL championship game against the New York Giants. Led by Unitas, Berry and Ameche, the team won the game 23–17 in sudden-death overtime. Often referred to as "The Greatest Game Ever Played", the championship was watched by a large national audience on television and helped make professional football one of the most viewed sports in the U.S. Ewbank was named coach of the year by the Associated Press and United Press International after the season.
Baltimore finished with a 9–3 record for the second year in a row in 1959 and repeated as NFL champions. The team's performance fell off in subsequent years, however, and after posting a 7–7 record in 1962, Rosenbloom fired Ewbank three weeks later. He was succeeded by former player Don Shula, a 33-year-old assistant coach with the Lions.
His legacy as a coach is mixed. Some remember Ewbank as a humble coach who had a good sense of humor and tried to stay out of the spotlight. He could also be harsh with his players, however. Before the 1958 championship game, he gave a speech telling his stars they needed to improve and had barely made the team. Unitas, he said, was obtained "with a seventy-five-cent phone call" and Ameche wasn't liked or wanted. Ewbank was not universally liked by his players. Second-string running back Jack Call later said the team won "in spite of, not because of" Ewbank. Other players saw him as overly easygoing, saying that while he was able to build teams up, he became too relaxed once he reached the top. Hall of Famer Raymond Berry stated in his book All the Moves I Had, "What it amounts to is that Ewbank knew exactly what he wanted his team to do and how to get them to do it well... Being under Weeb's system was the number one reason why Unitas and I had the careers we had."
In his autobiography, which he partially dedicated to Weeb Ewbank, Hall of Famer Art Donovan had this to say about his former coach: "When Weeb and Joe Thomas came in and introduced the keying defense—one that depended upon quickness and a players's ability to read offenses—man, I was in hog heaven. Weeb Ewbank made Arthur J. Donovan, Jr., a Hall of Fame football player. I loved him for that; I always will love him for that. I can honestly say that Weeb Ewbank became and remains one of the most important, cherished people in my life. With that out of the way, I can also honestly say that Weeb was a screwball who held insane grudges, concentrated too much on what I considered the unimportant aspects of the game, thought he was smarter than God, and deep down inside was one mean sonofabitch."
Ewbank remains the longest tenured head coach in the history of the Baltimore Colts.
New York Jets
A five-man syndicate led by Sonny Werblin bought the New York Titans franchise of the American Football League (AFL), an NFL competitor, as part of bankruptcy proceedings in 1963. Shortly thereafter, the team changed its name to the New York Jets and hired Ewbank in April as its head coach and general manager. Ewbank took over a team that had not had a winning record in its first three years of existence and hired a coaching staff that included Chuck Knox, Walt Michaels, and Clive Rush, all future head coaches. When he was hired, Ewbank said he had a five-year plan to succeed in Baltimore, and "I don't see why we can't build a winner here in five years."
While the Jets won their first three games with Ewbank as coach, his first several years were unsuccessful. The team, meanwhile, had to deal with numerous logistical issues stemming from its second-tier status among New York's sports teams. The Jets switched stadiums from the Polo Grounds in Manhattan after the 1963 season to the new Shea Stadium in Queens, but shared it with baseball's New York Mets. Concerned about possible damage to the stadium's natural turf, the Mets would not allow the Jets to practice at Shea, forcing the team to hold practices at the Rikers Island jail complex. The Jets posted 5–8–1 records for three consecutive seasons (1963–1965).
Despite limited on-field success in Ewbank's first years, the Jets began to put the pieces of a winning team in place. In 1964, they outbid cross-town NFL rival New York Giants for Matt Snell, a top running back prospect out of Ohio State. Linebacker Larry Grantham became a consistent All-Pro selection and safety Dainard Paulson had 12 interceptions in 1964, which remains a team record. An even bigger coup came in 1965, when the Jets signed Joe Namath, a star quarterback at Alabama under coach Bear Bryant. The St. Louis Cardinals selected Namath as the twelfth overall pick of the NFL draft, but Namath later said he chose the Jets in part because he got along with Ewbank and was impressed by how he had developed Unitas while with the Colts.
Namath quickly became a star for the Jets. The team improved to 6–6–2 in 1966 and 8–5–1 in 1967, when Namath became the first to throw for more than 4,000 yards in a single season. By 1968, Ewbank's team was becoming one of the top teams in the AFL. All of its main starters returned from the year before, and the Jets brought in All-Pro guard Bob Talamini from the Houston Oilers. The Jets started with a 3–2 record, but won eight of nine to finish the regular season 11–3 and win the AFL East Division by four games. One of the Jets' losses in 1968 was on the road in mid-November against the Oakland Raiders that later came to be known as the Heidi Game. After Jim Turner kicked a field goal for the Jets that gave them a 32–29 lead with just over a minute left to play, NBC cut away from the game to a scheduled broadcast of the children's movie Heidi. The Raiders went on to win the game by scoring two touchdowns in the final 42 seconds. Ewbank's wife Lucy called the locker room to congratulate him on the win, only to learn the team had lost.
The Jets' first-place finish in their division in 1968 set up a rematch with the Raiders – the defending AFL champions and winners of the AFL West – for the league championship. Namath threw three touchdowns as the Jets won 27–23, putting them through to the third World Championship game, a matchup between the winner of the AFL and NFL now known as Super Bowl III. The Jets were 17-point underdogs to the Colts, who had continued to succeed after Ewbank's departure with Unitas at quarterback and Shula as head coach. Nevertheless, Namath publicly guaranteed a Jets win before the game, which rankled Ewbank. Ewbank liked that the Colts were favored, thinking it would make them complacent, and did not want to agitate them by boasting about the Jets' chances.
Ewbank and the Jets played an unconventional game against the Colts, opting for an uncharacteristically conservative strategy in part because star wideout Don Maynard was nursing a hamstring injury. Also on film, the Jets noticed the Colts while talented on defense, were very predictable. They did not shift out of a defense once it was called from the sideline. So Namath called most of the plays at the line of scrimmage after viewing the Colts' defense instead of calling the offensive plays in the huddle. The tactic worked against the Colts, and the Jets built a 16–0 lead going into the game's fourth quarter by relying on Snell's running and Namath's ability to complete short passes against a steady Colts' blitz. Snell had 121 yards on 30 carries. The Jets' defense, meanwhile, held back a Colts offense that scored 460 points throughout the team's 15–1 regular- and post-season record up to that point. New York intercepted four Baltimore passes, three thrown by Earl Morrall, who was substituting for an injured Unitas and one by Unitas who entered the game in the second half. The Jets won the game 16–7, aided by Ewbank's familiarity with many of the Colts' players and strategies.
The Jets had a 10–4 record in 1969, but lost a divisional playoff to the Kansas City Chiefs. Ewbank was named the AFL's coach of the year after the season, but the team did not post a winning record in any of the following four years. In December 1972, Ewbank announced that he would retire as head coach after the 1973 season, saying he wanted to spend more time with his wife. He continued as general manager, however, and was named the team vice president. Charley Winner, the former coach of the St. Louis Cardinals and the husband of Ewbank's daughter Nancy, was appointed as his replacement in early 1973. The 1973 Jets season is the subject of the book The Last Season of Weeb Ewbank by Paul Zimmerman. After the team lost seven of its first eight games in 1974, Ewbank resigned as vice president and general manager. He agreed to coach quarterbacks at Columbia University in 1975.
Later life and honors
Ewbank moved back to Oxford in retirement and wrote a book in 1977 called Football Greats. He was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1978, but said later that year that he was glad to be out of coaching. With the expansion of the NFL, he said, talent had become diluted and fielding a good team was difficult. Coaches, meanwhile, customarily took the blame for a team's failures, and the sport had become too violent.
Ewbank's coaching style was laid-back but efficient, combining his mild personality with an orderliness inherited from Paul Brown. "Weeb combined a low-key style with a flair for the most dramatic of accomplishments", former NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said in 1998. "He led two of the legendary teams during the era of pro football's greatest growth. But he preferred to stay in the background and let the players take the credit." He favored well-practiced execution of a limited number of plays over complicated offensive and defensive systems. Paul Brown "had the exact same approach: Don't do too much, but what you do, execute it flawlessly", Raymond Berry said in 2013, adding that the Colts' 1958 championship team had only six passing plays.
Ewbank is the only man to coach two professional football teams to championships, and the only man to win the NFL championship, the AFL championship and a Super Bowl. His regular-season career record in the NFL and AFL was 130–129–7, and his playoff record was 4–1. Ewbank was selected as the head coach on the AFL All-Time Team in 1970. In addition to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, he was inducted into the Miami University Athletic Hall of Fame in 1969, the Indiana Football Hall of Fame in 1974 and the Talawanda School District Athletic Hall of Fame in 1999. He also won the Walter Camp Distinguished American Award in 1987 and was inducted into the Jets' Ring of Honor in 2010.
Ewbank suffered a dislocated hip in the aftermath of the Jets' 1968 AFL championship game win, and had other health issues in his later years. He broke his leg and had two hip replacements in the 1990s. He also had myasthenia in his right eye. Ewbank died at 91 on November 17, 1998, the 30th anniversary of the "Heidi Game", after suffering from heart problems. He and his wife Lucy had three daughters, Luanne, Nancy and Jan. His daughter Nancy married Charley Winner.
Head coaching record
College football
AFL/NFL
Coaching tree
Assistants under Weeb Ewbank who became NCAA or NFL head coaches:
Irwin Uteritz: Washington University Bears (1949–1952)
John Bridgers: Baylor Bears (1959–1968)
Don Shula: Baltimore Colts (1963–1969), Miami Dolphins (1970–1995)
Frank Lauterbur: Toledo Rockets (1963–1970), Iowa Hawkeyes (1971–1973)
Bob Shaw: Saskatchewan Roughriders (1963–1964), Toronto Argonauts (1965–1966), Otterbein College (1985–1987)
Clive Rush: New England Patriots (1969–1970), Merchant Marine Academy (1976)
Don McCafferty: Baltimore Colts (1970–1972), Detroit Lions (1973)
John Sandusky: Baltimore Colts (1972)
Chuck Knox: Los Angeles Rams (1973–1977), (1992–1994), Buffalo Bills (1978–1982), Seattle Seahawks (1983–1991)
Charley Winner: St. Louis Cardinals (1966–1970) New York Jets (1974–1975)
Joe Thomas Baltimore Colts (1974)
Walt Michaels: New York Jets (1977–1982), New Jersey Generals (1983–1985)
Buddy Ryan: Philadelphia Eagles (1986–1990), Arizona Cardinals (1994–1995)
See also
American Football League players, coaches, and contributors
List of National Football League head coaches with 50 wins
References
Bibliography
External links
Cradle of Coaches Archive: A Legacy of Excellence—Weeb Ewbank, Miami University Libraries
1907 births
1998 deaths
American football quarterbacks
American men's basketball players
Baltimore Colts head coaches
Basketball coaches from Indiana
Brown Bears football coaches
Brown Bears men's basketball coaches
Columbia Lions football coaches
Great Lakes Navy Bluejackets football coaches
Miami RedHawks baseball players
Miami RedHawks football players
Miami RedHawks men's basketball coaches
Miami RedHawks men's basketball players
New York Jets head coaches
New York Jets executives
Washington University Bears football coaches
National Football League general managers
College men's basketball head coaches in the United States
High school baseball coaches in the United States
High school basketball coaches in Ohio
High school football coaches in Ohio
American Football League All-Time Team
Pro Football Hall of Fame inductees
Super Bowl-winning head coaches
Sportspeople from Richmond, Indiana
Burials at Oxford Cemetery, Oxford, Ohio
United States Navy personnel of World War II |
420031 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis%20Marx%20and%20Company | Louis Marx and Company | Louis Marx and Company was an American toy manufacturer in business from 1919 to 1980. They made many types of toys including tin toys, toy soldiers, toy guns, action figures, dolls, toy cars and model trains. Some of their notable toys are Rock'em Sock'em Robots, Big Wheel tricycles, Disney branded dollhouses and playsets based on TV shows like Gunsmoke. Its products were often imprinted with the slogan "One of the many Marx toys, have you all of them?"
Logo and offerings
The Marx logo was the letters "MAR" in a circle with a large X through it, resembling a railroad crossing sign. As the X sometimes goes unseen, Marx toys were, and are still today, often misidentified as "Mar" toys. Reputedly, because of this name confusion, the Italian diecast toy company Martoys, after two years of production, changed its name to Bburago in 1976. Although the Marx name is now largely forgotten except by toy collectors, several of the products that the company developed remain strong icons in popular culture, including Rock'em Sock'em Robots, introduced in 1964, and its best-selling sporty Big Wheel tricycle, one of the most popular toys of the 1970s. In fact, the Big Wheel, which was introduced in 1969, is enshrined in the National Toy Hall of Fame.
Marx's toys included tinplate buildings, tin toys, toy soldiers, playsets, toy dinosaurs, mechanical toys, toy guns, action figures, dolls, dollhouses, toy cars and trucks, and HO scale and O scale trains. Marx also made several models of typewriters for children. Marx's less expensive toys were extremely common in dime stores, and its larger, costlier toys were staples for catalog and department store retailers such as Eaton's, Gamages, Sears, W.T. Grant, Montgomery Ward, J. C. Penney and Spiegel especially around Christmas. In pre-WWII America, it was common for Kresge's and Woolworth's to place yearly orders with Marx for at least $1 million each.
History
Founded in August 1919 in New York City by Louis Marx and his brother David, the company's basic aim was to "give the customer more toy for less money," and stressed that "quality is not negotiable" – two values that made the company highly successful. Initially, after working for Ferdinand Strauss, Marx, born in 1894, was a distributor with no manufacturing capacity. All product production would have to be contracted out for the first few years. Marx raised money as a middleman, studying available products, finding ways to make them cheaper, and then closing sales. Enough funding was raised to purchase tooling from previous employer Strauss for two obsolete tin toys – the Alabama Coon Jigger and Zippo the Climbing Monkey. With subtle changes, Marx was able to turn these toys into hits, selling more than eight million of each within two years. Another success was the "Mouse Orchestra" with tinplate mice on piano, fiddle, snare, and one conducting.
Marx listed six qualities he believed were needed for a successful toy: familiarity, surprise, skill, play value, comprehensibility and sturdiness. By 1922, both Louis and David Marx were millionaires. Initially, Marx reevaluated and produced a few original toys by predicting the hits and manufacturing them less expensively than the competition. The yo-yo is an example: although Marx is sometimes wrongly credited with inventing the toy, the company was quick to market its own version. During the 1920s, about 100 million Marx yo-yos were sold.
Unlike most companies, Marx's revenues grew during the Great Depression, with the establishment of production facilities in economically hard-hit industrial areas of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and England. By 1937, the company had more than $3.2 million in assets ($42.6 million in 2005 dollars), with debt of just over $500,000. He was declared "Toy King of the World" in October 1937 in a London newspaper. By 1938, Marx employed 500 workers in the Dudley factory and 4000 in the American factories. Marx was the largest toy manufacturer in the world by the 1950s. Fortune Magazine in January 1946 had declared him "Toy King" suggesting at least $20 million in sales for 1941, but again in 1955, a Time Magazine article also proclaimed Louis Marx "the Toy King," and that year, the company had about $50 million in sales. Marx was the star article of the magazine with his picture displayed on the front cover. Marx was the initial inductee in the Toy Industry Hall of Fame, and his plaque proclaimed him "The Henry Ford of the toy industry."
At its peak, Louis Marx and Company operated three manufacturing plants in the United States: Erie, Pennsylvania, Girard, Pennsylvania, and Glen Dale, West Virginia. The Erie plant was the oldest and largest, while the Girard plant, acquired in 1934 with the purchase of Girard Model Works, produced toy trains, and the Glen Dale plant produced toy vehicles. Additionally, Marx operated numerous plants overseas, and in 1955 five percent of the toys Marx sold in the US were made in Japan. In 1952 Marx Company stationary listed operations in: Mexico, London England, Swansea Wales, Durbin South Africa, Sydney Australia, Toronto Canada, São Paulo Brazil and Paris France. By 1959, the demand for American toys was a billion dollars a year.
Marx enjoyed his wealth at his 20.5-acre estate in the wealthy suburb of Scarsdale, north of New York City. The estate featured a 25-room Georgian mansion, a barn and stables for horses he raised and other amenities. The estate was sold to a developer after his death in 1982, to make way for some 29 homes.
Playsets
Among the most enduring Marx creations were a long series of boxed "playsets" throughout the 1950s and 1960s based on television shows and historical events. These include "Roy Rogers Rodeo Ranch" and Western Town, "Walt Disney's Davy Crockett at the Alamo", "Gunsmoke", "Wagon Train", "The Rifleman Ranch", "The Lone Ranger Ranch", "Battle of the Blue and Grey", "The Revolutionary War" (including "Johnny Tremain"), "Tales of Wells Fargo", "The Untouchables", "Robin Hood", "The Battle of the Little Big Horn", "Arctic Explorer", "Ben Hur", "Fort Apache", "Zorro", "Battleground", "Tom Corbett Training Academy", "Prehistoric Times", and many others.
Playsets included highly detailed plastic figures and accessories, many with some of the toy world's finest tin lithography. A Marx playset box was invariably bursting with contents, yet very few were ever priced above the average of $4–$7. Greatly expanded sets, such as "Giant Ben Hur" sold for $10 to $12 in the early 1960s. This pricing formula adhered to the Marx policy of "more for less" and made the entire series attainable to most customers for many years. Original sets are highly prized by baby boomer collectors to this day.
Marx produced dollhouses from the 1920s into the 1970s. In the late 1940s Marx began to produce metal lithographed dollhouses with plastic furniture (at the same time it began producing service stations). These dollhouse were variations of the Colonial style. An instant sensation was the "Disney" house, featured in the 1949 Sears catalogue. The popularity of Marx dollhouses gained momentum, and up to 150,000 Marx dollhouses were produced in the 1950s. Two house sizes were available, with two different size furniture to match; the most popular in the 1/2" to 1' scale, and the larger 3/4" to 1' scale. An L-shaped ranch hit the market in 1953, followed by a split-level of 1958. Curiously, in the early 1960s a dollhouse with a bomb shelter was sold briefly.
As the space race heated up, Marx playsets reflected the obsession with all things extraterrestrial such as "Rex Mars", "Moon Base", "Cape Canaveral", and "IGY International Geophysical Year", among other space themed sets. In a similar theme, Marx also capitalized on the robot craze, producing the Big Loo, "Your friend from the Moon", and the popular Rock'em Sock'em Robots action game.
In 1963, Marx began making a series of beatnik style plastic figurines called the Nutty Mads, which included some almost psychedelic creations, such as Donald the Demon — a half-duck, half-madman driving a miniature car. These were similar to the counterculture characters of other companies introduced about a year before, such as Revell's Rat Fink by "Big Daddy" Ed Roth, or Hawk Models' "Weird-Oh's", designed by Bill Campbell.
Toy train sets
Louis Marx and Company entered a five-year selling contract with Girard Model Works in 1929 and in 1932 contracted Woods/Girard to exclusively produce all his trains and toys. The trains were called Joy Line. These were small four inch tinplate cars with a small windup or electric engine. Marx acquired the Woods company in 1934, although his brand appears on floor trains, trolleys, Joy Line and the M10000 sets, years before the acquisition. This was the beginning of Marx trains.
In 1934 Marx produced its first newly designed model train set, the streamlined Union Pacific M-10000. The streamlined Marx Commodore Vanderbilt was issued in 1935 with new 6 inch tinplate cars. The ever popular Marx Canadian Pacific 3000 appeared in 1936 in Canada, while the articulated Marx Mercury was introduced to America.
The success of Marx "027" train line forced other manufacturers to follow suit in size and fashion. Marx continued to make tinplate train sets until 1972. Plastic sets began in 1952 and only plastic sets were made after 1973, until the end of the company in 1975.
Overtaking Lionel
Even though Marx trains never held the prestige of Lionel's trains, they were able to outsell them for most of the late fifties. While Lionel's top mid-fifties toy sales were some $32 million, the Marx's 1955 toy sales were $50 million. When it comes to quality and quantity, Louis Marx and Company is considered "the most important producer of inexpensive American toy trains".
Toy soldier sets
Marx is well known by collectors and some kids for making good quality toy soldiers. These sets were often known as ''Battleground'', offering Germans and Americans. Though there also were Pacific sets, which had Japanese soldiers and combat planes, such as the Zero.
Some of their most popular sets were ''Navarone'' (basing on the film), ''Iwo Jima'', ''The Alamo'' (basing on the film) and more sets based in movies and series, such as The Gallant Men, specially in John Wayne and the films he was in.
Vehicles
Pre-war
Cast iron was unwieldy, heavy, and not well-suited to proper detail or model proportions and gradually it was replaced by pressed tin. Marx offered a variety of tin vehicles, from carts to dirigibles — the company would lithograph toy patterns on large sheets of tinplated steel. These would then be stamped, die-cut, folded, and assembled. Marx was long known for its car and truck toys, and the company would take small steps to renew the popularity of an old product. In the 1920s, an old truck toy that was falling behind in sales was loaded with plastic ice cubes and the company had a new hit. The Honeymoon Express, a wind-up train on track with a plane circling above, later became the Mickey Mouse Express and then the Subway Express. Popeye pushing a barrel of spinach eventually became the 1940 Tidy Tim Street Cleaner and Charlie McCarthy in his "Benzine Buggy".
Some of the most popular vehicles were Crazy Cars like the Funny Flivver of 1926 — another was the eloping "Joy Riders". One earlier and much sought after tin toy was an open Amos 'n Andy Ford Model T four door, as well as another Model T with driver apparently on a European jaunt and hauling a trunk at the rear with the names of various European cities on it. This model was produced in a variety of liveries. Lithographed tin tanks, airplanes, police motorcycles, tractors, trains, luxury liners, and rocket ships were all produced in bright colors. One toy, the Tricky Taxi seems to have had origins in a Heinrich Muller toy from Nuremberg in Germany. The 1935 G-Man pursuit car was possibly the largest vehicle Marx ever made at 14½ inches long. Even doll houses, gasoline stations, parking lots and street scenes were made in tin. That Marx was doing well even in the depression is shown by the date of introduction of their well-known motorcycle cop toy — 1933.
A number of tinplate trucks, buses and vans were made in the 1930s, particularly in the latter part of the decade. Trucks were made, particularly Studebakers, in a variety of colors and formats, and often advertised in Sears catalogues. These included several different series like the truck hauling five tinplate "stake bed" trailers, a "dumping" garbage truck, many variations on larger truck "car carriers" hauling different vehicles, and a set of completely chromed trucks. Metal gas and fire station sets could also be purchased on which to play with the vehicles more fully.
Lumar toys
"Lumar Lines" was another name used for a line of floor operated tin toys, trucks, vehicles, trains beginning in the early 1930s, in the United States and England. Lumar Lines passenger and freight floor trains were produced from 1939 through 1941. Production continued after WWII with the "Friendship" train that honored the real train that had sent supplies from the United States to England in 1947. The "standard gauge" floor train was first marketed in 1933 under the "Girard Model Works" moniker.
Plastics
Louis Marx and Company was an early player in the plastic toy field.
After World War II Marx introduced more vehicles, taking advantage of molding techniques with various plastics. Pressed tin and steel remained in the form of Buicks, Nashes, or other semi-futuristic sedans, race cars, and trucks that didn't replicate any actual vehicles. One car was a tin Buick-like wood-bodied station wagon. These were often of various larger sizes, ranging from 10 to 20 inches long. Some vehicles were difficult to identify as Marx; one had to look for the small "X-in-O" logo, usually on the lower rear of the vehicle. Often there were no markings on the base.
More and more, however, plastic models appeared in a variety of sizes, three series of which are significant. The first series, in 1950, included inexpensive 4-inch replicas of early 1950s cars, both foreign and domestic, like Talbot, Volkswagen, Jaguar, Studebaker, Ford, Chevrolet, GMC Van and others. They were supplied as accessories for Marx' large tinplate gas station or rail station toys. These were molded of polystyrene and came with die-cast metal wheel-and-axle combinations. The second series was identical, except for updating the cars to 1954 models. The third series, released in 1959, included updated models of 1959 cars, only these were molded in polyethylene and had polyethylene wheels/axles, and were supplied with an updated 1959 gas station. The Marx 1959 gas station cars were downsized and simplified versions of AMT and Jo-Han flywheel models.
In the early 1950s, one Marx product line showed a greater sophistication in toy offerings. The "Fix All" series was introduced, whose main attraction was larger plastic vehicles (about 14 inches long) that could be taken apart and put back together with included tools and equipment. A 1953 Pontiac convertible (erroneously identified on packaging as a sedan), and a 1953 Mercury Monterey station wagon which featured an articulated drive-line. Everything from the pistons to the crankshaft to the rear axle gears were visible through clear plastic, and wood-trim decals for the sides finished off this marvelous model. A very large 1953 Chrysler convertible, a 1953 Jaguar XK120 roadster, a WWII-era Willys Jeep, a Dodge-ish utility truck, a tow truck, a tractor, a larger scale motorcycle, a helicopter, and a couple of airplanes were all part of the Fix All series. The cars' boxes boasted features like "Over 50 parts" and "For a real mechanic!" As an example, the tow truck came with cast metal box and open wrenches, an adjustable end wrench, a two-piece jack, gas can, hammer, screwdriver, and fire extinguisher. The Jeep came with a star wrench, a screw jack and working lights.
Since the 1950s, Marx had factories in different locations. Among these was a factory in Swansea, Wales, which made a variety of toys for the British market. Example of some of the plastic cars made there were Motorway Station Wagons (which looked like late 1950s U.S. Fords), a remote control 1950 Pontiac, and a Ford Zephyr wagon police car. The Marx factory was in the same industrial estate as the Corgi Toys factory.
The Marx Hudson 13" toy
In 1948, the Hudson Motor Car Company made a detailed in-house promotional model of its "step down" 4-door Commodore for exclusive use by their dealers. The model was exceptionally well done, and came in four authentic two-tone color combos, but sadly, was never available on the retail market. Some sources erroneously insist this model was made by Marx, but in fact, it was Hudson's own production effort, manufactured, produced and assembled in Hudson's main factory.
Soon after, Marx fabricated an injection mold of Hudson's more precise model and marketed this simplified version as a more inexpensive mechanized toy. It was available as a police car in grass green or a fire chief car in bright red. The clear windows of the original were replaced with a single, stamped metal piece with lithographed images of cartoonish policemen or firemen. The police version even had a shotgun protruding through the windshield. With batteries an oversize roof light lit up and the gun made a corny rat-a-tat sound.
Not one of Marx's more successful toys, their Hudson was large and unwieldy, being aimed at pre-teens. After newer, more modern American cars appeared, the Marx Hudson quickly became obsolete, resulting in an oversupply on retail toy shelves. By the mid-1960s they were still easy to find across America and one could usually be bought for about a dollar – a nice discount from the original $4.95 list price.
A well-preserved Marx police or fire chief Hudson with original box will still bring from $50 to $100 in today's market, depending on condition. An authentic Hudson promotional still brings around $2,000. Over the years, professional Hudson experts have upgraded Marx versions to look somewhat like the original promotional – these usually bring from $600 to $800.
Other autos
Marx also made Studebaker and Packard vehicles especially through the 1930s and 1940s. They often appeared with the Studebaker badge logo in a very promotional way, though evidence of Marx as a promotional provider is uncertain. One of Marx's later Studebakers was an Avanti with a dented fender that could be replaced with a 'repaired' one, which was odd, as the real Avanti had a fiberglass body – and would not dent. A 1948 Packard Fire Chief's car was one that looked, in theme, much like the step-down Hudson.
Into the 1960s and 1970s, Marx still made some cars, though increasingly these were made in Japan and Hong Kong. Especially impressive were two-foot long "Big Bruiser" tow trucks with Ford C-Series cabs and "Big Job" dump trucks, a T-bucket hot rod of the same large size and some foreign cars like a Jaguar SS100, which was later reissued. Marx made some 1/25 scale slot cars, like a Jaguar XKE remote control convertible. Into the 1970s, Marx jumped on several bandwagons, for example, plastic pull string funny cars of typical 1:25 scale model size, but this was not quick enough to save the company.
Marx sometimes joined with European toy makers, putting their name on traditional European toys. For example, about 1968, Solido and Marx made a deal to sell these French metal die cast models in the U.S. with the Marx name added to the box. The boxes were, for the most part, regular red Solido boxes with the Marx "x-in-o" logo and "by Marx" directly below the Solido script. Nowhere on the cars did the Marx name appear.
The small scale market
During the 1960s Marx offered its Elegant Models, a collection of Matchbox-like 1930s to 1950s style race cars in red and yellow boxes. Also offered were airplanes, trucks, and, in the same series, metal animals boxed in a similar style. Some of the vehicles from this era were marketed under the Linemar or Collectoy names.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Marx tried to compete not only with Matchbox, but with Mattel Hot Wheels, making small cars with thin axle, low-friction wheels. These were marketed, not too successfully, under a few different names. One of the most common was "Mini Marx Blazers" with "Super Speed Wheels". The cars were made in a slightly smaller scale than Hot Wheels, often 1:66 to about 1:70. Proportions of these cars were simple, but accurate, though details were somewhat lacking. Some cars, however, included such niceties as a driver behind the wheel. While some of the earlier toys had a simpler Tootsietoy style single casting, newer cars were colored in bright chrome paints with decals and fast axle wheels. Tires were plain black with thin whitewalls.
Linemar toys
Linemar toys was the trade name under which Marx toys were manufactured in Japan, then sold in the United States and other countries. The reason to make Linemar toys in Japan was to keep costs down. Under the Linemar name, Marx produced The Flintstones and other licensed toy vehicles. The Linemar line also included airplanes that were produced in the colors of KLM, Pan Am and other airlines. The trademark for Linemar toys is owned by The Juna Group, LLC.
Decline
Quaker Oats-Marx era
In 1972, Marx sold his company to the Quaker Oats Company for $54 million ($ in dollars) and retired at the age of 76. Quaker also owned the Fisher-Price brand, but struggled with Marx. Quaker had hoped Marx and Fisher-Price would have synergy, but the companies' sales patterns were too different. The company was also faulted for largely ignoring the trend towards electronic toys in the early 1970s. In late 1975, Quaker closed the plants in Erie and Girard, and in early 1976, Quaker sold its struggling Marx division to the British conglomerate Dunbee-Combex-Marx, who had bought the former Marx UK subsidiary in 1967.
Dunbee-Combex-Marx era
Like many toy makers, Dunbee-Combex-Marx struggled with high interest rates and an economic slowdown. It collapsed. By 1979, most US operations were ceased, and by 1980, the last Marx plant closed in West Virginia. The Marx brand disappeared and Dunbee-Combex-Marx filed for bankruptcy. The Marx assets were liquidated by Chemical Bank in the early 1980s, with the trademarks and most toy molds purchased by Jay Horowitz of American Plastic Equipment, who later transferred all rights to American Plastic Equipment's subsidiary, American Classic Toys.
Toy legacy
Some popular Marx tooling is still used today to produce toys and trains. A company called Marx Trains, Inc. produced lithographed tin trains, both of original design and based on former Louis Marx patterns. Plastic O scale train cars and scenery using former Marx molds were previously produced by MDK and are now marketed under the "K-Line by Lionel" brand name. Model Power produces HO scale trains from old Marx molds. The Big Wheel rolls on, as a property of Alpha International, Inc. (Cedar Rapids, Iowa), which has been acquired by J. Lloyd International, Inc. also of Cedar Rapids. Mattel reintroduced Rock'em Sock'em Robots around 2000 (albeit at a smaller size than the original). Marx's toy soldiers and other plastic figures are in production today in Mexico, and in the US for the North American market and are mostly targeted at collectors, although they sometimes appear on the general consumer market.
In 2001, a longtime collector of Marx toys, Francis Turner, established the Marx Toy Museum in Moundsville, West Virginia, near the old Glen Dale plant, to display toys from his collection and inform visitors about the history and output of the company and its founder. However, over its decade and a half of operation, the museum's income could not sustain maintenance of a physical facility, and it was closed permanently on June 30, 2016. The collection has only been shown on loan to other museums and through a "virtual museum" website, which was on sale since the start of the year 2021.
In 2019, Jay Horowitz of American Classic Toys, and current rights holder of the Marx brands, entered into an exclusive license agreement with The Juna Group to represent the Marx brands in all categories outside of toys and playthings, worldwide. In 2021, the Marx brands were sold to The Nacelle Co.
Footnotes
References
Kern, Russell S. 2010. Toy Kings: The Story of Louis Marx & Company. Colorado Springs, Colorado: Atomic Home Videos LLC, 2010.
Further reading
Marx Miniature Cars Miss the Mark. Planet Diecast webpage (2010).
Jeffrey S. Pfeiffer. Dinosaur Playsets: An Illustrated Guide to the Prehistoric Playsets of Marx and MPC. Expanded edition. AuthorHouse, 2019. .
Toy train manufacturers
Defunct toy manufacturers
Toy companies of the United States
Toy soldier manufacturing companies
Defunct manufacturing companies based in New York City
Economy of Erie, Pennsylvania
Manufacturing companies disestablished in 1980
1919 establishments in New York (state)
1980 disestablishments in New York (state)
Model manufacturers of the United States
Toy companies established in 1919 |
420088 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%20mobility | Social mobility | Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given society. This movement occurs between layers or tiers in an open system of social stratification. Open stratification systems are those in which at least some value is given to achieved status characteristics in a society. The movement can be in a downward or upward direction. Markers for social mobility such as education and class, are used to predict, discuss and learn more about an individual or a group's mobility in society.
Typology
Mobility is most often quantitatively measured in terms of change in economic mobility such as changes in income or wealth. Occupation is another measure used in researching mobility which usually involves both quantitative and qualitative analysis of data, but other studies may concentrate on social class. Mobility may be intragenerational, within the same generation or intergenerational, between different generations. Intragenerational mobility is less frequent, representing "rags to riches" cases in terms of upward mobility. Intergenerational upward mobility is more common where children or grandchildren are in economic circumstances better than those of their parents or grandparents. In the US, this type of mobility is described as one of the fundamental features of the "American Dream" even though there is less such mobility than almost all other OECD countries.
Mobility can also be defined in terms of relative or absolute mobility. Absolute mobility looks at a society's progress in the areas of education, health, housing, job opportunities and other factors and compares it across generations. As technological advancements and globalization increase so do income levels and the conditions in which people live. In absolute terms, people around the world, on average, are living better today than yesterday. Relative mobility looks at the mobility of a person in comparison to the mobility of others in the same cohort or their parent. In more advanced economies and OECD countries there is more space for relative mobility than for absolute mobility. This is because developed countries or advanced economies have a baseline for the conditions in which people live that is better than it was years ago. However, developing economies have a wider margin for absolute mobility since they are still combating issues such as sanitation. Moreover, there can be downward or upward mobility.
There is also an idea of stickiness concerning mobility. This is when an individual is no longer experiencing relative mobility and it occurs mostly at the ends. At the bottom end of the socioeconomic ladder, parents cannot provide their children with the necessary resources or opportunity to enhance their lives. As a result, they remain on the same ladder rung as their parents. On the opposite side of the ladder, the high socioeconomic status parents have the necessary resources and opportunities to ensure their children also remain in same ladder rung as them.
Social status and social class
Social mobility is highly dependent on the overall structure of social statuses and occupations in a given society. The extent of differing social positions and the manner in which they fit together or overlap provides the overall social structure of such positions. Add to this the differing dimensions of status, such as Max Weber's delineation of economic stature, prestige, and power and we see the potential for complexity in a given social stratification system. Such dimensions within a given society can be seen as independent variables that can explain differences in social mobility at different times and places in different stratification systems. In addition, the same variables that contribute as intervening variables to the valuation of income or wealth and that also affect social status, social class, and social inequality do affect social mobility. These include sex or gender, race or ethnicity, and age.
Education provides one of the most promising chances of upward social mobility and attaining a higher social status, regardless of current social standing. However, the stratification of social classes and high wealth inequality directly affects the educational opportunities and outcomes. In other words, social class and a family's socioeconomic status directly affect a child's chances for obtaining a quality education and succeeding in life. By age five, there are significant developmental differences between low, middle, and upper class children's cognitive and noncognitive skills.
Among older children, evidence suggests that the gap between high- and low-income primary- and secondary-school students has increased by almost 40 percent over the past thirty years. These differences persist and widen into young adulthood and beyond. Just as the gap in K–12 test scores between high- and low-income students is growing, the difference in college graduation rates between the rich and the poor is also growing. Although the college graduation rate among the poorest households increased by about 4 percentage points between those born in the early 1960s and those born in the early 1980s, over this same period, the graduation rate increased by almost 20 percentage points for the wealthiest households.
Average family income, and social status, have both seen a decrease for the bottom third of all children between 1975 and 2011. The 5th percentile of children and their families have seen up to a 60% decrease in average family income. The wealth gap between the rich and the poor, the upper and lower class, continues to increase as more middle-class people get poorer and the lower-class get even poorer. As the socioeconomic inequality continues to increase in the United States, being on either end of the spectrum makes a child more likely to remain there and never become socially mobile.
A child born to parents with income in the lowest quintile is more than ten times more likely to end up in the lowest quintile than the highest as an adult (43 percent versus 4 percent). And, a child born to parents in the highest quintile is five times more likely to end up in the highest quintile than the lowest (40 percent versus 8 percent).
This may be partly due to lower- and working-class parents (where neither is educated above high school diploma level) spending less time on average with their children in their earliest years of life and not being as involved in their children's education and time out of school. This parenting style, known as "accomplishment of natural growth" differs from the style of middle-class and upper-class parents (with at least one parent having higher education), known as "cultural cultivation". More affluent social classes are able to spend more time with their children at early ages, and children receive more exposure to interactions and activities that lead to cognitive and non-cognitive development: things like verbal communication, parent-child engagement and being read to daily. These children's parents are much more involved in their academics and their free time; placing them in extracurricular activities which develop not only additional non-cognitive skills but also academic values, habits, and abilities to better communicate and interact with authority figures. Lower class children often attend lower quality schools, receive less attention from teachers and ask for help much less than their higher class peers.
The chances for social mobility are primarily determined by the family a child is born into. Today, the gaps seen in both access to education and educational success (graduating from a higher institution) is even larger. Today, while college applicants from every socioeconomic class are equally qualified, 75% of all entering freshmen classes at top-tier American institutions belong to the uppermost socioeconomic quartile. A family's class determines the amount of investment and involvement parents have in their children's educational abilities and success from their earliest years of life, leaving low-income students with less chance for academic success and social mobility due to the effects that the (common) parenting style of the lower and working-class have on their outlook on and success in education.
Class cultures and social networks
These differing dimensions of social mobility can be classified in terms of differing types of capital that contribute to changes in mobility. Cultural capital, a term first coined by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu distinguishes between the economic and cultural aspects of class. Bourdieu described three types of capital that place a person in a certain social category: economic capital; social capital; and cultural capital. Economic capital includes economic resources such as cash, credit, and other material assets. Social capital includes resources one achieves based on group membership, networks of influence, relationships and support from other people. Cultural capital is any advantage a person has that gives them a higher status in society, such as education, skills, or any other form of knowledge. Usually, people with all three types of capital have a high status in society. Bourdieu found that the culture of the upper social class is oriented more toward formal reasoning and abstract thought. The lower social class is geared more towards matters of facts and the necessities of life. He also found that the environment in which a person develops has a large effect on the cultural resources that a person will have.
The cultural resources a person has obtained can heavily influence a child's educational success. It has been shown that students raised under the concerted cultivation approach have "an emerging sense of entitlement" which leads to asking teachers more questions and being a more active student, causing teachers to favor students raised in this manner. This childrearing approach which creates positive interactions in the classroom environment is in contrast with the natural growth approach to childrearing. In this approach, which is more common amongst working-class families, parents do not focus on developing the special talents of their individual children, and they speak to their children in directives. Due to this, it is rarer for a child raised in this manner to question or challenge adults and conflict arises between childrearing practices at home and school. Children raised in this manner are less inclined to participate in the classroom setting and are less likely to go out of their way to positively interact with teachers and form relationships.
In the United States, links between minority underperformance in schools have been made with a lacking in the cultural resources of cultural capital, social capital and economic capital, yet inconsistencies persist even when these variables are accounted for. "Once admitted to institutions of higher education, African Americans and Latinos continued to underperform relative to their white and Asian counterparts, earning lower grades, progressing at a slower rate and dropping out at higher rates. More disturbing was the fact that these differentials persisted even after controlling for obvious factors such as SAT scores and family socioeconomic status".
The theory of capital deficiency is among the most recognized explanations for minority underperformance academically—that for whatever reason they simply lack the resources to find academic success. One of the largest factors for this, aside from the social, economic, and cultural capital mentioned earlier, is human capital. This form of capital, identified by social scientists only in recent years, has to do with the education and life preparation of children. "Human capital refers to the skills, abilities and knowledge possessed by specific individuals". This allows college-educated parents who have large amounts of human capital to invest in their children in certain ways to maximize future success—from reading to them at night to possessing a better understanding of the school system which causes them to be less deferential to teachers and school authorities. Research also shows that well-educated black parents are less able to transmit human capital to their children when compared to their white counterparts, due to a legacy of racism and discrimination.
Markers
Health
The term "social gradient" in health refers to the idea that the inequalities in health are connected to the social status a person has. Two ideas concerning the relationship between health and social mobility are the social causation hypothesis and the health selection hypothesis. These hypotheses explore whether health dictates social mobility or whether social mobility dictates quality of health. The social causation hypothesis states that social factors (individual behavior and the environmental circumstances) determine an individual's health. Conversely, the health selection hypothesis states that health determines what social stratum an individual will be in.
There has been a lot of research investigating the relationship between socioeconomic status and health and which has the greater influence on the other. A recent study has found that the social causation hypothesis is more empirically supported than the health selection hypothesis. Empirical analysis shows no support for the health selection hypothesis. Another study found support for either hypotheses depends on which lens the relationship between SES and health is being looked through. The health selection hypothesis is supported when people looking at SES and health through labor market lens. One possible reason for this is health dictates an individual's productivity and to a certain extent if the individual is employed. While, the social causation hypothesis is supported when looking at health and socioeconomic status relationship through an education and income lenses.
Education
The systems of stratification that govern societies hinder or allow social mobility. Education can be a tool used by individuals to move from one stratum to another in stratified societies. Higher education policies have worked to establish and reinforce stratification. Greater gaps in education quality and investment in students among elite and standard universities account for the lower upward social mobility of the middle class and/or low class. Conversely, the upper class is known to be self-reproducing since they have the necessary resources and money to afford, and get into, an elite university. This class is self-reproducing because these same students can then give the same opportunities to their children. Another example of this is high and middle socioeconomic status parents are able to send their children to an early education program, enhancing their chances at academic success in the later years.
Housing
Mixed housing is the idea that people of different socioeconomic statuses can live in one area. There is not a lot of research on the effects of mixed housing. However, the general consensus is that mixed housing will allow individuals of low socioeconomic status to acquire the necessary resources and social connections to move up the social ladder. Other possible effects mixed housing can bring are positive behavioral changes and improved sanitation and safer living conditions for the low socioeconomic status residents. This is because higher socioeconomic status individuals are more likely to demand higher quality residencies, schools, and infrastructure. This type of housing is funded by profit, nonprofit and public organizations.
The existing research on mixed housing, however, shows that mixed housing does not promote or facilitate upward social mobility. Instead of developing complex relationships among each other, mixed housing residents of different socioeconomic statuses tend to engage in casual conversations and keep to themselves. If noticed and unaddressed for a long period of time, this can lead to the gentrification of a community.
Outside of mixed housing, individuals with a low socioeconomic status consider relationships to be more salient than the type of neighborhood they live to their prospects of moving up the social ladder. This is because their income is often not enough to cover their monthly expenses including rent. The strong relationships they have with others offers the support system they need in order for them to meet their monthly expenses. At times, low income families might decide to double up in a single residency to lessen the financial burden on each family. However, this type of support system, that low socioeconomic status individuals have, is still not enough to promote upward relative mobility.
Income
Economic and social mobility are two separate entities. Economic mobility is used primarily by economists to evaluate income mobility. Conversely, social mobility is used by sociologists to evaluate primarily class mobility. How strongly economic and social mobility are related depends on the strength of the intergenerational relationship between class and income of parents and kids, and "the covariance between parents' and children's class position".
Additionally, economic and social mobility can also be thought of as following the Great Gatsby curve. This curve demonstrates that high levels of economic inequality fosters low rates of relative social mobility. The culprit behind this model is the Economic Despair idea, which states that as the gap between the bottom and middle of income distribution increases, those who are at the bottom are less likely to invest in their human capital, as they lose faith in their ability and fair chance to experience upward mobility. An example of this is seen in education, particularly in high school drop-outs. Low income status students who no longer see value in investing in their education, after continuously failing to upgrade their social status.
Race
Race as an influencer on social mobility stems from colonial times. There has been discussion as to whether race can still hinder an individual's chances at upward mobility or whether class has a greater influence. A study performed on the Brazilian population found that racial inequality was only present for those who did not belong to the high-class status. Meaning race affects an individual's chances at upward mobility if they do not begin at the upper-class population. Another theory concerning race and mobility is, as time progresses, racial inequality will be replaced by class inequality. However, other research has found that minorities, particularly African Americans, are still being policed and observed more at their jobs than their white counterparts. The constant policing has often led to the frequent firing of African Americans. In this case, African Americans experience racial inequality that stunts their upward social mobility.
Gender
Women, in comparison to men, experience less social mobility. One possible reason for this is the poor quality or lack of education that females receive. In countries like India it is common for educated women not use their education to move up the social ladder due to cultural and traditional customs. They are expected to become homemakers and leave the bread winning to the men. Additionally, women around the world are denied an education as their families may find it more economically beneficial to invest in the education and wellbeing of their males instead of their females. In the parent's eyes the son will be the one who provides for them in their old age while the daughter will move away with her husband. The son will bring an income while the daughter might require a dowry to get married. Moreover, when women do enter the workforce, they are highly unlikely to earn the same pay as their male counterparts. Furthermore, women can even differ in pay among each other due to race. To combat these gender disparities, the UN has made it one of their goals on the Millennium Development Goals reduce gender inequality. This goal is accused of being too broad and having no action plan.
Patterns of mobility
While it is generally accepted that some level of mobility in society is desirable, there is no consensus agreement upon "how much" social mobility is good for or bad for a society. There is no international benchmark of social mobility, though one can compare measures of mobility across regions or countries or within a given area over time. While cross-cultural studies comparing differing types of economies are possible, comparing economies of similar type usually yields more comparable data. Such comparisons typically look at intergenerational mobility, examining the extent to which children born into different families have different life chances and outcomes.
In a study for which the results were first published in 2009, Wilkinson and Pickett conduct an exhaustive analysis of social mobility in developed countries. In addition to other correlations with negative social outcomes for societies having high inequality, they found a relationship between high social inequality and low social mobility. Of the eight countries studied—Canada, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Germany, the UK and the US, the US had both the highest economic inequality and lowest economic mobility. In this and other studies, in fact, the USA has very low mobility at the lowest rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, with mobility increasing slightly as one goes up the ladder. At the top rung of the ladder, however, mobility again decreases.
One study comparing social mobility between developed countries found that the four countries with the lowest "intergenerational income elasticity", i.e. the highest social mobility, were Denmark, Norway, Finland and Canada with less than 20% of advantages of having a high income parent passed on to their children.
Studies have also found "a clear negative relationship" between income inequality and intergenerational mobility. Countries with low levels of inequality such as Denmark, Norway and Finland had some of the greatest mobility, while the two countries with the high level of inequality—Chile and Brazil—had some of the lowest mobility.
In Britain, much debate on social mobility has been generated by comparisons of the 1958 National Child Development Study (NCDS) and the 1970 Birth Cohort Study BCS70, which compare intergenerational mobility in earnings between the 1958 and the 1970 UK cohorts, and claim that intergenerational mobility decreased substantially in this 12-year period. These findings have been controversial, partly due to conflicting findings on social class mobility using the same datasets, and partly due to questions regarding the analytical sample and the treatment of missing data. UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has famously said that trends in social mobility "are not as we would have liked".
Along with the aforementioned "Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults?" study, The Economist also stated that "evidence from social scientists suggests that American society is much 'stickier' than most Americans assume. Some researchers claim that social mobility is actually declining." A German study corroborates these results. In spite of this low mobility Americans have had the highest belief in meritocracy among middle- and high-income countries. A study of social mobility among the French corporate class has found that class continues to influence who reaches the top in France, with those from the upper-middle classes tending to dominate, despite a longstanding emphasis on meritocracy.
Thomas Piketty (2014) finds that wealth-income ratios, today, seem to be returning to very high levels in low economic growth countries, similar to what he calls the "classic patrimonial" wealth-based societies of the 19th century wherein a minority lives off its wealth while the rest of the population works for subsistence living.
Social mobility can also be influenced by differences that exist within education. The contribution of education to social mobility often gets neglected in social mobility research although it really has the potential to transform the relationship between origins and destinations. Recognizing the disparities between strictly location and its educational opportunities highlights how patterns of educational mobility are influencing the capacity for individuals to experience social mobility. There is some debate regarding how important educational attainment is for social mobility. A substantial literature argues that there is a direct effect of social origins (DESO) which cannot be explained by educational attainment. However, other evidence suggests that, using a sufficiently fine-grained measure of educational attainment, taking on board such factors as university status and field of study, education fully mediates the link between social origins and access to top class jobs.
The patterns of educational mobility that exist between inner-city schools versus schools in the suburbs is transparent. Graduation rates supply a rich context to these patterns. In the 2013–14 school year, Detroit Public Schools observed a graduation rate of 71% whereas Grosse Pointe High School (Detroit suburb) observed an average graduation rate of 94%. A similar phenomena was observed in Los Angeles, California as well as in New York City. Los Angeles Senior High School (inner city) observed a graduation rate of 58% and San Marino High School (suburb) observed a graduation rate of 96%. New York City Geographic District Number Two (inner city) observed a graduation rate of 69% and Westchester School District (suburb) observed a graduation rate of 85%. These patterns were observed across the country when assessing the differences between inner city graduation rates and suburban graduation rates.
Influence of intelligence and education
Social status attainment and therefore social mobility in adulthood are of interest to psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, economists, epidemiologists and many more. The reason behind the interest is because it indicates access to material goods, educational opportunities, healthy environments, and economic growth.
Researchers did a study that encompassed a wide range of data of individuals in lifetime (in childhood and during mid-adulthood). Most of the Scottish children who were born in 1921 participated in the Scottish Mental Survey 1932, which was conducted under the auspices of the Scottish Council for Research in Education (SCRE) and obtained the data of psychometric intelligence of Scottish pupils. The number of children who took the mental ability test (based on the Moray House tests) was 87,498. They were between age 10 and 11. The tests covered general, spatial and numerical reasoning.
At midlife period, a subset of the subjects participated in one of the studies, which were large health studies of adults and were carried out in Scotland in the 1960s and 1970s. The particular study they took part in was the collaborative study of 6022 men and 1006 women, conducted between 1970 and 1973 in Scotland. Participants completed a questionnaire (participant's address, father's occupation, the participant's own first regular occupation, the age of finishing full-time education, number of siblings, and if the participant was a regular car driver) and attended a physical examination (measurement of height). Social class was coded according to the Registrar General's Classification for the participant's occupation at the time of screening, his first occupation and his father's occupation. Researchers separated into six social classes were used.
A correlation and structural equation model analysis was conducted. In the structural equation models, social status in the 1970s was the main outcome variable. The main contributors to education (and first social class) were father's social class and IQ at age 11, which was also found in a Scandinavian study. This effect was direct and also mediated via education and the participant's first job.
Participants at midlife did not necessarily end up in the same social class as their fathers. There was social mobility in the sample: 45% of men were upwardly mobile, 14% were downward mobile and 41% were socially stable. IQ at age 11 had a graded relationship with participant's social class. The same effect was seen for father's occupation. Men at midlife social class I and II (the highest, more professional) also had the highest IQ at age 11. Height at midlife, years of education and childhood IQ were significantly positively related to upward social mobility, while number of siblings had no significant effect. For each standard deviation increase in IQ score at the age 11, the chances of upward social mobility increases by 69% (with a 95% confidence). After controlling the effect of independent variables, only IQ at age 11 was significantly inversely related to downward movement in social mobility. More years of education increase the chance that a father's son will surpass his social class, whereas low IQ makes a father's son prone to falling behind his father's social class.
Higher IQ at age 11 was also significantly related to higher social class at midlife, higher likelihood car driving at midlife, higher first social class, higher father's social class, fewer siblings, higher age of education, being taller and living in a less deprived neighbourhood at midlife. IQ was significantly more strongly related to the social class in midlife than the social class of the first job.
Finally, height, education and IQ at age 11 were predictors of upward social mobility and only IQ at age 11 and height were significant predictors of downward social mobility. Number of siblings was not significant in either of the models.
Another research looked into the pivotal role of education in association between ability and social class attainment through three generations (fathers, participants and offspring) using the SMS1932 (Lothian Birth Cohort 1921) educational data, childhood ability and late life intellectual function data. It was proposed that social class of origin acts as a ballast restraining otherwise meritocratic social class movement, and that education is the primary means through which social class movement is both restrained and facilitated—therefore acting in a pivotal role.
It was found that social class of origin predicts educational attainment in both the participant's and offspring generations. Father's social class and participant's social class held the same importance in predicting offspring educational attainment—effect across two generations. Educational attainment mediated the association of social class attainments across generations (father's and participants social class, participant's and offspring's social class). There was no direct link between social classes across generations, but in each generation educational attainment was a predictor of social class, which is consistent with other studies. Also, participant's childhood ability moderately predicted their educational and social class attainment (.31 and .38). Participant's educational attainment was strongly linked with the odds of moving downward or upward on the social class ladder. For each SD increase in education, the odds of moving upward on the social class spectrum were 2.58 times greater (the downward ones were .26 times greater). Offspring's educational attainment was also strongly linked with the odds of moving upward or downward on the social class ladder. For each SD increase in education, the odds of moving upward were 3.54 times greater (the downward ones were .40 times greater). In conclusion, education is very important, because it is the fundamental mechanism functioning both to hold individuals in their social class of origin and to make it possible for their movement upward or downward on the social class ladder.
In the Cohort 1936 it was found that regarding whole generations (not individuals) the social mobility between father's and participant's generation is: 50.7% of the participant generation have moved upward in relation to their fathers, 22.1% had moved downwards, and 27.2% had remained stable in their social class. There was a lack of social mobility in the offspring generation as a whole. However, there was definitely individual offspring movement on the social class ladder: 31.4% had higher social class attainment than their participant parents (grandparents), 33.7% moved downward, and 33.9% stayed stable. Participant's childhood mental ability was linked to social class in all three generations. A very important pattern has also been confirmed: average years of education increased with social class and IQ.
There were some great contributors to social class attainment and social class mobility in the twentieth century: Both social class attainment and social mobility are influenced by pre-existing levels of mental ability, which was in consistence with other studies. So, the role of individual level mental ability in pursuit of educational attainment—professional positions require specific educational credentials. Furthermore, educational attainment contributes to social class attainment through the contribution of mental ability to educational attainment. Even further, mental ability can contribute to social class attainment independent of actual educational attainment, as in when the educational attainment is prevented, individuals with higher mental ability manage to make use of the mental ability to work their way up on the social ladder. This study made clear that intergenerational transmission of educational attainment is one of the key ways in which social class was maintained within family, and there was also evidence that education attainment was increasing over time. Finally, the results suggest that social mobility (moving upward and downward) has increased in recent years in Britain. Which according to one researcher is important because an overall mobility of about 22% is needed to keep the distribution of intelligence relatively constant from one generation to the other within each occupational category.
Researchers looked into the effects elitist and non-elitist education systems have on social mobility. Education policies are often critiqued based on their impact on a single generation, but it is important to look at education policies and the effects they have on social mobility. In the research, elitist schools are defined as schools that focus on providing its best students with the tools to succeed, whereas an egalitarian school is one that predicates itself on giving equal opportunity to all its students to achieve academic success.
When private education supplements were not considered, it was found that the greatest amount of social mobility was derived from a system with the least elitist public education system. It was also discovered that the system with the most elitist policies produced the greatest amount of utilitarian welfare. Logically, social mobility decreases with more elitist education systems and utilitarian welfare decreases with less elitist public education policies.
When private education supplements are introduced, it becomes clear that some elitist policies promote some social mobility and that an egalitarian system is the most successful at creating the maximum amount of welfare. These discoveries were justified from the reasoning that elitist education systems discourage skilled workers from supplementing their children's educations with private expenditures.
The authors of the report showed that they can challenge conventional beliefs that elitist and regressive educational policy is the ideal system. This is explained as the researchers found that education has multiple benefits. It brings more productivity and has a value, which was a new thought for education. This shows that the arguments for the regressive model should not be without qualifications. Furthermore, in the elitist system, the effect of earnings distribution on growth is negatively impacted due to the polarizing social class structure with individuals at the top with all the capital and individuals at the bottom with nothing.
Education is very important in determining the outcome of one's future. It is almost impossible to achieve upward mobility without education. Education is frequently seen as a strong driver of social mobility. The quality of one's education varies depending on the social class that they are in. The higher the family income the better opportunities one is given to get a good education. The inequality in education makes it harder for low-income families to achieve social mobility. Research has indicated that inequality is connected to the deficiency of social mobility. In a period of growing inequality and low social mobility, fixing the quality of and access to education has the possibility to increase equality of opportunity for all Americans.
"One significant consequence of growing income inequality is that, by historical standards, high-income households are spending much more on their children's education than low-income households." With the lack of total income, low-income families can't afford to spend money on their children's education. Research has shown that over the past few years, families with high income has increased their spending on their children's education. High income families were paying $3,500 per year and now it has increased up to nearly $9,000, which is seven times more than what low income families pay for their kids' education. The increase in money spent on education has caused an increase in college graduation rates for the families with high income. The increase in graduation rates is causing an even bigger gap between high income children and low-income children. Given the significance of a college degree in today's labor market, rising differences in college completion signify rising differences in outcomes in the future.
Family income is one of the most important factors in determining the mental ability (intelligence) of their children. With such bad education that urban schools are offering, parents of high income are moving out of these areas to give their children a better opportunity to succeed. As urban school systems worsen, high income families move to rich suburbs because that is where they feel better education is; if they do stay in the city, they put their children to private schools. Low income families do not have a choice but to settle for the bad education because they cannot afford to relocate to rich suburbs. The more money and time parents invest in their child plays a huge role in determining their success in school. Research has shown that higher mobility levels are perceived for locations where there are better schools.
See also
Great Gatsby Curve
Global Social Mobility Index
Horizontal mobility
Levelling up policy of the Boris Johnson government
Social and Cultural Mobility
Socio-economic mobility in the United States
References
Further reading
External links
The New York Times offers a graphic about social mobility, overall trends, income elasticity and country by country. European nations such as Denmark and France, are ahead of the US.
Social classes
Social inequality
Social stratification |
420105 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob%20Wise | Bob Wise | Robert Ellsworth Wise Jr. (born January 6, 1948) is an American politician who served as the 33rd Governor of West Virginia from 2001 to 2005. A member of the Democratic Party, Wise also served in the United States House of Representatives from 1983 until 2001. In 2005 Wise became the president of the Alliance for Excellent Education, a nonprofit organization that focuses on reforming the nation's high schools. In 2015, North Carolina State University honored Wise with the William and Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation's Friday Medal which recognizes significant, distinguished and enduring contributions to education through advocating innovation, advancing education and imparting inspiration.
Early life, education, and legal career
Wise was born on January 6, 1948. He was raised in the Kanawha Valley of Kanawha County, West Virginia, with his two sisters and attended George Washington High School in nearby Charleston. His father worked in insurance, for McDonough Caperton Group, for thirty years. Wise ran track and field in high school – the half-mile and mile – and was elected vice president of the student body. Wise has won every election he's been in since then.
Wise enrolled at Duke University in 1966, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science four years later. After leaving Duke, Wise applied to law school, working as an aide in a California mental health facility until he was accepted at the University of Houston. Wise relocated to Texas for his studies, eventually transferring to the Tulane University School of Law. He waited tables in New Orleans, working nightshifts while he obtained his Juris Doctor.
Wise graduated from Tulane in 1975 and opened his first law practice in Charleston. In his early days as a lawyer Wise helped create West Virginians for a Fair and Equitable Assessment of Taxes (FEAT), a group interested in property tax reform. Wise also advocated for coal miners seeking workers compensation and supported community renewal efforts for the 1972 Buffalo Creek disaster victims. In 1978, he once more helped with redevelopment issues for those affected by the Mingo County Floods.
West Virginia State Senate (1980–1982)
Wise began his political career in 1980, running for public office against State Senate President William Brotherton in the County Democratic primary in Kanawha. With endorsement from the West Virginia Education Association and other West Virginian labor organizations, Wise defeated Brotherton in an upset primary election and went on to win the general election in November, gaining a seat in the West Virginia Senate.
In his early days on the political scene, Wise was noted for having a lively campaign style, especially at rallies, and was referred to as "the Boy Wonder of West Virginia politics” by the Charleston Daily Mail in 1982.
U.S. House of Representatives (1983–2001)
In 1982, Bob Wise ran for the United States Congress. He came out of a highly competitive Democratic primary victorious and continued on to beat incumbent Republican congressman Mick Staton with 58 percent of the vote.
Wise's win against Staton would be the first of nine consecutive elections to the U.S. House of Representatives. During his 18-year turn (1983 – 2001) in the House, Wise ran once unopposed, in 1990, and had majorities as high as 74 percent – in 1988, against Republican Paul Hart – and 64 percent – in 1994 against Republican Samuel Cravotta.
While he was a member of Congress, Wise held such posts as regional whip, at-large whip, and parliamentarian. He represented the Second Congressional District which reaches from Harpers Ferry to the Ohio River and is considered to be one of the largest Districts eastward of the Mississippi River. In this same period Wise joined the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which allowed him to obtain federal aid for road projects in West Virginia.
During his time in congress, Wise also served as a member on the House Committee on Education and Labor and on the Democratic Party Leadership team. Among his biggest achievements during this time were the Chemical Right to Know legislation, the Wise Amendment to the Clean Air Act, and the Federal Mental Health Parity legislation.
It was during Wise's time in congress that another West Virginian, and at one time the longest-serving member of Congress, Robert C. Byrd, called Wise “a steam engine with britches,” referring to Wise's tireless dedication and service to his constituents.
Governor of West Virginia (2001–2005)
Campaign and early days
In 2000, after 18 years in congress, Bob Wise left his now secure seat and returned to West Virginia to win the Democratic Primary for governorship with 63 percent of the vote. Wise then went on to challenge Republican incumbent Cecil H. Underwood. Wise highlighted the economy, education, health care, and the energy industry in his campaign speeches. In the end, Wise got just over 50 percent of the vote while Underwood received 47.
Wise was sworn in as governor on January 15, 2001, by Circuit Judge Dan O'Hanlon. In his inauguration speech, Wise spoke once more of improving health care and education as well as turning the economy around. Shortly after taking the position of governor, Wise had to deal with widespread flooding in record amounts throughout southern West Virginia.
Education and Promise Scholarship
Given a wide berth by the legislature for his handling of the flooding, Wise was able to move forward with his education and health care agendas. In education, Wise pushed for the funding of his Promise (Providing Real Opportunities for Maximizing Instate Student Excellence) scholarships. The program was funded through video lottery revenue, and inspired by the HOPE scholarship program in Georgia.
The first Promise scholarships were awarded in 2002 and provided full tuition for students with at least a 3.0 grade point average in high school and a combined SAT Reasoning Test score of 1,000 to attend a state college, university, or in-state private college. By requiring students who'd received the scholarship to complete at least 30 credits per year in order to stay eligible; Promise improved four year graduation rates by 7 percent and the percentage of students leaving the state to pursue post-secondary degrees dropped to the lowest levels since the mid-1990s.
In recent years, the now decade-old scholarship has been threatened budget cuts from the state legislature. Formerly a means of paying full tuition, the scholarship now covers $4,750 in a state where the average tuition is upwards of $6,000. There are currently 10,000 students in West Virginia attending college through the Promise scholarship.
Wise was the first governor to propose full funding for the Higher Education Grant Program. Wise also set up the Governor's Hotline for Safer Schools, and put forward legislation to bring a in pre-Kindergarten programs that would cover all the state's four-year-olds.
Other achievements as governor
As governor, Wise was able to widen enrollment in the federal Children's Health Insurance Program.
The CHIP Program allowed the children of families making less than $34,000 a year to be eligible for health insurance.
Wise faced continual budget pressures throughout his governorship. These included road work and construction costs, school expenses, the state's operating budget and teacher salaries. Halfway through his first term as governor, recession hit the United States economy and Wise introduced spending cuts of 10 percent to deal with demands on state revenue while still attempting to make improvements to infrastructure and reduce long-term debt.
Wise also attempted to attract businesses through an extensive tax and infrastructure assistance program. In one instance, the state issued $215 million in grants to spur $1 billion investment in projects, such as the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute, Cabela's, the Marshall University Biotechnology Development Center and the West Virginia High Technology Consortium. Wise also turned his attention to mountaintop removal practices and malpractice insurance costs during this period.
In December 2002, Wise was elected chairman of the Southern Governors Association during his gubernatorial term and the following year. Charleston hosted the governors' annual meeting for the first time in 40 years. Wise was also chaired the National Governors Association Committee on Natural Resources and the Southern States Energy Board.
Extramarital affair
In 2003, Wise admitted to an affair with a married woman and stated that he would not seek reelection in 2004. He went on to “apologize deeply to the people of our state for my actions. In my private life, I have let many people down." Philip Frye, the husband of Angela Mascia-Frye, 35, a state worker, filed for divorce April 7, 2003, claiming she'd had an affair with Governor Wise.
Wise's successor as governor, Secretary of State Joe Manchin, had already announced that he would oppose Wise in the primary election before the infidelity came to light. Manchin easily won the nomination and then the general election. On August 4, 2003, in an interview on The Daily Show before Wise's withdrawal, Phillip Frye told Rob Corddry that he was running for governor, despite being unqualified, to be a nuisance to Wise.
Post-political career
Alliance for Excellent Education
Since 2005, Wise has been president of Alliance for Excellent Education, a nonprofit advocacy organization dedicated to ensuring that all students, particularly those who are traditionally underserved, graduate from high school ready for success in college, work, and citizenship. The Alliance was founded in 1999 by Gerard and Lilo Leeds and is based in Washington, DC. Under Wise's leadership, the Alliance has been a leading advocate for major education policy issues such digital learning, adolescent literacy, increasing high school graduation rates and the Common Core State Standards.
The Alliance is committed to preparing all graduating high school students for success in college and beyond, but it is especially focused on helping the lowest achievement quartile, the nation's most at-risk high school students – roughly six million - to graduate into a more gainful and constructive future. In May 2016, a report released by Civic Enterprises and the Everyone Graduates Center at Johns Hopkins University, in partnership with America's Promise Alliance and the Alliance for Excellent Education, found that the high school graduation rate had risen to a record high 82.3 percent.
Working alongside policymakers, the Alliance helps put together recommendations at the state and federal level for effective secondary school reform and higher levels of secondary-school student achievement. It also works to promote awareness of the kinds of reform necessary by hosting seminars, educational events, and presentations of national and state-level date about the impact higher levels of academic achievement might make cross the country.
Digital Learning Day
The Alliance, in 2011, established the Center for Secondary School Digital Learning and Policy. The Center's mission was to examine ways technology and, specifically digital learning, might provide at-risk students with resources for ensuring they'd be prepared for graduation and college-level success.
In 2012, the Alliance had its first nationwide Digital Learning Day. Millions of students and over 26,000 teachers took part in the event, which was created with the mission of celebrating productive uses of digital learning throughout the nation's schools and the teachers who've supported and provided innovative digital options for their students.
In 2016, Digital Learning Day focused on digital equity and expanding students' access to the Internet. Bob Wise and Federal Communications Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel discussed ways to bring broadband connectivity to students beyond the classroom including a program in Coachella Valley Unified School District that equips school buses with wireless routers, and then parks the buses in low-income communities allowing students to remain connected to the Internet in off-school hours.
Digital Learning Playbook
A digital Town Hall was held alongside the event in which U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and then FCC chairman Julius Genachowski introduced a new guide for k-12 educators called the Digital Learning Playbook. The Playbook was created to help schools find ways to help students with new opportunities in digital learning.
Project 24/Future Ready Schools
Project 24 was announced in 2013 as a tool to aid school districts in developing their digital learning projects and overall use of technology for improving college and employment readiness. It was intended to be used as a roadmap for educators and administrators to ensure they are making the best use of the digital learning resources available to them and their students. In 2014, Bob Wise and over 100 school district superintendents met with President Barack Obama at the White House and announced a series of summits and planning resources for district superintendents who take the U.S. Department of Education's Future Ready District Pledge to develop the human and technological capacity needed to personalize learning using digital tools. In 2015, Project 24 was succeeded by the Future Ready Schools initiative, and hosted thirteen regional summits serving 463 districts and more than 2,200 education leaders representing over 4 million students.
National Board of Professional Teaching Standards
From 2009 to 2015, Bob Wise served as the Chairman of the Board of the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. The National Board is an organization that seeks to promote and establish standards of excellence in teaching nationwide. It grew out of a 1983 report from the National Commission on Excellence in Education entitled A Nation at Risk. The report detailed a strong decline in America's educational standards and performance. The report concentrated on the need for a foundational overhaul of the education system in the United States.
In June 2012, Wise presided over the 25th anniversary celebration of the NBPTS in the Mansfield Room of the U.S. Capitol. The reception included remarks by former US Department of Education United States Department of Education Secretary Richard W. Riley Richard Riley and .
In November 2012, the Harvard University Center for Education Policy Research announced new data that confirmed National Board-certified teachers outperformed non-certified teachers in elementary math and English Language Arts.
In January 2013, the NBPTS declared publicly that there are now more than 100,000 National Board Certified Teachers in all 50 states.
Other achievements in education
Since his involvement with the AEE and NBPTS, Gov. Wise has become a much in-demand speaker on education issues. He serves in an advisory capacity to the U.S. Department of Education, White House, the U.S. Congress, and National High School Center.
In 2010, along with former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Wise put together the Digital Learning Council. The Council was made up of leaders in the field of education from all over the United States. The group met for several months and then released the study “10 Elements of High Quality Digital Learning.”
The following year, Wise was included in the Non Profit Time's “Power & Influence Top 50” list of executives in the nonprofit sector. Alongside the AEE and the NBPTS, the former governor also serves on the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation and Performance Reporting which puts together rigorous accreditation standards for teacher preparation, the Gordon Commission, a commission of experts formed to examine the future of education, and the Business Roundtable's Springboard Project which makes policy recommendations for equipping Americans with the skills they need to make in today's workforce.
Wise received the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's Thought Leader Award in 2013. The award is given to U.S. leaders who “affirm the essential services that public media provides to citizens in areas of education, journalism, and the arts.” In 2012, he was given the Charles W. Eliot Award from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges for his initiatives in education policy and in 2011 he received the National Association of State Boards of Education's Friend of Education Award. That same year he was inducted into Marshall University's June Harless Hall of Fame for establishing the PROMISE scholarship.
C-Change
Bob Wise was diagnosed with prostate cancer and had surgery in 1999. As a survivor, the former governor has long been a participant in the fight against cancer. In 2007, Members of the American Cancer Society gave Wise a ribbon in honor of his fight for survival as well as for increases on outdated tobacco taxes.
"There is really no excuse," Wise said on that occasion, advocating for basic procedures to detect cancer. "I am fascinated by all of the excuses we make for not doing it."
Wise presently chairs, along with Mike Krzyzewski of Duke University, the national Board of Directors of C-Change. C-Change is an organization fighting to eliminate cancer by utilizing the resources of its private, public, and not-for-profit membership. The organization's Board of Directors has 22 members and operates in the style of a town hall meeting in which various leaders in the fight on the disease gather several times year to discuss cancer-related topics.
Wise also serves on the board of advisors for the Moffitt Cancer Center.
Campaign finance reform
Wise is a member of the ReFormers Caucus of Issue One, whose website describes it as "...the largest bipartisan group of former members of Congress and governors ever assembled on behalf of money-in-politics reform."
Personal life
During his time in Congress, Bob Wise met and later married Sandra Casber Wise, who was serving as counsel to the House Ways and Means Committee at the time. The couple have a son, Robert, and a daughter, Alexandra. The former governor has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. He and his wife live in Washington, DC.
References
External links
Inaugural Address of Robert E. Wise Jr.
Inaugural Address of Robert E. Wise Jr.
Official Bob Wise biography
|-
1948 births
Duke University alumni
George Washington High School (Charleston, West Virginia) alumni
Democratic Party governors of West Virginia
Living people
Politicians from Charleston, West Virginia
Politicians from Washington, D.C.
Tulane University alumni
Tulane University Law School alumni
Democratic Party West Virginia state senators
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from West Virginia
20th-century American politicians
21st-century American politicians
Lawyers from Charleston, West Virginia
20th-century American lawyers |
420108 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hurricane%20Agnes | Hurricane Agnes | Hurricane Agnes was the costliest hurricane to hit the United States at the time, causing an estimated $2.1 billion in damage. The hurricane's death toll was 128. The effects of Agnes were widespread, from the Caribbean to Canada, with much of the east coast of the United States affected. Damage was heaviest in Pennsylvania, where Agnes was the state's wettest tropical cyclone. Due to the significant effects, the name Agnes was retired in the spring of 1973.
Agnes was the second tropical cyclone and first named storm of the 1972 Atlantic hurricane season. It developed as a tropical depression on June 14 from the interaction of a polar front and an upper trough over the Yucatán Peninsula. The storm emerged into the western Caribbean Sea on June 15, and strengthened into Tropical Storm Agnes the next day. Thereafter, Agnes slowly curved northward and passed just west of Cuba on June 17. Early on June 18, the storm intensified enough to be upgraded to Hurricane Agnes. Heading northward, the hurricane eventually made landfall near Panama City, Florida, late on June 19. After moving inland, Agnes rapidly weakened and was only a tropical depression when it entered Georgia. The weakening trend halted as the storm crossed over Georgia and into South Carolina. While over eastern North Carolina, Agnes re-strengthened into a tropical storm on June 21, as a result of baroclinic activity. Early the following day, the storm emerged into the Atlantic Ocean before re-curving northwestward and making landfall near New York City as a strong tropical storm. Agnes quickly became an extratropical cyclone on June 23, and tracked to the northwest of Great Britain, before being absorbed by another extratropical cyclone on July 6.
Though it moved slowly across the Yucatán Peninsula, the damage Agnes caused in Mexico is unknown. Although the storm bypassed the tip of Cuba, heavy rainfall occurred, killing seven people. In Florida, Agnes caused a significant tornado outbreak, with at least 26 confirmed twisters, two of which were spawned in Georgia. The tornadoes and two initially unconfirmed tornadoes in Florida alone resulted in over $4.5 million (1972 USD) in damage and six fatalities. At least 2,082 structures in Florida suffered either major damage or were destroyed. About 1,355 other dwellings experienced minor losses. Though Agnes made landfall as a hurricane, no hurricane-force winds were reported. Along the coast abnormally high tides resulted in extensive damage, especially between Apalachicola and Cedar Key. Light to moderate rainfall was reported in Florida, though no significant flooding occurred. In Georgia, damage was limited to two tornadoes, which caused approximately $275,000 in losses. Minimal effects were also recorded in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Tennessee; though one fatality was reported in Delaware. The most significant effects, by far, occurred in Pennsylvania, mostly due to intense flooding. The hurricane severely flooded the Susquehanna River and the Lackawanna River causing major damage to the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton metropolitan area. In both Pennsylvania and New Jersey combined, about 43,594 structures were either destroyed or significantly damaged. In Canada, a mobile home was toppled, killing two people.
Meteorological history
In early-mid June 1972, atmospheric conditions favored tropical cyclogenesis in the Caribbean Sea. Banded convection developed in the northwestern Caribbean Sea by June 11, though the system did not significantly organize. After an upper trough moved east, wind shear decreased, causing lower atmospheric pressures observations in Cozumel, Quintana Roo, Mexico. It is estimated that a tropical depression developed by 1200 UTC on June 14, while centered over the Yucatán Peninsula, about southeast of Mérida, Yucatán. The depression tracked eastward and entered the western Caribbean Sea on June 15. Operationally, the National Hurricane Center did not initiate advisories on the depression until 1500 UTC on June 15. Early on June 16 at 0000 UTC, the depression strengthened into Tropical Storm Agnes. However, the depression was not operationally upgraded until sixteen hours later.
After becoming a tropical storm on June 16, Agnes slowly curved northward and approached the Yucatán Channel. Late on June 17, it was noted that projected path indicated the possibly of landfall in western Cuba. However, the storm remained offshore, though it closely brushed the western tip of Cuba. At 1200 UTC on June 18, Agnes intensified into a hurricane while in the southeastern Gulf of Mexico. Prematurely, the National Hurricane Center operationally upgraded Agnes to a hurricane at 0200 UTC on that day. Upon becoming a hurricane, Agnes attained its maximum sustained winds of 85 mph (140 km/h), though it had not reached its minimum atmospheric pressure. Due to unfavorable conditions, Agnes leveled-off slightly in intensity and weakened to a minimal hurricane while approaching the Gulf Coast of the United States. Shortly before 2200 UTC on June 19, Agnes made landfall near Cape San Blas, Florida with winds of 75 mph (120 km/h).
At 0000 UTC on June 20, only a few hours after moving inland, Agnes weakened to a tropical storm. After crossing the Florida/Alabama/Georgia stateline, Agnes rapidly weakened to a tropical depression. While over Georgia, the depression curved northeastward and eventually to the east-northeast after entering South Carolina. Though the storm had not dissipated, the National Hurricane Center issued its final bulletin on Agnes at 1600 UTC on June 20. By early on June 21, a large extratropical trough spawned a low pressure area, which resulted in baroclinic activity. As a result, Agnes restrengthened into a tropical storm at 1800 UTC on June 21, while centered over eastern North Carolina. Three hours later, the National Hurricane Center noted decreasing atmospheric pressures, and indicated that winds had reached gale-force winds and once again upgraded Agnes to a tropical storm. By early on June 22, Agnes emerged into the northwestern Atlantic Ocean, where it continued to re-intensify. At 1200 UTC, Agnes reached its minimum atmospheric pressure of , as reported by a reconnaissance aircraft. However, maximum sustained winds were at only 70 mph (110 km/h). Late on June 22, Agnes made its final landfall on Long Beach, New York, on Long Island, with winds of 65 mph (100 km/h).
Agnes changed into an extratropical cyclone once cold air invaded its circulation late on June 22, completing its extratropical transition on the next day. The system looped across south-central Pennsylvania on June 23 and then looped across southern Ontario on June 25. It spawned a tornado in Maniwaki, Québec, early that day, which killed two and injured 11 people. The cyclone sped east-northeast, reaching Cape Breton Island on June 27 before intensifying as it re-entered the North Atlantic. After moving as far north as the 61st parallel while crossing the 25th meridian west on the morning of June 29, Agnes turned southeastward. Its central pressure bottomed out near towards 0000 UTC on June 30. Between July 1 and July 3, the long-lived system looped between Ireland and Iceland while weakening once more. The system turned northeast, strengthening one more time while accelerating across the Hebrides on July 4 through 5. A stronger system moving in from the west finally absorbed Agnes on July 6, while located to the southeast of Iceland.
Preparations
By 2200 UTC on June 17, the National Weather Service issued gale warnings and a hurricane watch for the Straits of Florida and the Florida Keys from Key West to Dry Tortugas. On the following day at 1600 UTC, another hurricane watch was put into effective from Cedar Key to Pensacola. In addition, the gale warnings in the Florida Keys were extended to include areas from Fort Myers Beach to Clearwater. At 2200 UTC on June 18, a hurricane warning became effective from St. Marks to Panama City. The gale warnings which were in effect for the Florida Keys and Fort Myers Beach to Clearwater was discontinued at 1000 UTC on June 19. It is likely that the hurricane warning was discontinued after the National Hurricane Center downgraded Agnes to a tropical storm at 2200 UTC on June 20. Two hours later, all gale warnings along the West Coast of Florida were discontinued.
Impact
United States
In the United States, Agnes affected 15 states and the capital area of Washington D.C. Almost 110,000 houses were ruined by Agnes, 3,351 of which were destroyed. In addition, 5,211 mobile homes were either damaged or completely destroyed. Farm buildings and small businesses also suffered extensively, with 2,226 and 5,842 structures experiencing major losses or were destroyed. Of the 128 fatalities caused by Agnes, 119 occurred in the United States. All of the damage estimates associated with Agnes were within the country.
Agnes was, at the time, the costliest hurricane in the history of the United States, though it has since been surpassed by numerous other storms.
Florida
Upon landfall, Agnes produced abnormally high tides along much of the Florida coastline. The highest tides reported were at Cedar Key, reaching above normal sea levels. The second largest waves were , recorded at Apalachicola. In contrast, few observations of high tides along the east coast of Florida exist; the highest reported was above average in Jacksonville. In Alligator Point, at least 16 homes were swept off their foundations. Six bridges connecting Cedar Key to the mainland areas of Florida were submerged. In addition, a bridge from Coquina Key to St. Petersburg was also underwater due to high tides. Tampa Bay had an unusually high tide flooding the low lying Shore Acres neighborhood in St. Petersburg. Nearly the entire state of Florida reported rainfall, though it was usually in the light to moderate range. Among the highest amounts of precipitation recorded were in Naples, in Big Pine Key, in the Everglades, and in Tallahassee. Near Okeechobee, larger amounts of rainfall may have occurred, though there were no specific observations in that vicinity.
Though Agnes made landfall as a hurricane, no reports of hurricane-force winds exist. However, several locations observed tropical storm force winds. The highest sustained winds and gusts were , both recorded at the Kennedy Space Center. Other reports of at least tropical storm force sustained winds were at in Crestview and Jacksonville, in Flamingo, in Key West, and two observations of in Panama City. Throughout the state, Agnes spawned at least 15 tornadoes, while several tornadoes were operationally unconfirmed. Initially referred to as a "windstorm", one of those twisters destroyed 50 mobile homes and a fishing camp in Okeechobee, as well as caused six fatalities. Another significant tornado occurred in Cape Canaveral, which destroyed two homes and 30 trailers; it also damaged 20 houses and the Port Canaveral Coast Guard station. Overall, more than 100 people were left homeless and caused 23 injuries and over $500,000 in damage. The costliest tornado was also spawned in Brevard County and it destroyed 44 planes at the Merritt Island Airport and an apartment building. In addition, several houses in a nearby subdivision were also damaged. Losses from this tornado are estimated at $3 million.
Due to a combination of high tides, rainfall, winds, and tornadoes, 96 dwellings were destroyed, while about 1,802 suffered damage to some degree. The destruction of 177 mobile homes was reported and 374 others were significantly damaged. Furthermore, 988 small businesses in the state were either destroyed or had major damage. Eight counties in Florida reported at least $1 million in damage, including $12.1 million in Pinellas, $7.1 million in Sarasota, $4.1 million in Brevard, $3.1 million in Pasco, $2 million in Manatee, $1.4 million in Wakulla and Franklin, $1.3 million in Monroe, and $1 million in losses in Hillsborough Counties. Although the damage toll estimated by the National Hurricane Center was at $8.243 million, the National Climatic Data Center noted that at least $39 million in losses were reported. In addition, nine fatalities were reported in Florida.
Southeastern United States
In the states immediately to the north of Florida, impact was relatively minor. Rainfall was generally light in Georgia, though peaking at in Brunswick. Other locations that reported precipitations include in Albany, in Savannah, and in Macon. During the tornado outbreak, two of the tornadoes were spawned in Georgia. The tornado in Pierce County caused $25,000 in damage and one injury. Losses were more significant from the twister in Coffee County, reaching $250,000. One mobile home in Georgia suffered significant damage, though it is unknown if this was related to the tornadoes. Though the damage from both tornadoes combined was about $275,000, the National Hurricane Center notes only $205,000 in losses.
In Alabama, tides up to above normal were reported in the Mobile Bay area. Though rainfall only reached and in Dothan and Mobile, precipitation from the storm in the state of Alabama peaked at in Headland. Damage in the state was minor, though low-lying streets in the Gulf Shores were flooded.
In some areas of South Carolina, the storm dropped as much as of rain in less than 36 hours. As a result, several rivers flooded. Along the Pee Dee River, pastures, small grains, and soy bean crops near Cheraw suffered major damage; similar effects occurred along the Congaree River near Columbia, though damage was lesser. In Greenville, damage to basements, streets, and water systems occurred after the Reedy River overflowed. Damage in South Carolina was minor, totaling to only $50,000.
Effects were very minimal in Tennessee and limited to light rainfall in the eastern portions of the state, generally reaching no more than . The highest amount of precipitation recorded was in Unicoi.
Virginia
In Richmond, four people drowned after their car plunged into the swollen James River. A train bound for Washington D.C. stopped due to flooding in Richmond, which temporarily stranded 537 passengers. The Peak Creek in western Virginia overflowed its banks, flooding a low-income housing area of Pulaski with water up to rooftops. At the height of the flooding, over of highways were submerged, resulting in $14.8 million in damage to roads in the state. Severe damage also occurred to sewer and water facilities, totaling to $34.5 million. 95 houses were destroyed and 4,393 others were damaged, while 125 mobile homes were destroyed and another 450 were significantly affected. Additionally, 205 small businesses were either damaged or destroyed. The Interstate 95 (I-95) Purple Heart Bridge over northern Virginia's Occoquan River was severely damaged and closed when rammed by a large barge carried by floodwaters. In the Washington DC suburbs, the Alexandria reservoir Lake Barcroft emptied when its dam was undermined and breached.
Overall, flooding was described as "the worst in 50 years". In Virginia alone, 13 fatalities and $125.9 million in losses were reported.
Maryland
In Baltimore, a woman's car was swept off a highway; firemen in rowboats were able to rescue her, but her three children drowned. In the state of Maryland, damage totaled to $110 million and 19 fatalities were reported.
The hardest hit area was the Patapsco River valley, with widespread destruction of buildings, roads, and railroads in the state park, at Daniels including its mill, at Ellicott City, and Oella. The flooding was first reported in the early morning hours of June 22 and water was reported as high as above normal. River Road along the Patapsco was almost completely washed out. More than 900 people were evacuated from their homes. National guard helicopters were used to rescue workmen from the roof of the Daniels' plant. In Elkridge, a family of six was forced from their home and they attempted to reach high ground in a small boat. It capsized and all six held onto the boat for several hours until it reached more shallow water.
In Howard County, a total of 704 county residents were left homeless. More than 80 homes in the Ellicott City area were damaged and 72 homes in Elkridge were affected. In Laurel, the 9th Street Bridge crossing the Patuxent River was washed away by flood waters. In Anne Arundel County, all roads linking the county with Baltimore city or county were closed (including the Baltimore Beltway) as were all roads "near the Patuxent River" including Waysons Corner where over 300 homes were evacuated. The Patapsco flooded residential homes in parts of the county's North Linthicum, Pumphrey, and Belle Grove Road, Brooklyn Park neighborhoods.
The Gwynn Oak Amusement Park closed after suffering severe damage from flooding when Hurricane Agnes caused Gwynns Falls to overflow. In 1974, the park's rides were auctioned off. The carousel was moved and is still in operation on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
A popular footbridge in the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park which led across a branch of the Potomac River to an overlook of Great Falls was washed away and not rebuilt until 1996.
As a result of Agnes' rains, Conowingo Dam, astride the Susquehanna River just north of the Chesapeake Bay, recorded its all-time highest flow rate and stream heights. Before the river crested, the water came within feet of overtopping the dam. As the dam's normal flood control devices seemed unable to cope, engineers had placed charges to blow out a section of the dam to prevent a catastrophic failure. The towns along the Susquehanna below the canal, Port Deposit, Perryville, and Havre de Grace, were flooded as torrents of water rushed through streets. Late on June 23, a mandatory evacuation of Port Deposit's nearly 1,000 residents was ordered as the river continued to rise, causing the fire department to bring evacuees out by boat during an eight-hour period as over four-feet of water filled Main Street.
Pennsylvania
In Pennsylvania, heavy rainfall was reported, with much of the state experiencing more than of precipitation. Furthermore, a large swath of rainfall exceeding was reported in the central part of the state. Overall, the rains peaked at in the western portions of Schuylkill County. As a result, Agnes is listed as the wettest tropical cyclone on record for the state of Pennsylvania. Overall, more than 100,000 people were forced to leave their homes due to flooding. The Allegheny River reached above flood stage at several low-lying locations and at some places rose about per hour during the height of the storm. Additionally, the Susquehanna River threatened to reach record crests along its course. Some buildings were under of water in Harrisburg. At the Governor's Mansion, the first floor was submerged by flood waters. Governor Milton Shapp and his wife Muriel had to be evacuated by boat due to flooding. More than one hundred Harrisburg YMCA campers and staff were evacuated using two CH-47 Chinook helicopters flown by the National Guard at Camp Shikellimy located downstream of DeHart Dam in Middle Paxton Township.
Hundreds were trapped in their homes in Wilkes-Barre due to the overflowing Susquehanna River. At the historic cemetery in Forty Fort, 2,000 caskets were washed away, leaving body parts on porches, roofs, and in basements. In Luzerne County alone, 25,000 homes and businesses were either damaged or destroyed. Losses in that county totaled to $1 billion. A bridge collapsed in Danville, which caused two Penn Central diesel locomotives and several freight cars to fall into a swollen creek.
In Reading, the Schuylkill River reached a record flood of . Hundreds of people were evacuated and over a hundred homes destroyed. Floods reached as far inland as 3rd street in the heart of the city. In Chadds Ford Township in Delaware County, the Brandywine Creek crested at , sending flood waters into the city. Water poured into the first floor of the Brandywine River Museum of Art in Chadds Ford Township, which threatened at least $2.5 million in N.C. Wyeth paintings, though they were quickly moved to the upper floors. Additionally, 36 Girl Scouts were rescued by state police while at a camp in York.
Throughout the state of Pennsylvania, Agnes demolished more than 3,000 businesses and 68,000 homes, while damaging numerous others. Consequently, at least 220,000 people were left homeless. The damage and death toll was the highest in Pennsylvania, with 50 fatalities and $2.3 billion in losses in that state alone, including more than $1 billion in damage to businesses, $500 million to roadways, $120 million to crops, and around $40 million to school districts. Approximately 150 bridges either became impassable or were swept away. Following Agnes, three news correspondents and the pilot died in a helicopter crash in Harrisburg on June 26, 1972, while reporting on the flooding. The victims were Del Vaughn of CBS News and Sid Brenner and Louis Clark of WCAU in Philadelphia, and the pilot, Mike Sedio. The helicopter lost its rotor some above the Capital City Airport, crashed, and exploded on the runway.
New York
Olean, Elmira, and Corning, as well as many other Southern Tier towns, were severely flooded. Sections of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad main line between Hornell and Binghamton were severely damaged. It is mainly regarded as the death of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad since the costs of damages were high and put the final dagger into the company. Flooding in the upper Allegheny River basin was particularly exacerbated by the construction of the Kinzua Dam less than a decade prior; several towns in Cattaraugus County suffered extensive road and bridge damage that, four decades later, had yet to be repaired, with the state and local governments opting to abandon creek and river crossings instead of reconstruct them. The dam succeeded in preventing further damage downstream in western Pennsylvania, and much of the flood-prone areas in the Allegheny Reservoir region had already been cleared of residents in preparation for the dam's construction.
In Elmira, porches and garages were ripped loose, the Walnut St. bridge was carried away, Maple Ave. to Notre Dame High School was "underwater", and on S. Main St., Gerould's Pharmacy at W. Hudson was engulfed by of water.
Hornell's damage was minimal largely due to the protection of two dam systems installed after the devastating 1935 flood. Both the Arkport and Almond Dams saved Hornell from the level of damage found in neighboring communities. Three US Army Corps of Engineers were killed in Hornell when their helicopter came in contact with power lines over Crosby Creek.
The height of the floodwaters has been marked in the entrance to the Corning Museum of Glass, showing that much of the museum was under water to a height of about 1.6 m above the floor, causing substantial damage to the collection and archives. Parts of Corning were under more than 3 m of flood waters.
West Virginia and Ohio
Rainfall in West Virginia was generally light, though heavier in the Eastern and Northern Panhandles of the state. Precipitation peaked at in Berkeley Springs. 108 houses were destroyed and 1,558 others suffered damage. Furthermore, 118 mobile homes were destroyed and 91 were significantly affected. 10 farm buildings reported major losses, while 18 small businesses were either damaged or destroyed. In the state of West Virginia, no fatalities were reported and damage was slightly more than $7.7 million.
Although no reports of abnormally high winds or rainfall exists in Ohio, the storm caused minor damage to about 302 dwellings and severely affected at least three houses. In addition, at least 100 mobile homes suffered major damage. Northeasterly winds from the storm waves reaching a height of along the shore of Lake Erie and also caused the water level to rise by . Houses, cars, boats, buildings, ships, and docks in the vicinity of Lake Erie were damaged. Overall, losses in Ohio totaled to at least $4 million.
Elsewhere in the United States
While approaching Delaware, Agnes produced tides about above normal at the Indian River Inlet. High winds were also reported in the state, and at the Dover Air Force Base, a wind gust as high as was reported. Rainfall was generally light, peaking at in Middletown. Street flooding was reported and basements in low-lying area were flooded, though damage in Delaware was minimal. One fatality occurred in that state. In the Washington, D.C. area, moderate rainfall was reported, with precipitation amounts peaking at at the Washington Dulles International Airport. Significant flooding occurred and it was described as the worst in at least 44 years. In the Georgetown section, waterfront streets along the Potomac River were submerged in as much as of water. The Rock Creek also overflowed its banks, which sent about of water onto the Rock Creek Parkway. As a result, at least 100 cars were abandoned and several motorists required rescuing by police. No national monuments were affected by flood waters. However, about 350 dwellings in Washington, D.C. suffered minor damage. At the White House, reporters noted wet carpets in the press room of the basement floor.
Though the storm passed just west of some areas in New England, minimal impact in that region of the United States. In Connecticut, winds were well below tropical storm force, although a wind gust of was reported in Hartford. Rainfall in the state was light, peaking at , also recorded in Hartford. Along the coast of Connecticut, high tides and heavy rainfall flooded coastal roads and basements. High tides occurred along the coastline of Rhode Island, reaching above normal in Providence. In combination with rainfall and high tides, some coastal roads were flooded. Strong winds felled trees and numerous limbs in Massachusetts, causing power outages and property damage in the western and central portions of the state. One home in Great Barrington was struck by a tree; a similar incident occurred in Milford. High winds in southern and eastern Vermont knocked over trees and snapped off limbs, which resulted in scattered power outages, roads being blocked, and minor property damage. In Mendon, a tree fell on a house, while two cars were damaged after being struck by limbs. Similar conditions occurred in New Hampshire, albeit effects were lesser.
Elsewhere
As a precaution, more than 8,000 people in western Cuba, including on Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Pines), were evacuated. In western Cuba, Agnes dropped heavy rainfall, peaking at on Isla de la Juventud. At Cape San Antonio, the westernmost point in Cuba, precipitation reached . Due to high winds and flooding, at least 97 houses were destroyed and another 270 were damaged. In the Pinar del Río Province, the cities of Guane and Mantua were isolated by swollen rivers. It was also reported that extensive crop damage occurred in low-lying areas. Overall, seven fatalities occurred in Cuba, though the damage toll is unknown. However, some sources claim Agnes caused 16 fatalities and reported 24 people injured.
In Canada, Hurricane Agnes gave heavy rains and winds over southern Ontario and southern Quebec, causing numerous floodings around Lake Erie and Lake Ontario. In the town of Maniwaki, Quebec, the storm toppled a mobile home, killing two people.
Aftermath
Following the storm, President of the United States Richard Nixon declared 14 counties in Florida as a disaster area, including: Brevard County, Dixie County, Franklin County, Hendry County, Hillsborough County, Lee County, Levy County, Manatee County, Monroe County, Okeechobee County, Pasco County, Pinellas County, Sarasota County, and Wakulla County. In Panama City, Florida, where over 25,000 tourists evacuated, effects were not significant. As a result, the city lost millions of dollars from tourism, which led the officials of Panama City to file a $100 million lawsuit against the National Weather Service. Officials in that city believed that the National Weather Service and other media outlets made "exaggerated and erroneous" forecasts and reports on the storm. Nixon also declared the states of Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York as disaster areas. Twenty of Maryland's 24 counties were declared a disaster area.
Agnes had a devastating impact on the already-bankrupt railroads in the northeastern United States, as lines were washed out and shipments were delayed:
The Erie Lackawanna Railway (EL) estimated that damage between Binghamton and Salamanca, New York, amounted to $2 million. EL filed for Chapter 77 bankruptcy.
The Penn Central Railroad sustained nearly $20 million in damages
The resulting cost of repairing the damage was one of the factors leading to the creation of the federally financed Conrail. Some Americans sardonically referred to the storm as "Hurricane Agony".
The severe floods near Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, were the catalyst for the construction of the Tioga Reservoir in 1973. The flooding in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and the adjacent town of Kingston led to the construction of a levee system that in 2006 successfully prevented massive flooding and, in the same year, was deemed very safe and protective by the Army Corps of Engineers. The levee also protected the area from the remnants of Tropical Storm Lee and Hurricane Irene in 2011, with the water cresting just barely below the height of the structure. Conversely, the existing Kinzua Dam, built against the wishes of the Seneca Nation of New York, spared much of Western Pennsylvania from the worst flooding, by filling the Allegheny Reservoir to capacity.
Footage is included in the 1987 film Disasters-Anatomy of Destruction, hosted by George Kennedy.
Retirement
Because of extensive damage and severe death tolls, the name Agnes was retired following this storm, and will never again be used for another Atlantic hurricane. Because the tropical cyclone naming lists were changed in 1979, there was no replacement name selected.
See also
List of Atlantic hurricanes
List of wettest tropical cyclones in the United States
Timeline of the 1972 Atlantic hurricane season
List of Delaware hurricanes
Hurricane Sandy – made landfall in southern New Jersey as an extratropical cyclone in late October 2012
Hurricane Hermine (2016) – took a similar path in early September 2016
References
Sources
J. F. Bailey, J. L. Patterson, and J. L. H. Paulhus. Geological Survey Professional Paper 924. Hurricane Agnes Rainfall and Floods, June–July 1972. United States Government Printing Office: Washington D.C., 1975.
Further reading
Kneeland, Timothy W. Playing Politics with Natural Disaster: Hurricane Agnes, the 1972 Election, and the Origins of FEMA (Cornell University Press, 2020) online
50th Anniversary of Hurricane Agnes
External links
National Hurricane Center web site for Agnes . This US government site is in the public domain.
HPC Rainfall Site for Agnes
FAQ: Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Tropical Cyclones, NOAA, retrieved January 26, 2006.
Watch Disasters-Anatomy of Destruction (1987) on the Internet Archive
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420119 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s%20commune | People's commune | The people's commune () was the highest of three administrative levels in rural areas of the People's Republic of China during the period from 1958 to 1983, until they were replaced by townships. Communes, the largest collective units, were divided in turn into production brigades and production teams. The communes had governmental, political, and economic functions during the Cultural Revolution. The people's commune was commonly known for collectivizing living and working practices, especially during the Great Leap Forward. The scale of the commune and its ability to extract income from the rural population enabled commune administrations to invest in large-scale mechanization, infrastructure, and industrial projects. The communes did not, however, meet many of their long-term goals, such as facilitating the construction of socialism in the rural areas, liberating women from housework, and creating sustainable agriculture practices in the countryside. They ranged in number from 50,000 to 90,000.
History
Precedents and Collectivization in the Early PRC
Before the people’s communes were established, the Chinese Communist Party had experimented with and promoted other, smaller forms of collectivized agriculture. Before 1949, landlords owned almost half of the land in rural China and leased it out to tenant farmers. Many farms were relatively small, family-operated enterprises. Farmers generally went through cycles of busyness during harvest season and relative idleness during off seasons. During the Civil War era and continuing into the early years of the People's Republic of China, the CCP implemented wide-ranging land reforms, attempted to identify and classify the rural population, and redistributed land from the landlords to the middle peasants and poor peasants to revolutionize the social structure of China. After the completion of the Land Reform, individual families owned the land they farmed, paid taxes as households, and sold grain at prices set by the state.
Rural collectivization began soon after the CCP announced its 1953 "general line for the transition to socialism." Over the next six years, collectivization took several incrementally progressing forms: mutual aid groups, primitive cooperatives, and people's communes.
With state coordination, many families—up to 68 million by 1954—joined Mutual Aid Teams. These Mutual Aid Teams helped farming families coordinate the sharing of labor, farming technology, and other resources. Some Mutual Aid Teams also formed, or were consolidated into, Agricultural Producer Cooperatives (APCs), larger institutions at the village or subvillage level that pooled resources and collectively managed land.
During 1954-1955, farmers in many areas began pooling their land, capital resources, and labor into beginning-level agricultural producers' cooperatives (chuji nongye hezuoshe). In the complex system of beginning-level agricultural producers' cooperatives, farmers received a share of the harvest based on a combination of how much labor and how much land they contributed to the cooperative.
By June 1956, over 60% of rural households had been collectivized into higher-level agricultural producers' cooperatives (gaoji nongye hezuoshe), a structure that was similar to Soviet collective farmering via kolkhozy. In these cooperatives, tens of households pooled land and draft animals. Adult members of the cooperative were credited with work points based on how much labor they had provided at which tasks. At the end of the year, the collective deducted taxes and fixed-price sales to the state, and the cooperative retained seed for the next year as well as some investment and welfare funds. The collective then distributed to the households the remainder of the harvest and some of the money received from sales to the state. The distribution was based partly on work points accrued by the adult members of a household, and partly at a standard rate by age and sex. These cooperatives also lent small amounts of land back to households individually on which the households could grow crops to consume directly or sell at market. Apart from the large-scale communization during the Great Leap Forward, higher-level agricultural producers' collective were generally the dominant form of rural collectivization in China. These cooperatives also created new administrative and economic issues, but the CCP proceeded with the collectivizing process.
In 1958, in the aftermath of the Hundred Flowers Campaign and Anti-Rightist Campaign, Mao Zedong shifted course from emphasizing economic growth toward emphasizing the rapid establishment of communism. Achieving communism, for Mao, also required economic growth but had to, at the same time, involve further collectivization and the elimination of old (or feudal) ways of living. Party propaganda outlets publicized an enormous collective in Xushui, Hebei as a “commune,” in which “peasant” households had given way to communal living, and people did not have to worry about money or food. Mao visited Xushui and similar larger, purportedly very productive units in Henan province and declared, “People’s communes are good.” Mao and his allies in the CCP leadership continued to promote the communes both in propaganda and party meetings, and the construction of communes quickly became party line and a central pillar of the Great Leap Forward.
As the Great Leap Forward got underway, the state consolidated HAPCs into about 26,000 communes, each containing on average 4,500 hectares of land, 24,000 people, and 5,200 households. The sizes of different communes varied widely across different regions but they were consistently much larger than HAPCs had been, and the communes encompassed on average about thirty HAPCs and up to one hundred. The communes were supposed to be instrumental to the PRC’s goal of “surpassing Britain and catching up to the US” in steel production.
Ideological and economic motivations
Over the summer of 1958, agricultural producers' collectives were merged into much larger collectives which comprised tens of thousands of people, typically encompassing a market town and its surrounding villages. By calling these giant administrative and economic regions “People’s Communes” (人民公社), CCP leadership aligned itself with a socialist and communist idea of the “commune” as a relatively autonomous city or towns ruled by the working class and/or the agricultural producers. This idea was first advocated by Robert Owen and later adapted by Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. Above all, however, the CCP’s communes were defined by three main factors, especially during the Great Leap Forward: first, an emphasis on industrialization and productivity; second, a militarization of society, in which commune members were mobilized through military-style campaigns and exhorted to act with rigid discipline, devotion, and selflessness; and third, an ideal of self-reliance or local autonomy, such that each commune would be able to produce most of the supplies and technology that it needed to function. As the CCP Politburo declared at the 1958 Beidahe Conference, the communes were meant to bring together all key occupations and professions into one unit and, by merging them, bring about “socialist construction”:The establishment of people’s communes with all-round management of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry, side occupations, and fishery, where industry (the worker), agriculture (the peasant), exchange (the trader), culture and education (the student), and military affairs (the militiaman) merge into one, is the fundamental policy to guide the peasant to accelerate socialist construction, complete the building of socialism ahead of time, and carry out the gradual transition to communism.By “socialist construction,” the resolution referred to the process in which the PRC was supposed to build up its industry under the vanguard Communist Party and, through the process of industrialization, accumulate enough capital and power to advance toward full communism—which, in this case, meant the self-rule of the proletariat and the distribution of wealth according to need, not ability or labor (see also: Primary stage of socialism). Mao hoped that the communes would create an “industrial army” out of the countryside, essentially turning the rural workforce into a well-disciplined engine of production. Other members of the CCP leadership were more wary of Mao’s plan for rapid agricultural modernization, and they pointed out the potentially prohibitive costs of this process and resources that it would require (such as iron, steel, and petroleum), and they argued that agricultural modernization might lead to unemployment given that rural workers would not necessarily be able to find other jobs in the countryside and urban industry remained relatively small. Nevertheless, Mao’s faction won out.
These debates, and the communes themselves, were oriented toward a fundamental question facing the Chinese economy in the 1950s: how could the PRC grow its industrial base when most of the population remained tied to agricultural work and small-scale sideline production for subsistence? The communes would require a great deal of coordination and at times coercion but would also, in theory, address this basic issue. By forcing people to move into these large units, the commune leadership could coordinate larger infrastructural and industrial projects more effectively, extract income from the commune residents, and allocate this capital income to the larger projects, which would in turn make the commune more productive and efficient and free up labor for further development. In essence, the goal of the people’s commune was to improve agricultural productivity such that fewer people had to work in agriculture and could instead use their energy and resources for industrialization.
In their first few years of existence, the communes created a wide range of economic, social, and administrative issues and exacerbated the Great Leap Forward famine. The CCP leadership then made major reforms to the commune structure after the Great Leap and again in the decades that followed in order to make them more stable, productive, and efficient. Regardless of the stated goals of the communes, however, the PRC economy at the time was not oriented toward the countryside. Most productive industry was already located in the cities, and urban residents—those with jobs in key enterprises and industries—were the best-paid and best-fed in the country. As a result, the communes existed, above all, to extract grain from the countryside to support both consumption and production in the cities, and to employ surplus population when the cities grew too large.
Communization proceeded on a largely voluntary basis, avoiding both the violence and sabotage that occurred during the Soviet collectivization. According to academic Lin Chun, China's collectivization proceeded smoothly because, unlike the Soviet experience, a network of state institutions already existed in the countryside. Academic Ken Hammond attributes the comparatively non-contentious process of collectivization in China to its gradual process in which productivity gains appeared to be made at each step.
After the Great Leap Forward
The communes also changed shape considerably over time. To address some of the early shortcomings, the central leadership quickly adopted major reforms. During the Great Leap, the leadership revised the free supply system back into a labor-based system of distribution. In late 1960, the unit of accounting through which labor and income were allocated was devolved from the people's commune to the production brigade. In many cases, these brigades corresponded to the high level agricultural producers' cooperatives that had preceded the people's communes.
In 1961, the average size of the communes was reduced to one-third of the original, and the basic accounting unit (i.e., the unit at which productivity was measured and work points were allocated) devolved from the commune to the brigade to, in 1962, the production team. In the aftermath of the Great Leap Forward, as Mao Zedong retreated from guiding the economic course of the PRC, other members of the leadership enacted additional reforms to the commune. Particularly important was the reintroduction of the “Three Freedoms”: private household plots, sideline industries, and small-scale animal husbandry. These “freedoms” enabled commune residents to maintain some basic subsistence measures outside of their commune work, and, as the communes became more efficient, commune residents were increasingly able to spend more time developing their own projects. Newly built communes did not retain the collectivized living arrangements and allowed for separate family spaces, even if residents still lived in large, central complexes.
The production team remained the unit of account until agricultural was totally decollectivized between 1979 and 1982.
Commune life
Layout and provision of services
People's communes were much more communal than the collectives that had been merged into them. In their most ambitious Great-Leap form, the communes were supposed to make nearly all domestic labor (cooking, taking care of children, education, washing, etc.) communal. In the early stages of the Great Leap Forward, the communes supplied some goods and services for free, such that food in the communal dining halls would be available for whoever wanted it rather than allocated based on workpoints or one’s own household possessions. This system was known as “free supply.”
Mao also considered militias and military-style organization essential to the success of the communes, and he promoted communization as a process of “militarization, combatization, and disciplinization.” As Mao saw it, a spirit of militarized organization, sacrifice, dedication, and selflessness would enable the Chinese people to overcome production bottlenecks through sheer effort. Each commune had a “people’s militia,” a group of commune members who took on military-style roles, adopted military terminology, and were responsible for organizing the commune population, defending the commune, and ensuring that commune members followed directives and maintained appropriate political behavior. The height of militarized fervor subsided after the Great Leap Forward, but the “people’s militias” continued to shape commune life and organization thereafter, especially during the Cultural Revolution.
During the Great Leap Forward, the process of bringing people into the communes, or communization, successfully uprooted traditional ways of farming and living but often failed to replace them with viable or productive alternatives. People had to give up their personal belongings, including everyday items such as farming and kitchen tools to smelt in “backyard steel furnaces.” These items were supposed to be useless scrap materials, but cadres and other zealous commune members encouraged people to contribute more and more items, to the extent that some communities melted down all of their pots and pans. The resulting steel and iron was mostly useless, and people who had to make steel could not spend as much time working in the fields. When, for a variety of structural and environmental factors (see also: Great Leap Forward), a larger famine set in, this shift from agricultural work to unproductive industrial labor only worsened conditions in the communes.
Some communes, such as the Macheng commune in Hubei (which was held up as a “model commune” at the national level, see also: Macheng), also demolished tens of thousands of private residences in order to bring about collective living arrangements and improve production efficiency. Macheng commune leaders also destroyed gravesites in order to open up more land for cultivation. Such destruction, the relative lack of compensation, and the lack of actual production increases all made the communization process incredibly disruptive and even deadly. In Raoyang Village in Hebei Province, the communization process also alienated villagers as cadres ended the temple fair, destroyed temples, cut back on traditional opera, and forced the local market to mostly close, all of which prevented villagers from engaging in traditional rites and celebrations. In the process of enforcing these new regulations, some cadres also abused their power and assaulted or humiliated villagers.
Communes were supposed to rationalize the working lives of rural residents, for example by spacing out new residential areas evenly rather than adhering to traditional village boundaries. With these new spatial plans, commune administrations aimed to reduce the amount of walking time required for farmers to get to their fields. But, in the frenzied and militarized atmosphere of the Great Leap Forward, rural residents were organized into “production armies” and might spend most of their time walking around between work sites, as they were tasked with too many different non-agricultural projects at once.
Conditions varied widely from commune to commune. The most immediate constraint on communal “free supply” was the availability of resources and the commune members’ willingness to participate in the new collective institutions. Commune members had a range of reasons to resist or express discontent with the communization process, largely due to either the inadequacies and inefficiencies of the commune system itself or the disruptive and destructive process by which the communes were first created. Some issues that arose for commune members included: overwork on non-agricultural projects (at the expense of subsistence-oriented farming), inefficient or counterproductive infrastructure projects (such as the backyard furnaces), lack of food at the communal dining halls, negligent educational and childcare services which created additional housework burdens for women, excessive and obligatory political study sessions, and confusing incentive structures for production. Additionally, because markets were closed and sideline industries were banned, people could not turn to some of the traditional methods of dealing with economic and agricultural hardship.
Despite these instances of resistance, there were no large-scale uprisings against the commune system as a whole. Scholars such as Joshua Eisenman have argued that this lack of massive resistance indicates that the commune system, with its post-Great Leap Forward adjustments, ended up serving the basic purposes of, first, feeding the countryside, and, second, extracting enough income from rural residents to fund modernizing projects and free up labor. Restrictions on individuals’ mobility, however, would have made it extremely difficult for potential dissidents to coordinate resistance to the communes at a regional or provincial level, and the Anti-Rightist Movement had severely undermined people’s willingness to openly criticize the party.
The conditions on communes varied considerably by geographic location. Different provincial administrations were more or less zealous in pursuing communization. Different provinces also did not have the same resources at their disposal for communization, and the Great Leap famine’s severity depended on local weather, grain extraction for exports (or requisitioning for internal trade), and the response or lack thereof from local officials. At the commune level, variation might also depend on the local geography or the layout that the commune organizers preferred. For example, some communes Panyu people's commune in Guangdong province were organized around a central spatial axis such as a main road or a mountain range, and residences were built near the main production facilities. Other communes were built instead with a focus on public facilities such as canteens, performance spaces, and community centers. These differences in spatial organization could then affect the daily lives of commune residents, as they might spend more time working on industrial projects as opposed to in political or cultural meetings, or, depending on the layout of their commune, they might spend additional time transiting between the two.
Urban communes
During the Great Leap Forward, the CPC central leadership also pushed cities to create communes of their own, modeled on the one set up in Zhengzhou, Henan. As with the rural communes, the urban communes were supposed to improve production and social cohesion by: collectivizing living arrangements and socializing domestic labor (i.e., making housework collective in order to free up female labor for other work); combining many different social, economic, cultural, and political institutions in the same space (i.e., the commune); and thereby pushing the PRC forward on the road to socialism. As the CCP Central Committee put it,The urban people’s commune will be the tool for transforming old cities into new socialist cities and the organizer of production, exchange, distribution and welfare in people’s lives, as well as the social organization which would combine industrial, agricultural, military, educational and trade circles and eventually merge government administration with commune management.Production and labor, especially female labor, were essential to these “socialist cities,” as the first Zhengzhou Commune statute made clear: the commune would “[push] forward the elimination of private property and the complete liberation of productive forces, in particular women’s productive force.” To view the communes as liberatory, the CCP leadership had to assume that the labor women already did inside and outside the home was not sufficiently or meaningfully productive, and that the act of working in factories or other industrial projects would free women from patriarchal household structures.
The urban communes did create new communal institutions and these institutions garnered some popularity, but the main outcome of the urban communes in the short run was—in addition to new services—disorder, inefficiency, and frustration. According to official statistics from 1960, the urban communes created: 53,000 public canteens, 50,000 nurseries, and 55,000 service centers that provided for other daily needs (such as laundry, repairing, and cleaning). The boundaries between workers and managers were loosened and the welfare benefits associated with a work unit (danwei) were extended to migrants and women through a large employment program. Such changes represented an enormous expansion of urban welfare benefits, in contrast with the relatively restricted welfare policy the PRC pursued before and after this period.
The communes, and the state as a whole, were not able to sustain such expansion either financially or organizationally. At the same time, the members of the communes, as in the countryside, were mobilized to achieve huge production quotas and other political and manual work. The urban communes were relatively productive, even with some waste and overproduction, but in cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, people began to complain that the commune services were subpar or incompetent and the work was excessive (especially for women who often continued to have to do housework), and the expenditure on welfare made the communes unprofitable as a whole. By late 1961, many people in these cities had stopped using commune services, and the communes closed down some of their amenities. Ultimately, although the communes were economically unsustainable and socially disruptive, some city residents lamented their closure, as they had provided jobs or amenities that the existing, more limited welfare system did not.
In addition to the failure of the communes to provide the services they had intended to collectivize, the urban communes also ran up against economic issues surrounding housing and urban construction. Three developments were particularly important: first, during the Great Leap Forward, a large proportion of public funding was allocated for capital construction (e.g., factories, mines) rather than housing construction, and so cities had relatively little money with which to construct new, durable housing. Second, the construction of housing was especially pressing because the Great Leap Forward had freed up a great deal of the rural workforce to move into the cities to work in industry, leading to a shock of urbanization. And third, Great Leap-era plans for urban construction were highly ambitious, both in the scope of construction and the economizing techniques that builders were supposed to rely on, given that more resources were being directed to industrial projects. Thus, Great Leap Forward policies exacerbated demand for new urban housing but did not provide funding to meet that demand and instead pushed the construction projects to rely on non-industrial materials (such as bricks) and the recycling of materials, either from demolished buildings or leftover from other projects. The idea that urban communes would both promote production and reorganize living space within the same institutions ran up against an economic contradiction, namely that Great Leap policies provided resources for the former (production) but not the latter (living space). Hence, when the central leadership decided to address the economic crisis, one of the major steps they took to lessen the cost of welfare provision was to lay off urban workers and step up the process of "ruralization," sending these workers to the countryside.
Unlike the rural communes, the urban ones did not last after the Great Leap Forward. The urban communes, however, still had lasting effects on urban planning, as, for example, with the Beijing city plan of 1958. This plan featured radical changes to the urban landscape, including an emphasis on communal construction and the destruction of walls, and, although the central leadership never officially approved this plan, urban planners continued relying on it up until the Cultural Revolution. The urban communes also represented the peak of the PRC's urban welfare provision, and the economic untenability of this system led the CCP leadership to enact policies reinforcing and sharpening the rural-urban divide.
In the people's commune, many things were shared. Private kitchens became redundant, and in some counties items in the private kitchen such as tables, chairs, cooking utensils and pans were contributed to the commune's kitchen. Private cooking was discouraged and supplanted by communal dining.
Impact
The rural cooperative movement replaced village power structures influenced by kinship and community elites with a formalized administrative system. The process linked families and individuals to national policies, creating what academic Cai Xiang describes as a new social space.
Collective labor created possibilities from women to leave the home and increase their personal and economic independence.
During the Great Leap Forward, the communes contributed to the widespread famine conditions, as the communes overworked their residents, confiscated necessary everyday items, and misallocated labor and resources on unproductive projects over basic foodstuffs. With the adjustments made to the communes after the Great Leap, however, they did contribute to the PRC’s relatively substantial growth in agricultural productivity over the remaining years before decollectivization. The work point system did not always provide clear incentive structures for commune workers but the value of the work points was calculated in such a way that the commune took roughly half the laborer’s income before they turned the work points into material goods. Using this extracted capital, the communes were able to invest in mechanization, infrastructure, irrigation, soil reclamation, and other large-scale projects that required large amounts of investment and labor. Moreover, the communes continued to provide some basic services such as education and health services, and the industrial projects built on some communes gave commune members technical skills they would not have gotten otherwise.
The communes also had lasting negative effects. The experiences associated with communization and the Great Leap Forward created lasting traumas for whole communities and especially the women who were responsible for taking on additional labor and were often the first in a family to go hungry. Destruction of gravesites made it difficult for families to continue forms of ancestor worship that they had been practicing for centuries, even after the Great Leap ended. Some of the land reclamation and irrigation projects successfully made agricultural land more productive, but the top-down nature of the commune structure often meant that commune or brigade leadership determined these projects without consulting the commune members on whether these projects were useful to them. Moreover, some of the projects that communes undertook to make their land more productive, such as the use of pesticides and chemical experiments, could also have deleterious long-term effects on the environment and the local population.
During the years between the end of the Great Leap Forward and decollectivization in the early 1980s, the PRC’s agricultural productivity, rural school enrollment, infant mortality rates, and life expectancy all improved. Collectivization of land via the commune system also facilitated China's rapid industrialization by through the state's control of food production and procurement. This allowed the state to accelerate the process of capital accumulation, ultimately laying the successful foundation of physical and human capital for the economic growth of China's reform and opening up.
Gallery
See also
Work unit, China
Chinese Peasants' Association
Nanjie, reported to be the last Maoist village in China
Notes
References and further reading
Yang, Dali. Calamity and Reform in China: State, Rural Society, and Institutional Change since the Great Leap Famine. Stanford University Press, 1996.
Economic history of the People's Republic of China
Campaigns of the Chinese Communist Party
Maoist China
Housing in China
Articles containing video clips
Administrative divisions of China
20th century in China
Great Leap Forward |
420126 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie%20Laine | Frankie Laine | Frankie Laine (born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio; March 30, 1913 – February 6, 2007) was an American singer and songwriter whose career spanned nearly 75 years, from his first concerts in 1930 with a marathon dance company to his final performance of "That's My Desire" in 2005. Often billed as "America's Number One Song Stylist", his other nicknames include "Mr. Rhythm", "Old Leather Lungs", and "Mr. Steel Tonsils". His hits included "That's My Desire", "That Lucky Old Sun", "Mule Train", "Jezebel", "High Noon", "I Believe", "Hey Joe!", "The Kid's Last Fight", "Cool Water", "Rawhide", and "You Gave Me a Mountain".
He sang well-known theme songs for many Western film soundtracks, including 3:10 To Yuma, Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and Blazing Saddles, although his recordings were not charted as a country & western. Laine sang an eclectic variety of song styles and genres, stretching from big band crooning to pop, western-themed songs, gospel, rock, folk, jazz, and blues. He did not sing the soundtrack song for High Noon, which was sung by Tex Ritter, but his own version (with somewhat altered lyrics, omitting the name of the antagonist, Frank Miller) was the one that became a bigger hit. He also did not sing the theme to another show he is commonly associated with—Champion the Wonder Horse (sung by Mike Stewart)—but released his own, subsequently more popular, version.
Laine's enduring popularity was illustrated in June 2011 when a TV-advertised compilation called Hits reached No. 16 on the UK Albums Chart. The accomplishment was achieved nearly 60 years after his debut on the UK chart, 64 years after his first major U.S. hit and four years after his death.
Early life
Frankie Laine was born Francesco Paolo LoVecchio on March 30, 1913, to Giovanni and Cresenzia LoVecchio (née Salerno). His Cook County, Illinois, birth Certificate, No. 14436, was already Americanized at the time of his birth, with his name written as "Frank Lovecchio," his mother as "Anna Salerno," and his father as "John Lovecchio," with the "V" lower case in each instance, except in the "Reported by" section with "John Lo Vecchio (father)" written in. His parents had emigrated from Monreale, Sicily, to Chicago's Near West Side, in "Little Italy," where his father worked at one time as the personal barber for gangster Al Capone. Laine's family appears to have had several organized crime connections, and young Francesco was living with his grandfather when the latter was killed by rival gangsters.
The eldest of eight children, Laine grew up in the Old Town neighborhood (first at 1446 N. North Park Avenue and later at 331 W. Schiller Street) and got his first taste of singing as a member of the choir in the Church of the Immaculate Conception's elementary school across the street from the North Park Avenue home. He later attended Lane Technical High School, where he helped to develop his lung power and breath control by joining the track and field and basketball teams. He realized he wanted to be a singer when he missed time in school to see Al Jolson's current talking picture, The Singing Fool. Jolson would later visit Laine when both were filming pictures in 1949, and at about this time, Jolson remarked that Laine was going to put all the other singers out of business.
Early career and stylistic influences
Even in the 1920s, his vocal abilities were enough to get him noticed by a slightly older "in crowd" at his school, who began inviting him to parties and to local dance clubs, including Chicago's Merry Garden Ballroom. At 17, he sang before a crowd of 5,000 at The Merry Garden Ballroom to such applause that he ended up performing five encores on his first night. Laine was giving dance lessons for a charity ball at the Merry Garden when he was called to the bandstand to sing:
Soon I found myself on the main bandstand before this enormous crowd, Laine recalled. I was really nervous, but I started singing 'Beside an Open Fireplace,' a popular song of the day. It was a sentimental tune and the lyrics choked me up. When I got done, the tears were streaming down my cheeks and the ballroom became quiet. I was very nearsighted and couldn't see the audience. I thought that the people didn't like me.
Some of his other early influences during this period included Enrico Caruso, Carlo Buti, and especially Bessie Smith—a record of whose somehow wound up in his parents' collection:
I can still close my eyes and visualize its blue and purple label. It was a Bessie Smith recording of 'The Bleeding Hearted Blues,' with 'Midnight Blues' on the other side. The first time I laid the needle down on that record I felt cold chills and an indescribable excitement. It was my first exposure to jazz and the blues, although I had no idea at the time what to call those magical sounds. I just knew I had to hear more of them! — Frankie Laine
Another singer who influenced him at this time was the singer-songwriter Gene Austin, who is generally considered the first “crooner.” Laine worked after school at a drugstore that was situated across the street from a record store that continually played hit records by Gene Austin over their loudspeakers. He would swab down the windows in time to Austin's songs. Many years later, Laine related the story to Austin when both were guests on the popular television variety show Shower of Stars. He would also co-star in a film, Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder, with Austin's daughter, Charlotte.
Shortly after graduating from high school, Laine signed on as a member of The Merry Garden's marathon dance company and toured with them, working dance marathons during the Great Depression (setting the world record of 3,501 hours with partner Ruthie Smith at Atlantic City's Million Dollar Pier in 1932). Still billed as Frank LoVecchio, he would entertain the spectators during the fifteen-minute breaks the dancers were given each hour. During his marathon days, he worked with several up-and-coming entertainers, including Rose Marie, Red Skelton, and a 14-year-old Anita O'Day, for whom he served as a mentor (as noted by Laine in a 1998 interview by David Miller).
Other artists whose styles began to influence Laine at this time were Bing Crosby, Louis Armstrong (as a trumpet player), Billie Holiday, Mildred Bailey, and, later, Nat "King" Cole. Laine befriended Cole in Los Angeles, when the latter's career was just beginning to gain momentum. Cole recorded a song, "It Only Happens Once", that fledgling songwriter Laine had composed. They remained close friends throughout the remainder of Cole's life, and Laine was one of the pall bearers at Cole's funeral.
His next big break came when he replaced Perry Como in the Freddy Carlone band in Cleveland in 1937; Como made a call to Carlone about Laine. Como was another lifelong friend of Laine's, who once lent Laine the money to travel to a possible gig.
Laine's rhythmic style was ill-suited to the sweet sounds of the Carlone band, and the two soon parted company. Success continued to elude Laine, and he spent the next 10 years "scuffling"; alternating between singing at small jazz clubs on both coasts and a series of jobs, including those of a bouncer, dance instructor, used car salesman, agent, synthetic leather factory worker, and machinist at a defense plant. It was while working at the defense plant during the Second World War that he first began writing songs ("It Only Happens Once" was written at the plant). Often homeless during his "scuffling" phases, he hit the lowest point of his career, when he was sleeping on a bench in Central Park.
I would sneak into hotel rooms and sleep on the floor. In fact, I was bodily thrown out of 11 different New York hotels. I stayed in YMCAs and with anyone who would let me flop. Eventually I was down to my last four cents, and my bed became a roughened wooden bench in Central Park. I used my four pennies to buy four tiny Baby Ruth candy bars and rationed myself to one a day. — Frankie Laine
He changed his professional name to Frankie Laine in 1938, upon receiving a job singing for the New York City radio station WINS. The program director, Jack Coombs, thought that "LoVecchio" was "too foreign sounding, and too much of a mouthful for the studio announcers," so he Americanized it to "Lane", an homage to his high school. Frankie added the "i" to avoid confusion with a girl singer at the station who went by the name of Frances Lane. It was at this time that Laine got unknown songbird Helen O'Connell her job with the Jimmy Dorsey band. WINS, deciding that they no longer needed a jazz singer, dropped him. With the help of bandleader Jean Goldkette, he got a job with a sustainer (non-sponsored) radio show at NBC. As he was about to start, Germany attacked Poland, and all sustainer broadcasts were pulled off the air in deference to the needs of the military.
Laine next found employment in a munitions plant, at a salary of $150.00 a week. He quit singing for what was perhaps the fifth or sixth time of his already long career. While working at the plant, he met a trio of girl singers, and became engaged to the lead singer. The group had been noticed by Johnny Mercer's Capitol Records, and convinced Laine to head out to Hollywood with them as their agent.
In 1943, he moved to California, where he sang in the background of several films, including The Harvey Girls, and dubbed the singing voice for an actor in the Danny Kaye comedy The Kid from Brooklyn. It was in Los Angeles in 1944 that he met and befriended disc jockey Al Jarvis and composer/pianist Carl T. Fischer, the latter of whom was to be his songwriting partner, musical director, and piano accompanist until his death in 1954. Their songwriting collaborations included "I'd Give My Life," "Baby, Just For Me," "What Could Be Sweeter?," "Forever More," and the jazz standard "We'll Be Together Again."
When the war ended, Laine soon found himself "scuffling" again, and was eventually given a place to stay by Jarvis. Jarvis also did his best to help promote the struggling singer's career, and Laine soon had a small, regional following. In the meantime, Laine would make the rounds of the bigger jazz clubs, hoping that the featured band would call him up to perform a number with them. In late 1946, Hoagy Carmichael heard him singing at Billy Berg's club in Los Angeles, and this was when success finally arrived. Not knowing that Carmichael was in the audience, Laine sang the Carmichael-penned standard "Rockin' Chair" when Slim Gaillard called him up to the stage to sing. This eventually led to a contract with the newly established Mercury records. Laine and Carmichael would later collaborate on a song, "Put Yourself in My Place, Baby".
First recordings
Laine cut his first record in 1944, for a fledgling company called "Bel-Tone Records." The sides were called "In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning", (an uptempo number not to be confused with the Frank Sinatra recording of the same name) and a wartime propaganda tune entitled "Brother, That's Liberty", though the records failed to make much of an impression. The label soon folded, and Laine was picked up by Atlas Records, a "race label" that initially hired him to imitate his friend Nat "King" Cole. Cole would occasionally "moonlight" for other labels, under pseudonyms, while under contract to Capitol, and as he had previously recorded some sides for Atlas, they reasoned that fans would assume that "Frankie Laine" was yet another pseudonym for "Cole".
Laine cut his first two numbers for Atlas in the King mode, backed by R&B artist Johnny Moore's group, The Three Blazers which featured Charles Brown and Cole's guitarist (from "The King Cole Trio"), Oscar Moore. The ruse worked and the record sold moderately well, although limited to the "race" market. Laine cut the remainder of his songs for Atlas in his own style, including standards such as "Roses of Picardy" and "Moonlight in Vermont".
It was also at this time that he recorded a single for Mercury Records: "Pickle in the Middle with the Mustard on Top" and "I May Be Wrong (But I Think You're Wonderful)." He appears only as a character actor on the first side, which features the comedic singing of Artie Auerbach (a.k.a., "Mr. Kitzel") who was a featured player on the Jack Benny radio show. In it, Laine plays a peanut vendor at a ball game and can be heard shouting out lines like "It's a munchy, crunchy bag of lunchy!" The flip side features Laine, and is a jazzy version of an old standard done as a rhythm number. It was played by Laine's friend, disc jockey Al Jarvis, and gained the singer a small West Coast following.
First successes
Even after his discovery by Carmichael, Laine still was considered only an intermission act at Billy Berg's. His next big break came when he dusted off a fifteen-year-old song that few people remembered in 1946, "That's My Desire". Laine had picked up the song from singer June Hart a half a dozen years earlier, when he sang at the College Inn in Cleveland. He introduced "Desire" as a "new" song—meaning new to his repertoire at Berg's—but the audience mistook it for a new song that had just been written. He ended up singing it five times that night. After that, Laine quickly became the star attraction at Berg's, and record company executives took note.
Laine soon had patrons lining up to hear him sing "Desire"; among them was R&B artist Hadda Brooks, known for her boogie woogie piano playing. She listened to him every night, and eventually cut her own version of the song, which became a hit on the "harlem" charts. "I liked the way he did it" Brooks recalled; "he sings with soul, he sings the way he feels."
He was soon recording for the fledgling Mercury label, and "That's My Desire" was one of the songs cut in his first recording session there. It quickly took the No. 3 spot on the R&B charts, and listeners initially thought Laine was black.
The record also made it to the No. 4 spot on the Mainstream charts. Although it was quickly covered by many other artists, including Sammy Kaye who took it to the No. 2 spot, it was Laine's version that became the standard.
"Desire" became Laine's first Gold Record, and established him as a force in the music world. He had been over $7,000 in debt, on the day before he recorded this song." His first paycheck for royalties was over five times this amount. Laine paid off all of his debts except one—fellow singer Perry Como refused to let Laine pay him back, and would kid him about the money owed for years to come. The loan to Laine during the time when both men were still struggling singers was one of the few secrets Como kept from his wife, Roselle, who learned of it many years later. A series of hit singles quickly followed, including "Black and Blue", "Mam'selle", "Two Loves Have I", "Shine", "On the Sunny Side of the Street", "Monday Again", and many others.
Style
A clarion-voiced singer with much style, able to fill halls without a microphone, and one of the biggest hit-makers of the late 1940s and early 1950s, Laine had more than 70 charted records, 21 gold records, and worldwide sales of over 100 million records. Originally a rhythm and blues influenced jazz singer, Laine excelled at virtually every music style, eventually expanding to such varied genres as popular standards, gospel, folk, country, western/Americana, rock 'n' roll, and the occasional novelty number. He was also known as Mr. Rhythm for his driving jazzy style.
Laine was the first and biggest of a new breed of singers who rose to prominence in the post–World War II era. This new, raw, emotionally charged style seemed at the time to signal the end of the previous era's singing styles and was, indeed, a harbinger of the rock 'n' roll music that was to come. As music historian Jonny Whiteside wrote:In the Hollywood clubs, a new breed of performers laid down a baffling hip array of new sounds...Most important of all these, though, was Frankie Laine, a big lad with 'steel tonsils' who belted out torch blues while stomping his size twelve foot in joints like Billy Berg's, Club Hangover and the Bandbox...Laine's intense vocal style owed nothing to Crosby, Sinatra, or Dick Haymes. Instead he drew from Billy Eckstine, Big Joe Turner, Jimmy Rushing, and with it Laine had sown the seeds from which an entire new perception and audience would grow...Frank Sinatra represented perhaps the highest flowering of a quarter century tradition of crooning but suddenly found himself an anachronism. First Frankie Laine, then Tony Bennett, and now Johnnie (Ray), dubbed 'the Belters' and 'the Exciters,' came along with a brash vibrancy and vulgar beat that made the old bandstand routine which Frank meticulously perfected seem almost invalid.
In the words of Jazz critic Richard Grudens:
Frank's style was very innovative, which was why he had such difficulty with early acceptance. He would bend notes and sing about the chordal context of a note rather than to sing the note directly, and he stressed each rhythmic downbeat, which was different from the smooth balladeer of his time.
His 1946 recording of "That's My Desire" remains a landmark record signaling the end of both the dominance of the big bands and the crooning styles favored by contemporary Dick Haymes and others. Often called the first of the blue-eyed soul singers, Laine's style cleared the way for many artists who arose in the late 1940s and early 1950s, including Kay Starr, Tony Bennett, and Johnnie Ray.
I think that Frank probably was one of the forerunner of...blues, of...rock 'n' roll. A lot of singers who sing with a passionate demeanor—Frank was and is definitely that. I always used to love to mimic him with 'That's...my...desire.' And then later Johnnie Ray came along that made all of those kind of movements, but Frank had already done them. – Patti Page
Throughout the 1950s, Laine enjoyed a second career singing the title songs over the opening credits of Hollywood films and television shows, including Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, 3:10 to Yuma, Bullwhip, and Rawhide. His rendition of the title song for Mel Brooks's 1974 hit movie Blazing Saddles won an Oscar nomination for Best Song, and on television, Laine's featured recording of "Rawhide" for the series of the same name became a popular theme song.
You can't categorize him. He's one of those singers that's not in one track. And yet and still I think that his records had more excitement and life into it. And I think that was his big selling point, that he was so full of energy. You know when you hear his records it was dynamite energy. — Herb Jeffries
From strength to strength
Laine was a jazz singer in the late 1940s. Accompanied by Carl Fischer and some of the best jazz men in the business, he was singing standards like "By the River Sainte Marie", "Black and Blue", "Rockin' Chair", "West End Blues", "At the End of the Road", "Ain't That Just Like a Woman", "That Ain't Right", "Exactly Like You", "Shine" and "Sleepy Ol' River" on the Mercury label.
He enjoyed his greatest success after impresario Mitch Miller, who became the A&R man at Mercury in 1948, recognized a universal quality in his voice that led to a succession of chart-topping popular songs, often with a folk or western flavor. Laine and Miller became a formidable hit-making team whose first collaboration, "That Lucky Old Sun", became the number one song in the country three weeks after its release. It was also Laine's fifth Gold record. "That Lucky Old Sun" was something new to the musical scene in 1949: a folk spiritual which, as interpreted by Laine, became both an affirmation of faith and a working man's wish to bring his earthly sufferings to an end.
The song was knocked down to the number two position by Laine and Miller's second collaboration, "Mule Train", which proved an even bigger hit, making Laine the first artist to hold the Number One and Two positions simultaneously. "Mule Train", with its whip cracks and echo, has been cited as the first song to use an "aural texture" that "set the pattern for virtually the entire first decade of rock."
"Mule Train" represents a second direction in which Laine's music would be simultaneously heading under the guidance of Mitch Miller: as the voice of the great outdoors and the American West. "Mule Train" is a slice of life in the mid-19th century West in which the contents of the packages being delivered by the mule train provide a snapshot into frontier life: "There's some cotton, thread and needles for the folks a-way up yonder/A shovel for a miner who left his home to wander/Some rheumatism pills for the settlers in the hills."
The collaboration producing a run of top forty hits that lasted into the early years of the rock and roll era. Other hits included "Dream a Little Dream of Me", "Stars and Stripes Forever", "The Cry of the Wild Goose", "Swamp Girl", "Satan Wears a Satin Gown", and "Music, Maestro Please".
"Shine", written in 1910 by Cecil Mack (R.C. McPherson), a ground-breaking African-American songwriter and publisher, was believed to be based on a real-life friend of vaudevillian George Walker, who was with him during the New York City race riots of 1900. The song takes what was then an ethnic slur, "shine", and turns it into something to be proud of. It had been a hit for Laine's idol Louis Armstrong, who would cover several of Laine's hits as well.
"Satan Wears a Satin Gown" is the prototype of another recurring motif in Laine's oeuvre, the "Lorelei" or "Jezebel" song (both of which would be the titles of later Laine records). The song, which has a loosely structured melody that switches in tone and rhythm throughout, was pitched to Laine by a young song plugger, Tony Benedetto, who would later go on to achieve success as Tony Bennett. Laine recognized the younger singer's talent, and gave him encouragement.
"Swamp Girl" is another entry with the "Lorelei"/"Jezebel" motif in the Laine songbook. In this decidedly gothic tale of a ghostly female spirit who inhabits a metaphorical "swamp", the femme fatale attempts to lure the singer to his death, calling "Come to the deep where your sleep is without a dream." The swamp girl is voiced (in an obligato) by coloratura Loulie Jean Norman, who would later go on to provide a similar vocal for the theme song of the television series Star Trek. The coloratura contrasts well with Laine's rough, masculine voice, and disembodied female voices would continue to appear in the background of many of his records, to great effect.
"The Cry of the Wild Goose" would be Laine's last number one hit on the American charts. It was written by folksinger Terry Gilkyson, of The Easy Riders fame. Gilkyson would write many more songs for Laine over the next decade, and he and The Easy Riders would back him on the hit single, "Love Is a Golden Ring". "The Cry of the Wild Goose" falls into the "voice of the great outdoors" category of Laine songs, with the opening line of its chorus, "My heart knows what the wild goose knows", becoming a part of the American lexicon.
Laine's influence on today's music can be clearly evidenced in his rendition of the Hoagy Carmichael standard, "Georgia on My Mind." Laine's slow, soulful version was a model for the iconic remake by Ray Charles a decade later. Charles would follow up "Georgia" with remakes of other Frankie Laine hits, including "Your Cheatin' Heart", and "That Lucky Old Sun." (Elvis Presley also remade several of Laine's hits, and his early influence on The Beatles has been well documented.)
In an interview, Mitch Miller described the basis of Laine's appeal:
He was my kind of guy. He was very dramatic in his singing...and you must remember that in those days there were no videos so you had to depend on the image that the record made in the listener's ears. And that's why many fine artists were not good record sellers. For instance, Lena Horne. Fabulous artist but she never sold many records till that last album of hers. But she would always sell out the house no matter where she was. And there were others who sold a lot of records but couldn't get to first base in personal appearances, but Frankie had it both. — Mitch Miller
But the biggest label of all was Columbia Records, and in 1950 Mitch Miller left Mercury to embark upon his phenomenally successful career as the A&R man there. Laine's contract at Mercury would be up for renewal the following year, and Miller soon brought Laine to Columbia as well. Laine's contract with Columbia was the most lucrative in the industry until RCA bought Elvis Presley's contract five years later.
Starring with Columbia
Laine began recording for Columbia Records in 1951, where he immediately scored a double-sided hit with the single "Jezebel" (#2)/"Rose, Rose, I Love You" (#3). Other Laine hits from this period include "High Noon (Do Not Forsake Me)" (#5), "Jealousy (Jalousie)" (#3), "The Girl in the Wood" (#23), "When You're in Love" (#30), "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans" (with Jo Stafford) (#26), "Your Cheatin' Heart" (#18), "Granada" (#17), "Hey Joe!" (#6), "The Kid's Last Fight" (#20), "Cool Water", "Some Day" (#14), "A Woman in Love" (#19), "Love Is a Golden Ring" (with The Easy Riders) (#10), and "Moonlight Gambler" (#3).
One of the signature songs of the early 1950s, "Jezebel" takes the "Lorelei" motif to its end, with Laine shouting "Jezebel!" at the woman who has destroyed him. In Laine's words, the song uses "flamenco rhythms to whip up an atmosphere of sexual frustration and hatred while a guy berated the woman who'd done him wrong."
"High Noon" was the theme song from the western motion picture starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. It had been sung by cowboy star Tex Ritter in the film, but it was Laine's recording that became the big hit. From this point on, Laine would sing the theme songs over the opening credits of many Hollywood and television westerns, becoming so identified with these title songs that Mel Brooks would hire him to sing the theme song for his classic cult film western spoof Blazing Saddles.
At this time, Laine had become more popular in the United Kingdom than in the US, as many of his hit records in the UK were only minor hits in his native country. Songs like "The Gandy Dancer's Ball", "The Rock of Gibraltar", and "Answer Me, O Lord" were much bigger hits for him abroad. "Answer Me" would later provide the inspiration for Paul McCartney's composition "Yesterday". It was also there that he broke attendance records when appearing at the Palladium, where he launched his first successful television series (with singer Connie Haines).
Mitch Miller teamed Laine with many of Mercury and Columbia's biggest artists. He scored hits with Patti Page ("I Love You for That") at Mercury, Doris Day ("Sugarbush"), Jo Stafford ("Hey Good Lookin'", "Gambella (The Gambling Lady)", "Hambone", "Floatin' Down to Cotton Town", "Settin' the Woods on Fire", and many others), Jimmy Boyd ("Tell Me a Story", "The Little Boy and the Old Man"), the Four Lads ("Rain, Rain, Rain") and Johnnie Ray ("Up Above My Head (I Hear Music in the Air)").
Laine scored a total of 39 hit records on the charts while at Columbia, and many of his songs from this period are most readily associated with him. His Greatest Hits album, released in 1957, has been a perennial best seller that has never gone out of print. His songs at Columbia included everything from pop and jazz standards, novelties, gospel, spirituals, R&B numbers, country, western, folk, rock 'n' roll, calypso, foreign language, children's music, film and television themes, tangos, light operetta. His vocal style could range anywhere from shouting out lines to rhythm numbers to romantic ballads.
Both in collaboration with Jo Stafford and as a solo artist, Laine was one of the earliest, and most frequent, Columbia artists to bring country numbers into the mainstream. Late in his career, Laine would go on to record two straight country albums ("A Country Laine" and "The Nashville Connection") that would fully demonstrate his ability to inflect multiple levels of emotional nuances into a line or word. Many of his pop-country hits from the early 1950s featured the steel guitar playing of Speedy West (who played a custom-built, three-neck, four-pedal model).
His duets with Doris Day were folk-pop adaptations of traditional South African folk songs, translated by folk singer Josef Marais. Marais would also provide Laine and Jo Stafford with a similar translation of a song which Stafford seems to have particularly disliked called "Chow Willy". Although "Sugarbush" brought Laine & Day a gold record, they would never team up again.
In 1953 he set two more records (this time on the UK charts): weeks at No 1 for a song ("I Believe", which held the number one spot for 18 weeks), and weeks at No 1 for an artist in a single year (27 weeks), when "Hey Joe!" and "Answer Me, O Lord" became number one hits as well). In spite of the popularity of rock and roll artists such as Elvis Presley and The Beatles, fifty-plus years later, both of Laine's records still hold.
In 1954, Laine gave a Royal Command Performance for Queen Elizabeth II which he cites as one of the highlights of his career. By the end of the decade, he remained far ahead of Elvis Presley as the most successful artist on the British charts. See the "Chart of All Time" for details. "I Believe" is listed as the second most popular song of all time on the British charts as well.
"I Believe" marked yet another direction for Laine's music, that of the spiritual. A devout Roman Catholic from childhood, Laine would continue to record songs of faith and inspiration throughout his career; beginning with his rocking gospel album with the Four Lads, which, along with the hit song "Rain, Rain, Rain", included renditions of such songs as "Remember Me", "Didn't He Moan", "I Feel Like My Time Ain't Long", and "I Hear the Angels Singing." Other Laine spirituals would include "My Friend", "In the Beginning", "Make Me a Child Again", "My God and I", and "Hey! Hey! Jesus."
Mr. Rhythm
In 1953, Laine recorded his first long playing album that was released, domestically, solely as an album (prior to this his albums had been compiled from previously released singles). The album was titled "Mr. Rhythm", as Laine was often known at that time, and featured many jazz-flavored, rhythm numbers similar in style to his work on the Mercury label. The album's songlist was made up of "Great American Songbook" standards. The tracks were "Some Day, Sweetheart", "A Hundred Years from Today", "Laughing at Life", "Lullaby in Rhythm", "Willow, Weep for Me", "My Ohio Home", "Judy" and "After You've Gone." The final number features a rare vocal duet with his accompanist/musical director, Carl Fischer. Paul Weston's orchestra provided the music.
Portrait of New Orleans
Released as a 10" in 1953, and a 12" in 1954, this album features the talents of Laine, Jo Stafford and bandleader Paul Weston, a Tommy Dorsey alumnus who led one of the top bands of the 1950s, and was the husband of Stafford. The album was a mix of solo recordings and duets by the two stars, and of new and previously released material, including Stafford's hits single, "Make Love to Me", "Shrimp Boats", and "Jambalaya." Laine and Stafford duetted on "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans", "Floatin' Down to Cotton Town", and "Basin Street Blues"; and Laine soloed on "New Orleans" (not to be confused with "New Orleans" a.k.a. "The House of the Rising Sun" which Laine later recorded), "Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?", and "When It's Sleepy Time Down South", along with a pair of cuts taken from his "Mr. Rhythm" album.
Jazz Spectacular
This album featured not only jazz vocals by Laine, but jazz licks on trumpet by a former featured player in the Count Basie orchestra, Buck Clayton, and trombonists J. J. Johnson and Kai Winding, and piano by Sir Charles Thompson. The tracks included several songs that had long been a standard part of the Laine repertoire over the years: "Sposin'", "Baby, Baby, All the Time", and "Roses of Picardy" along with standards such as "Stars Fell on Alabama", "That Old Feeling", and "Taking a Chance on Love". The album proved popular with jazz and popular music fans, and was often cited by Laine as his personal favorite. An improvised tone is apparent throughout, with Laine at one point reminiscing with one of the musicians about the days they performed together at Billy Berg's.
Frankie Laine and the Four Lads
The Four Lads (Bernie Toorish, Jimmy Arnold, Frank Busseri and Connie Codarini) were a Canadian-based group, who first gained fame as the backup singer on Johnnie Ray's early chart-busters ("Cry", "The Little White Cloud that Cried"), but garnered a following of their own with songs such as "The Mocking Bird", and "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)". The album produced one hit, "Rain! Rain! Rain!", along with tracks such as "Remember Me", "I Feel That My Time Ain't Long", and "Didn't He Moan". The last four tracks were recorded during a later session.
Rockin'
One of Laine's most popular albums, this album reset several of his former hits in a driving, brassy orchestration by Paul Weston and his orchestra. Two of the remakes ("That Lucky Old Sun" and "We'll Be Together Again") have gone on to become the best-known versions of the songs (supplanting the original hit versions). Other songs on this album include: "Rockin' Chair", "By the River Sainte Marie", "Black and Blue", "Blue Turning Grey Over You", "Shine", and "West End Blues". The album's title is less a reference to rock and roll than a reference to the Duke Ellington song of that same name. Unlike Mitch Miller, Laine liked the new musical form known as "rock 'n' roll", and was anxious to try his hand at it.
With Michel Legrand
French composer/arranger Michel Legrand teamed up with Laine to record a pair of albums in 1958. The first, A Foreign Affair, was built around the concept of recording the tracks in different languages: English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. The album produced a pair of international hits: "La Paloma" in Argentina, and "Não tem solucão" in Brazil. Other tracks included "Mona Lisa", "Mam'selle", "Torna a Sorriento", "Besame Mucho", and "Autumn Leaves."
Laine and Legrand teamed up for a second album of jazz standards, titled Reunion in Rhythm, with the vocals limiting themselves to English (and an occasional segue into French). Laine sang the complete lyrics (including the rarely reprised introductions) to such favorites as "Blue Moon", "Lover, Come Back to Me", "Marie", "September in the Rain", "Dream a Little Dream of Me" "I Would Do Most Anything for You", "Too Marvelous for Words", and "I Forget the Time". André Previn was the studio pianist on "I'm Confessin'", "Baby Just For Me," "You're Just The Kind," and "I Forget The Time."
With Frank Comstock
Laine wrote the lyrics for the title song on another 1958 album, Torchin, which was also his first recorded in stereo. He was backed by trombonist Frank Comstock's orchestra, on a dozen classic torch songs including: "A Cottage for Sale", "I Cover the Waterfront", "You've Changed", "These Foolish Things", "I Got it Bad (And That Ain't Good)", "It's the Talk of the Town", and "Body and Soul". As with his Legrand album, he sings the entire lyric for each song.
A second collaboration with Comstock, also recorded in 1958, focused on intimacy. Conceived as a love letter to his second wife, actress Nan Grey (who appears on the cover with him), You Are My Love is easily Laine's most romantic work. His voice was once described (by a British disk jockey) as having "the virility of a goat and the delicacy of a flower petal," and both these elements are well showcased here (particularly the delicate nuances). His recording of the wedding standard, "Because", exemplifies the singer's delicate mode at its most exquisite. He opens the song a cappella, after which a classical, acoustic guitar joins him, with the full orchestra gradually fading in and out before the guitar only climax. Also among the love ballads on this album are versions of: "I Married an Angel", "To My Wife", "Try a Little Tenderness", "Side by Side", and a version of "The Touch of Your Lips".
Balladeer
Recorded in 1959, "Balladeer" was a folk-blues album. Laine had helped pioneer the folk music movement a full ten years earlier with his hit folk-pop records penned by Terry Gilkyson et al.. This album was orchestrated and arranged by Fred Katz (who had brought Laine "Satan Wears a Satin Gown") and Frank DeVol. Laine and Katz collaborated on some of the new material, along with Lucy Drucker (who apparently inspired the "Lucy D" in one of the songs). Other songs are by folk, country and blues artists such as Brownie McGhee, James A. Bland, Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter, and Hungarian composer Rudolf Friml. The closing track, "And Doesn't She Roll" (co-written by Laine), with its rhythmic counter-chorus in the background foretells Paul Simon's Graceland album two decades later.
Included are renditions of "Rocks and Gravel", "Careless Love", "Sixteen Tons", "The Jelly Coal Man", "On a Monday", "Lucy D" (a melody that sounds like the later Simon & Garfunkel hit, "Scarborough Fair", but depicts the murder of a beautiful young woman by her unrequited lover), "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny", "Stack of Blues", "Old Blue", "Cherry Red", and "New Orleans" (better known as "The House of the Rising Sun"), which would become a hit for the British rock group, The Animals a few years later.
John Williams arrangements
Laine's last four albums at Columbia, Hell Bent for Leather!, Deuces Wild, Call of the Wild, and Wanderlust. were arranged by a young John Williams. Williams recently said the following words about Laine:
Frankie Laine was somebody that everybody knew. He was a kind of a household word like Frank Sinatra or Bobby Darin or Peggy Lee or Ella Fitzgerald—Frankie Laine was one of the great popular singers and stylists of that time...And his style...he was one of those artists who had such a unique stamp—nobody sounded like he did. You could hear two notes and you knew who it was and you were right on the beam with it right away. And of course that defines a successful popular artist, at least at that time. These people were all uniquely individual and Frank was on the front rank of those people in his appeal to the public and his success and certainly in his identifiability. — John Williams.
Hell Bent for Leather!
This album of western classics by Laine established him as "a cowboy singer" for many young fans who grew up in the 1960s. The album's title is taken from a line in the popular television theme song Laine recorded for the popular Eric Fleming/Clint Eastwood western, Rawhide, which appears on the album. The tracks include stereo remakes of several of his biggest western/great outdoors hits: "The Cry of the Wild Goose", "Mule Train", "Gunfight at O.K. Corral", and "The 3:10 to Yuma", as well as new material, including the western rocker, "Wanted Man", and a musical narrative, "Bowie Knife".
Deuces Wild
Laine's next album continued with the western theme (on several of the numbers), while following up on his last hit single, "Moonlight Gambler" (a stereo remake of which appears on the album). Most of the tracks of this album feature a gambling theme. "The Hard Way" is a story about a hard-luck case who is killed by a cannonball while fighting in the Civil War (for the Confederacy), only to wind up eternally shoveling coal in Hell. The second track is Stephen Foster's "Camptown Races" Other songs on this album include: "Luck Be a Lady" (from the hit musical Guys and Dolls), which Laine performed in an Off Broadway, touring company version of Get Rich Quick; "Horses and Women" (which Laine may have supplied the lyrics to); "Deuces Wild", for which Laine provided the lyrics, and "Dead Man's Hand."
Call of the Wild
This album continued to play up Chicago-born Laine's western image with songs such as "On the Trail", based on the composition by Ferde Grofé, and "Tumbling Tumbleweeds", written by one of the founding members of The Sons of the Pioneers", Bob Nolan. The majority of its tracks focus more, however, on "the great outdoors", with titles such as: "Song of the Open Road", "North to Alaska", "Beyond the Blue Horizon", "Rolling Stone", and "The New Frontier", which appears to show Laine's support of President John F. Kennedy. The arrangements on many of these songs have an almost classical feel to them, reflecting the classical training of John Williams, who would go on to conduct the Boston Pops for many years.
Wanderlust
Wanderlust was Laine's final album with Columbia Records. "De Glory Road" is one of both Laine's personal favorites. Other songs on this album include (Ghost) "Riders in the Sky" and a swinging version of Sigmund Romberg's Serenade, from the operetta, The Student Prince. Also included on this album is a version of "I Let Her Go"; an uncensored version of a song that figured prominently in his nightclub act, "On the Road to Mandalay", based on the poem by Rudyard Kipling; and a classic version of "Wagon Wheels" which he'd been singing (though not recording) as far back as his days with the Merry Garden Ballroom marathon dance company in the early 1930s.
Laine had met with Columbia officials to renew his contract on the day that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The meeting was canceled, and neither Laine nor Columbia pressed to reschedule it.
At Capitol, ABC, and beyond
In 1963 Laine left Columbia for Capitol Records, but during his two years there only produced one album and a handful of singles (mostly of an inspirational nature). He continued performing regularly at this time, including a South African tour.
After switching to ABC Records in the late 1960s, Laine found himself at the top of the charts again, beginning with the first song he recorded, "I'll Take Care of Your Cares". Written as a waltz in the mid-1920s, "Cares" had become the unofficial theme song of the Las Vegas call girls, but was virtually unknown outside of the Strip. Laine recorded a swinging version that made it to number 39 on the national and number 2 on the adult contemporary charts. A string of hits followed including "Making Memories", "You Wanted Someone to Play With", "Laura (What's He Got That I Ain't Got)", "To Each His Own", "I Found You", and "Lord, You Gave Me A Mountain" (which was written by Marty Robbins). The last song was a number one hit on the adult contemporary chart (#24 national), and proved that Laine was as big a hit-maker as ever. His last single to hit the Billboard Hot 100 chart (peaking at No. 86 national) was "Dammit Isn't God's Last Name".
Seeking greater artistic freedom, Laine left ABC for the much smaller Amos Records, where he cut two albums in a modern, rock-influenced vein. The first album contained contemporary versions of his greatest hits, such as "Your Cheatin' Heart", "That Lucky Old Sun", "I Believe", "Jezebel", "Shine", and "Moonlight Gambler." A re-recorded single of "On The Sunny Side Of The Street" reached the Cashbox "Looking Ahead" chart in 1970. His second album for Amos was called "A Brand New Day" and, along with the title song, was original material including "Mr. Bojangles", "Proud Mary", "Put Your Hand in the Hand", "My God and I", and "Talk About the Good Times". It is one of Frankie Laine's personal favorites.
Amos, which was soon to fold from lack of funds, could not adequately promote them at the time. However, they are still available through CD re-releases. After Amos folded, Laine started his own label, Score Records, which is still producing albums today.
Film and television
Beginning in the late 1940s, Laine starred in over a half dozen backstage musicals, often playing himself; several of these were written and directed by a young Blake Edwards. The films were: Make Believe Ballroom – Columbia, 1949; When You're Smiling – Columbia, 1950; Sunny Side Of The Street – Columbia, 1951; Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder – Columbia, 1952; Bring Your Smile Along – Columbia, 1955; He Laughed Last – Columbia, 1956; and Meet Me in Las Vegas – MGM, 1956. The latter, a big budget MGM musical starring Cyd Charisse, features Laine performing Hell Hath No Fury.
Laine's films were very popular in the United Kingdom, but this success failed to establish him as a movie star in the United States.
On television, he hosted three variety shows: The Frankie Laine Hour in 1950, The Frankie Laine Show (with Connie Haines) 1954–55, and Frankie Laine Time in 1955–56. The latter was a summer replacement for The Arthur Godfrey Show that received a Primetime Emmy for Best Male Singer. Frankie Laine Time featured such guest stars as Ella Fitzgerald, Johnnie Ray, Georgia Gibbs, The Four Lads, Cab Calloway, Patti Page, Eddie Heywood, Duke Ellington, Boris Karloff, Patti Andrews, Joni James, Shirley MacLaine, Gene Krupa, Teresa Brewer, Jack Teagarden and Polly Bergen.
He had a different sound, you know and he had such emotion and heart. And of course you recognized Frankie, just like Sinatra had that sound that you'd always recognize. That's what made for hit records, as well as being a great singer. But you have to have a real special sound that never changes. He could do it all...but again, you always knew that it was Frankie Laine. — Connie Haines
Laine was a frequent guest star on various other shows of the time, including Shower of Stars, The Steve Allen Show, The Ed Sullivan Show, What's My Line?, This Is Your Life, Bachelor Father, The Sinatra Show, The Walter Winchell Show, The Perry Como Show, The Garry Moore Show, Masquerade Party, The Mike Douglas Show, and American Bandstand. He was the mystery guest on the April 12, 1959 episode of What's My Line. Also in 1959 he made a guest appearance on Perry Mason in the title role as comedian Danny Ross in "The Case of the Jaded Joker."
In the 1960s, Laine continued appearing on variety shows such as Laugh-In, but took on several serious guest-starring roles in shows like Rawhide, and Burke's Law. His theme song for Rawhide proved to be popular and helped make the show, which starred Eric Fleming and launched the career of Clint Eastwood, a hit. Other TV series for which Laine sang the theme song included Gunslinger, The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo, and Rango. In the late 1960s, Laine sang the commercial jingle for the "Manhandlers," a line of Campbell's soups marketed specifically to men. In 1976, Laine recorded The Beatles song, "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" for the documentary All This and World War II.
Laine performed at three Academy Awards ceremonies: 1950 (Mule Train), 1960 (The Hanging Tree), and 1975 (Blazing Saddles). Only last two of these ceremonies were televised. In 1981, he performed a medley of his hits on American Bandstands 30th Anniversary Special", where he received a standing ovation. Later appearances include Nashville Now, 1989 and My Music, 2006.
Social activism
Along with opening the door for many R&B performers, Laine played a significant role in the civil rights movements of the 1950s and 1960s. When Nat King Cole's television show was unable to get a sponsor, Laine crossed the color line, becoming the first white artist to appear as a guest (forgoing his usual salary of $10,000.00 as Cole's show only paid scale). Many other top white singers followed suit, including Tony Bennett and Rosemary Clooney, but Cole's show still could not get enough sponsors to continue.
In 1965, Laine joined several African American artists who gave a free concert for Martin Luther King Jr.'s supporters during their Selma to Montgomery marches.
Laine, who had a strong appreciation of African American music, went so far as to record at least two songs that have being black as their subject matter, "Shine" and Fats Waller's "Black and Blue". Both were recorded early in his career at Mercury, and helped to contribute to the initial confusion among fans about his race.
Laine was also active in many charities as well, including Meals on Wheels and The Salvation Army. Among his charitable works were a series of local benefit concerts and his having organized a nationwide drive to provide "Shoes for the Homeless". He donated a large portion of his time and talent to many San Diego charities and homeless shelters, as well as the Salvation Army and St. Vincent de Paul Village. He was also an emeritus member of the board of directors for the Mercy Hospital Foundation.
Personal life
Laine married actress Nan Grey (June 1950 – July 1993) and adopted her daughters Pam and Jan from a previous marriage to jockey Jackie Westrope. Their 43-year marriage lasted until her death. Laine and Grey guest-starred on a November 18, 1960, episode of Rawhide: "Incident on the Road to Yesterday." They played long-lost lovers. Following a three-year engagement to Anita Craighead, the 86-year-old singer married Marcia Ann Kline in June 1999. This marriage lasted for the remainder of his life.
Later years
Laine settled on a hilltop in the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego, where he was a supporter of local events and charities. In 2000, the San Diego Chamber of Commerce dubbed him "The Prince of Point Loma".
His career slowed down a little in the 1980s due to triple and quadruple heart bypass surgeries, but he continued cutting albums, including Wheels Of A Dream (1998), Old Man Jazz (2002) and The Nashville Connection (2004).
In 1986, he recorded the album Round Up with Erich Kunzel and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, which made it to the classical charts. Laine was reportedly pleased and amused, having also placed songs on the rhythm & blues and popular charts in his time.
He recorded his last song, "Taps/My Buddy", shortly after the 9/11 terrorist attack on America. The song was dedicated to the New York City firefighters, and Laine stipulated that profits from the song were to be donated, in perpetuity, to the New York Fire Department.
On June 12, 1996, he was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 27th Annual Songwriters’ Hall of Fame awards ceremony at the New York Sheraton. On his 80th birthday, the United States Congress declared him to be a national treasure. Then, a decade later on March 30, 2003, Laine celebrated his 90th birthday, and several of his old friends, Herb Jeffries, Patti Page and Kay Starr, attended his birthday party in San Diego, helping him blow out the candles.
Final appearance
In 2006, he appeared on the PBS My Music special despite a recent stroke, performing "That's My Desire", and received a standing ovation. It was his last public performance.
Laine died of heart failure on February 6, 2007, at Scripps Mercy Hospital in San Diego. A memorial mass was held February 12, at the Immaculata parish church on the campus of the University of San Diego. The following day, his ashes, along with those of his late wife, Nan Grey, were scattered over the Pacific Ocean.
Legacy
While Laine's influence on popular music, rock and roll and soul is rarely acknowledged by rock historians, his early crossover success as a singer of "race music" not only helped pave the way for other white artists who sang in the black style, like Kay Starr, Johnnie Ray and Elvis Presley, but also helped to increase public acceptance for African-American artists as well. Artists inspired and/or influenced by Laine include Ray Charles, Bobby Darin, Lou Rawls, The Kalin Twins, The Beatles, Tom Jones, James Brown, Billy Fury, and many others.
He was inducted into the Hit Parade Hall of Fame in 2008.
In 2010, a Golden Palm Star on the Palm Springs, California, Walk of Stars was dedicated to him.
For his contributions to the music and television industry, Frankie Laine has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The music star is at the north side of the 1600 block on Hollywood Boulevard, the television star is at the west side of the 1600 block on Vine Street.
Discography
Studio albums
Frankie Laine Sings
Frankie Laine Favorites
Songs from the Heart
Frankie Laine
Frankie Laine
Frankie Laine
Christmas Favorites
Mr. Rhythm Sings
Song Favourites by Frankie Laine
Sunny Side of the Street
Music, Maestro, Please
With All My Heart
One for My Baby
A Musical Portrait of New Orleans
Mr. Rhythm
Jazz Spectacular
Frankie Laine and the Four Lads
Rockin'
Foreign Affair
Torchin'
Reunion in Rhythm
You Are My Love
Frankie Laine, Balladeer
Hell Bent for Leather!
Deuces Wild
Call of the Wild
Wanderlust
I Believe
I'll Take Care of Your Cares
I Wanted Someone to Love
To Each His Own
Take Me Back to Laine Country
You Gave Me a Mountain
A Brand New Day
20 Memories in Gold
Life is Beautiful
Place in Time
Round-Up
New Directions
Reunion in Jazz
The Wheels of a Dream
It Ain't Over 'til It's Over
The Story of Old Man Jazz and His Loves
The Nashville Connection
Lyrics by Laine
It Ain't Gonna Be Like That (with Mel Tormé)
It Only Happens Once (words and music by Laine)
Put Yourself In My Place (with Hoagy Carmichael)
We'll Be Together Again (with Carl T. Fischer)
Our Dream (words and music)
I Haven't the Heart (with Matt Dennis)
I'd Give My Life (with Carl T. Fischer)
What Could Be Sweeter? (with Carl T. Fischer)
Baby, Just for Me (with Carl T. Fischer)
Satan Wears a Satin Gown (with Jacques Wilson and Fred Katz)
Don't Cry Little Children (with Norman Wallace)
When You're In Love (with Carl T. Fischer)
Only If We Love (with Al Lerner)
Torchin (with Al Lerner)
The Love of Loves (with Carl T. Fischer)
Magnificent Obsession (with Fred Karger)
Forever More (with Carl T. Fischer)
You Are My Love (with Carl T. Fischer)
My Little Love (with Carl Eugster)
And Doesn't She Roll (with Jack Wilson and Fred Katz)
God Bless This House (with Jack Wilson and Fred Katz)
Horses and Women (words and music)
Deuces Wild (with Mike Oatman and Ray Barr)
Cow-Cow Boogie (with Don Raye, Gene DePaul and Benny Carter)
The High Road (with Margaret Bristol and Leo Kempinski)
The Moment of Truth (with Nell Western and Fred Katz)
What Am I Here For? (with Duke Ellington)
Pretty Little Princess (with Michael Nesmith)
Please Forgive Me (with Larry Kusik and Eddie Snyder)
Silver Kisses and Golden Love (with Robert Doyle)
Allegra (with Matt Dennis and Dunham)
Fresh out of tears (with Morgan)
The Secret of Happiness (with Larry Kusik and Eddie Snyder)
If I Did Not Believe in You (with Larry Kusik and Eddie Snyder)
Going to Newport (with Larry Sanders)
Forevermore (words and music)
End Of Session Blues (words and music)
Nan (words and music)
Filmography
Acting
Make Believe Ballroom – Columbia, 1949
When You're Smiling – Columbia, 1950
Sunny Side of the Street – Columbia, 1951
Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder – Columbia, 1952
Bring Your Smile Along – Columbia, 1955
He Laughed Last – Columbia, 1956
Meet Me in Las Vegas – MGM, 1956
Sang title song
Blowing Wild – Warner, 1953
Man Without a Star – Universal, 1955
Strange Lady in Town – Warner, 1955
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral – Paramount, 1957
3:10 to Yuma – Columbia, 1957
Bullwhip – Republic, 1958
Blazing Saddles – Warner/Crossbow, 1974
Included in soundtrack
The Last Picture Show – sang "Rose, Rose, I Love You", Columbia, 1971
All This and World War II – sang "Maxwell's Silver Hammer", Deluxe, 1976
House Calls – sang "On the Sunny Side of the Street", Universal, 1978
Lemon Popsicle – sang "My Little One", 1978
Going Steady – sang "My Little One", 1980
Raging Bull – sang "That's My Desire", United Artists, 1980
Whore – sang "The Love of Loves", 1991
Chopper – sang "Don't Fence Me In", 2000
Television
The Frankie Laine Hour – 1950
The Frankie Laine Show – 1954–55
Frankie Laine Time – 1955–56
Rawhide – 1959–66 (sang the theme song)
Gunslinger – 1961 (sang the theme song)
Rango – 1967 (sang the theme song, "Rango")
The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo – 1979–81 (sang the theme song for the first season)
Guest star appearances
Perry Mason – CBS, 1959
Make Room for Daddy – CBS, 1959
Rawhide – CBS, 1960
Bachelor Father – ABC, 1961
Burke's Law – ABC, 1963
Hee Haw – season 4 episodes 20 and 23 – syndication, 1973
Biographies
Video documentary
Frankie Laine: An American Dreamer, 2003. Narrated by Lou Rawls. Included are interviews with Patti Page, Kay Starr, Pat Boone, Clint Eastwood, Tom Jones, Howard Keel, Connie Haines, John Williams, Michel Legrand, Mitch Miller, Ringo Starr, Dick Clark, and many others.
See also
List of best-selling music artists
References
External links
Interview with Frankie Laine
The Frankie Laine International Appreciation Society
Frankie Laine at the Latin Quarter, 1955 performance review
NAMM Oral History Interview with Frankie Laine November 12, 2000
1913 births
2007 deaths
20th-century American singer-songwriters
20th-century American male singers
American Roman Catholics
American crooners
American jazz singers
American male jazz musicians
American male singer-songwriters
American people of Italian descent
Columbia Records artists
Jazz musicians from Illinois
Latin-language singers
Mercury Records artists
Singers from Chicago
Spanish-language singers of the United States
Swing singers
Torch singers
Traditional pop music singers
Singer-songwriters from Illinois |
420128 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SKS | SKS | The SKS (, self-loading carbine of (the) Simonov system, 1945) is a semi-automatic rifle designed by Soviet small arms designer Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov in 1945.
The SKS was first produced in the Soviet Union but was later widely exported and manufactured by various nations. Its distinguishing characteristics include a permanently attached folding bayonet and a hinged, fixed magazine. As the SKS lacked select-fire capability and its magazine was limited to ten rounds, it was rendered obsolete in the Soviet Armed Forces by the introduction of the AK-47 in the 1950s. Nevertheless, SKS carbines continued to see service with the Soviet Border Troops, Internal Troops, and second-line and reserve army units for decades.
The SKS was manufactured at Tula Arsenal from 1949 to 1958, and at the Izhevsk Arsenal from 1953 to 1954, resulting in a total Soviet production of about 2.7 million. Throughout the Cold War, millions of additional SKS carbines and their derivatives were also manufactured under license in the People's Republic of China, as well as a number of countries allied with the Eastern Bloc. The SKS was exported in vast quantities and found favour with insurgent forces around the world as a light, handy weapon which was adequate for guerrilla warfare despite its conventional limitations.
Beginning in 1988, millions have also been sold on the civilian market in North America, where they remain popular as hunting and sporting rifles.
Design
The SKS has a conventional layout, with a wooden stock and rifle grip. It is a gas-operated rifle that has a spring-loaded bolt carrier and a gas piston operating rod that work to unlock and cycle the action via gas pressure exerting pressure against them. The bolt is locked to contain the pressure of ignition at the moment of firing by tilting downwards at its rear and being held by a lug milled into the receiver. At the moment of firing, the bolt carrier is pushed rearwards, which causes it to lift the bolt, unlocking it, and allowing it to be carried rearwards against a spring. This allows the fired case to be ejected and a new round from the magazine to be carried into the chamber. The SKS represents an intermediate step in the process towards the development of true assault rifles, being shorter and less powerful than the semi-automatic rifles that preceded it, such as the Soviet SVT-40, but being longer (by 10 cm/4 in) than AK-series rifles which replaced it. As a result, it has a slightly higher muzzle velocity than those arms that replaced it.
The SKS's ten-round internal box magazine can be loaded either by hand or from a stripper clip. Cartridges stored in the magazine can be removed by pulling back on a latch located forward of the trigger guard (thus opening the "floor" of the magazine and allowing the rounds to fall out). In typical military use, the stripper clips are disposable. If necessary, they can be reloaded multiple times and reused.
While early (1949–50) Soviet models had spring-loaded firing pins, which held the pin away from cartridge primers until struck by the action's hammer, most variants of the SKS have a free-floating firing pin within the bolt. Because of this design, care must be taken during cleaning (especially after long storage packed in cosmoline) to ensure that the firing pin can freely move and does not stick in the forward position within the bolt. SKS firing pins that are stuck in the forward position have been known to cause accidental "slamfires" (the rifle firing on its own, without pulling the trigger and often without being fully locked). This behavior is less likely with the hard primer military-spec ammo for which the SKS was designed, but as with any rifle, users should properly maintain their firearms. For collectors, slamfires are more likely when the bolt still has remnants of cosmoline embedded in it that retards firing pin movement. As it is triangular in cross section with only one way to properly insert it (notches up), slamfires can also result if the firing pin is inserted in one of the other two orientations.
In most variants (Yugoslav models being the most notable exception), the barrel is chrome-lined for increased wear and heat tolerance from sustained fire and to resist corrosion from chlorate-primed corrosive ammunition, as well as to facilitate cleaning. Chrome bore lining is common in military rifles. Although it can diminish precision, its effect on practical accuracy in a rifle of this type is limited.
The front sight has a hooded post. The rear sight is an open notch type which is adjustable for elevation from . There is also an all-purpose "battle" setting on the sight ladder (marked "П", for "Прямой выстрел", meaning "Straight shot"), set for . This is attained by moving the elevation slide to the rear of the ladder as far as it will go. The Yugoslav M59/66A1 has folddown luminous sights for use when firing under poor light conditions, while the older M59 and M59/66 do not.
All military SKSs have a bayonet attached to the underside of the barrel, which is extended and retracted via a spring-loaded hinge. Both blade and spike bayonets were produced. Spike bayonets were used on the 1949 Tula Russian SKS-45, the Chinese Type 56 from mid 1964 onward, and the Albanian Model 561. The Yugoslavian-made M59/66 and M59/66A1 variants are the only SKS models with an integral grenade launching attachment.
The SKS is easily field stripped and reassembled without specialized tools, and the trigger group and magazine can be removed with an unfired cartridge, or with the receiver cover. The rifle has a cleaning kit stored in a trapdoor in the buttstock, with a cleaning rod running under the barrel, in the same style as the AK-47. The cap for the cleaning kit also serves as a cleaning rod guide, to protect the crown from being damaged during cleaning. The body of the cleaning kit serves as the cleaning rod handle. In common with some other Soviet-era designs, it trades some accuracy for ruggedness, reliability, ease of maintenance, ease of use, and low manufacturing cost.
Development history
The Soviet Union utilized a number of semi-automatic as well as select-fire rifles during World War II, namely the AVS-36, SVT-38, and the SVT-40. However, the primary service rifle of the Red Army remained the bolt-action Mosin-Nagant, which fired the powerful but heavy 7.62×54mmR round. Even prior to the war, the Red Army had recognized that these weapons were obsolete and initiated a program to modernize its existing small arms, although this was interrupted by the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941. Among the military development programs the Soviet Union had monitored in other countries were the Finnish, Swiss, and German developments in intermediate rifle cartridges. These had limited range and muzzle velocity compared to the 7.62x54mmR and other contemporary rifle rounds such as the 7.92×57mm Mauser and the .30-06 Springfield, but also possessed numerous advantages: they were cheaper to manufacture, permitted easier weapons handling due to their much-reduced recoil and muzzle blast, and enabled infantry to carry more due to their small size and light weight. They could also be fired from shorter and lighter rifles. The Red Army's interest in an intermediate cartridge was piqued when stocks of 7.92×33mm Kurz ammunition were captured from the Wehrmacht, and by the end of 1943, Soviet technicians had developed a similar cartridge based closely on the German design, the 7.62x39mm M43. Early trials showed that the new round had the penetrative capacity to pierce three panels of plywood, each of 2.25 cm thickness, at a six hundred meter range. Red Army officials believed this was more than enough power to wound or kill a soldier at typical battlefield range. Limited production of the new ammunition type commenced in 1944.
Hurried efforts were made to develop a rifle capable of firing the new cartridge, and the first prominent design was produced by Sergei Gavrilovich Simonov. This became known as the Samozaryadny Karabin sistemy Simonova (SKS), or Simonov's self-loading carbine system. Simonov had already been working on a new semi-automatic carbine chambered for a lighter cartridge as early as 1941, owing to recent complaints about the effectiveness of the SVT-40. His earliest prototypes were chambered for the 7.62×25mm Tokarev pistol cartridge, which was also used in the PPSh-41 submachine gun. He also built at least one prototype chambered for the larger 7.62x54mmR cartridge. Unlike previous Soviet semi-automatic rifles, these utilized fixed ten-round magazines loaded from stripper clips. Simonov's design was based on the operating mechanism of the PTRS-41 anti-tank rifle he'd previously developed for the Red Army the same year. Red Army evaluation of the prototypes was shelved due to the German invasion, and did not resume until Simonov rechambered and modified his weapon to accommodate the 7.62x39mm cartridge in 1944.
The SKS was light, simple, and considerably shorter than the Mosin-Nagant, which made it easier to handle in dense foliage and urban environments. Simonov deliberately designed the SKS with loose-fitting parts, making it less likely to jam when dirty, inadequately lubricated, or clogged with carbon residue. This was a notable departure from the relatively tight tolerances on the previous generation of Soviet semi-automatic rifles, and was also part of the design process of the AK-47. The SKS was officially designated as a carbine, although it did not fulfill the same role as the M1 carbine used in the United States Army at the time, and more resembled a traditional infantry rifle both in terms of design and envisaged role. Simonov's early 7.62x39mm models were quickly pressed into service, and saw action with troops of the 1st Belorussian Front during the final months of World War II. The SKS was still undergoing active field trials when Germany surrendered to the Allies in May 1945. Mass production was delayed while the SKS underwent minor technical changes and alterations as a result of its trial performance during that conflict. By the end of the 1940s, it finally superseded the various models of the Mosin-Nagant as the standard Soviet infantry rifle.
The AK-47 assault rifle and the RPD machine gun, both firing the same 7.62x39mm cartridge, were introduced into Soviet service around the same time to complement the SKS. During the 1950s, the Soviet Army rapidly mechanized its existing infantry formations, shifting primarily from light infantry on foot to a much more mobile force deploying from armored vehicles. This fundamental shift in tactics called for large volumes of automatic fire to be delivered from moving vehicles, and the AK-47, with its select-fire capability, compact size, and larger detachable magazine, was more appropriate for this role than the SKS. As a result, the AK-47 gradually replaced the SKS as the standard service rifle of the Soviet Army throughout the 1950s. A US Army review of Soviet tactics and weapons found that "the SKS was phased out of infantry use in the late 1950s, not because of any inherent faults, but because a radical change in Soviet tactics rendered it obsolete." However, even at the time of its introduction, Soviet military strategists had always desired an infantry rifle with more firepower than the SKS. They needed a weapon that better permitted the infantry to give massed automatic fire during an offensive. Military historian Edward Ezell suggested that the SKS was always intended to be an interim solution, and the Soviets simply pushed it into production because they wanted any rifle chambered for the 7.62x39mm cartridge in general service as soon as possible, while a select-fire assault rifle was still being perfected.
In June 1955, the Soviet Union hosted a military and civilian delegation from the People's Republic of China led by General Zhao Erlu. The Chinese delegation was given a tour of the Tula Arms Plant, where they observed the assembly of SKS carbines. General Erlu expressed an interest in acquiring the technology for the SKS, as China had previously only been granted a license to produce the Mosin-Nagant, which was by then a rather antiquidated design. After negotiations between Mao Zedong and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet Union agreed to transfer the technology for the SKS, as well as the AK-47 and the 7.62x39mm cartridge. Parallel production lines for the SKS and the AK-47 were set up in China the following year. Chinese production of the SKS continued for decades after it ceased in the Soviet Union, and over nine million had been manufactured as the Type 56 carbine in that country by the 1980s.
In terms of production numbers, the SKS was the ninth most produced self-loading rifle design in history. Nearly all the Warsaw Pact member states adopted the SKS at one time or another, and technical specifications to produce the carbine were shared with the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and Romania. With the assistance of Soviet or Chinese technicians and generous military grants, armaments factories producing SKS carbines were later established in North Vietnam, North Korea, Yugoslavia, and Albania as well.
While remaining far less ubiquitous than the AK-47, both original Soviet rifles and foreign variants can still be found today in civilian hands as well as in the arsenals of insurgent groups and paramilitary forces around the world. The SKS has been circulated in up to 69 countries, both by national governments and non-state actors. In 2016, it was still being widely circulated among civilians and non-state actors in at least five of those countries and remained in the reserve and training inventories of over 50 national armies.
Service history
A few years after the SKS was brought into service in 1949, it was rendered obsolete for the Soviet military by the new AK-47, which was adopted in increasing numbers by Soviet front-line units throughout the 1950s. The SKS was used by Soviet troops and Hungarian partisans alike during the 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Thereafter, while the SKS was retained for various auxiliary duties, it ceased to have any real military significance in the Soviet Union. Only a small number remained in active service, mostly with support units, until the 1980s. However, the SKS found a longer second life in the service of various Soviet-aligned nations, in particular the People's Republic of China. The Chinese state manufactured it for decades after production had ceased in the Soviet Union, mainly to arm its vast military reserves and militia forces. The SKS was also in general issue with regular units of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) for thirty years as the Type 56 carbine. In 1978, the typical PLA infantry battalion was armed with 360 Type 56 carbines and 221 Type 56 assault rifles. PLA forces armed primarily with Type 56 carbines fought Soviet troops armed primarily with AK-47s during the Sino-Soviet border conflict. During the Sino-Vietnamese War, PLA infantry still armed primarily with Type 56 carbines engaged Vietnamese infantry armed with the same weapon and its Soviet equivalent. The conflict was notable in that both sides commonly fielded the Type 56/SKS alongside AK-pattern automatic rifles, although the Vietnamese forces had largely transitioned to the latter while the PLA had not.
Before adopting domestic AK-47 derivatives, a number of non-aligned nations such as Egypt and Yugoslavia adopted the SKS as a standard service rifle. The Egyptian Army used the SKS extensively during the Suez Crisis, and a number were captured and evaluated by Western intelligence agencies in the aftermath of that conflict. Some Egyptian forces were still armed with the SKS as late as the Six Day War, which saw thousands of the carbines captured by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). During its own evaluation of the weapon, the IDF described the SKS as "first rate in several respects" but noted the difficulty of loading the fixed magazine quickly with stripper clips, especially during night fighting operations when visibility was poor.
Beginning in the 1960s, vast quantities of obsolete and redundant SKS carbines from military reserve stocks were donated by the Soviet Union and China to left-wing guerrilla movements around the world. The increasing ubiquity of the SKS altered the dynamics of asymmetric warfare in developing nations and colonial territories, where most guerrillas had previously been armed with bolt-action rifles. For example, the SKS served as one of the primary arms of the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War. The weapon type was encountered so frequently by the United States Armed Forces in Vietnam that captured examples were used by opposing force (OPFOR) units during training exercises designed to simulate battlefield conditions there as early as 1969. Captured SKS carbines were also prized as war trophies among individual US military personnel, and a number were brought back to the United States by returning veterans over the course of the Vietnam conflict.
The SKS found particular favour in southern Africa, where it was used by a number of insurgent armies fighting to overthrow colonial rule in Angola, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), and South West Africa (Namibia). The National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) used Type 56 carbines during its long-running insurgency against the postcolonial Angolan government from 1975 to 2002. The SKS was also used in large quantities by uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), armed wing of the African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa. Between 1963 and 1990, the Soviet Union shipped 3,362 SKS carbines to MK through the guerrillas' external sanctuaries in Angola and Tanzania. SKS carbines captured from MK by the South African security forces were used to arm militias of the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) during its internal power struggle with the ANC in the 1980s and 1990s.
East Germany and the Soviet Union both armed various factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) with SKS carbines from the 1950s through the 1970s; these were used against the IDF and in various internecine clashes during the Lebanese Civil War. The Soviet carbines were initially shipped to PLO training camps in Egypt, where the Egyptian Army provided instructors to train PLO fighters in their use.
A number of Type 56 carbines were acquired and used alongside the more ubiquitous AK-pattern rifles by the Provisional Irish Republican Army during the Troubles. China also supplied the Afghan mujahidin with Type 56 carbines during the early years of the Soviet–Afghan War. During the Dhofar Rebellion, SKS carbines were smuggled into Oman by sea, most likely by the Soviet Union, to arm Popular Front for the Liberation of Oman (PFLO) insurgents there. The Eritrean Liberation Front used large numbers of SKS carbines during the Eritrean War of Independence. The Communist Party of Thailand (CPT) used the SKS during its insurgency until the early 1980s, when it ceased militant operations. Cuban and Grenadian military forces used the SKS during the 1983 US invasion of Grenada. The US Army captured 4,074 SKS carbines during the invasion, mostly from arms depots.
By the early 1980s, the SKS had been almost entirely superseded in worldwide military service by the AK-47 and its derivatives. The increasing proliferation of cheap AK-pattern rifles in most asymmetric conflicts also ended the popularity of the SKS as a standard guerrilla arm. At that time, the majority of the remaining carbines still in active use were being issued to state-sponsored militias and other paramilitary formations for internal security duties. Following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, SKS carbines proliferated in various civil wars and regional conflicts throughout the former Soviet republics, including the War in Abkhazia, War of Dagestan, and the war in Donbas. In 2016, the SKS remained in the reserve stockpiles of over 50 national armies, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa and the former Soviet bloc.
Variants
After World War II, the SKS design was licensed or sold to a number of the Soviet Union's allies, including China, Yugoslavia, Albania, North Korea, North Vietnam, East Germany, Romania, and Poland. Most of these nations produced nearly identical variants, with the most common modifications being differing styles of bayonets and the 22 mm rifle grenade launcher commonly seen on Yugoslavian models.
Soviet
Differences from the "baseline" late Russian Tula Armory/Izhevsk Armory SKS:
Variations (1949–1958): Early Spike-style bayonet (1949) instead of blade-style. Spring-return firing pin was present on early models, and they did not have chrome bores (1949 – early 1951). The gas block had three changes: The first production stage gas block, used from 1949 through early 1950, was squared-off at a 90-degree angle. The second gas block production stage was instead cut at a 45-degree angle, seen on late 1950 to 1951 rifles. The third and final gas block stage, from 1952 through to 1956, was curved inward slightly toward the action.
Honor Guard: All-chrome metal parts, with a lighter-colored wood stock.
OP-SKS. Many military surplus Soviet SKS were converted into hunting rifles by the Molot ("Hammer") factory in Vyatskiye Polyany (Russian: Вятско-Полянский машиностроительный завод «Молот», English: Vyatskiye Polyany Machine-Building Plant). These were labeled OP (OP = охотничье-промысловый > okhotnich'ye-promyslovyy > "commercial hunting (carbine)"). The OP-SKS continued to be manufactured into the 2000s.
Chinese
Type 56 (1956–today): Numerous minor tweaks, including lack of milling on the bolt carrier, partially or fully stamped (as opposed to milled) receivers, and differing types of thumb rest on the take down lever. The Chinese continually revised the SKS manufacturing process, so variation can be seen even between two examples from the same factory. All of the Type 56 carbine rifles have been removed from military service, except a few being used for ceremonial purposes and by local Chinese Militias. Type 56 carbines with serial numbers below 9,000,000 have the Russian-style blade-type folding bayonet, while those 9,000,000 and higher have a "spike" type folding bayonet. Some early examples are known as "Sino-Soviet", meaning they were produced by China, but with cooperation from Russian "advisers" who helped regulate the factories and provided the design specifications and perhaps even Soviet-manufactured parts. Bangladesh Ordnance Factories produced Type 56 under license until 2006.
Experimental stamped receiver: Very rare. A small number of Type 56 SKS rifles were manufactured with experimental stamped sheet metal receivers as a cost and weight saving measure but did not enter large scale production.
Honor Guard: Mostly, but not all, chromed metal parts. Does not generally have the lighter-colored stock as the Soviet Honor Guard variant.
Type 63, 68, 73, 81, 84: these rifles shared features from several East-Bloc rifles (SKS, AK-47, Dragunov). AK-47 style rotary bolt and detachable magazine. The Type 63 featured a stamped sheet-steel receiver. The Type 81 is an upgraded Type 63 with a three-round burst capability, some of which (Type 81–1) have a folding stock. The Type 84 (known as an SKK) returns to semi-auto fire only, is modified to accept AK-47 magazines, and has a shorter paratrooper barrel. However, Chinese Type 84s could not accept AK mags without some handfitting, and the mags were serialized. In addition, AK mags don't work with the SKS bolt-hold-open system, so the Type 84 used a button on top of the bolt carrier to lock it into place.
Commercial production: Blonde wood ("Chu wood"/"Qiu wood") stock instead of dark wood, spike bayonet instead of blade, bayonet retaining bolt replaced with a rivet. Sub-variants include the M21, "Cowboy's Companion", Hunter, Models D/M, Paratrooper, Sharpshooter, and Sporter.
Model D rifles used military style stocks and had bayonet lugs (although some were imported eliminated bayonet, and some examples eliminated the lug to meet changing US import restrictions).
Model M rifles had no bayonet lug and used either a thumb hole or Monte Carlo–style stock. Both Model D and M used AK-47 magazines and as a result had no bolt hold open feature on the rifle.
Other European
Romanian M56: Produced between 1957 and 1960. Typically, they are identical or nearly identical to the late Soviet model.
Polish SKS (ksS): Refurbished Soviet rifles. Polish laminated stocks lack storage area in back of stock for cleaning kit. A few hundred SKS's were given to Poland by the Soviet Union around 1954. While never adopted for use by combat units, the SKS is still in use in ceremonial units of the Polish Army, Air Force, Navy where they replaced SVT rifles. Honor guards of the Polish Police and Border Guard also use SKS carbines. In Polish service they are known as ksS which stands for karabin samopowtarzalny Simonowa, Simonov's semi-automatic rifle. These rifles since have been slowly replaced by the new Polish rifle design, the MSBS.
Yugoslavian PAP M59: Manufactured by Zastava Arms between 1959 and 1966. Barrel is not chrome-lined. PAP stands for "Polu-automatska puška" (Semi-automatic rifle) and the rifle was nicknamed "Papovka". Otherwise this rifle is nearly identical to the Soviet version. Many were converted to the M59/66 variant during refurbishment.
Yugoslavian PAP M59/66: Produced between 1967 and 1989. Added 22 mm rifle grenade launcher which appears visually like a flash suppressor or muzzle brake on the end of the barrel. Front sight has a fold-up "ladder" for use in grenade sighting. To raise the grenade sight, the gas port must be manually blocked and the action must be manually cycled—rifle grenades must be fired with special blank cartridges, and this feature helps ensure that the gas pressure is not wasted on cycling the action. The gas port must be manually opened to again allow semi-automatic operation. Barrel was not chrome-lined. Both the grenade launcher and grenade sight are NATO spec. Stock is typically made from beech wood.
Yugoslavian PAP M59/66A1: Same as above, except with the addition of flip up phosphorescent or tritium night sights.
Albanian SKS: Produced between 1967 and 1978. There were no rifles produced from 1972 to 1975. Produced by the UM GRAMSH factory located in Gramsh, Albania. Longer stock and handguard on the gas tube, and AK style charging handle. The magazine is slightly different in the shape visible from the outside. The stock has two compartments with two corresponding holes in the buttplate for cleaning implements instead of the single cleaning kit pocket. Like the Chinese Type 56 carbine, the Albanian version also features a spike bayonet fixed beneath the muzzle.
East German Karabiner-S: Extremely rare. Slot cut into back of stock for pull-through sling, similar to the slot in a Karabiner 98k. No storage area in back of stock or storage for cleaning rod under barrel. It is believed to have been produced at the J.P. Sauer & Sohn facility in Suhl.
Other Asian
North Korean Type 63: At least three separate models were made. One "standard" model with blade bayonet, and a second with a gas shutoff and a grenade launcher, similar to the M59/66. The North Korean grenade launcher was detachable from the muzzle and the gas shutoff was different from the Yugoslavian model, however. A third model appears to have side-swinging bayonet.
Vietnamese Type 1: Nearly identical to both the Soviet and early Chinese SKS. These are identified by a small star on the receiver with a 1 in the center. The barrel is chromed, as are many of the internal parts. They were assembled in a small arms factory with Chinese assistance located 12 km north of Yên Bái with 6,000 SKS rifles made between 1962 and 1965 when the factory was closed to American bombing raids.
Vietnamese clone: The Viet Cong manufactured somewhat rudimentary copies of the SKS, which are sometimes seen with crude finish and obvious tool markings.
Conflicts
In the more than 70 years of use worldwide, the SKS has seen use in conflicts all over the world.
Korean War
Algerian War
Bangladesh Liberation War
Suez crisis
Vietnam War
Hungarian Revolution of 1956
Portuguese Colonial War
Rhodesian Bush War
South African Border War
The Troubles
Six Day War
Sino-Soviet border conflict
Ethiopian Civil War
Lebanese Civil War
Shaba II
Soviet–Afghan War
Tuareg rebellion (1990–1995)
Yugoslav Wars
War in Abkhazia (1992–1993)
Algerian Civil War
Burundian Civil War
Republic of the Congo Civil War (1997–99)
1999 East Timorese crisis
Iraq War
Kivu conflict
Northern Mali conflict
War in Donbas (2014–2022)
Users
– ceremonial purposes
– Bangladesh Ordnance Factories produced Chinese Type 56 under license till 2006. Currently used by BGB, police and BNCC.
: National Guards Unit
: Type 56 variant. Used for ceremonial purposes.
: Type 56 variant.
Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (in Democratic Republic of Congo)
– ceremonial purposes
- ceremonial purposes
: Used by the Kenya Police Reserve.
: used by the Palestinian Honor Guard. SKS were also used by PLO troops in the 1970s
– ceremonial use
– ceremonial purposes
: Used as ceremonial rifle
– ceremonial purposes
: Ceremonial and militia purposes.
: Zastava M59 variant.
: Type 56 variant; ceremonial and militia purposes.
Former users
: Type 56 variant.
: Retired from front-line service in the mid-1950s, retired from second-line service in the 1980s.
: Zastava M59/66 variant.
Commercial sales and sporting use
United States
Initially, the SKS was a rarity in the US, with the only examples being souvenirs brought back by returning veterans of the Vietnam War. Beginning in 1988, thousands of surplus and newly manufactured Chinese Type 56 carbines were imported in the US. Russia also began exporting the SKS to the US during the early 1990s as well.
Due to the high volume of initial imports, the SKS became one of the most affordable centerfire rifles available to American sports shooters, retailing at an average of $70 per weapon in 1994. Between 1988 and 1998, several million SKS carbines exported from China and the former Soviet Union were sold on the commercial market in the US.
Canada
The SKS rifle is very popular in Canada, with some users referring to it as “Canada’s rifle.”
While the SKS is imported for commercial sales in Canada, it is affected by Canadian firearms legislation, which prohibits high capacity magazines.
Under Canadian law, the SKS is classified as a non-restricted firearm provided the magazine has been modified to accept five rounds or retrofitted with entirely new five-shot magazines. When the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau introduced an amendment to the pending Bill C-21 that would have expanded and changed the basis for classifying assault weapons under the law, the resulting ban on the SKS was a particular point of contention because it is widely used for hunting, notably by First Nations in Canada. The leadership of the Assembly of First Nations voted unanimously to express opposition to the amendment. The amendment was eventually withdrawn due to the widespread opposition.
See also
vz. 52 rifle
References
External links
Soviet SKS Operation Manual from 1974
Simonov SKS (CKC45g)
Why is the SKS Rifle Popular?
7.62×39mm semi-automatic rifles
Cold War firearms of the Soviet Union
Semi-automatic rifles of the Soviet Union
Weapons and ammunition introduced in 1945
World War II infantry weapons of the Soviet Union
World War II semi-automatic rifles
Carbines
Short stroke piston firearms
Rifles of the Cold War
Infantry weapons of the Cold War
Tula Arms Plant products |
420159 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Item%20response%20theory | Item response theory | In psychometrics, item response theory (IRT) (also known as latent trait theory, strong true score theory, or modern mental test theory) is a paradigm for the design, analysis, and scoring of tests, questionnaires, and similar instruments measuring abilities, attitudes, or other variables. It is a theory of testing based on the relationship between individuals' performances on a test item and the test takers' levels of performance on an overall measure of the ability that item was designed to measure. Several different statistical models are used to represent both item and test taker characteristics. Unlike simpler alternatives for creating scales and evaluating questionnaire responses, it does not assume that each item is equally difficult. This distinguishes IRT from, for instance, Likert scaling, in which "All items are assumed to be replications of each other or in other words items are considered to be parallel instruments". By contrast, item response theory treats the difficulty of each item (the item characteristic curves, or ICCs) as information to be incorporated in scaling items.
It is based on the application of related mathematical models to testing data. Because it is often regarded as superior to classical test theory, it is the preferred method for developing scales in the United States, especially when optimal decisions are demanded, as in so-called high-stakes tests, e.g., the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) and Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT).
The name item response theory is due to the focus of the theory on the item, as opposed to the test-level focus of classical test theory. Thus IRT models the response of each examinee of a given ability to each item in the test. The term item is generic, covering all kinds of informative items. They might be multiple choice questions that have incorrect and correct responses, but are also commonly statements on questionnaires that allow respondents to indicate level of agreement (a rating or Likert scale), or patient symptoms scored as present/absent, or diagnostic information in complex systems.
IRT is based on the idea that the probability of a correct/keyed response to an item is a mathematical function of person and item parameters. (The expression "a mathematical function of person and item parameters" is analogous to Lewin's equation, B = f(P, E), which asserts that behavior is a function of the person in their environment.) The person parameter is construed as (usually) a single latent trait or dimension. Examples include general intelligence or the strength of an attitude. Parameters on which items are characterized include their difficulty (known as "location" for their location on the difficulty range); discrimination (slope or correlation), representing how steeply the rate of success of individuals varies with their ability; and a pseudoguessing parameter, characterising the (lower) asymptote at which even the least able persons will score due to guessing (for instance, 25% for a pure chance on a multiple choice item with four possible responses).
In the same manner, IRT can be used to measure human behavior in online social networks. The views expressed by different people can be aggregated to be studied using IRT. Its use in classifying information as misinformation or true information has also been evaluated.
Overview
The concept of the item response function was around before 1950. The pioneering work of IRT as a theory occurred during the 1950s and 1960s. Three of the pioneers were the Educational Testing Service psychometrician Frederic M. Lord, the Danish mathematician Georg Rasch, and Austrian sociologist Paul Lazarsfeld, who pursued parallel research independently. Key figures who furthered the progress of IRT include Benjamin Drake Wright and David Andrich. IRT did not become widely used until the late 1970s and 1980s, when practitioners were told the "usefulness" and "advantages" of IRT on the one hand, and personal computers gave many researchers access to the computing power necessary for IRT on the other.
Among other things, the purpose of IRT is to provide a framework for evaluating how well assessments work, and how well individual items on assessments work. The most common application of IRT is in education, where psychometricians use it for developing and designing exams, maintaining banks of items for exams, and equating the difficulties of items for successive versions of exams (for example, to allow comparisons between results over time).
IRT models are often referred to as latent trait models. The term latent is used to emphasize that discrete item responses are taken to be observable manifestations of hypothesized traits, constructs, or attributes, not directly observed, but which must be inferred from the manifest responses. Latent trait models were developed in the field of sociology, but are virtually identical to IRT models.
IRT is generally claimed as an improvement over classical test theory (CTT). For tasks that can be accomplished using CTT, IRT generally brings greater flexibility and provides more sophisticated information. Some applications, such as computerized adaptive testing, are enabled by IRT and cannot reasonably be performed using only classical test theory. Another advantage of IRT over CTT is that the more sophisticated information IRT provides allows a researcher to improve the reliability of an assessment.
IRT entails three assumptions:
A unidimensional trait denoted by ;
Local independence of items;
The response of a person to an item can be modeled by a mathematical item response function (IRF).
The trait is further assumed to be measurable on a scale (the mere existence of a test assumes this), typically set to a standard scale with a mean of 0.0 and a standard deviation of 1.0. Unidimensionality should be interpreted as homogeneity, a quality that should be defined or empirically demonstrated in relation to a given purpose or use, but not a quantity that can be measured. 'Local independence' means (a) that the chance of one item being used is not related to any other item(s) being used and (b) that response to an item is each and every test-taker's independent decision, that is, there is no cheating or pair or group work. The topic of dimensionality is often investigated with factor analysis, while the IRF is the basic building block of IRT and is the center of much of the research and literature.
The item response function
The IRF gives the probability that a person with a given ability level will answer correctly. Persons with lower ability have less of a chance, while persons with high ability are very likely to answer correctly; for example, students with higher math ability are more likely to get a math item correct. The exact value of the probability depends, in addition to ability, on a set of item parameters for the IRF.
Three parameter logistic model
For example, in the three parameter logistic model (3PL), the probability of a correct response to a dichotomous item i, usually a multiple-choice question, is:
where indicates that the person's abilities are modeled as a sample from a normal distribution for the purpose of estimating the item parameters. After the item parameters have been estimated, the abilities of individual people are estimated for reporting purposes. , , and are the item parameters. The item parameters determine the shape of the IRF. Figure 1 depicts an ideal 3PL ICC.
The item parameters can be interpreted as changing the shape of the standard logistic function:
In brief, the parameters are interpreted as follows (dropping subscripts for legibility); b is most basic, hence listed first:
b – difficulty, item location: the half-way point between (min) and 1 (max), also where the slope is maximized.
a – discrimination, scale, slope: the maximum slope
c – pseudo-guessing, chance, asymptotic minimum
If then these simplify to and meaning that b equals the 50% success level (difficulty), and a (divided by four) is the maximum slope (discrimination), which occurs at the 50% success level. Further, the logit (log odds) of a correct response is (assuming ): in particular if ability θ equals difficulty b, there are even odds (1:1, so logit 0) of a correct answer, the greater the ability is above (or below) the difficulty the more (or less) likely a correct response, with discrimination a determining how rapidly the odds increase or decrease with ability.
In other words, the standard logistic function has an asymptotic minimum of 0 (), is centered around 0 (, ), and has maximum slope The parameter stretches the horizontal scale, the parameter shifts the horizontal scale, and the compresses the vertical scale from to This is elaborated below.
The parameter represents the item location which, in the case of attainment testing, is referred to as the item difficulty. It is the point on where the IRF has its maximum slope, and where the value is half-way between the minimum value of and the maximum value of 1. The example item is of medium difficulty since =0.0, which is near the center of the distribution. Note that this model scales the item's difficulty and the person's trait onto the same continuum. Thus, it is valid to talk about an item being about as hard as Person A's trait level or of a person's trait level being about the same as Item Y's difficulty, in the sense that successful performance of the task involved with an item reflects a specific level of ability.
The item parameter represents the discrimination of the item: that is, the degree to which the item discriminates between persons in different regions on the latent continuum. This parameter characterizes the slope of the IRF where the slope is at its maximum. The example item has =1.0, which discriminates fairly well; persons with low ability do indeed have a much smaller chance of correctly responding than persons of higher ability. This discrimination parameter corresponds to the weighting coefficient of the respective item or indicator in a standard weighted linear (Ordinary Least Squares, OLS) regression and hence can be used to create a weighted index of indicators for unsupervised measurement of an underlying latent concept.
For items such as multiple choice items, the parameter is used in attempt to account for the effects of guessing on the probability of a correct response. It indicates the probability that very low ability individuals will get this item correct by chance, mathematically represented as a lower asymptote. A four-option multiple choice item might have an IRF like the example item; there is a 1/4 chance of an extremely low ability candidate guessing the correct answer, so the would be approximately 0.25. This approach assumes that all options are equally plausible, because if one option made no sense, even the lowest ability person would be able to discard it, so IRT parameter estimation methods take this into account and estimate a based on the observed data.
IRT models
Broadly speaking, IRT models can be divided into two families: unidimensional and multidimensional. Unidimensional models require a single trait (ability) dimension . Multidimensional IRT models model response data hypothesized to arise from multiple traits. However, because of the greatly increased complexity, the majority of IRT research and applications utilize a unidimensional model.
IRT models can also be categorized based on the number of scored responses. The typical multiple choice item is dichotomous; even though there may be four or five options, it is still scored only as correct/incorrect (right/wrong). Another class of models apply to polytomous outcomes, where each response has a different score value. A common example of this is Likert-type items, e.g., "Rate on a scale of 1 to 5."
Number of IRT parameters
Dichotomous IRT models are described by the number of parameters they make use of. The 3PL is named so because it employs three item parameters. The two-parameter model (2PL) assumes that the data have no guessing, but that items can vary in terms of location () and discrimination (). The one-parameter model (1PL) assumes that guessing is a part of the ability and that all items that fit the model have equivalent discriminations, so that items are only described by a single parameter (). This results in one-parameter models having the property of specific objectivity, meaning that the rank of the item difficulty is the same for all respondents independent of ability, and that the rank of the person ability is the same for items independently of difficulty. Thus, 1 parameter models are sample independent, a property that does not hold for two-parameter and three-parameter models. Additionally, there is theoretically a four-parameter model (4PL), with an upper asymptote, denoted by where in the 3PL is replaced by . However, this is rarely used. Note that the alphabetical order of the item parameters does not match their practical or psychometric importance; the location/difficulty () parameter is clearly most important because it is included in all three models. The 1PL uses only , the 2PL uses and , the 3PL adds , and the 4PL adds .
The 2PL is equivalent to the 3PL model with , and is appropriate for testing items where guessing the correct answer is highly unlikely, such as fill-in-the-blank items ("What is the square root of 121?"), or where the concept of guessing does not apply, such as personality, attitude, or interest items (e.g., "I like Broadway musicals. Agree/Disagree").
The 1PL assumes not only that guessing is not present (or irrelevant), but that all items are equivalent in terms of discrimination, analogous to a common factor analysis with identical loadings for all items. Individual items or individuals might have secondary factors but these are assumed to be mutually independent and collectively orthogonal.
Logistic and normal IRT models
An alternative formulation constructs IRFs based on the normal probability distribution; these are sometimes called normal ogive models. For example, the formula for a two-parameter normal-ogive IRF is:
where Φ is the cumulative distribution function (CDF) of the standard normal distribution.
The normal-ogive model derives from the assumption of normally distributed measurement error and is theoretically appealing on that basis. Here is, again, the difficulty parameter. The discrimination parameter is , the standard deviation of the measurement error for item i, and comparable to 1/.
One can estimate a normal-ogive latent trait model by factor-analyzing a matrix of tetrachoric correlations between items. This means it is technically possible to estimate a simple IRT model using general-purpose statistical software.
With rescaling of the ability parameter, it is possible to make the 2PL logistic model closely approximate the cumulative normal ogive. Typically, the 2PL logistic and normal-ogive IRFs differ in probability by no more than 0.01 across the range of the function. The difference is greatest in the distribution tails, however, which tend to have more influence on results.
The latent trait/IRT model was originally developed using normal ogives, but this was considered too computationally demanding for the computers at the time (1960s). The logistic model was proposed as a simpler alternative, and has enjoyed wide use since. More recently, however, it was demonstrated that, using standard polynomial approximations to the normal CDF, the normal-ogive model is no more computationally demanding than logistic models.
The Rasch model
The Rasch model is often considered to be the 1PL IRT model. However, proponents of Rasch modeling prefer to view it as a completely different approach to conceptualizing the relationship between data and theory. Like other statistical modeling approaches, IRT emphasizes the primacy of the fit of a model to observed data, while the Rasch model emphasizes the primacy of the requirements for fundamental measurement, with adequate data-model fit being an important but secondary requirement to be met before a test or research instrument can be claimed to measure a trait. Operationally, this means that the IRT approaches include additional model parameters to reflect the patterns observed in the data (e.g., allowing items to vary in their correlation with the latent trait), whereas in the Rasch approach, claims regarding the presence of a latent trait can only be considered valid when both (a) the data fit the Rasch model, and (b) test items and examinees conform to the model. Therefore, under Rasch models, misfitting responses require diagnosis of the reason for the misfit, and may be excluded from the data set if one can explain substantively why they do not address the latent trait. Thus, the Rasch approach can be seen to be a confirmatory approach, as opposed to exploratory approaches that attempt to model the observed data.
The presence or absence of a guessing or pseudo-chance parameter is a major and sometimes controversial distinction. The IRT approach includes a left asymptote parameter to account for guessing in multiple choice examinations, while the Rasch model does not because it is assumed that guessing adds randomly distributed noise to the data. As the noise is randomly distributed, it is assumed that, provided sufficient items are tested, the rank-ordering of persons along the latent trait by raw score will not change, but will simply undergo a linear rescaling. By contrast, three-parameter IRT achieves data-model fit by selecting a model that fits the data, at the expense of sacrificing specific objectivity.
In practice, the Rasch model has at least two principal advantages in comparison to the IRT approach. The first advantage is the primacy of Rasch's specific requirements, which (when met) provides fundamental person-free measurement (where persons and items can be mapped onto the same invariant scale). Another advantage of the Rasch approach is that estimation of parameters is more straightforward in Rasch models due to the presence of sufficient statistics, which in this application means a one-to-one mapping of raw number-correct scores to Rasch estimates.
Analysis of model fit
As with any use of mathematical models, it is important to assess the fit of the data to the model. If item misfit with any model is diagnosed as due to poor item quality, for example confusing distractors in a multiple-choice test, then the items may be removed from that test form and rewritten or replaced in future test forms. If, however, a large number of misfitting items occur with no apparent reason for the misfit, the construct validity of the test will need to be reconsidered and the test specifications may need to be rewritten. Thus, misfit provides invaluable diagnostic tools for test developers, allowing the hypotheses upon which test specifications are based to be empirically tested against data.
There are several methods for assessing fit, such as a Chi-square statistic, or a standardized version of it. Two and three-parameter IRT models adjust item discrimination, ensuring improved data-model fit, so fit statistics lack the confirmatory diagnostic value found in one-parameter models, where the idealized model is specified in advance.
Data should not be removed on the basis of misfitting the model, but rather because a construct relevant reason for the misfit has been diagnosed, such as a non-native speaker of English taking a science test written in English. Such a candidate can be argued to not belong to the same population of persons depending on the dimensionality of the test, and, although one parameter IRT measures are argued to be sample-independent, they are not population independent, so misfit such as this is construct relevant and does not invalidate the test or the model. Such an approach is an essential tool in instrument validation. In two and three-parameter models, where the psychometric model is adjusted to fit the data, future administrations of the test must be checked for fit to the same model used in the initial validation in order to confirm the hypothesis that scores from each administration generalize to other administrations. If a different model is specified for each administration in order to achieve data-model fit, then a different latent trait is being measured and test scores cannot be argued to be comparable between administrations.
Information
One of the major contributions of item response theory is the extension of the concept of reliability. Traditionally, reliability refers to the precision of measurement (i.e., the degree to which measurement is free of error). Traditionally, it is measured using a single index defined in various ways, such as the ratio of true and observed score variance. This index is helpful in characterizing a test's average reliability, for example in order to compare two tests. But IRT makes it clear that precision is not uniform across the entire range of test scores. Scores at the edges of the test's range, for example, generally have more error associated with them than scores closer to the middle of the range.
Item response theory advances the concept of item and test information to replace reliability. Information is also a function of the model parameters. For example, according to Fisher information theory, the item information supplied in the case of the 1PL for dichotomous response data is simply the probability of a correct response multiplied by the probability of an incorrect response, or,
The standard error of estimation (SE) is the reciprocal of the test information of at a given trait level, is the
Thus more information implies less error of measurement.
For other models, such as the two and three parameters models, the discrimination parameter plays an important role in the function. The item information function for the two parameter model is
The item information function for the three parameter model is
In general, item information functions tend to look bell-shaped. Highly discriminating items have tall, narrow information functions; they contribute greatly but over a narrow range. Less discriminating items provide less information but over a wider range.
Plots of item information can be used to see how much information an item contributes and to what portion of the scale score range. Because of local independence, item information functions are additive. Thus, the test information function is simply the sum of the information functions of the items on the exam. Using this property with a large item bank, test information functions can be shaped to control measurement error very precisely.
Characterizing the accuracy of test scores is perhaps the central issue in psychometric theory and is a chief difference between IRT and CTT. IRT findings reveal that the CTT concept of reliability is a simplification. In the place of reliability, IRT offers the test information function which shows the degree of precision at different values of theta, θ.
These results allow psychometricians to (potentially) carefully shape the level of reliability for different ranges of ability by including carefully chosen items. For example, in a certification situation in which a test can only be passed or failed, where there is only a single "cutscore," and where the actual passing score is unimportant, a very efficient test can be developed by selecting only items that have high information near the cutscore. These items generally correspond to items whose difficulty is about the same as that of the cutscore.
Scoring
The person parameter represents the magnitude of latent trait of the individual, which is the human capacity or attribute measured by the test. It might be a cognitive ability, physical ability, skill, knowledge, attitude, personality characteristic, etc.
The estimate of the person parameter - the "score" on a test with IRT - is computed and interpreted in a very different manner as compared to traditional scores like number or percent correct. The individual's total number-correct score is not the actual score, but is rather based on the IRFs, leading to a weighted score when the model contains item discrimination parameters. It is actually obtained by multiplying the item response function for each item to obtain a likelihood function, the highest point of which is the maximum likelihood estimate of . This highest point is typically estimated with IRT software using the Newton–Raphson method. While scoring is much more sophisticated with IRT, for most tests, the correlation between the theta estimate and a traditional score is very high; often it is 0.95 or more [citation?]. A graph of IRT scores against traditional scores shows an ogive shape implying that the IRT estimates separate individuals at the borders of the range more than in the middle.
An important difference between CTT and IRT is the treatment of measurement error, indexed by the standard error of measurement. All tests, questionnaires, and inventories are imprecise tools; we can never know a person's true score, but rather only have an estimate, the observed score. There is some amount of random error which may push the observed score higher or lower than the true score. CTT assumes that the amount of error is the same for each examinee, but IRT allows it to vary.
Also, nothing about IRT refutes human development or improvement or assumes that a trait level is fixed. A person may learn skills, knowledge or even so called "test-taking skills" which may translate to a higher true-score. In fact, a portion of IRT research focuses on the measurement of change in trait level.
A comparison of classical and item response theories
Classical test theory (CTT) and IRT are largely concerned with the same problems but are different bodies of theory and entail different methods. Although the two paradigms are generally consistent and complementary, there are a number of points of difference:
IRT makes stronger assumptions than CTT and in many cases provides correspondingly stronger findings; primarily, characterizations of error. Of course, these results only hold when the assumptions of the IRT models are actually met.
Although CTT results have allowed important practical results, the model-based nature of IRT affords many advantages over analogous CTT findings.
CTT test scoring procedures have the advantage of being simple to compute (and to explain) whereas IRT scoring generally requires relatively complex estimation procedures.
IRT provides several improvements in scaling items and people. The specifics depend upon the IRT model, but most models scale the difficulty of items and the ability of people on the same metric. Thus the difficulty of an item and the ability of a person can be meaningfully compared.
Another improvement provided by IRT is that the parameters of IRT models are generally not sample- or test-dependent whereas true-score is defined in CTT in the context of a specific test. Thus IRT provides significantly greater flexibility in situations where different samples or test forms are used. These IRT findings are foundational for computerized adaptive testing.
It is worth also mentioning some specific similarities between CTT and IRT which help to understand the correspondence between concepts. First, Lord showed that under the assumption that is normally distributed, discrimination in the 2PL model is approximately a monotonic function of the point-biserial correlation. In particular:
where is the point biserial correlation of item i. Thus, if the assumption holds, where there is a higher discrimination there will generally be a higher point-biserial correlation.
Another similarity is that while IRT provides for a standard error of each estimate and an information function, it is also possible to obtain an index for a test as a whole which is directly analogous to Cronbach's alpha, called the separation index. To do so, it is necessary to begin with a decomposition of an IRT estimate into a true location and error, analogous to decomposition of an observed score into a true score and error in CTT. Let
where is the true location, and is the error association with an estimate. Then is an estimate of the standard deviation of for person with a given weighted score and the separation index is obtained as follows
where the mean squared standard error of person estimate gives an estimate of the variance of the errors, , across persons. The standard errors are normally produced as a by-product of the estimation process. The separation index is typically very close in value to Cronbach's alpha.
IRT is sometimes called strong true score theory or modern mental test theory because it is a more recent body of theory and makes more explicit the hypotheses that are implicit within CTT.
See also
References
Further reading
Many books have been written that address item response theory or contain IRT or IRT-like models. This is a partial list, focusing on texts that provide more depth.
Lord, F.M. (1980). Applications of item response theory to practical testing problems.'' Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
This book summaries much of Lord's IRT work, including chapters on the relationship between IRT and classical methods, fundamentals of IRT, estimation, and several advanced topics. Its estimation chapter is now dated in that it primarily discusses joint maximum likelihood method rather than the marginal maximum likelihood method implemented by Darrell Bock and his colleagues.
This book is an accessible introduction to IRT, aimed, as the title says, at psychologists.
Baker, Frank (2001). The Basics of Item Response Theory. ERIC Clearinghouse on Assessment and Evaluation, University of Maryland, College Park, MD.
This introductory book is by one of the pioneers in the field, and is available online at
This book describes various item response theory models and furnishes detailed explanations of algorithms that can be used to estimate the item and ability parameters. Portions of the book are available online as limited preview at Google Books.
This book provides a comprehensive overview regarding various popular IRT models. It is well suited for persons who already have gained basic understanding of IRT.
This volume shows an integrated introduction to item response models, mainly aimed at practitioners, researchers and graduate students.
This book discusses the Bayesian approach towards item response modeling. The book will be useful for persons (who are familiar with IRT) with an interest in analyzing item response data from a Bayesian perspective.
External links
"HISTORY OF ITEM RESPONSE THEORY (up to 1982)", University of Illinois at Chicago
A Simple Guide to the Item Response Theory(PDF)
Psychometric Software Downloads
IRT Tutorial
IRT Tutorial FAQ
An introduction to IRT
The Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing
IRT Command Language (ICL) computer program
IRT Programs from SSI, Inc.
Latent Trait Analysis and IRT Models
Rasch analysis
Rasch Analysis Programs from Winsteps
Item Response Theory
Free IRT software
IRT Packages in R
IRT / EIRT support in Lertap 5
Visual IRT analysis and reporting with Xcalibre
Psychometrics
Latent variable models
Comparison of assessments
Statistical reliability |
420162 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAI | RAI | (), commercially styled as Rai since 2000 and known until 1954 as , is the national public broadcasting company of Italy, owned by the Ministry of Economy and Finance. RAI operates many terrestrial and subscription television channels and radio stations. It is one of the biggest broadcasters in Italy, competing with Mediaset and other minor radio and television networks. RAI has a relatively high television audience share of 35.9%.
RAI broadcasts are also received in surrounding countries, including Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, France, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, San Marino, Slovenia, Switzerland, Serbia, Tunisia and the Vatican City, and elsewhere on pay television and some channels FTA across Europe including UK on the Hotbird satellite. Half of RAI's revenues come from broadcast receiving licence fees, the remainder from the sale of advertising time. In 1950, RAI became one of the 23 founding members of the European Broadcasting Union.
Structure
RAI is 99% owned by the Italian Government Ministry of Economy and Finance and is the sole licensee () of the radio, television, and multimedia broadcasting public service. For this reason, the agreement with the Government prescribes a series of rules and guarantees that Rai must follow to ensure fair public service to the citizens.
Management and Board of Directors are elected by the ruling Parliament through the Parliamentary Commission for the General Direction and Supervision of Broadcasting Services (), every three years, in agreement with almost all parliamentary exponents, usually following the political side of the majority and leaving some space for minor roles to minority parties exponents.
RAI is formally a private joint-stock company (), although all stocks are state-owned; its company statute describes how the strict relationship with the Republic is also ruled by different national laws. The most recent one is the 2015 , or "RAI Reform", i.e. the 2015 law no. 220, including the ("Consolidated Law on Radio and Television"). RAI and broadcasting are supervised by the commission, which rules also economic budgets and main regulations, including public service's electoral segments during electoral campaigns.
History
1924
(URI) was formed in 1924 with the backing of the Marconi Company following a model adopted in other European countries. URI made its inaugural broadcast — a speech by Benito Mussolini (1883–1945) at Teatro Costanzi — on 5 October. Regular programming began the following evening, with a quartet performing Haydn's Quartet No. 7 in A major from Palazzo Corradi. At 21.00 CET, Ines Donarelli Viviani announced for the first time: " Rome station 1RO 425 metres wavelength. To all those who are listening our greetings, good evening". Guglielmo Marconi's () held 85% of URI shares and Western Electric's (SIRAC) held the remaining 15%.
Under the provisions of Royal Decree No. 1067 of 8 February 1923, wireless broadcasting became a state monopoly under the control of the Ministry of Posts and Telegraphs; URI was commissioned to provide services for a minimum of six years pursuant to Royal Decree No. 2191 of 14 October 1924 . When URI's contract expired in 1927, it was succeeded under Royal Decree Law No. 2207 of 17 November 1927 by the partially nationalised (EIAR), which became (RAI) with investment from (SIP) in 1944.
1940s
During the reconstruction following World War II, much of RAI's early programming was influenced by the "Reithian" style of the BBC. The emphasis was on educational content. Programs like and introduced people to what life was like in other parts of the country, at a time when most people could not afford to travel.
Over the following years, the RAI made various changes to its services. It reorganized its radio stations in November 1946 into two national networks, and ("Red Network" and "Blue Network"). It added the culture-based in October 1950. On 1 January 1952, the became the (focusing on informational content) and the became the (with a greater emphasis on entertainment). The three radio channels eventually became today's Rai Radio 1, Rai Radio 2, and Rai Radio 3.
1950s
In 1954, the state-owned holding company (IRI) became the sole shareholder and URI – now renamed to reflect its extended responsibilities – finally began a regular television service. On 3 January at 11.00 CET, the first RAI television announcer presented the day's schedule, which was broadcast from the service's Milan headquarters and relay stations in Turin and Rome. At 14.30, the first regular programme in Italian television history was broadcast: , hosted by Armando Pizzo and Mike Bongiorno. The evening's entertainment was a theatre performance, , written by Carlo Goldoni. 23.15 saw the start of the day's concluding programme, – the first edition of a weekly series which continues to this day.
2000s
RAI was originally the subsidiary of RAI Holding S.p.A. RAI Holding was absorbed into RAI
as of 1 December 2004, per Article 21 of Law 112/04. The RAI is governed by a nine-member Administrative Council. Seven of the members are elected by a committee of the Italian Parliament. The other two (one of which is the president) are nominated by the largest shareholder: the Ministry of Economic Development. The Council appoints the Director-General. The Director-General and the members of the Administrative Council are appointed for a renewable three-year term.
In 2005, the government of Silvio Berlusconi proposed partial privatisation of RAI by selling 20% of ownership. This proposal was very controversial, in part because Berlusconi was the head of the leading private broadcaster Mediaset. Some critics stated that Mediaset could become the buyer and thus increase its dominant position. After the revelation that RAI would lose €80m ($96m, £54m) in 2006, the privatisation plan was suspended in October 2005.
2010s
On 18 May 2010, Raisat received a major upgrade and re-branded with a new logo and a new name. It and all of the sister channels dropped the sat part from the name and became Rai YoYo, Rai 5 (formerly known as Rai Extra), Rai Premium, and Rai Movie (formerly known as Raisat Cinema). On 11 June 2013, RAI was one of the few European broadcasters to condemn and criticize the closure of Greece's state broadcaster ERT. RAI is 99% owned by the Italian Government Ministry of Economy and Finance, so it is said that it broadcasts content that may politically influence people.
Corporate identity
The Alberto Ribera logo was introduced in 1967, however, this did not have significant application except on studios and portable cameras. A second variation of the Carboni logo was introduced in 1977, which was not officially adopted but appeared in some graphics, including that of the time signal.
Controversy
Political fairness and balance between public service and commercial TV market
Rai's broadcasts content and nominees are frequently accused of political bias, depending both on the management for each channel or programme, and on the lack of meritocracy in contracts with television hosts and also technicians, also concerting cachets and salaries. However, many people underline that Rai needs to balance political equity and public services with the market rules and competitors. All these issues are ongoing.
Rai's main channels are considered slightly politically oriented: Rai 1 is liberal or centre-right, Rai 2 is usually more right-oriented, while Rai 3 typically has the majority of left oriented programmes and hosts Fabio Fazio and Bianca Berlinguer, or the journalistic deep investigation programme Report, famous for its investigations over far-right scandals. This issue in Italy is referred as and is yet to be solved.
Political censorship and civil rights advocacy controversies
Rai is frequently subjected to controversies and censorship accusations regarding political matters, especially civil rights and LGBT issues. The broadcaster was strongly accused in 2008 of cutting the gay love scene of the Oscar-winning movie Brokeback Mountain. Rai initially apologized for the cut, explaining that the cut was due to a pre-cut edition originally planned for the prime-time slot, and wasn't corrected when airing was shifted to the late-night slot. Critics noticed that similar scenes of heterosexual lovers were never cut out before in prime-time and reinforcing the accusation of homophobic censorship.
The company rescheduled a new uncut version of the movie, but this was aired again in an even later time slot, a choice seen as a confirmation of the accusation. Only two years later, the movie aired again with all homosexual sex and kisses cut off. Rai was forced again to apologise, accusing a problem" with the pre-cut edition by the distribution company and a lack of fact-checking by the Rai employee.
In 2011, episode 125 of the German TV Soap Um Himmels Willen (literally "For Heaven's Sake"), shown in Italy since 2004, was entitled Romeo and Romeo and due to screen on Rai 1 but was left out in order to "avoid controversy", according to the broadcaster. In 2016, during the first clear broadcast of the show How to Get Away with Murder, on Rai 2, the gay kisses for one of the main characters (portrayed by Jack Falahee) were completely cut off. Rai apologized again, stating that the incident was "merely the mistake of an overzealous editor". Criticism on the social media platforms was so strong that Falahee and showrunner Shonda Rhimes both tweeted against the network's "inexcusable" censorship.
Fedez controversy
In 2021, another accusation was made against Rai by famous Italian rapper Fedez. During the 1 May , a traditional Italian TV broadcast concert in celebration of the International Workers' Day, the rapper was invited to perform and have a speech on the stage. The rapper honored the entertainment workers affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and spent half of his speech in support of legislation that would punish violence against women and LGBT people as hate crimes in Italy. During his speech, he recalled all the political exponents' hate speech (confirmed by videos or sentenced by court) during the late years, and accused Rai 3's executive of trying censoring his speech by order of superiors as "this is how it works". Rai immediately denied all accusations and Fedez leaked a recorded audio of the conversation between him and the executives, where managers and hosts (declaring their names and roles to him) tried to censor his speech, by "asking you to adapt to a system that you probably don't get".
After the video was reposted by all national media and web news sites, Rai sued the rapper, while a parliamentary investigation was opened. Fedez replied he was proud and ready to face the court, and he said he was available as a testimony for the Rai's Superior Commission. Fedez's accusation was one of the biggest media scandals of Rai, as not only all political parties took sides in the cause (centre and left in favor of the Rapper, including ex-prime ministers Giuseppe Conte and Enrico Letta, while right and far-right parties in favor of Rai, including Matteo Salvini and Giorgia Meloni's colleagues). The scandal increased when the parliamentary commission denied a hearing with Fedez, only speaking with Rai's executives. In the very much criticized email answer (which screenshot was published by Fedez on Instagram) the Office of the Commission stated that even if not prohibited by law, it was not custom to invite external people to the Commission investigation. Fedez replied to the email with only three clown emojis, a fact that further angered the far-right politicians.
In July, the new board of Rai was elected, including the CEO and executives; this led to Rai's CEO Fuortes revealing not only the withdrawal of the action in court for failing all the required accusatory elements but also that no legal action was ever meant by the new management. Far-right exponents opened a parliamentary question over the withdrawal. After the CEO's declaration, no other details were said about any apology or agreement with Fedez: nonetheless, the rapper was invited by Fabio Fazio to the first episode of the new season of his late show. Following the 2021 controversy, Fedez reinforced some controversy against Rai when he announced he was not invited to the 2022 Concertone for the first time.
Editorial Independence
In 2023, Giorgia Meloni was accused of pressuring out the head of RAI for not supporting her political agenda.
Budget and unjustified expenses
Rai was investigated and fined (with many executives arrested or fired) for unjustified expenses and suspicious gifts. It was noticed that, frequently, dinners, expensive watches and jewellery were all paid by Rai for unknown people outside the company. In 2022, a new scandal was investigated by the Guardia di Finanza surrounding corruption and bribes. At least 5 people in total were arrested, while the investigation is still ongoing.
TV channels
Current channels
In high definition and ultra definition
Due to the broadcasting rights of the free-to-air satellite channels Rai 1, Rai 2, Rai 3 and Rai Sport in some programs, broadcasts outside Italy are encrypted. In particular, it takes part in copyrighted programs (mostly foreign productions) and international sports competitions. In the past, it was encrypted as Discrete in analog satellite television broadcasts due to broadcasting rights outside Italy. Rai channels will not be broadcast due to broadcasting rights on digital platforms outside Italy.
International
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Rai Doc: cultures, styles (1 April 2004 – 1 June 2007)
Rai Extra: generalist (31 July 2003 – 26 November 2010)
Rai Festival (broadcast using Rai Utile frequencies)
Rai Futura: technologies, video games, etc. (30 May 2005 – 1 February 2007, broadcast on the same frequences of Rai Doc at settled times)
Rai HD (22 April 2008 – 18 September 2016)
Rai Med (26 April 2001 – April 2014)
Rai Olimpia: 2004 Summer Olympics (2004, broadcast using Rai Utile frequencies)
Rai Sport 2 (18 May 2010 – 5 February 2017)
Rai Sport 2 HD (1 August – 19 September 2016, HD version launched for 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games)
Rai UniNettuno Sat Uno (1998 – April 2014)
(2003 – 1 February 2009)
Rai Utile (4 January 2004 – 1 January 2008)
Rai Widescreen: 1998 FIFA World Cup (1998–1999)
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Rai On News (IPTV)
Rai On Ragazzi (IPTV)
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(1997–1999)
(1997–1999)
or Rai Educational Sat (1997–2000)
(1 June 1999 – 30 July 2003)
(1999 – 30 July 2003)
(2000 – 30 July 2003)
RaiSat Gambero Rosso Channel (1999 – 31 July 2009)
(1 July 1999 – 31 October 2006)
(1 June 1999 – 31 July 2003)
(1 November 2006 – 1 August 2009)
Salute! (2009–2010)
(2009–2012)
Radio stations
Current stations
On FM, AM, Satellite, DAB/DAB+, DTT, Filodiffusion, Web:
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Rai Isoradio: for motorway users
Regional stations:
Rai Südtirol: German-language programmes for the Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol region
Rai Radio Trst A: Slovene-language programmes for the Friuli-Venezia Giulia/Furlanija Julijska Krajina region
: Italian, Friulian and Slovene language programmes; as Rai Friûl Vignesie Julie (in Friulian) and Rai Furlanija Julijska Krajina (in Slovenian)
Only on Satellite, DAB/DAB+, DTT, Filodiffusion and Web:
Rai Radio Tutta Italiana: only Italian music
: featuring items from the radio archives
: Music from Naples
: station for children from 2 to 10 years old
: sports
No Name Radio: independent music
Discontinued stations
(1982 — 1991)
(1982 — 1991)
(1982 — 1995)
(1991 — 1994)
(1991 — 1994)
Rai Italia Radio (1 July 1930 — 31 December 2011)
(1952 — 2011)
Radio Rai Sport
Rai Radio 8 Opera (6 August 2015 — 11 June 2017)
(first Rai Radio 2 Indie; 18 June 2018 — 16 December 2022)
Divisions and subsidiaries
(Rai Structures) is a news organization internal to Rai, or rather an internal management and division, created in order to independently manage the programs broadcast on the generalist and, in particular, thematic networks. After 2000, Rai reorganized its corporate structure with the creation of specific structures, listed here:
Rai Cultura (previously Rai Educational or Rai Edu): operates event and documentary channels
Rai Documentari: documentary productions
Rai Expo: supporting and making the public aware of the Expo 2015 event in Milan
Rai Fiction: production company for feature films, TV films, etc.
: the radio newsroom
: management of thematic channels dedicated to cinema and television series
Rai Kids: children's programming and production company
: weather forecasts and reports
: production of news and information services such as Televideo
(1996–2012): overnight TV programming on Rai 1, 2 and 3
: operates the Rai Gr Parlamento, Senato della Repubblica and Camera dei deputati channels
: transmits broadcasts from the President's Quirinale Palace
: production of radio programs, generally in Rome, and management for the radio division
: production of live coverage of sporting events on the three generalist channels (Rai 1, Rai 2, Rai 3) and its own channel of the same name
Rai Teche: the broadcast archives
: transmits broadcasts from the Vatican
: production and broadcast of major events
TG1: production of news and information services on Rai 1
TG2: production of news and information services on Rai 2
TG3: production of news and information services on Rai 3
TGR: production of local news and information regional services on Rai 3
Related companies
(1998–): film production company
01 Distribution (2000–): film distributor
(2000–2009): television programs on demand, later replaced by
(2015–): promotes the marketing rights of the productions
(1926–): advertising agency
(1960–2012): production, distribution, and marketing in the United States
(1987–2012)
(1999–2014): managed the web portals from the rai.it and rai.tv domains
RaiSat (1997–2010): subsidiary created to produce thematic TV channels for satellite television
(1987–2011): promoted the marketing rights of the productions
(2011–14), previously (1995–2011): radio and television distribution abroad, operated Rai Italia
Rai Way (1999–): broadcasting network for the distribution of the broadcast signal
(1955–1997): television rights management and marketing
Other services
: broadcasts television and radio programs throughout the territory of Alto Adige and Trentino
Rai Libri: magazine and broadcast publisher
Rai Mobilità (TV) and Rai Ondaverde (radio): traffic reports (known as Onda Verde) produced by the (Road safety information coordination center)
Rai Orchestra: the broadcaster's radio orchestra
RaiPlay: multimedia platform
: produces and broadcasts radio and television programs in Italian and French on the territory of the Aosta Valley. There are also broadcasts in the Valdôtain dialect.
Rai Libri
Rai Libri is the print publishing arm of Rai, headquartered in Turin. They primarily publish magazines and periodicals for news, entertainment, the broadcast industry, and since their beginning, broadcast schedules. They also have published since 1969 the , the largest Italian dictionary of its kind.
Publishing history
RAI's history in print with the Unione Radiofonica Italiana (URI)'s weekly magazine Radio Orario which debuted in January 1925 and became Radiocorriere in 1930. Edizioni Radio Italiana (ERI) was founded in 1949 in Turin, formed entirely from RAI capital to build on Radiocorriere's success. In 1954 primary ownership was split between RAI and Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI). That same year Radiocorriere became Radiocorriere TV, which would continue to be published until RAI divested in 1995.
During the 50s and 60s the ERI published Classe Unica, and , and in 1969 the first edition of the DOP. The 80s saw the premiere of the monthlies Moda (1983) and King (1987), along with registering a new company name in 1987: Nuova Eri Edizioni Rai-Radiotelevisione Italiana S.p.A., or "Nuova ERI".
Since the 1990s, RAI/ERI has increasingly focused on publishing books written by its own broadcast stars, both in news and entertainment. In 1995 Nuova ERI closed and reopened in 1997 as "Rai Eri". On 15 October 2018, they renamed to "Rai Libri". Rai Libri also edits technical publications: Elettronica e telecomunicazioni since 1946, Nuova rivista musicale italiana since 1967, and Nuova civiltà delle macchine since 1957. It produces its own reports on communications and media, with the second edition of the book-and-documentary RicordeRai released in 2004 in collaboration with Rai Teche.
Radiocorriere TV
RAI (originally URI) had printed its broadcast schedules nearly without interruption starting in 1925 as Radio Orario, then from 1930 as Radiocorriere, then continuously from 1954 as Radiocorriere TV, until RAI divested in 1995. The magazine was restarted under publisher with a print edition from 1999 to 2008, closing due to poor sales. It reopened in 2012 as an online-only publication, with a handful of special-occasion independent print runs in the intervening years, including 2005 (its 80th anniversary), 2010 (switchover to DTTV), and 2011 (150th anniversary of the unification of Italy). The Rai Ufficio Stampa website has published programming schedules and television blurbs online since 2011 under the magazine's name. On 3 January 2014, Rai Teche published online the complete 1925–1995 archives of URI/RAI's Radio Orario/Radiocorriere/TV.
Headquarters and offices
Local offices
North-West: Genoa, Saint Christophe
North-East: Bologna, Bolzano, Trento, Trieste, Venice
Centre: Ancona, Florence, Perugia, Pescara
South: Bari, Campobasso, Cosenza, Potenza
Islands: Cagliari, Palermo
Foreign offices
There are RAI offices in foreign countries, which produce news reports that are broadcast live in Italy. These offices are in: Brussels, Paris, Berlin, London, New York City, Beijing, Cairo, Jerusalem, Nairobi, Moscow, Rio de Janeiro, and Bangkok.
Finances
Debt level
As March 2015, the RAI has a debt of 442 million and the Italian Court of Audit was worried about the size of RAI's debt for the impact that this may have on Italian people, as the company is owned by the state.
Mandatory annual fee on all televisions in Italy
Italians must purchase an annual television licence for about €90 every year in order to legally own a TV or HDTV. It is known as Canone Rai, "Rai Tax" because it is used to part-fund the RAI. Since 2016, it is financed through the electricity bill.
Over-the-top media service
Rai Play is Rai's Over-the-top media service (OTT). It covers viewers across multiple devices such as computers, tablets, smartphones. The service's website contains all Rai's radio stations and television channel.
See also
Television in Italy
Television licensing in Italy
Prix Italia
Notes
References
External links
Rai.it
RaiPlay
Live Radio
Rai Expo official multilanguage site, a library of about 1000 videos exploring and explaining "Expo di Milano 2015" theme
1924 establishments in Italy
Mass media companies established in 1924
European Broadcasting Union members
Government-owned companies of Italy
Italian brands
Italian-language television networks
Multilingual broadcasters
Publicly funded broadcasters
Television channels and stations established in 1954 |
420166 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed%20Davey | Ed Davey | Sir Edward Jonathan Davey (born 25 December 1965) is a British politician who has served as Leader of the Liberal Democrats since 2019. He served in the Cameron–Clegg coalition as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change from 2012 to 2015 and as Deputy Leader to Jo Swinson in 2019. An "Orange Book" liberal, he has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Kingston and Surbiton since 2017, and from 1997 to 2015.
Davey was born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, where he attended Nottingham High School. He then went on to study at Jesus College, Oxford, and Birkbeck, University of London. He was an economics researcher and financial analyst before being elected to the House of Commons. He served as a Liberal Democrat spokesperson to Charles Kennedy, Menzies Campbell and Nick Clegg from 2005 to 2010, in various portfolios including Education and Skills, Trade and Industry, and Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs.
In 2010, after the Liberal Democrats entered into a coalition government with the Conservative Party, Davey served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs from 2010 to 2012, and in David Cameron's Cabinet as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change from 2012 to 2015, following Chris Huhne's resignation. Davey focused on increasing competition in the energy market by removing barriers to entry for smaller companies, and streamlining the customer switching process. He also approved the construction of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station.
He lost his seat in the 2015 general election, but regained it in the snap election held two years later. He served as the Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson from 2017 to 2019. In July 2019, after the retirement of Vince Cable, Davey unsuccessfully ran against Jo Swinson in a leadership election. He was later appointed Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson and elected unopposed as Deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats. After Swinson lost her seat at the 2019 general election, Davey, while remaining Deputy Leader, served as Acting Leader alongside the Liberal Democrat Presidents Baroness Brinton and Mark Pack from December 2019 to August 2020. Davey stood in the 2020 leadership election, in which he defeated Layla Moran with 63.5% of the vote.
Early life
Edward Jonathan Davey was born in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire on 25 December 1965.
His father John (1932-1970) died when Davey was four years old; his father died in Mansfield General Hospital, after a three-month illness. His mother Nina Davey (née Stanbrook) died 11 years later, after which he was brought up by his maternal grandparents, from Eakring.
His father (1932-1970) was a patron of Ashfield Conservative Party and St Mary's church in Sutton-in-Ashfield. His father went to Brinsley CE primary school (when his father lived on Cordy Lane in Brinsley), and the Henry Mellish Grammar School, taking part in the school dramatic society, in The Poetasters of Ispahan by Clifford Bax. After the LSE, his father became a solicitor with J.J. Spencer & Co of Sutton-in-Ashfield and Kirkby-in-Ashfield. He lived on Bathwood Drive in Sutton-in-Ashfield. His father completed his national service from January 1957, training at RAF Jurby. His grandfather was a housebuilder in Selston.
He was in the 90th Nottingham scout group and the 17th Nottingham group, an Air Scout group. He sang in the local church choir, St John's. Similar to his two brothers, he received the D of E gold award, meeting Prince Philip on 2 March 1984 when the Prince visited the school; when he was head boy. He took A-levels in German, French and History. One of his two brothers attended Trent Polytechnic, becoming a solicitor.
After attending the private Nottingham High School where Davey was head boy in 1984, he attended Jesus College, Oxford, where he was awarded a first class BA degree in Philosophy, politics and economics in 1988. He was JCR President.
During his adolescence, he worked at Pork Farms pork pie factory and at Boots. In 1989, he became an economics researcher for the Liberal Democrats, principally to Alan Beith, the party's then-Treasury spokesman, whilst studying at Birkbeck College, London, for a master's degree (MSc) in Economics. He was closely involved in the development of Liberal Democrat policies such as an additional penny on income tax to fund education, and central bank independence, for the 1992 general election. From 1993 to 1997, he worked in business forecasting and market analysis for management consultancy firm Omega Partners.
Parliamentary career (1997–2015)
Davey was elected to the House of Commons, at his first attempt, in the 1997 general election, where he defeated Richard Tracey, the sitting Conservative MP for the former constituency of Surbiton, with a majority of just 56 votes, and remained the seat's MP for 18 years. In his maiden speech, on 6 June 1997, he gave his support for the setting up of the London Assembly, but was against the idea of a directly elected Mayor of London; he also spoke of the effects governmental cuts were having on education delivery in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames.
In 1998 he was the primary sponsor of an early day motion supporting the repeal of the Greenwich judgment, which prevents local authorities from giving their own residents priority access to school places.
In 2001, he opposed government proposals for restrictions on gambling machines, which he described as a "silly bit of nanny state politics".
In January 2003, Davey publicly backed local constituent and NHS whistleblower Ian Perkin, who alleged he had been sacked from his director of finance role for exposing statistics manipulation at St George's NHS healthcare trust. Davey condemned the NHS bureaucracy as "Stalinist" and called for an inquiry into Perkin's case, while personally meeting trust executives to discuss the case on behalf of Perkin.
In February 2003, Davey introduced the clause which repealed the prohibition of "promotion of homosexuality" under Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988. The legislation was successfully repealed in March. He was one of the contributors to The Orange Book (2004).
In 2006 Davey was one of eight Liberal Democrat MPs, including Jeremy Browne and Mark Oaten, who opposed a total ban on smoking in clubs and pubs. He called the ban "a bit too nanny state".
In an article for the Financial Times in 2007, Davey and LSE economist Tim Leunig proposed a new system of community land auctions through sealed bids, to take place before the land was given planning permission. They suggested that councils could take in tax the difference between the land owner's asking price and the highest bidder's offer, claiming this would stimulate development and the revenue then used to lower other taxation.
Lib Dem spokesperson
In Parliament, Davey was given a job immediately by Paddy (later Lord) Ashdown and became the party's spokesman on Treasury Affairs, adding the post of whip in 1998, and a third job to hold as the spokesman on London from 2000.
Davey was re-elected in the 2001 general election with an increased majority over former Conservative MP David Shaw. He joined the Liberal Democrat frontbench under Leader Charles Kennedy in the same year by becoming Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Treasury matters. In 2002, he became the Liberal Democrat spokesperson for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. He was appointed Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Education and Skills in 2005, before becoming Liberal Democrats spokesperson for Trade and Industry in March 2006. In December 2006, he succeeded Norman Lamb as Chief of Staff to Menzies Campbell, the new party leader. Davey was chair of the party's Campaigns and Communications Committee. Following Nick Clegg's election as Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Davey was awarded the Foreign Affairs brief, and continued to retain his chairmanship of the party's Campaigns and Communications Committee.
On 26 February 2008, Davey was suspended from parliament for the day for ignoring a warning from the Deputy Speaker. He was protesting about the exclusion by the Speaker of a Liberal Democrat motion to debate and vote on whether the UK should have a referendum on staying in the EU.
At the 2009 Liberal Democrat conference, Davey caused controversy calling for dialogue with the Taliban, through declaring that it was "time for tea with the Taliban", a comment echoed by Malala Yousafzai four years later to the BBC.
Ministerial career (2010–2015)
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business (2010–2012)
Following the Conservative–Liberal Democrat coalition agreement, after the 2010 general election, Davey was appointed Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills with responsibility for Employment Relations, Consumer and Postal Affairs. In addition, he held responsibilities for trade as a Minister for Trade Policy. As a Parliamentary Under Secretary, Davey led the establishment of an unofficial 'like-minded group for growth' ginger group within the European Union, convening several economically liberal European governments behind an agenda of deregulation, free trade, liberalisation of services and a digital single market. He was involved in the provisional application phase of the Free Trade Agreement between the EU and South Korea.
In January 2011, he faced protests by postal workers in his Kingston and Surbiton constituency for his role in the privatisation of Royal Mail. Also in 2011, Davey announced several reforms to the labour market, mainly aimed at improving labour market flexibility. These reforms included cuts to red tape and easing dismissal laws, and were accompanied by reviews from the Institute of Economic Affairs into compensation payments and the TUPE. Davey also announced that the government would abolish the default retirement age.
Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change (2012–2015)
On 3 February 2012, following the resignation of Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Chris Huhne due to his prosecution for perverting the course of justice, Davey was appointed Energy Secretary, and appointed to the Privy Council on 8 February. As Secretary of State Davey also became a member of the National Security Council. In late 2012, the Daily Mail published an article questioning Davey's loyalty to Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg. Responding in an interview, Davey rejected the claims of the article, saying instead he thought Clegg was "the best leader" the Liberal Democrats had ever had and that he personally was a member of Clegg's "Praetorian Guard".
In 2013, Davey set up the Green Growth Group, bringing together environmental and climate ministers from across the European Union in an effort to promote growth, investment in renewable and nuclear energy, liberalisation of the European energy market, a global carbon market, trade in energy, carbon capture technology, energy efficiency, and competition. Domestically, Davey focused on increasing competition in the energy market by removing barriers to entry for smaller companies, and streamlining the customer switching process, declaring in 2013 that "competition works". He also approved the construction of Hinkley Point C nuclear power station. Abroad, Davey promoted investment in the British energy sector by foreign companies including from Japan, South Korea, and China, making significant diplomatic trips to the latter two countries in order to highlight investment opportunities.
In October 2013, during a BBC Newsnight segment on energy bills, in a controversy that was dubbed by some media "Jumpergate", Davey was asked by BBC presenter Jeremy Paxman whether or not he wore a jumper (to stay warm) at home, to which Davey replied that he did but stressed that competition and energy efficiency were the solutions to lowering energy bills. The following day, various media outlets reported that Davey had advised for people to wear jumpers at home to save on energy bills, although he had not. The controversy then spread when Prime Minister David Cameron's official spokesman told a reporter that people may wish to "consider" advice by charities to wrap up warmly, leading to media outlets reporting that Number 10 was also suggesting wearing jumpers to cut energy bills, with the supposed suggestion being seized upon by the opposition Labour Party. Number 10 later issued a statement rebutting the media reports. In April 2014, Davey called for the G7 to begin reduction of dependency on Russian energy following the Revolution of Dignity and commencement of the Russo-Ukrainian War. Davey argued the benefits of investment in onshore wind energy from companies such as Siemens was a key part of the push to reduce dependence on Russian energy, while "more diversified supplies of gas" including from the US and domestic shale gas would also help. In May 2014 at a meeting in Rome, G7 energy ministers including Davey agreed formally to a process for reducing dependency on Russian energy; "Putin has crossed a line", Davey declared.
Throughout and after the Cameron–Clegg coalition, Davey's ministerial career came under scrutiny from political figures and the media. On the right, Conservatives Nigel Lawson and Peter Lilley were critical of Davey's environmental stances, while the late journalist Christopher Booker, who did not accept the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming, questioned his policy on wind turbines, and he was lampooned by The Telegraph sketch writer Michael Deacon. He was also criticised by left-wing figures such as Green MP for Brighton Pavilion Caroline Lucas over for his support of fracking, and by the Leader of the Opposition and Leader of the Labour Party Ed Miliband for Davey's warning that Labour's price control policy would cause blackouts. Luxembourgish MEP and environmentalist Claude Turmes alleged in his 2017 book Energy Transformation that Davey's Green Growth Group was actually a front for British nuclear interests. Conversely, Davey's promotion to the role of Energy Secretary was hailed by The Economist, which viewed him favourably as a "pragmatic" and "free market liberal". In "The Liberal Democrats and supply-side economics", published in an issue of the Institute of Economic Affairs' Economic Affairs journal, Davey was identified as the Liberal Democrat who had achieved the most in terms of supply-side reforms. Conservative MP and former Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Minister of State for Government Policy Sir Oliver Letwin credited Davey and his aforementioned "like-minded" group of economically liberal governments as having helped to curb regulatory enthusiasm within the European Union.
Leading up to the 2015 general election, Davey was viewed by various sources as a potential successor to Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg. Political commentator Gary Gibbon speculated that due to Davey's association with the Orange Book wing of the party, the tenuousness of Danny Alexander's parliamentary seat, and David Laws' unwillingness, the role of "heir" would naturally fall to Davey.
Parliamentary career (2017–present)
2015 and 2017 elections
At the 2015 general election, Davey was defeated by Conservative candidate James Berry by 2,834 votes after the Liberal Democrat vote fell by over 15% in Kingston and Surbiton. This made him the first cabinet minister to lose their seat since 1997. Davey later told reporters he was "obviously disappointed" with his defeat, but said it had not been a total shock. "We knew it would be close – we had it written on our leaflets. But I don't think the voters did, he said. "When I was out canvassing today I had a man said to me: 'You'll be fine, Ed'. I wish I had a vote for all the people who told me I would be fine. The party is clearly paying some price for going into coalition with the Conservatives. We put the national interest above the party interest which was the right thing to do at the time. I have no regrets on that. I think we are seeing a national thing here. We have had a very bad night nationally."
At the end of 2015, he accepted a knighthood for 'political and public service' which was announced in the 2016 New Years Honours List.
Davey regained Kingston and Surbiton for the Liberal Democrats at the 2017 general election, with a majority of 4,124 votes over Berry.
Return to Parliament
Upon returning to Parliament in 2017, Davey was considered a possible candidate for the Liberal Democrat leadership election following the resignation of Tim Farron. However, he ruled out standing over family concerns, but called on the Liberal Democrats to be "the party of reform" and "super-ambitious – just like radical centrists in Canada, France and the Netherlands". Davey was then the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, having previously served as Liberal Democrat Home Affairs spokesperson from 2017 to 2019.
He is the Chair of the All-Party Britain-Republic of Korea Parliamentary Group (APPG). He is also the Chair of the APPG on Charity Retail, the Vice Chair of the APPG for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, and the Vice Chair of the APPG on Land Value Capture.
Leader of the Liberal Democrats (2019–present)
2019 leadership bid
Following the 2019 European Parliament election, Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable announced his intention "to hand over a bigger, stronger party" to a new leader, triggering a party leadership contest. Davey announced his candidacy for the role on 30 May, stating his belief that action must be taken in Parliament to prevent a "no deal" Brexit, and highlighting his support for stronger action to limit global warming. Davey lost this race to Jo Swinson, with 36.9% of the vote to Swinson's 63.1%. On 3 September 2019, Davey was elected as Swinson's deputy leader.
2019 general election and acting co-leadership
Following Jo Swinson's resignation as a result of losing her seat in the December 2019 general election, due to his position as deputy leader, Davey became interim co-leader alongside the party president (at first Baroness Brinton, and then Mark Pack).
2020 leadership bid
In June 2020, acting leader Davey launched his bid to become leader saying that his "experience as a carer can help rebuild Britain after coronavirus". He proposed the establishment of a basic income to support carers, and said that the Liberal Democrats should be "the party of social care". Davey ruled out a formal electoral agreement with the Labour Party, but said that he would prioritise defeating the Conservatives, and ruled out working with the Conservatives following the next election. He proposed a plan to reduce carbon emissions from domestic flights to zero by 2030 through investment in research and technology. In a hustings event with Welsh members, he said that the 2021 Senedd election was a priority and he expected success for the Liberal Democrats.
Davey was one of two candidates running for leader in the Liberal Democrats leadership election, competing with Layla Moran. One recurring theme of the leadership campaign was Davey's record in the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government, and the policies that government had enacted. Moran is considered to be more left-wing than Davey and representing a break from the coalition years. Alongside former leader Nick Clegg and many of the Lib Dems who served in the governing Conservative-Lib Dem coalition of 2010–2015, Davey is associated with the party's right-wing Orange Booker branch. The record of the coalition, which caused a decline in popularity of the Lib Dems after 2015, has been defended by Davey.
On 27 August, Davey won the leadership election with 42,756 votes, which translated to 63.5% of total votes. In his victory speech, Davey said that the Liberal Democrats must "wake up and smell the coffee" and "start listening" to ordinary people and those who "don't believe we share their values". He also stressed his experience in the coalition government, and his commitments to tackle climate change. Moran later congratulated Davey on Twitter, saying "I look forward to working with him to campaign for a better future for Britain."
Views
Davey identifies as a liberal politically, telling magazine Total Politics: "I personally think liberalism is the strongest political philosophy in the modern world. Socialism has failed. I think even social democracy, the watered down version which Labour sort of understand depending on which day of the week it is, is not very convincing, and I don't really understand where the Conservatives are coming from because they have so many philosophies within one party. There's no philosophy of the modern Conservative Party." He has said that he believes "in the free market and in competition", and during a parliamentary public bill committee debate in November 2010 argued in defence of privatisation, deregulation, and the private sector against Labour MP Gregg McClymont.
Davey also describes himself as a "strong free-trader", rejecting reciprocity in trade tariffs as "the classic protectionist argument". He believes Britain should be open to foreign investment, except for investment tainted by "smells that you have from Putin." He dismisses worries over foreign ownership and investment in the British economy such as that of Chinese and French companies' involvement in the British energy market. Davey describes himself as "an economist by trade."
He was a supporter of the coalition government, writing in a 2011 column for London newspaper Get West London that the coalition would "restore liberty to the people" and that "Labour's nanny state will be cut back" in reference to the coalition's policies on civil liberties. In 2012, Davey predicted the coalition government would be more pro-European Union than Tony Blair's Labour government, praising Conservative ministers and the then Prime Minister David Cameron for relations they had developed with European counterparts. Retrospectively, Davey said of the coalition in 2017: "I think the coalition government, when history looks at it, will go down as actually a pretty good government." In 2017, Davey warned against a Conservative Party proposal for fines on large internet companies who fail to remove extremist and terrorist material from their platforms within 24 hours, which he claimed could lead to censorship if companies are forced to rush and pointed to Germany as an example of where this approach has the potential to lead to censorship. He thinks technology giants must not be treated as the "enemy" and accused the Conservatives of declaring an "all-out war" on the internet. Similarly he is critical of Conservative proposals to weaken encryption because, according to Davey, encryption is important for individual security and helping businesses to thrive.
In 2018, after the government's Investigatory Powers Act mass surveillance law was declared to be in breach of EU law, Davey commented that UK surveillance needed a "major overhaul" which puts "our freedoms and civil liberties at its very core" (Davey's party opposes the mass surveillance law and had voted against it). Since the 2000s, Davey has been vocal on the issue of detention without trial, in particular Guantanamo and Bagram, which he believed required transparency and formal investigation of torture allegations. He has opposed indefinite detention for illegal immigrants.
Davey is supportive of market solutions in the conventional energy sector, The Guardian describing him as a 'zealot' for markets. He has been highly critical of price controls such as those proposed by former Labour leader Ed Miliband; he considers them to be detrimental to competition and lowering prices for consumers. He has promoted removal of barriers to entry to encourage new entrants into the energy market; "We began with deregulation. This stimulated a doubling of smaller firms" he wrote of his policy as Energy Secretary in 2014. Additionally he welcomed the rise of consumer switching websites. He has also been in support of trade to import natural gas from countries including the USA and Qatar, and importation of green energy via new interconnectors from Norway and Ireland. He has, however, supported "properly designed and carefully targeted" short-term subsidies for some emerging green energy technologies in order to meet climate change targets.
When cutting green energy subsidies as Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Davey said he "tended to try and marketise the reduction so people were competing for any remaining subsidies" through Contracts for Difference (CfDs). After leaving the office of Energy Secretary in 2015 he explained that he had planned to "eliminate subsidies over the coming years" and had previously stated, "ultimately I don't want the government—the Secretary of State—to decide what that low carbon mix is . . . I want the markets and technology development and innovation to decide what that mix is."
He has argued in favour of both nuclear power and Fracking as potential energy sources, and natural gases as transitional fuels, though he has warned that there should not be an over-reliance on them. Davey previously had argued against nuclear power but in 2013 he urged fellow Lib Dem members to support nuclear power, stating, "I've changed my mind because of climate change."
Davey does not support the United Kingdom rejoining the European Union in the short term, in 2020 stating that the idea that people would want to consider re-joining the EU in two or three years time as "being for the birds". In January 2021 he clarified this position, stating that he is "determined the Liberal Democrats remain a pro-European party committed to the UK being members of the European Union again", adding that his party is "practical" about the matter.
In 2013, Davey supported Operation Shader, and the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad.
Following the death of Sarah Everard, Davey said that "Men have got to change" and suggested that we "educate boys and men to show more respect". In May 2021, alongside celebrities and other public figures, Davey was a signatory to an open letter from Stylist magazine which called on the government to address what it described as an "epidemic of male violence" by funding an "ongoing, high-profile, expert-informed awareness campaign on men's violence against women and girls".
As a supporter of trans rights, Davey believes that trans women should be given the same rights as cis women, which he made clear in a series of interviews on the day that a report into violence against women, commissioned in the wake of the Everard affair, was published.
Davey criticised Boris Johnson after the North Shropshire by-election where a Lib Dem candidate, Helen Morgan overturned a Conservative majority of nearly 23,000 to win the seat. Davey said it was a "watershed moment in our politics. Millions of people are fed up with Boris Johnson and his failure to provide leadership throughout the pandemic and last night the voters of North Shropshire spoke for all of them." Davey criticised Johnson further in May 2022 saying, "Boris Johnson is not fit to lead the country and he needs to go. At this time of national crisis, we can't afford to have a law-breaking prime minister."
Business appointments
Davey took up several business appointments after leaving his role as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change in May 2015.
Mongoose Energy appointed Davey as chairman in September 2015.
Davey set up an independent consultancy in September 2015 to provide advice on energy and climate change.
In January 2016 Davey was appointed as a part-time consultant to MHP Communications, the public relations and lobbying firm representing EDF Energy. Davey was criticised by press commentators for the potential conflict of interest between his previous role as Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change and his role at MHP. As Secretary of State Davey awarded EDF the contract to build a new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset.
Davey's appointment as Global Partner and non-Executive director of private equity investor Nord Engine Capital was announced in February 2016.
In July 2016 he became non-paid patron of the Sustainable Futures Foundation, a charity promoting environmental sustainability for the public benefit.
Until February 2021, Davey was on the advisory boards of the law firm Herbert Smith Freehills and of the fund manager NextEnergy Capital, which manages the listed company NextEnergy Solar Fund; he resigned both roles in the wake of the United Kingdom parliamentary second jobs controversy.
Personal life
In the summer of 2005 Davey married Emily Gasson, who was the Liberal Democrat candidate for North Dorset at the general election that year. Their first child, a son, was born in December 2007. Their son has speech difficulties, spurring Davey's interest in speech therapy. They live in Surbiton, London; Davey lived there before his election to Parliament in 1997. Emily had the number two position on the Lib Dem London-wide candidate list for the 2016 London Assembly elections, but was not elected. Emily then stood for election as a councillor for the three seat Norbiton Ward in 2018, as part of the Royal Borough of Kingston Council and topped the poll with 20% of the vote.
Davey speaks English, French, German and Spanish. He is a supporter of Notts County Football Club.
Honours
In 1995, Davey won a Royal Humane Society bravery award and commendation from the Chief constable of the British Transport Police for rescuing a woman who had fallen onto the railway line in the face of an oncoming train at Clapham Junction railway station.
In 2001 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).
He was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 8 February 2012, giving him the honorific prefix "The Right Honourable" for life.
Davey was knighted in the 2016 New Years Honours List for 'political and public service'.
Publications
Davey, Edward (2000), Making MPs Work For Our Money: Reforming Parliament's Role In Budget Scrutiny by 2000, Centre for Reform,
Davey, Edward. "Liberalism and localism", Chapter 2 in The Orange Book: Reclaiming Liberalism by David Laws and Paul Marshall (contributions et al.), 2004, Profile Books,
Davey, Edward; Hunter, Rebecca. People Who Help Us: Member of Parliament, 2004, Cherrytree Books,
See also
Liberal Democrat Conference
Liberal Democrat frontbench team
Notes
References
External links
Profile at the Liberal Democrats
Edward Davey MP (BIS archive)
Profile: Edward Davey BBC News profile, 17 October 2007
Debrett's People of Today
|-
1965 births
Alumni of Jesus College, Oxford
Knights Bachelor
Leaders of the Liberal Democrats (UK)
Liberal Democrats (UK) MPs for English constituencies
Living people
Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom
People from Sutton-in-Ashfield
Politicians from Nottingham
UK MPs 1997–2001
UK MPs 2001–2005
UK MPs 2005–2010
UK MPs 2010–2015
UK MPs 2017–2019
UK MPs 2019–present |
420183 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McLaren%20F1 | McLaren F1 | The McLaren F1 is a sports car designed and manufactured by British automobile manufacturer McLaren Cars, and powered by the BMW S70/2 V12 engine. The original concept was conceived by Gordon Murray, who successfully convinced Ron Dennis to back the project, and hired car designer Peter Stevens to design the exterior and interior of the car. On 31 March 1998, the XP5 prototype with a modified rev limiter set the Guinness World Record for the world's fastest production car, reaching , surpassing the modified Jaguar XJ220's record from 1993.
The car features numerous proprietary designs and technologies; it is lighter and has a more streamlined structure than many modern sports cars, despite having one seat more than most similar sports cars, with the driver's seat located in the centre (and slightly forward) of two passengers' seating positions, providing driver visibility superior to that of a conventional seating layout. It was conceived as an exercise in creating what its designers hoped would be considered the ultimate road car. Despite not having been designed as a track machine, a modified race car edition of the vehicle won several races, including the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, where it faced purpose-built prototype race cars. Production began in 1992 and ended in 1998. In all, 106 cars were manufactured, with some variations in the design.
In 1994, the British car magazine Autocar stated in a road test regarding the F1, "The McLaren F1 is the finest driving machine yet built for the public road." They further stated, "The F1 will be remembered as one of the great events in the history of the car, and it may possibly be the fastest production road car the world will ever see." In 2005, Channel4 placed the car at number one on their list of the 100 greatest cars, calling it "the greatest automotive achievement of all time". In popular culture, the McLaren F1 has earned its spot as 'The greatest automobile ever created' and 'The Most Excellent Sports Car of All Time' amongst a wide variety of car enthusiasts and lovers. Notable past and present McLaren F1 owners include Lewis Hamilton, Elon Musk, Rowan Atkinson, Jay Leno, George Harrison, Ralph Lauren, Nick Mason, and the Sultan of Brunei.
In the April 2017 issue of Top Gear Magazine, the McLaren F1 was listed as one of the fastest naturally aspirated cars currently available in the world, and in the same league as more modern vehicles such as the Ferrari Enzo and Aston Martin One-77 despite being produced and engineered 10 years prior to the Ferrari Enzo and 17 years prior to the Aston Martin One-77.
Design and Implementation
Chief engineer Gordon Murray's design concept was a common one among designers of high-performance cars: low weight and high power. This was achieved through the use of high-tech and expensive materials such as carbon fibre, titanium, kevlar, magnesium and gold. The F1 was the first production car to use a carbon-fibre monocoque chassis.
Gordon Murray had been thinking of a three-seat sports car since his youth. When Murray was waiting for a flight home from the Italian Grand Prix in 1988, he drew a sketch of a three-seater sports car and proposed it to Ron Dennis. He pitched the idea of creating the ultimate road car, a concept that would be heavily influenced by the company's Formula One experience and technology and thus reflect that skill and knowledge through the McLaren F1.
Murray declared that "During this time, we were able to visit Honda's Tochigi Research Centre with Ayrton Senna. The visit related to the fact that at the time, Honda powered McLaren's F1 Grand Prix chassis. Although it's true I had thought it would have been better to put a larger engine, the moment I drove the Honda NSX, all the benchmark cars—Ferrari, Porsche, Lamborghini—I had been using as references in the development of my car vanished from my mind. Of course the car we would create, the McLaren F1, needed to be faster than the NSX, but the NSX's ride quality and handling would become our new design target. Being a fan of Honda engines, I later went to Honda's Tochigi Research Centre on two occasions and requested that they consider building for the McLaren F1 a 4.5-litre V10 or V12. I asked, I tried to persuade them, but in the end could not convince them to do it, and the McLaren F1 ended up equipped with a BMW engine."
A pair of Ultima MK3 kit cars, chassis numbers 12 and 13, "Albert" and "Edward", the last two MK3s, were used as "mules" to test various components and concepts before the first cars were built. Number 12 was used to test the gearbox with a 7.4-litre Chevrolet V8, plus various other components such as the seats and the brakes. Number 13 was the test of the V12, plus the exhaust and cooling system. When McLaren was done with the cars they destroyed both of them to keep away the specialist magazines and because they did not want the car to be associated with "kit cars".
The car was first unveiled at a launch show, on 28 May 1992, at The Sporting Club in Monaco. The production version remained the same as the original prototype (XP1) except for the wing mirror which, on the XP1, was mounted at the top of the A-pillar. This car was deemed not road legal as it had no indicators at the front; McLaren was forced to make changes to the car as a result (some cars, including Ralph Lauren's, were sent back to McLaren and fitted with the prototype mirrors). The original wing mirrors also incorporated a pair of indicators which other car manufacturers would adopt several years later.
The car's safety levels were first proved when during a testing in Namibia in April 1993, a test driver wearing just shorts and a T-shirt hit a rock and rolled the first prototype car several times. The driver managed to escape unscathed. Later in the year, the second prototype (XP2) was specially built for crash testing and passed with the front wheel arch untouched.
Engine
History
Gordon Murray insisted that the engine for this car be naturally aspirated to increase reliability and driver control. Turbochargers and superchargers increase power but they increase complexity and can decrease reliability as well as introduce an additional aspect of latency and loss of feedback. The ability of the driver to maintain maximum control of the engine is thus compromised. Murray initially approached Honda for a power plant rated at , with of block length and a total weight of , it was required to be derived from the Formula One power plant in the then-dominating McLaren/Honda cars.
When Honda refused, Isuzu, then planning an entry into Formula One, had a 3.5-litre V12 engine being tested in a Lotus chassis. The company was very interested in having the engine fitted into the F1. However, the designers wanted an engine with a proven design and a racing pedigree.
Specifications
Gordon Murray then approached BMW, which took an interest, and the motorsport division BMW M headed by engine expert Paul Rosche designed and built Murray a 60º V12 engine called the BMW S70/2.
At and the BMW engine ended up 14% more powerful and heavier than Gordon Murray's original specifications, with the same block length.
It has an aluminium alloy block and heads, with bore x stroke of DOHC with variable valve timing (a relatively new and unproven technology for the time) for maximum flexibility of control over the 4 valves per cylinder, and a chain drive for the camshafts.
The engine uses a dry sump oil lubrication system.
The carbon fibre body panels and monocoque required significant thermal insulation in the engine compartment, so Murray's solution was to line the engine bay with a highly efficient heat-reflector: gold foil. Approximately 16 g (0.56 ounce) of gold was used in each car.
The road version of the engine used a compression ratio of 11:1 to produce a maximum power output of at 7,400 rpm and of torque at 5,600 rpm. The engine's rev limiter is set at 7,500 rpm.
In contrast to raw engine power, a car's power-to-weight ratio is a better method of quantifying acceleration performance than the peak output of the vehicle's power plant. The standard F1 achieves 550 hp/ton (403 kW/tonne), or just 0.27 hp/lb.
The cam carriers, covers, oil sump, dry sump, and housings for the camshaft control are made of magnesium castings. The intake control features twelve individual butterfly valves and the exhaust system has four Inconel catalysts with individual Lambda-Sondion controls.
The camshafts are continuously variable for increased performance, using a system very closely based on BMW's VANOS variable valve timing system for the BMW M3; it is a hydraulically actuated phasing mechanism which retards the inlet cam relative to the exhaust cam at low revs, which reduces the valve overlap and provides for increased idle stability and increased low-speed torque. At higher rpm the valve overlap is increased by computer control to 42 degrees (compare to 25 degrees on the M3) for increased airflow into the cylinders and thus increased performance.
To allow the fuel to atomise fully, the engine uses two Lucas injectors per cylinder, with the first injector located close to the inlet valve – operating at low engine rpm – while the second is located higher up the inlet tract – operating at higher rpm. The dynamic transition between the two devices is controlled by the ECU.
Each cylinder has its own miniature ignition coil. The closed-loop fuel injection is sequential. The engine has no knock sensor as the predicted combustion conditions would not cause this to be a problem. The pistons are forged in aluminium.
Every cylinder bore has a Nikasil coating giving it a high degree of wear resistance.
From 1998 to 2000, the Le Mans–winning BMW V12 LMR sports car used a similar S70/2 engine.
The engine was given a short development time, causing the BMW design team to use only trusted technology from prior design and implementation experience. The engine does not use titanium valves or connecting rods. Variable intake geometry was considered but rejected on grounds of unnecessary complication.
As for fuel consumption, the engine achieves on average 15.2 mpg (15 L/100 km), at worst 9.3 mpg (25 L/100 km) and at best 23.4 mpg (10 L/100 km).
It was later revealed that BMW had used an E34 M5 Touring as a test mule in order to test the engine. The existence of such a test mule was revealed when David Clark, the director of McLaren road and race cars from 1994–1998 disclosed this fact to motoring journalist Chris Harris in a podcast. Clark also revealed that the prototype was kept out of the public eye and that BMW is still in possession of the prototype where it has been kept in their top secret prototype storage facility.
Chassis and body
The McLaren F1 was an early example of a production road car using a complete carbon fibre reinforced polymer (CFRP) monocoque chassis structure. Aluminium and magnesium were used for attachment points for the suspension system, inserted directly into the CFRP.
The car features a central driving position – the driver's seat is located in the middle, ahead of the fuel tank and ahead of the engine, with a passenger seat slightly behind and on each side. The vehicle doors move up and out when opened, and are thus of the butterfly or dihedral type. Gordon Murray's design for the doors was inspired by the Toyota Sera.
The engine produces high temperatures under full application and thus causes a high temperature variation in the engine bay from no operation to normal and full operation. CFRP becomes mechanically stressed over time from high heat transfer effects and thus the engine bay was not constructed from CFRP.
Aerodynamics
The overall drag coefficient on the standard McLaren F1 is , compared with for the faster Bugatti Veyron, and for the SSC Ultimate Aero TT, which was the fastest production car from 2007 to 2010. The vehicle's frontal area is and the S·Cd figure is 0.57. Because the McLaren F1 features active aerodynamics these are the figures presented in the most streamlined configuration.
The standard McLaren F1 road car features no fixed wing to produce downforce (compare to the LM and GTR editions); however, the overall design of the underbody of the McLaren F1 in addition to a rear diffuser exploits ground effect to improve downforce which is increased through the use of two electric Kevlar fans to further decrease the pressure under the car. A "high downforce mode" can be turned on and off by the driver. At the top of the vehicle, there is an air intake to direct high pressure air to the engine with a low pressure exit point at the top of the very rear. Under each door is a small air intake to provide cooling for the oil tank and some of the electronics. The airflow created by the electric fans not only increases downforce, but the airflow that is created is further exploited through design, by being directed through the engine bay to provide additional cooling for the engine and the ECU. At the front, there are ducts assisted by a Kevlar electric suction fan for cooling the front brakes.
There is a small dynamic rear spoiler on the tail of the vehicle, which will adjust dynamically and automatically attempt to balance the centre of gravity of the car under braking – which will be shifted forward when the brakes are applied. Upon activation of the spoiler, a high pressure zone is created in front of the flap, and this high pressure zone is exploited—two air intakes are revealed upon application that will allow the high pressure airflow to enter ducts that route air to aid in cooling the rear brakes. The spoiler increases the overall drag coefficient from to and is activated at speeds equal to or above by brake line pressure.
Suspension
Steve Randle, who was the car's dynamicist, was appointed responsible for the design of the suspension system of the McLaren F1. It was decided that the ride should be comfortable yet performance-oriented, but not as stiff and low as that of a true track machine, as that would imply a reduction in practical use and comfort as well as increasing noise and vibration, which would be a contradictory design choice in relation to the former set premise – the goal of creating the ultimate road car.
From inception, the design of the F1 had a strong focus on weight distribution by extensive manipulation of placement of, among other things, the engine, fuel and driver, allowing for a low polar moment of inertia in yaw. The F1 has 42% of its weight at the front and 58% at the rear, this figure changes less than 1% with the fuel load.
The distance between the mass centroid of the car and the suspension roll centre was designed to be the same front and rear to avoid unwanted weight transfer effects. Computer controlled dynamic suspension was considered but not applied due to the inherent increase in weight, complexity and loss of predictability of the vehicle.
Damper and spring specifications: bump, rebound with bounce frequency at 1.43 Hz at the front and 1.80 Hz at the rear. Despite being sports oriented, these figures imply a soft ride and inherently decrease track performance. As can be seen from the McLaren F1 LM and the McLaren F1 GTR track variants, the track performance potential is much higher than that in the standard F1 road car due to the fact that the car should be comfortable and usable in everyday conditions.
The suspension is a double wishbone system with an unusual design. Longitudinal wheel compliance is included without loss of wheel control, which allows the wheel to travel backwards when it hits a bump – increasing the comfort of the ride.
Caster wind-off at the front during braking is handled by McLaren's proprietary Ground Plane Shear Centre – the wishbones on either side in the subframe are fixed in rigid plane bearings and connected to the body by four independent bushings which are 25 times more stiff radially than axially. This solution provides for a caster wind-off measured to 1.02 degrees per g of braking deceleration. Compare the Honda NSX at 2.91 degrees per g, the Porsche 928 S at 3.60 degrees per g and the Jaguar XJ6 at 4.30 degrees per g respectively. The difference in toe and camber values is also very small under lateral force application. The Inclined Shear Axis is used at the rear of the machine and provides measurements of 0.04 degrees per g of change in toe-in under braking and 0.08 degrees per g of toe-out under traction.
When developing the suspension system the facility of electro-hydraulic kinematics and compliance at AB Dynamics was employed to measure the performance of the suspension on a Jaguar XJR16, a Porsche 928 S and a Honda NSX to use as references.
Steering knuckles and the top wishbone/bell crank are also specially manufactured in an aluminium alloy. The wishbones are machined from a solid aluminium alloy with CNC machines.
Tyres
The McLaren F1 uses 235/45ZR17 front tyres and 315/45ZR17 rear tyres. These are specially designed and developed solely for the McLaren F1 by Goodyear and Michelin. The tyres are mounted on front, and rear five-spoke cast magnesium wheels, coated with a protective paint and secured by magnesium retention pins.
The turning circle from kerb to kerb is , allowing the driver 2.8 turns from lock to lock.
Brakes
The F1 features unassisted, vented and cross-drilled brake discs made by Brembo. The Front size is and the rear . The calipers are all four-pot, opposed piston types, and are made of aluminium. The rear brake calipers do not feature any handbrake functionality, however there is a mechanically actuated, fist-type calipers which is computer controlled and thus serve as a handbrake.
To increase caliper stiffness, the calipers are machined from a single solid piece of metal (in contrast to the more common being bolted together from two halves). Pedal travel is slightly over one inch. Activation of the rear spoiler will allow the air pressure generated at the back of the vehicle to force air into the cooling ducts located at either end of the spoiler which become uncovered upon application of it.
Servo-assisted ABS brakes were ruled out as they would imply increased mass, complexity and reduced brake feel; however at the cost of increasing the required skill of the driver.
Gordon Murray attempted to utilise carbon brakes for the F1, but found the technology not mature enough at the time; with one of the major culprits being that of a proportional relationship between brake disc temperature and friction—i.e. stopping power—thus resulting in relatively poor brake performance without an initial warm-up of the brakes before use.
Since carbon brakes have a more simplified application envelope in pure racing environments, this allows for the racing edition of the car, the F1 GTR, to feature ceramic carbon brakes.
Gearbox and powertrain
The standard McLaren F1 has a transverse 6-speed manual gearbox with an AP carbon triple-plate clutch contained in an aluminium housing. The gearbox was developed in collaboration with Weismann transmissions in California. The second generation GTR edition has a magnesium housing. Both the standard edition and the 'McLaren F1 LM' have the following gear ratios: 3.23:1, 2.19:1, 1.71:1, 1.39:1, 1.16:1, 0.93:1, with a final drive of 2.37:1, although the final gear is offset from the side of the clutch.
The Torsen Limited Slip Differential has a 40% lock. The sixth gear ratio allows for a longer cruise at per 1000 rpm.
The McLaren F1 has an aluminium flywheel that has only the dimensions and mass absolutely needed to allow the torque from the engine to be transmitted. This is done in order to decrease rotational inertia and increase the responsiveness of the drivetrain, resulting in faster gear changes and better throttle feedback. This is possible due to the F1 engine lacking secondary vibrational couples and featuring a torsional vibration damper by BMW.
Interior and equipment
Standard equipment for the McLaren F1 includes full cabin air conditioning, a rarity on most sports cars and a system design which Murray again credited to the Honda NSX, a car he had owned and driven himself for 7 years without ever needing to change the AC automatic setting. Further comfort features included SeKurit electric defrost/demist windscreen and side glass, electric window lifts, remote central locking, Kenwood 10-disc CD stereo system, cabin access release for opening panels, cabin storage compartment, four-lamp high performance headlight system, rear fog and reversing lights, courtesy lights in all compartments, map reading lights and a gold-plated Facom titanium tool kit and first aid kit (both stored in the car). In addition, tailored, proprietary luggage bags specially designed to fit the vehicle's carpeted storage compartments, including a tailored golf bag, were standard equipment. Airbags are not present in the car. Each customer was given a special edition TAG Heuer 6000 Chronometer wristwatch with its serial number scripted below the centre stem.
All features of the F1 were, according to Gordon Murray, obsessed over, including the interior. The metal plates fitted to improve the aesthetics of the cockpit are claimed to be 20 thousandths of an inch (0.5 mm) thick to save weight.
The driver's seat of the McLaren F1 is custom fitted to the specifications desired by the customer for optimal fit and comfort; the seats are handmade from CFRP and covered in light Connolly leather. By design, the F1 steering column cannot be adjusted; however, prior to production each customer specifies the exact preferred position of the steering wheel and thus the steering column is tailored by default to those owner settings. The same holds true for the pedals, which are not adjustable after the car has left the factory, but are tailored to each specific customer.
During its pre-production stage, McLaren commissioned Kenwood, the team's supplier of radio equipment, to create a lightweight car audio system for the car; Kenwood, between 1992 and 1998 used the F1 to promote its products in print advertisements, calendars and brochure covers. Each car's audio system was specially designed to tailor to an individual's listening taste, however radio was omitted because Murray never listened to the radio.
Purchase and maintenance
Only 106 cars were manufactured: 5 prototypes (XP1, XP2, XP3, XP4, XP5), 64 road versions (F1), 1 tuned developmental prototype (XP1 LM), 5 tuned versions (LM), 1 longtail developmental prototype (XPGT), 2 longtail versions (GT), and 28 racecars (GTR). Production began in 1989 and ended in 1998. At the time of production, each car took around three and a half months to make.
Although production stopped in 1998, McLaren still maintains an extensive support and service network for the F1. Every standard F1 has a modem which allows customer care to remotely fetch information from the ECU of the car in order to assist the customer in the event of a mechanical vehicle failure. There are eight authorised service centres throughout the world, and McLaren will on occasion fly a specialised technician to the owner of the car or the service centre. All of the technicians have undergone dedicated training in service of the McLaren F1. In cases where major structural damage has occurred, the car can be returned to McLaren directly for repair.
Performance
The F1 remains one of the fastest production cars ever made; as of October 2018 it is outmatched by very few cars, including the Bugatti Veyron and the Bugatti Chiron.
However, all of the higher top speed machines use forced induction to reach their respective top speeds, whereas the McLaren F1 is naturally aspirated. To date the F1 holds the record for fastest naturally aspirated production car, a record it has held for almost 30 years.
Acceleration (Test By Autocar Magazine & Best Motoring Japan)
0–: 1.8 s
0–: 2.3 s
0–: 2.7 s
0–: 3.2 s
0–: 3.9 s
0–: 4.5 s
0–: 5.6 s
0–: 6.3 s
0–: 7.2 s
0–: 9.2 s
0–: 9.4 s
0–: 10.4 s
0–: 11.2 s
0–: 12.8 s
0–: 14.6 s
0–: 17.2 s
0–: 20.3 s
0–: 23.8 s
0–: 28 s
: 1.8 s, using 3rd/4th gear
: 2.1 s, using 3rd/4th gear
: 2.3 s, using 4th/5th gear
: 2.8 s, using 5th gear
: 7.6 s, using 6th gear
0–: 11.045 s at
0–: 19.548 s at
Braking and handling
30–0 mph (48–0 km/h): 9.7 m / 31.83 ft
50–0 mph (80–0 km/h): 25.2 m / 82.68 ft
70–0 mph (112–0 km/h): 49 m / 162 ft
Skidpad Lateral Acceleration: 1.2–1.3g
Track tests
Tsukuba Circuit, time trial: 1:04.62 (Driven by Naoki Hattori in Best Motoring) on a hot lap with humid (92%) weather and some mis-shifting.
Millbrook Proving Ground in Bedfordshire, banked circuit, top speed test: An average speed of , with a maximum speed of (driven by Tiff Needell using the XP5 prototype).
MIRA Proving Ground, banked circuit, top speed test: An average speed of , with a maximum speed of (driven by Peter Taylor).
Bedford Autodrome West Circuit Post 2006 Hot Lap: 1:21.20 done by Evo magazine with a custom modified McLaren F1 (with the same tyres as the Enzo) on 10 January 2007 which was faster than the Ferrari Enzo lap time of 1:21.30
Estoril circuit lap is 1:55.9 in 1994 (4.36 km) configuration of the track with 3 people on board in July 1994.
The 1st lap of Nurburgring was completed by Jonathan Palmer in the XP4 prototype, where he reached a maximum of 200 mph (322 km/h) on the track.
Record claims
In August 1993, McLaren tested the XP3 prototype – which was limited to – at the Nardò Ring. They calculated a top speed of from the data recording inside the car.
The British magazine Autocar was given access and tested the XP5 prototype in May 1994. They wrote: "Had we enough tarmac, we have no doubt that it would finally stop accelerating at its rev-limiter in top which, taking tyre growth into account, would be somewhere the far side of ."
Car and Driver wrote in their August 1994 issue ("Courtesy of Autocar & Motor" written in the box with performance numbers):
"Top speed? The F1 runs into the 7,500 rpm redline in sixth at but it's still accelerating. Gordon Murray, the F1's designer, is convinced that with taller gearing, the car is capable of at least ."
On 31 March 1998, Andy Wallace drove the five-year-old XP5 prototype at Volkswagen's test track in Ehra-Lessien, setting a new production car world record. The record consisted of an independently measured two-way average (peak speed measured by McLaren) with the rev-limiter raised to 8,300 rpm.
As of 2022, the F1 remains the fastest naturally aspirated production car in the world, a record that has been held for 24 years. Although its speed record has been passed, the cars that have surpassed it use forced induction engines.
Motorsports
Following its initial launch as a road car, motorsports teams convinced McLaren to build racing versions of the F1 to compete in international series. Three different versions of the race car were developed from 1995 to 1997.
Some of the F1 GTRs, after the cars were no longer eligible for international racing series, were converted to street use. By adding mufflers, and passenger seats, adjusting the suspension for more ground clearance for public streets, and removing the air-restrictors, the cars were able to be registered for road use.
F1 GTR 1995
Built at the request of race teams, such as those owned by Ray Bellm and Thomas Bscher, in order to compete in the BPR Global GT Series, the McLaren F1 GTR was a custom-built race car which introduced a modified engine management system that increased power output – however, air-restrictors mandated by racing regulations reduced the power back to at 7,500 rpm. The car's list of modifications included changes to body panels, suspension, aerodynamics and the interior. The F1 GTR would go on to take its greatest achievement with first, third, fourth, fifth, and 13th places in the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, beating out custom built prototype sports cars. When Mark Blundell – who finished fourth in the race – was asked what the F1 GTR was like to drive during the wet race, he said: "Well it was never designed to be a race car so in many respects it wasn't the best-balanced car in the world. The saving grace of the car was the BMW V12 engine. It was incredibly impressive in that you could be in 6th gear at 2,000 rpm and the thing would just pull like a train. And in the wet that is great as you can run a higher gear and it cuts out some of that traction issue. But in terms of balance, overall it was always a bit top heavy, so the centre of gravity wasn’t ideal. And aerodynamically it wasn't quite there, but it did the job".
In total, nine F1 GTRs were built for the 1995 season.
The 1995 F1 GTR created so much downforce that it was claimed to be able to drive upside down along a ceiling at .
F1 GTR 1996
To follow up on the success of the F1 GTR in 1996, McLaren further developed the 1995 model, leading to a size increase but a weight decrease. Nine more F1 GTRs were built to 1996 spec, while some 1995 cars were still campaigned by privateers. F1 GTR 1996 chassis #14R is notable as being the first non-Japanese car to win a race in the All-Japan Grand Touring Car Championship (JGTC). The car was driven by David Brabham and John Nielsen. The weight was reduced to around from the 1995 GTR but the engine was kept de-tuned at to comply with racing regulations.
F1 GTR 1997
With three F1 GT homologation street versions produced, McLaren could now develop the F1 GTR for the 1997 season. Weight was further reduced and a sequential gearbox was added. The engine was slightly destroked to 6.0 L instead of the previous 6.1 L. Due to the heavily modified bodywork, the F1 GTR 1997 is often referred to as the "Longtail" thanks to the rear bodywork being extended to increase downforce. A total of ten F1 GTRs were built for the 1997 season. The weight was reduced to a total of .
Variants
The McLaren F1 road car, of which 64 were originally sold, saw several different modifications over its production span which were badged as different models. The company maintains a database to match up prospective sellers and buyers of the cars.
Prototypes
Prior to the sale of the first McLaren F1s, five prototypes were built, carrying the numbers XP1 through XP5. These cars carried minor subtle differences between each other as well as between the production road cars. Contrary to common misunderstanding, XP1, the first ever running prototype, was never publicly unveiled. The XP1 was never painted (with a bare carbon fibre exterior) and was later destroyed in an accident in Namibia. The car unveiled at the Monaco 1992 event was actually a "Clinic Model", aesthetically convincing but without a powertrain. XP2 was used for crash testing (sporting a blue colour during the test) and also destroyed. As it was a crash test car, it didn't have full interior equipment or a powertrain. XP3 did durability testing, XP4 stress tested the gearbox system and XP5 was a publicity car. The XP3 used to be owned by Gordon Murray before being sold to a private buyer. XP4 was seen by viewers of Top Gear when reviewed by Tiff Needell in the mid-1990s and later on sold to a private owner, while XP5 went on to be used in McLaren's famous top speed run and is still owned by McLaren.
Ameritech
Seven McLaren F1s were imported by Ameritech and modified in order to be federalized for road use in the United States. These modifications include the deletion of side seats, the replacement of headlights, a heightened bumper and dampened performance figures including handling and braking compared to the European F1, due to road legality issues. It weighs in at .
Performance
Performance figures as tested by Road And Track Magazine in 1997:
Performance figures are lower than a regular F1 in all aspects (apart from ) relating to performance. As Mario Andretti noted in a top speed comparison test after hitting the rev limiter at on Ameritech F1, the Ameritech F1 is fully capable of pulling a seventh gear, thus with a higher gear ratio or a seventh gear the car would probably be able to reach an even greater top speed.
Acceleration figures
0–30 mph: 1.7 seconds
0–40 mph: 2.3 seconds
0–50 mph: 2.9 seconds
0–60 mph: 3.4 seconds
0–70 mph: 4.5 seconds
0–80 mph: 5.3 seconds
0–90 mph: 6.1 seconds
0–100 mph: 7.7 seconds
0–110 mph: 8.8 seconds
0–120 mph: 10.5 seconds
1/4 mile: 11.6 seconds at 125 mph
0–100 ft at 2.7 seconds
0–500 ft at 6.5 seconds
Top Speed: 217.7 mph
Braking
60–0 mph: 127 ft
80–0 mph: 215 ft
Handling
Skidpad 200 ft: 0.86g
Slalom 700 ft Speed: 64.5 mph
F1 LM
The McLaren F1 LM (LM for Le Mans) is a series of five special cars which were built in honour of the five McLaren F1 GTRs which finished the 1995 24 Hours of Le Mans, including the winning car.
The weight was reduced by approximately to a total of – achieved by having no interior noise suppression, no audio system, a stripped-down base interior, no fan-assisted ground effect and no dynamic rear wing. The car also had a different transaxle, various aerodynamic modifications, specially designed magnesium alloy wheels and an upgraded gearbox. The F1 LM used the same engine as the 1995 F1 GTR, but without race-mandated restrictors, to produce . It had a top speed of , which is less than the standard version because of added aerodynamic drag, despite identical gear ratios. In the place of the small dynamic rear wing there is a considerably larger, fixed CFRP rear wing mounted on the back of the vehicle.
The LM has the following specifications:
Peak torque of at 4,500 rpm
Peak power of at 7,800 rpm
A redline at 8,500 rpm
Total weight of which gives the car an per litre ratio.
While McLaren has never claimed specific acceleration figures for the LM, Motor Trend recorded traction-limited times of 0–60 mph in 3.9 seconds and 0–100 mph in 6.7 seconds. The LM was once the holder of the 0–100–0 mph record, which it completed in 11.5 seconds when driven by Andy Wallace at the disused airbase RAF Alconbury in Cambridgeshire.
The F1 LMs can be identified by their Papaya Orange paint. They were painted in this colour in memory of, and tribute to, Bruce McLaren, whose race colour was Papaya Orange. Two of the chassis were painted in Black with Grey trim similar to the Ueno Clinic sponsored Le Mans 24 Hours winning car. These cars were bought by the Sultan of Brunei and, as such, also feature horizontal stripes down the sides in yellow, red and blue.
Although only five F1 LMs were sold, a sixth chassis exists in the form of XP1 LM, the prototype for modifications to the existing F1 to form the new F1 LM. This car is also painted Papaya Orange and is retained by McLaren.
F1 High Downforce Kit (HDK)
Two standard F1s were upgraded to "LM specification". These have chassis numbers 073 and 018. The engines were upgraded to unrestricted GTR specification resulting in a power output of and had the High Downforce Kit (HDK) added to them. Their interiors were made more comfortable over the F1 LM. The car having chassis number 018 had upgrades to the air conditioning units, the headlamps changed to a gas discharge type and the steering wheel changed to a 14-inch unit. Moreover, race specification dampers and springs set to the softest settings for comfortable road use were added. 18-inch GTR wheels were used instead of the standard 17-inch and the tyres used are Michelin Pilot Sport units.
F1 GT
The final and rarest incarnation of the road car, the F1 GT was meant as a homologation special. With increased competition from homologated sports cars from Porsche and Mercedes-Benz in the former BPR Global GT Series and the new FIA GT Championship, McLaren required extensive modification to the F1 GTR in order to remain competitive. These modifications were so vast that McLaren would be required to build a production road-legal car on which the new race cars would be based.
The F1 GT featured the same extended rear bodywork as the GTRs for increased downforce and reduced drag, yet lacked the rear wing that had been seen on the F1 LM. The downforce generated by the longer tail was found to be sufficient to not require the wing. The front end was also similar to the racing car, with extra louvers and the wheel arches widened to fit larger wheels. The interior was modified and a racing steering wheel was included in place of the standard unit.
The F1 GTs were built from standard F1 road car chassis, retaining their production numbers. The developmental prototype GT, known as XPGT, was F1 chassis #056XP, was painted dark green ("Silverstone green") and is owned by a private collector in Switzerland. The company technically only needed to build one car and did not even have to sell it. However, demand from customers drove McLaren to build two production versions that were sold- the customer F1 GTs were chassis #054 and #058. #054 was painted black and is owned by the Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah, while #058 was painted burgundy and is owned by the ZAZ Museum in Japan. It weighs , lighter than the standard F1 and has a top speed of over , although this was never tested.
See also
Production car speed record
Timeline of most powerful production cars
References
Further reading
Driving Ambition: The Official Inside Story of the McLaren F1 ()
Haymarket Magazines Ltd 1994, "F1 – McLaren's road car"
F1 – McLaren's road car, An Autocar & Motor Book
McLaren F1 GTR LM Sportscars Performance Portfolio ()
The Fastest Cars From Around The World ()
External links
Official McLaren Automotive website
F1
Coupés
First car made by manufacturer
Rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive vehicles
Sports cars
Cars introduced in 1992
McLaren F1 |
420297 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pop%20%28U2%20album%29 | Pop (U2 album) | Pop is the ninth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Flood, Howie B, and Steve Osborne, and was released on 3 March 1997 on Island Records. The album was a continuation of the band's 1990s musical reinvention, as they incorporated alternative rock, techno, dance, and electronica influences into their sound. Pop employed a variety of production techniques that were relatively new to U2, including sampling, loops, programmed drum machines, and sequencing.
Recording sessions began in 1995 with various record producers, including Nellee Hooper, Flood, Howie B, and Osborne, who were introducing the band to various electronica influences. At the time, drummer Larry Mullen Jr. was inactive due to a back injury, prompting the other band members to take different approaches to songwriting. Upon Mullen's return, the band began re-working much of their material but ultimately struggled to complete songs. After the band allowed manager Paul McGuinness to book their upcoming 1997 PopMart Tour before the record was completed, they felt rushed into delivering it. Even after delaying the album's release date from the 1996 Christmas and holiday season to March 1997, U2 ran out of time in the studio, working up to the last minute to complete songs.
In February 1997, U2 released Pops techno-heavy lead single, "Discothèque", one of six singles from the album. The record initially received favourable reviews from critics and reached number one in 35 countries, including the United Kingdom and the United States. However, the album's lifetime sales are among the lowest in U2's catalogue, and it received only a single platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America. Retrospectively, the album is viewed by some of the music press and public as a disappointment. The finished product was not to U2's liking, and they subsequently re-recorded and remixed many of the songs for single and compilation album releases. The time required to complete Pop cut into the band's rehearsal time for the tour, which affected the quality of initial shows.
Background and writing
In the first half of the 1990s, U2 underwent a dramatic shift in musical style. The band had experimented with alternative rock and electronic music and the use of samples on their 1991 album, Achtung Baby, and, to a greater extent, on 1993's Zooropa. In 1995, the group's side-projects provided them an opportunity to delve even deeper into these genres. Bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. recorded "Theme from Mission: Impossible" in an electronica style. The recording was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Instrumental Performance in 1997 and was an international top-ten hit. In 1995, U2 and Brian Eno recorded an experimental album, Original Soundtracks 1, under the moniker "Passengers". The project included Howie B, Akiko Kobayashi and Luciano Pavarotti, among others.
Bono and the Edge had written a few songs before recording started for Pop in earnest. "If You Wear That Velvet Dress", "Wake Up Dead Man", "Last Night on Earth" and "If God Will Send His Angels" were originally conceived during the Zooropa sessions. "Mofo" and "Staring at the Sun" were also partly written already.
Recording and production
For the new record, U2 wanted to continue their sonic experimentation from Achtung Baby and Zooropa. To do so, they employed multiple producers to have additional people with whom to share their ideas. Flood was principal producer, having previously worked with the group as engineer for The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, and co-producer of Zooropa. Mark "Spike" Stent and Howie B were principal engineers. Flood described his job on Pop as a "creative coordinator", saying, "There were some tracks where I didn't necessarily have a major involvement... but ultimately the buck stopped with me. I had the role of the creative supervisor who judged what worked and didn't work." Howie B had previously provided mixing, treatments, and scratching for Original Soundtracks 1. On Pop, he was initially given the role of "DJ and Vibes" before assuming responsibilities as co-producer, engineer, and mixer. One of his main tasks was to introduce the band to sounds and influences within electronica. The band and Howie B regularly went out to dance clubs to experience club music and culture. The overall goal for the record was to create a new sound for the band that was still recognisable as U2.
U2 began work on Pop in mid-1995, collaborating with Nellee Hooper in London, France, and Ireland. In September, the band moved the recording sessions to Hanover Quay in Dublin to a studio the band had just converted from a warehouse. The studio was designed to be more of a rehearsal space more than an actual studio. Flood, Howie B, Steve Osborne, and Marius de Vries joined Hooper and the band there, each of them incorporating their influences and experiences in electronic dance music. Flood described Howie's influence thus: "Howie would be playing all kinds of records to inspire the band and for them to improvise to. That could be anything from a jazz trumpet solo to a super groove funk thing, with no holds barred. We also programmed drum loops, or took things from sample CDs; anything to get the ball rolling. U2 arrive in the studio with very little finished material." These sessions lasted until December 1995, and around 30–40 pieces of music emerged during this period.
Mullen, who had mostly been absent from the sessions to start a family and nurse a worsening back injury, had major surgery on his back in November 1995. Mullen was unable to drum properly during this period, forcing U2 to abandon their usual methods of songwriting as a group but also allowing them to pursue different musical influences. Mullen admits that he was upset that the band entered the studio without him, cognizant that key decisions would be made in the early months of recording. Eno attempted to convince the other band members to wait for Mullen, but as the Edge explains, "The thinking was that we were going to further experiment with the notion of what a band was all about and find new ways to write songs, accepting the influence, and aesthetics of dance music... we thought, 'Let's just start with Howie mixing drum beats and see where that gets us.'" Mullen was back in the studio three weeks after his surgery, but his back prevented him from fully dedicating himself to recording. As he described, "I needed a little more time to recover. But we were struggling with some of the material and for the project to move ahead, I had to put a lot of time in." Sessions ceased temporarily in January 1996 to allow Mullen to rehabilitate.
Following Mullen's return and the sessions' resumption in February 1996, the production team of Flood, Howie B, and Hooper spent three months attempting to re-work much of the band's material to better incorporate loops and samples with their musical ideas from 1995. This period was a difficult one; Mullen, in particular, had to record drum parts to replace loops that Howie B had sampled without permission. Flood said, "We took what we had and got the band to play to it and work it into their own idiom, while incorporating a dance ethic... The groove-orientated way of making music can be a trap when there's no song; you end up just plowing along on one riff. So you have to try to get the groove and the song, and do it so that it sounds like the band, and do it so that it sounds like something new."
Despite the initial difficulties with sampling, the band and production team eventually became comfortable with it, even sampling Mullen's drumming, the Edge's guitar riffs, Clayton's bass lines, and Bono's vocalisations. Howie B sampled almost anything he could in order to find interesting sounds. He created sequenced patterns of the Edge's guitar playing, which the guitarist, having never done it before, found very interesting. Howie B explained, "Sometimes I would sample, say, a guitar, but it wouldn't come back sounding like a guitar; it might sound more like a pneumatic drill, because I would take the raw sound and filter it, really destroy the guitar sound, and rebuild it into something completely different." Although sequencing was used, mostly on keyboards, guitar loops, and some percussion, it was used sparingly out of fear of becoming overreliant on it.
Nellee Hooper left the sessions in May 1996 due to his commitments to the Romeo + Juliet film score. The recording sessions changed radically in the last few months, which is why Hooper was not credited on the album.
By forcing the band members out of their individual comfort zones, the producers were able to change U2's approach to songwriting and playing their instruments. Mullen, in particular, was forced to do this, as he used samples of other records, sample CDs, or programmed drums while recuperating. Although he eventually reverted to recording his own samples, the experience of using others' changed his approach to recording rhythms.
During the recording sessions, U2 allowed manager Paul McGuinness to book their upcoming PopMart Tour before they had completed the album, putting the tour's start date at April 1997. The album was originally planned to be completed and released in time for the 1996 Christmas and holiday season, but the band found themselves struggling to complete songs, necessitating a delay in the album's release date until March 1997. Even with the extended timeframe to complete the album, recording continued up to the last minute. Bono devised and recorded the chorus to "Last Night on Earth" on, coincidentally, the last night of the album's recording and mixing. When Howie B and the Edge took the album to New York City to be mastered, changes and additions to the songs were still being made. During the process, Howie B was adding effects to "Discothèque", while the Edge was recording backing vocals for "The Playboy Mansion". Of the last minute changes, the Edge said, "It's a sign of absolute madness." Flood says, "We had three different mixes of 'Mofo', and during mastering in November '96 in New York, I edited a final version of 'Mofo' from these three mixes. So even during mastering, we were trying to push the song to another level. It was a long process of experimentation; the album didn't actually come together until the last few months."
Ultimately, U2 felt that Pop had not been completed to their satisfaction. The Edge described the finished album as "a compromise project by the end. It was a crazy period trying to mix everything and finish recording and having production meetings about the upcoming tour... If you can't mix something, it generally means there's something wrong with it..." Mullen said, "If we had two or three more months to work, we would have had a very different record. I would like someday to rework those songs and give them the attention and time that they deserve." McGuinness disagrees that the band did not have enough time, saying, "It got an awful lot of time, actually. I think it suffered from too many cooks [in the kitchen]. There were so many people with a hand in that record it wasn't surprising to me that it didn't come through as clearly as it might have done... It was also the first time I started to think that technology was getting out of control." The band ended up re-working and re-recording many songs for the album's singles, as well as for the band's 2002 compilation The Best of 1990-2000.
Composition
Pop features tape loops, programming, sequencing, sampling, and heavy, funky dance rhythms. The Edge said in U2's fan magazine Propaganda that, "It's very difficult to pin this record down. It's not got any identity because it's got so many." Bono has said that the album "begins at a party and ends at a funeral", referring to the upbeat and party-like first half of the album and sombre and dark mood of the second half. According to Flood, the production team worked to achieve a "sense of space" on the record's sound by layering all the elements of the arrangements and giving them places in the frequency spectrum where they did not interfere with each other through the continual experimenting and re-working of song arrangements.
Clayton's bass guitar was heavily processed, to the point that it sounded like a keyboard bass (an instrument utilized on "Mofo"). The Edge wanted to steer away from the image he had since the 1980s as having an echo-heavy guitar sound. As a result, he was enthusiastic about experimenting with his guitar's sound, hence the distorted guitar sounds on the album, achieved with a variety of effects pedals, synthesisers and knob twiddling. Bono was very determined to avoid the vocal style present on previous (especially 1980s) albums, characterized by pathos, rich timbre, a sometimes theatrical quality and his use of falsetto singing: instead he opted for a rougher, more nervous and less timbre-laden style. The production team made his voice sound more intimate, as up-front and raw as possible. As Flood explained, "You get his emotional involvement with the songs through the lyrics and the way he reacts to the music—without him having to go to 11 all the time... We only used extreme effects on his voice during the recording, for him to get himself into a different place, and then, gradually, we pulled most effects out."
"Discothèque", the lead single, begins with a distorted acoustic guitar that is passed through a loud amplifier and a filter pedal, along with being processed through an ARP 2600 synthesizer. The song's riff and techno dance rhythm are then introduced. The break in the song's rhythm section features guitar sounds utilizing a "Big Cheese", an effects pedal made by Lovetone. Writer John D. Luerssen noted that the song is "often cited as U2's first experiment with electronica," calling it "a continuation of the experimentation the band had done on Zooropa."
"Do You Feel Loved", which was considered for a single release, runs at a slower pace and features electronic elements. Bono said of the song: "It's quite a question, but there's no question mark on it," as the band took the question mark off the title of the song for fearing it would be perceived as "too heavy."
"Mofo" is the most overtly techno track on the record. Bono's lyrics lament the loss of his mother. There are little guitar and vocal samples that the band played and the production team sampled. They selected the bits that they liked, and then Edge played them back in a keyboard. Pop'''s producer Flood also put some of guitar work through the ARP 2600 on this track.
"If God Will Send His Angels" is a ballad with Bono pleading for God's help. Like the other singles, the single version is different from the album version. Written on acoustic guitar, D. Leurssen described it as a "techno-tinged ballad". Bono originally thought the song was too soft and asked to "fuck it up," saying "I thought, this is, like, pure. Now drop acid onto that."
"Staring at the Sun" features acoustic guitars and a distorted guitar riff from Edge, and a simple rhythm section from Mullen. The backing track was played to the ARP 2600 running in free time, playing an odd drum-like sequence.
"Last Night on Earth" is anthemic with fuzzy, layered guitars, a funk-inspired bass line, and vocal harmonies during the song's bridge.
"Gone" features a "siren" effect from Edge's guitar, complex krautrock style drums from Mullen and a funk-inspired bass line. This track was also considered for release as a single. Flood applied VCS3 spring reverb and ring modulation in a few places, and used it a lot on the basic rhythm track of this song.
"Miami" has a trip rock style. It begins with a drum loop, with Mullen's hi-hats playing backwards through a very extreme equalization filter. Howie B explained, "The main groove is actually just Larry's hi-hat, but it sounds like a mad engine running or something really crazy – about as far away from a hi-hat as you can imagine... the task in 'Miami' was to make it unlike anything else on the album, and also unlike anything else you'd ever have heard before." Edge also comes in with a frenetic guitar riff and Bono's affected vocal style singing about Miami in metaphors and descriptions of loud, brash Americana. D. Leurssen described it as a "sonic travelogue," while the Edge termed it "creative tourism." In 2005, Q magazine included the song "Miami" in a list of "Ten Terrible Records by Great Artists". However, Andrew Unterberger of Stylus Magazine acknowledged the inclusion of the song in Q's list and said "I’m pretty sure they gave this album some super-glowing review when it was first released, so clearly they’re not to be trusted in the first."
"The Playboy Mansion" starts out with mellow, wah-wah guitar playing from Edge. Along with Mullen's drumming, there are breakbeats and hip-hop beats on the rhythm track, which were recorded as loops by Mullen. Howie described the loops thus; "Larry went off into a side room and made some sample loops of him playing his kit, and gave the loops to me and Flood. It was the same with the guitars; there's a guitar riff which comes in the verse and chorus, which is a sample of Edge playing." Bono's lyrics are a tongue-in-cheek account of pop culture icons.
"If You Wear That Velvet Dress" features a mellow, dark atmosphere. Marius De Vries played keyboards on this track, contributing to the ambient feel. Mullen uses brush stroke style drums for the most part. When news first broke of U2's work in the studio, it was reported the band were recording a trip hop album; writer Niall Stokes believes that "The Playboy Mansion" comes close to the assertion due to Hooper's heavy hand. Flood stated that Hooper "started things off" but did not finish the track due to his time constraints. Bono reworked this song as a lounge-jazz piece for the 2002 Jools Holland album Small World Big Band Volume Two.
"Please" features Bono lamenting The Troubles and the Northern Irish peace process, pleading with the powers that be to "get up off their knees". Mullen uses martial-style drumming, similar to "Sunday Bloody Sunday". Flood put guitar work through the ARP 2600 on the song. He explains, "For ages the rhythm track played all the way through the track. It's a fairly tight groove/bass thing, and then we suddenly decided to drop out the rhythm section in the middle and add a load of strings and these weird synthetic sounds at the end of that break." The single releases and live performances of the song were different from the album version, with more prominent guitar playing and a guitar solo to end the song.
"Wake Up Dead Man" began as an upbeat song from the Achtung Baby sessions in 1991. It evolved into a darker composition during the Zooropa sessions, but it was shelved until Pop. One of the band's darkest songs, "Wake Up Dead Man" features Bono pleading with Jesus to return and save mankind, evident in the lyrics "Jesus / Jesus help me / I'm alone in this world / And a fucked-up world it is too". It is also one of only a few U2 songs to include profanity.
ReleasePop was originally scheduled for a November 1996 release date, but after the recording sessions went long, the album was delayed until March 1997. This significantly cut into the band's rehearsal time for the upcoming PopMart Tour that they had scheduled in advance, which impacted the quality of the band's initial performances on tour. Though the band settled on the album name Pop, many working names and proposed titles for the album, including Discola, Miami, Mi@mi, Novelty Act, Super City Mania, YOU2 and Godzilla, went as far as having artwork made for them, while the names Pop for Men and Pop Pour Hommes were also considered. Pop was dedicated to Bill Graham, one of the band's earliest fans who died in 1996, famous for suggesting to Paul McGuinness that he become U2's manager. As with Rattle and Hum, it was also dedicated to the band's production manager Anne Louise Kelly whose dedication message, "4UALKXXXX", is hidden on the playing side of the CD where the matrix number is found.
On 26 October 1996, U2 became one of the earliest bands to fall victim to an internet leak when a Hungary-based fansite leaked clips of "Discothèque" and "Wake Up Dead Man", creating a buzz which built quickly on the internet, as radio stations played the snippets as a means to introduce listeners to the album. The clips were traced back to Polygram, where an executive had shared a VHS tape with previews of the tracks to marketing managers worldwide; one writer said that "from there it got into the hands of a label employee's friend."
Promotion
On 12 February 1997, two weeks before the album was released, the band held a press conference in the lingerie section of a K-Mart department store in New York City to announce details for the PopMart Tour. On 26 April 1997, American television network ABC aired a one-hour prime time special about Pop and the PopMart Tour, titled U2: A Year in Pop. Narrated by actor Dennis Hopper, the documentary featured footage from the Pop recording sessions, as well as live footage from the opening PopMart show in Las Vegas, which took place the night before. The program received poor reception, ranking at 101 out of 107 programs aired that week, according to Nielsen ratings, and became the lowest rated non-political documentary in the history of the ABC network.de la Parra (2003), p. 195. Despite the low ratings, McGuinness appreciated the opportunity for the band to appear on network television in the first place, stating that the small audience for the television special was still a large audience for the band, as it was much larger than any audience that could be obtained by MTV.
SinglesPop featured six international singles, the most the band has released for a single album. "Do You Feel Loved" and "Gone" were also considered for release.
The album's first single, "Discothèque", was released on 3 February 1997 and was a huge dance and airplay success in the U.S. and UK. It also reached No. 1 in the singles charts of most of European countries including the United Kingdom, where it was their third No. 1 single. In the United States, "Discothèque" is notable for being U2's only single since 1991 to crack the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at #10. However, the song's dance elements and more humorous video (featuring U2 in a discothèque and even imitating The Village People) limited its appeal. This started a backlash against U2 and Pop, limiting sales, as many fans felt that the band had gone a bit too far over-the-top in the self-mocking and "ironic" imagery.
The follow-up single "Staring at the Sun" was released 15 April 1997 and became a Top 40 success in the U.S., but to a lesser extent, peaking at No. 26 on the Billboard Hot 100. "Last Night on Earth" was released as the third single on 14 July 1997, but did not crack the top 40, peaking at #57. "Please", "If God Will Send His Angels", and "Mofo" were subsequently released as singles, but none reached the Top 100.
The Please: Popheart Live EP, featuring four live tracks from the PopMart Tour, was also released in most regions. In the United States, the four live tracks were instead released on the "Please" single, along with the single version of "Please," itself.
Critical receptionPop initially received favourable reviews from critics. Barney Hoskyns of Rolling Stone gave Pop a four-star rating, praising the band's use of technology on the album: "U2 know that technology is ineluctably altering the sonic surface – and, perhaps, even the very meaning – of rock & roll." The review also stated that U2 had "pieced together a record whose rhythms, textures and visceral guitar mayhem make for a thrilling roller-coaster ride" and that the band had "defied the odds and made some of the greatest music of their lives". David Browne of Entertainment Weekly gave the album a B rating, saying: "Despite its glittery launch, the album is neither trashy nor kitschy, nor is it junky-fun dance music. It incorporates bits of the new technology – a high-pitched siren squeal here, a sound-collage splatter there – but it is still very much a U2 album". Robert Hilburn of the Los Angeles Times rated Pop four-stars-out-of-four, judging the album to benefit "from the tension of... competing influences, sometimes leaning more on the electronic currents, elsewhere showcasing the more melodic and accessible songwriting strengths". He praised the group's musical experimentation, saying, "It is such boldness that has enabled U2 to remain at the creative forefront of pop music for more than a decade." James Hunter of Spin rated the record 9/10, writing, "Pop realizes a symphonic transcendence for which the band's earlier stabs like The Unforgettable Fire could only wish." He added, "They are now experts at wringing genuine emotion, and even a few smirks, out of random sounds, letting their roots filter up from below." Bernard Zuel of The Sydney Morning Herald praised the album's understated tracks and the influence of Howie B, and said that the band avoided making the same mistake as rock counterparts of "trying to slap a traditional bottom-end on top of a metronomic beat and calling it dance". He said that despite not being "the future of rock'n'roll", Pop was "a genuine snapshot of its present by a band bright enough to keep exploring, smart enough not to abandon its past and big enough to make it palatable to radio programmers" resistant to dance music.
Other reviews were more critical. Neil Strauss of The New York Times wrote that "From the band's first album, Boy, in 1980, through The Joshua Tree in 1987, U2 sounded inspired. Now it sounds expensive." He further commented that "U2 and techno don't mix any better than U2 and irony do." Parry Gettelman of the Orlando Sentinel rated the album two stars and found the band's attempt to merge rock music with dance rhythms underwhelming, saying, "U2 lacks the zest for experimentation that has helped make electronic music so appealing to music fans weary of formulaic rock". John Sakamoto of Jam! Showbiz said, "Far from an exercise in daring self-indulgence, Pop is too often guilty of a much more serious offence: not going far enough." He added, "as with so many elements of the ephemeral culture it both disparages and celebrates, it ends up being something considerably less than has been advertised." Village Voice critic Robert Christgau rated it a dud, indicating a bad album unworthy of a review.
Retrospectively, Pop is viewed in the music press and public as a disappointment. In a 2013 article, Spin was more critical of the album than in the magazine's original review, calling it "U2's nadir period" and a "weirder, bolder, nervier record than its garish exterior would suggest... if you can tune out Bono's mugging, which of course you can't, which was the whole problem. The stupidity of all this subsumed the prescient bravery of it..." Caryn Rose of Vulture said that "A lengthy book could be written about the disaster that was Pop and the subsequent tour." Nonetheless, the album has been praised, including from Elvis Costello who included it in his 2000 list of "500 Albums You Need", and from Hot Press which ranked the album at number 104 on their 2009 list of "The 250 Greatest Irish Albums of All Time". Similarly, in 2003, Slant Magazine included the album in their list "Vital Pop: 50 Essential Pop Albums," with reviewer Sal Cinquemani saying "the reason why Pop wasn't a bigger hit in the U.S. is a mystery" and said the record was "better (and deeper) than anything on U2's much-ballyhooed 'return' to pop, All That You Can't Leave Behind." Bobby Olivier of Billboard believed that Pop was the band's "last legitimately courageous project," saying that "all we see is a group that chose not to coast."
Commercial performancePop was initially a commercial success, debuting at number one in 27 countries, including the UK and the US. In its first week on sale, the record sold 349,000 copies in the US. In its second week in the US, the album's sales fell 57 per cent, selling 150,000 copies. The record quickly dropped out of the top ten of the Billboard 200 chart. Pops lifetime sales are among the lowest in U2's catalogue. It was certified RIAA platinum once, the lowest since the band's album October.
PopMart Tour
In support of the album, the band launched the PopMart Tour. Consisting of four legs and a total of 93 shows, the tour took the band to stadiums worldwide from April 1997 to March 1998. Much like the band's previous Zoo TV Tour, PopMart was elaborately staged, featured a lavish set, and saw the band embrace an ironic and self-mocking image. The band's performances and the tour's stage design poked fun at the themes of consumerism and embraced pop culture. Along with the reduced rehearsal time that affected initial shows, the tour suffered from technical difficulties and mixed reviews from critics and fans over the tour's extravagance. The PopMart Tour grossed US$171,677,024 ($320,316,676.55 in 2023).
Legacy
Following the PopMart Tour, the band expressed their dissatisfaction with the final product. Between the album's various singles and the band's The Best of 1990–2000 compilation (and disregarding dance remixes and the like), the band has re-recorded, remixed, and rearranged "Discothèque", "If God Will Send His Angels", "Staring at the Sun", "Last Night on Earth", "Gone", and "Please". Bono has also recorded and issued a drastically different studio version of "If You Wear That Velvet Dress" with Jools Holland. Bono felt that "Pop never had the chance to be properly finished. It is really the most expensive demo session in the history of music."
The band took a considerably more conservative, stripped down approach with Pops follow-up, All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000), along with the Elevation Tour that supported it; All That You Can't Leave Behind features a "more traditional U2 sound." The few songs from Pop that were performed on the Elevation Tour ("Discothèque", "Gone", "Please", "Staring at the Sun", and "Wake Up Dead Man") were often presented in relatively bare-bones versions. On the Vertigo Tour, songs from Pop were even more rarely played; "Discothèque" was played twice at the beginning of the third leg, while other Pop songs appeared merely as snippets. No Pop songs appeared on the band's U2 360° Tour, though the chorus and guitar riff of "Discotheque" did appear as a regular snippet during the "dance" remix of the song "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight" late in the tour. U2 did not play a single song from the album on their Innocence + Experience Tour in 2015, although "Mofo" was sampled twice in the earliest tour dates. Pop was the only U2 album that U2 did not play a single song from for the full duration of their tour. Pop was viewed as U2's "most neglected album" with the band "effectively [disowning] the record by purging its material from setlists." Although he reiterated his belief that the album was rushed, the Edge still viewed Pop as a "great record," and said, "I was very proud of it by the end of the tour. We finally figured it out by the time we made the DVD. It was an amazing show that I'm really proud of." In the same interview, Edge also states, "We started out trying to make a dance-culture record and then realized at the end there are things we can do that no EDM producer or artist can do, so let’s try and have it both ways. In that case, we probably went too far in the other direction. We probably needed to allow a bit more of the electronica to survive."
In March 2018, U2 announced that Pop would be reissued and remastered on vinyl alongside Wide Awake in America (1985) and All That You Can't Leave Behind (2000) on 13 April 2018. "Staring at the Sun" was performed live during U2's 2018 Experience + Innocence Tour, which Andy Greene of Rolling Stone described as "a rare onstage acknowledgment that Pop is a thing that happened." In 2018, BBC included it on its list of "acclaimed albums that nobody listens to any more".
Track listingNotes – additional production
The Malaysian edition of Pop has a censored version of "Wake Up Dead Man", omitting the word "fucked (up)" from the song, a rare instance of the band using profanity in their music.
Personnel
Adapted from AllMusicU2 Bono – lead vocals, guitar
The Edge – guitar, keyboards, backing vocals
Adam Clayton – bass guitar
Larry Mullen Jr. – drums, percussion, programming, drum machineProduction Flood – production, keyboards
Steve Osborne – production, keyboards, engineering, mixing
Ben Hillier – programming
Howie B – production, turntables, keyboards, engineering, mixing
Marius De Vries – keyboards
Mark "Spike" Stent – engineering, mixing
Alan Moulder – engineering
Howie Weinberg – mastering
Deborah Mannis-Gardner – sample clearanceDesign Stéphane Sednaoui, Anja Grabert – photography
Nellee Hooper – photography
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Weekly singles chart
Certifications and sales
See also
U2 discography
ReferencesFootnotesBibliography'''
External links
Pop at U2.com
1997 albums
Albums produced by Flood (producer)
Albums produced by Howie B
Albums produced by Steve Osborne
Island Records albums
U2 albums |
420305 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All%20That%20You%20Can%27t%20Leave%20Behind | All That You Can't Leave Behind | All That You Can't Leave Behind is the tenth studio album by Irish rock band U2. It was produced by Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, and was released on 30October 2000 through Island Records and Interscope Records. Following the band's experimentation with alternative rock and dance music in the 1990s and the mixed reception to their 1997 album, Pop, U2 returned to a sound more akin to their earlier records for All That You Can't Leave Behind. The group reunited with Eno and Lanois, who had produced three prior U2 albums together. The record was originally named "U2000", which had been a working title for their PopMart Tour.
The album received positive reviews from most critics, reached number one in 32 countries, and sold over 12million copies. The songs "Beautiful Day", "Walk On", "Elevation", and "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" were all successful singles. The record and its songs won seven Grammy Awards; it is the only album in history to have multiple tracks win the Grammy Award for Record of the Year: "Beautiful Day" in 2001 and "Walk On" in 2002. In 2003, the album was ranked 139th on Rolling Stones list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time", but it was re-ranked at number280 in 2012. The supporting Elevation Tour, on which the band returned to playing arenas with a more intimate stage design, was also a critical and commercial success. All That You Can't Leave Behind was reissued in 2020 to commemorate the 20th anniversary of its original release.
Background
Throughout the 1990s, U2 experimented with alternative rock and electronic dance music, culminating with their 1997 album Pop and the accompanying PopMart Tour. Guitarist the Edge said that with Pop, the band had "taken the deconstruction of the rock 'n' roll band format to its absolute 'nth degree." However, following the poor reception to the album and tour, the band wished to return to song arrangements that consisted almost entirely of guitar, bass, and drums, and to quickly regroup in the studio after the tour.
Writing and recording
For All That You Can't Leave Behind, U2 reunited with producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois, who also produced their albums The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. Although the band wanted to write new material before beginning recording sessions, Eno convinced them to quickly write songs in the studio. For three weeks in late 1998, U2, Eno, and Lanois recorded demos in Hanover Quay Studios. One of the few quality ideas that stemmed from these brief sessions was the song "Kite". Lead singer Bono's vocals inspired everyone in the studio, particularly after he had been suffering from vocal problems for the previous few years. U2 thought they would have a new record completed in time for 1999. After the band's brief demo sessions, The Edge worked alone on song ideas before the band reunited at Hanover Quays. They recorded with the mentality of a "band in a room playing together", an approach that led to the album's more stripped-down sound.
Bono's involvement in the Jubilee 2000 campaign prevented him from dedicating all of his time to the album's recording, something Eno thought was a distraction. There was also a two-month break in the sessions when Bono collaborated with Lanois and Hal Wilner on the Million Dollar Hotel film soundtrack. The band had thought they could complete the album for 1999, but the sessions ran long, with band members' conflicting schedules playing a large part in the delay. U2 did not want to put a deadline on completing the album after their experience with Pop, which had to be rushed to completion in order to meet the deadline set by their pre-booked PopMart Tour.
In mid-1999, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. bought houses in the South of France, in order to be near Bono and The Edge's homes so they could have a place to both "work and play". That year, a bag holding personal papers and a laptop computer containing lyrics for the album was taken from Bono's car, which was parked outside Dublin's Clarence Hotel, which is owned by Bono and The Edge. Bono offered a reward of £2,000 for the return of the computer. An Irish man returned the laptop after having bought it for £300 thinking it was from a reputable source. He realised it was Bono's when he saw a picture of the singer's child Elijah Bob on the screen, prompting him to contact U2's management.
The band have said that All That You Can't Leave Behind was an album that acknowledged the band's past. For example, there was a big debate amongst the band members during the writing and recording of "Beautiful Day"; The Edge was playing with a guitar tone that he had not used much since their 1983 album War and the band wanted something more forward-looking. The Edge won out and the tone made it into the final version of the song. Additionally, although the record was described as "a return to the traditional U2 sound", many songs were complex and retained elements of the band's 1990s experimentation; The introduction of "Beautiful Day" features an "electronification of the [chorus] chords with a beat box and a string part"; "New York" came together when the band members were away at a meeting and Lanois and Eno were playing around with a drum loop that Mullen had recorded.
Composition
The album was seen as a return to the band's traditional sound after their more experimental records of the 1990s. In many ways, however, this is an oversimplification, as the album breaks new ground by retaining the sonic nuances of their 1990s work and reconciling it with the melodic, hook-filled rock of their 1980s work. The first song (and lead single), "Beautiful Day", for instance, is an optimistic anthem that opens with a drum machine and a rhythm sequencer. The album also includes "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of", a song written by Bono for his friend, lead singer of INXS, Michael Hutchence, who committed suicide in 1997. Clayton said the album was written "about the journey we'd been through as a band, as men in relationships, as sons of mothers and fathers. It was about the baggage that you have to live with, the sense of loss, like the fact that Bono's father was terminally ill through that whole period."
Musicologist Susan Fast says both this album and the follow-up How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb (2004) find U2 returning to "more 'stripped down' rock and pop sounds". Orlando Sentinel writer Matt Gilmour has called it a "pop-rock" and "classicist rock album – equal parts rhythm and blues, soul, rock and pop."
Artwork
The photograph on the album cover was taken by long-time U2 photographer Anton Corbijn in the Roissy Hall 2F of the Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France, which was also where the music video for "Beautiful Day" was shot. Contrasting with the colourful sleeves of the band's 1990s records, the cover of All That You Can't Leave Behind is a single monochrome image of the band. The designers describe the look they created as "grown up". In the original photograph, an airport sign reads "F21-36", indicating the direction of check-in desks. Per the band's request, the sleeve designers changed this to J33-3, a hidden reference to the Bible verse Jeremiah 33:3 ("Call unto me and I will answer thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not."). Bono referred to it as "God's phone number".
Release and promotion
Following the comparatively poor reception of their previous album Pop, U2 declared on a number of occasions that they were "re-applying for the job ... of best band in the world." Promotional activities for the album included a number of U2 firsts such as appearances on MTV's Total Request Live, USA Network's Farmclub.com, and Saturday Night Live. The band kicked off the release of the album by performing a short concert for about 600 people at the ManRay club in Paris, France, on 19 October 2000, as part of the promotion for the 30 October release of the album. The album was banned in Burma by SPDC because "Walk On" was dedicated to Burmese human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi.
The album was preceded by the lead single "Beautiful Day", released on 9October 2000. It was U2's fourth number-one single in the UK, their first number one in the Netherlands, and was also number one for a week in Australia. The song peaked at number21 in the US. The album's second single, "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of", was originally released on 29January 2001. It was also a success, reaching number two on the UK Singles Chart. In Canada and the United States, the song was released as the album's final single later in the year.
A third single, "Elevation", was first released in Australia on 25 June 2001 and received a UK release on 16 July 2001. The version of the song released as the single was the "Tomb Raider Mix", which appeared in television commercials for the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider movie. It features a much more hard rock arrangement than the album version, and it is this arrangement that the band plays live. The album's fourth and final single, "Walk On", was released in the UK on 19November 2001. This song served as the album's second single in North America; in Canada, it was released in February 2001, while in the US, it was serviced to radio the following month. The song took on new meaning with listeners following the 11 September attacks.
Reception
Critical reaction
All That You Can't Leave Behind received generally positive reviews from critics. On Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album has an average score of 79, based on 17 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews". James Hunter of Rolling Stone magazine declared it "U2's third masterpiece", alongside The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. David Browne of Entertainment Weekly called the record "as unwaveringly assured as Pop was tentative" and said that it "focuses on songs, not sonic gimmicks, and the difference is palpable". He concluded his review thusly: "at a time when rock feels so earthbound, and dance-steeped albums like Moby's Play provide the musical exaltation guitar bands once did, U2 simply want to reclaim some of that old stomping ground. In their hands, falling back on old habits isn't cowardice, but a virtue." Steve Morse of The Boston Globe said the record "has great songs that tie together beautifully—a welcome change from the disjointed nature of U2 discs such as 1993's Zooropa and 1997's Pop". He believed that Bono took extra care in crafting the lyrics, resulting in the "most thoughtful, personal, and tender U2 songs in memory". In his review for The Village Voice, Robert Christgau felt that the album eschewed the artsier tendencies of U2's previous work in favor of hooky pop songs and stated, "The feat's offhandedness is its most salient charm and nagging limitation. If I know anything, which with this band I never have, their best."
AllMusic editor Stephen Thomas Erlewine noted U2's return to "the generous spirit that flowed through their best '80s records" and called All That You Can't Leave Behind "a clever and craftsmanlike record, filled with nifty twists in the arrangements, small sonic details, and colors". USA Todays Edna Gundersen wrote that the band had distilled their previous experimentation "into smart accents and muted afterthoughts", resulting in a more organic record driven by "simplicity and soul". The Guardians Adam Sweeting felt that they had "grasped the value of simplicity" and created their most accessible and emotional recording since Achtung Baby. While remarking that the record's streamlined nature rendered it "a teensy bit dull", April Long of NME nevertheless called All That You Can't Leave Behind "a laudable achievement". Stephen Thompson was less enthusiastic in his review for The A.V. Club and found it inconsistent: "In terms of execution, it splits about 50–50 between soaring hits and dispiriting misses."
Reviewing the 20th anniversary re-release, Stephen Deusner of Uncut gave the album a seven out of 10, noting that the material falters in the last third; he gave the new material a six out of 10, calling the B-sides "dull" but praising the live tracks. The updated review from AllMusic notes that the remasters are the "centrepiece" of the re-release and that hardcore fans will appreciate the weirder collected B-sides; additionally, the packaging and photography from Corbijn are selling points.
Commercial performance
The album debuted at number three on the Billboard 200 chart in the US, selling 427,826 copies in its first week. The album debuted at number one in 32 countries, including Canada where first-week sales totaled 71,470 copies. According to Nielsen SoundScan, the album has sold 4.4 million copies in the US through March 2014. All That You Can't Leave Behind is the fourth-highest-selling U2 album, with total sales of over 12 million.
Accolades
At the end of 2000, All That You Can't Leave Behind was voted the seventh-best album of the year in the Pazz & Jop annual critics poll published by The Village Voice. "Beautiful Day" finished fourth in the singles voting. Spin ranked it the 20th-best album of the year. The album and its singles earned U2 seven Grammy Awards over the course of two years. At the 43rd Annual Grammy Awards in 2001, "Beautiful Day" won Song of the Year, Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and Record of the Year. In the 44th Annual Grammy Awards in 2002, "Walk On" won Record of the Year, "Elevation" won Best Rock Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, and "Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of" won Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal. The album also won Best Rock Album and was nominated for Album of the Year. All That You Can't Leave Behind is the only album ever to have two singles win Record of the Year in two consecutive years.
Elevation Tour
The accompanying Elevation Tour officially began on 24March 2001 with a two-night stay at the National Car Rental Center near Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and ended back in Miami, Florida, on 2December 2001 at the American Airlines Arena. The tour featured three legs and a total of 113 shows. The Elevation Tour saw U2 return to playing indoor arenas after they spent the 1990s in outdoor stadiums. The stage design of the Elevation Tour was more stripped-down and intimate for the fans. Many shows on tour sold out immediately. The band performed multiple concerts in certain cities, including four consecutive shows in Chicago, Boston, and London each. Globally, the Elevation Tour grossed US$143.5 million, making it the year's highest-grossing tour.
Legacy
In 2003, All That You Can't Leave Behind was ranked 139th on Rolling Stones list of "The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time"; the magazine wrote that U2 "brought things back to essentials" with songs that "grapple with mortality – particularly the gospel-soul ballad 'Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of' – and take on new resonance after September 11th". In 2012, the album was re-ranked at number280 on an updated version of the list. In 2009, it was ranked by Rolling Stone as the 13th-best album of the decade, while "Beautiful Day" was rated the ninth-best song. The album was also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. In 2006, Mojo ranked All That You Can't Leave Behind 84th on its list of "The 100 Greatest Albums of Our Lifetime". In 2009, Consequence of Sound ranked the record 62nd on its list of the top 100 albums of the previous decade. In 2014, PopMatters ranked the album 75th on its list of the best albums of the 2000s.In a 2022 listicle, Far Out Magazine called it the band's best album, pipping The Unforgettable Fire to the top spot.
20th anniversary edition
On 30October 2020, All That You Can't Leave Behind was reissued on CD, vinyl, and digitally in commemoration of its 20th anniversary. The album was remastered and released in Standard, Deluxe, and Super Deluxe editions, all of which include the song "The Ground Beneath Her Feet", previously a bonus track, in the track listing. The Super Deluxe box set, containing 51 tracks, features: a 32-page book of photography by Anton Corbijn; B-sides and outtakes previously released on Unreleased & Rare and The Million Dollar Hotel soundtrack; complete audio from June 2001 performances in Boston (taken from the concert video Elevation 2001: Live from Boston); and 11 remixes, four of which were previously unreleased.
Track listing
() Additional production
Notes
In Japan, Australia, Ireland and the UK, "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" (3:44) is a bonus track at the end.
Various limited edition copies included a bonus disc with either "Always", "Summer Rain", or "Big Girls are Best". The 7 EP was subsequently released in the US, collecting these B-sides previously unavailable in that region.
Personnel
Adapted from the liner notes.
U2
Bono – vocals, guitar, synthesisers (track 2)
The Edge – guitar, piano, vocals, synthesisers (track 3), strings (track 5)
Adam Clayton – bass guitar
Larry Mullen Jr. – drums, percussion
Additional musicians
Paul Barrett – brass (track 2)
Brian Eno – synthesisers, programming, backing vocals, string arrangement
Daniel Lanois – backing vocals, additional guitar
Production
Production – Daniel Lanois, Brian Eno
Additional production – Steve Lillywhite, Mike Hedges, Richard Stannard, Julian Gallagher
Engineering – Richard Rainey
Mixing – Richard Rainey, Tim Palmer, Mike Hedges, Richard Stannard and Julian Gallagher, Brian Eno, Daniel Lanois, Steve Fitzmaurice
Engineering and mixing assistance – Chris Heaney, Alvin Sweeney, Jay Goin
Additional engineering – Tim Palmer, Stephen Harris, Ger McDonnell, Mark Howard, Alex Haas
Additional engineering assistance – Keith McDonnell, Stephen Harris
Mastering – Arnie Acosta
Charts
Weekly charts
Year-end charts
Decade-end charts
Certifications and sales
References
Bibliography
External links
U2 albums
2000 albums
Island Records albums
Interscope Records albums
Interscope Geffen A&M Records albums
Albums produced by Daniel Lanois
Albums produced by Brian Eno
Grammy Award for Best Rock Album
Albums produced by Richard Stannard (songwriter) |
420332 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel%20Lambert | Daniel Lambert | Daniel Lambert ( 1770 – 1809) was an English gaol keeper and animal breeder from Leicester, famous for his unusually large size. After serving four years as an apprentice at an engraving and die casting works in Birmingham, he returned to Leicester around 1788 and succeeded his father as keeper of Leicester's gaol. He was a keen sportsman and extremely strong; on one occasion he fought a bear in the streets of Leicester. He was an expert in sporting animals, widely respected for his expertise with dogs, horses and fighting cocks.
At the time of Lambert's return to Leicester, his weight began to increase steadily, even though he was athletically active and, by his own account, abstained from drinking alcohol and did not eat unusual amounts of food. In 1805, Lambert's gaol closed. By this time, he weighed , and had become the heaviest authenticated person up to that point in recorded history. Unemployable and sensitive about his bulk, Lambert became a recluse.
In 1806, poverty forced Lambert to put himself on exhibition to raise money. In , he took up residence in London, charging spectators to enter his apartments to meet him. Visitors were impressed by his intelligence and personality, and visiting him became highly fashionable. After some months on public display, Lambert grew tired of exhibiting himself, and in , he returned, wealthy, to Leicester, where he bred sporting dogs and regularly attended sporting events. Between 1806 and 1809, he made a further series of short fundraising tours.
In June 1809, he died suddenly in Stamford, Lincolnshire. At the time of his death, he weighed , and his coffin required of wood. Despite the coffin being built with wheels to allow easy transport, and a sloping approach being dug to the grave, it took 20 men almost half an hour to drag his casket into the trench, in a newly opened burial ground to the rear of St Martin's Church. While others have since overtaken Daniel Lambert's record as the heaviest person in history, he remains a popular character in Leicester, and in 2009 was described by the Leicester Mercury as "one of the city's most cherished icons".
Biography
Early life
Daniel Lambert was born at his parents' house in Blue Boar Lane, Leicester, on 13 March 1770. His father, also named Daniel Lambert, had been the huntsman to Harry Grey, 4th Earl of Stamford, and at the time of his son's birth was the keeper of Leicester's gaol. The eldest of four children, Daniel Lambert had two sisters, and a brother who died young.
At the age of eight he was a keen swimmer, and for much of his life he taught local children to swim. Lambert's paternal uncle—like his father—also worked with animals, but as a professional gamekeeper; his maternal grandfather was a breeder of champion fighting cocks. Lambert grew up with a strong interest in field sports, and was particularly fond of otter hunting, fishing, shooting and horse racing. From his early teens, Lambert was a keen sportsman and by his late teens he was considered an expert in the breeding of hunting dogs.
In 1784, he was apprenticed to Messrs Taylor & Co, an engraving and die casting works in Birmingham owned by a Mr Benjamin Patrick. The engraved buckles and buttons in which Patrick's factory specialised became unfashionable, however, and the business went into decline. In 1788, Lambert returned to Leicester, to serve as his father's assistant at the gaol (some sources date Lambert's return to Leicester to 1791, following the destruction of the building housing Messrs Taylor & Co in the Priestley Riots of ). His father retired soon afterwards and Lambert succeeded him as gaol keeper. The younger Daniel Lambert was a much-respected gaoler; he befriended many of the prisoners, and made every effort to help them when they went to trial.
Weight
Although by his own account Lambert did not eat unusually large amounts of food, at about the time of his return to Leicester his weight began to increase steadily, and by 1793, he weighed . Concerned for his fitness, in his spare time he devoted himself to exercise, building his strength to the point where he was able to easily carry . On one occasion, while he was watching a dancing bear on display in Blue Boar Lane, his dog slipped loose and bit it. The bear knocked the dog to the ground, and Lambert asked its keeper to restrain it so he could retrieve his wounded animal, but the keeper removed the bear's muzzle so it could attack the dog. Lambert reportedly struck the bear with a pole and with his left hand, punched its head, knocking it to the ground to allow the dog to escape.
Despite his increasingly large girth, Lambert remained fit and active, once walking from Woolwich to the City of London "with much less apparent fatigue than several middle-sized men who were of the party". Although not particularly agile, he was not significantly restricted by his bulk, and was able to stand on one leg and kick the other to a height of . He continued to teach swimming in Leicester, and was able to stay afloat with two grown men sitting on his back. He disliked changing his clothes, and each morning habitually wore the clothes he had worn the day before, regardless of whether they were still wet; by Lambert's own account he suffered no colds or other ill effects from this behaviour.
By 1801, Lambert's weight had increased to about , and, as his bulk meant neither he nor his horse were able to keep up with the hunt, he was forced to give up hunting. He continued to maintain an interest in field sports, keeping a pack of 30 terriers. By this time, although he retained his solid reputation as a gaoler, serious concerns were being raised about his fitness for the post. Traditional gaols were falling out of favour and being replaced with forced labour institutions, and in 1805, the old Bridewell gaol was closed. Lambert was left without a job, but was granted an annuity of £50 (about £ as of ) a year by the Leicester magistrates, in recognition of his excellent service as gaol keeper.
Unemployment
Lambert's girth was then enormous; six men of normal size could fit together inside his waistcoat, and each of his stockings was the size of a sack. His £50 annuity did not adequately cover his living costs, and his size prevented him from working. He became a virtual recluse. Stories of his bulk had by then begun to spread, and travellers visiting Leicester would use various pretexts to visit his home. One such visitor asked Lambert's servant to allow him entry as he wished to ask Lambert's advice about fighting cocks; Lambert leaned out of the window and told the servant to "tell the gentleman that I am a shy cock". On another occasion, he admitted into his house a Nottingham man who sought his advice about a mare's pedigree; on realising the man was visiting only to look at him, Lambert told him that the horse in question was "by Impertinence out of Curiosity".
Sensitive about his weight, Daniel Lambert refused to allow himself to be weighed, but sometime around 1805, some friends persuaded him to come with them to a cock fight in Loughborough. Once he had squeezed his way into their carriage, the rest of the party drove the carriage onto a large scale and jumped out. After deducting the weight of the (previously weighed) empty carriage, they calculated that Lambert's weight was now , and that he had thus overtaken Edward Bright, the "Fat Man of Maldon", as the heaviest authenticated person in recorded history.
London
Despite his shyness, Lambert badly needed to earn money, and saw no alternative to putting himself on display, and charging his spectators. On 4 April 1806, he boarded a specially built carriage and travelled from Leicester to his new home at 53 Piccadilly, then near the western edge of London. For five hours each day, he welcomed visitors into his home, charging each a shilling (about £ as of ).
Lambert shared his interests and knowledge of sports, dogs and animal husbandry with London's middle and upper classes, and it soon became highly fashionable to visit him, or become his friend. Many called repeatedly; one banker made 20 visits, paying the admission fee on each occasion. During this period of English history no real stigma was attached to obesity, and Lambert was generally considered a wonder to be marvelled at, rather than a freak to be gawped or sneered at. His business venture was immediately successful, drawing around 400 paying visitors per day. His home was described as having the air of a fashionable resort, rather than that of an exhibition, and he was pleased to find that his customers generally treated him with courtesy, and not simply as a spectacle. He insisted on maintaining amongst his visitors an atmosphere of civility and all men entering his rooms were obliged to remove their hats. One visitor refused to remove his "even if the King were present" but Lambert replied that "Then by G——, Sir, you must instantly quit this room, as I do not consider it a mark of respect due to myself, but to the ladies and gentlemen who honor me with their company."
Lambert's popularity inspired an imitator in "Master Wybrants, Mr. Lambert in miniature", exhibited a short distance away in Sackville Street. A handbill described Wybrants as "Master Wybrants the Modern Hercules, who at the age of 4 Months weighed 39 pounds, measured 2 feet round the Body 15 Inches round the thigh and 8 Inches round the Arm, to be seen at the corner of Sackville Street Piccadilly".
People would travel long distances to see him (on one occasion, a party of 14 travelled to London from Guernsey), and many would spend hours speaking with him on animal breeding. A life-sized waxwork of Lambert was displayed in London, where it became extremely popular. Daniel Lambert soon became a popular subject with cartoonists, who often depicted him as John Bull. He mixed well with the upper classes, and on one occasion met King George III. The King's and Lambert's reactions to this meeting are not recorded.
Medical examination
Lambert soon came to the attention of the medical profession, and shortly after his arrival in London, the Medical and Physical Journal published an article about him. They confirmed that he weighed , and measured his height as . A thorough medical examination found that his bodily functions worked correctly, and that he breathed freely. Lambert was described as active and mentally alert, well-read, and with an excellent memory. He was fond of singing, and had a normal speaking voice which showed no signs of pressure on the lungs. Doctors found tumefaction of his feet, legs and thighs, and accumulation of fat within the abdomen, but other than scaly and thickened skin on his legs caused by previous attacks of erysipelas, he had no health problems. Lambert told the doctors that he ate normal quantities of ordinary food. He claimed that since about 1795 he had drunk nothing but water, and that even while young, and a regular party-goer, he did not join his fellow revellers in drinking. Lambert claimed that he was able to walk about a quarter of a mile (400 m) without difficulty. He slept regularly for no more than eight hours per night, always with his window open, and was never heard to snore; on waking he was always fully alert within five minutes, and he never napped during the day.
Possible causes
It is impossible to be certain about what caused Daniel Lambert's extreme weight, but it is considered unlikely to have been caused by an endocrine (glandular) or genetic disorder. Other than his weight gain, he showed no symptoms of a thyroid disorder, and none of his many portraits show the moon face of a patient with Cushing's syndrome. Patients with Bardet–Biedl syndrome and Prader–Willi syndrome, genetic syndromes which can lead to obesity in patients, also have learning disabilities and muscular weakness, but all those who knew Lambert agreed that he was highly intelligent, was extremely strong physically, and, except for erysipelas and venous insufficiency (varicose veins) in his legs, did not have any health problems. One contemporary commentator remarked that "Mr. Lambert scarcely knows what it is to be ailing or indisposed". Lambert's only recorded psychological problem was an occasional "depression of the spirits", during his time in London. Although he had an aunt and uncle who were overweight, his parents and surviving siblings remained of normal build throughout their lives.
Consequently, it is likely that Lambert's weight gain was caused not by a physical disorder but by a combination of overeating and a lack of exercise. Although heavily built in his teens, he began to gain weight only when he took up the relatively sedentary job of prison keeper. A biography of Lambert published during his lifetime recounted that "it was within a year of this appointment that his bulk received the greatest and most rapid encrease". Although he claimed to eat little, and to abstain from alcohol, it is likely that a man with his lifestyle and position in society would have eaten large amounts of meat, and drunk beer at social events.
Józef Boruwłaski
After some months in London, Lambert was visited by Józef Boruwłaski, a dwarf then in his seventies. Born in 1739 to a poor family in rural Pokuttya, Boruwłaski was generally considered to be the last of Europe's court dwarfs. He was introduced to the Empress Maria Theresa in 1754, and after a short time residing with deposed Polish king Stanisław Leszczyński, he exhibited himself around Europe, thus becoming a wealthy man. At age 60, he retired to Durham, where he became such a popular figure that the City of Durham paid him to live there and he became one of its most prominent citizens. Boruwłaski had a superb memory, and recalled that Lambert, while still employed by Patrick's die casting works and before he grew fat, had paid to see him in Birmingham. Boruwłaski remarked "I have seen this face twenty years before at Birmingham, but certainly it be another body". He had been told that Lambert's bulk was a hoax, and he therefore felt his leg to prove to himself that it was not. The two men compared their respective outfits, and calculated that one of Lambert's sleeves would provide enough cloth to make an entire coat for Boruwłaski. Lambert enquired after Boruwłaski's wife, Isalina Barbutan, whereupon the latter replied "No, she is dead, and I am not very sorry, for when I affront her, she put me on the mantle-shelf for punishment."
The meeting of Lambert and Boruwłaski, the largest and smallest men in the country, was the subject of enormous public interest; one newspaper reported that "It was Sir John Falstaff and Tom Thumb, which must have afforded a double treat to the curious". Boruwłaski lived to see his 98th year, despite the prediction of the money-lender who sold him his annuity that his small stature would make him prone to illness.
Disillusionment
Although generally respected by London society, the longer Lambert remained there, the more irritable he became. Shy and self-conscious, he was annoyed at repeatedly being asked about the size of his clothes. In answer to one request, to a woman who enquired as to the cost of his coat, he replied "I cannot pretend to charge my memory with the price, but I can put you into a method of obtaining the information you want. If you think proper to make me a present of a new coat, you will then know exactly what it costs". Another interested spectator claimed that since his entrance fee was paying for Lambert's clothing, he had the right to know about it; Lambert replied "Sir, if I knew what part of my next coat your shilling would pay for, I can assure you I would cut out the piece". Lambert calculated in 1806 that a full suit of clothes cost him £20, about £ as of .
Return to Leicester
Lambert had the acumen to refuse the management offers of various impresarios and agents, and by , he had returned to Leicester as a wealthy man. He returned to his favourite pastimes, breeding sporting dogs and fighting cocks. A terrier bitch, for which he was offered 100 guineas (about £ as of ), was said to be the finest in England. He refused to sell the dog, which became his lifetime companion. He began again to attend sporting events, as a report on the Leicester Races of September 1806 noted that "Among the distinguished characters upon the turf we were glad to see our old friend, Mr. Daniel Lambert, in apparent high health and spirits". Although too heavy to follow hunts on horseback, he used a portion of the money earned in London to build up a pack of greyhounds, watching from his carriage as they coursed hares in the Leicestershire countryside.
In December 1806, Lambert went on a brief fundraising tour, and exhibited himself in Birmingham and Coventry. Early the next year he returned to London, and stayed in the fashionable Leicester Square. There he fell ill; his physician Dr Heaviside felt that his illness might have been caused by the polluted London air, and Lambert returned to Leicester. He recovered, and later in 1807, made a series of tours of England.
In summer 1808, Lambert briefly returned to the capital, where he sold a pair of spaniels for 75 guineas (about £ as of ) at Tattersalls. Later that year, he exhibited himself in York. In , he set off on another tour of East Anglia, to conclude in Stamford during the Stamford Races. One account suggests that this tour was intended to be his last, as he was then sufficiently wealthy to retire. While on the tour, Lambert was weighed in Ipswich; his weight was . No longer able to use stairs, he took lodgings on the ground floor of the Waggon & Horses inn at 47 High Street, Stamford on 20 June.
Death
Following his arrival at Stamford, Lambert sent a message to the Stamford Mercury, ordering advertisements and handbills. Stating that "as the Mountain could not wait upon Mahomet, Mahomet would go to the mountain", he asked the printer to visit him at the Waggon & Horses, to discuss his printing requirements. That evening, Lambert was in bed and admitted to feeling tired, but nonetheless he was able to discuss his requirements with the printer, and was anxious that the handbills be delivered on time.
On the morning of 21 June, Lambert woke at his usual time and appeared in good health. As he began to shave, he complained of breathing difficulties. Ten minutes later, he collapsed and died.
There was no autopsy, and the cause of Lambert's death is unknown. While many sources say that he died of a fatty degeneration of the heart or of stress on his heart caused by his bulk, his behaviour in the period leading to his death does not match that of someone with cardiac insufficiency; witnesses agree that on the morning of his death he appeared well, before he became short of breath and collapsed. Bondeson (2006) speculates that the most consistent explanation of his death, given his symptoms and medical history, is that he had a sudden pulmonary embolism.
Burial
Lambert's corpse rapidly began to putrefy. There was no question of his body being returned to Leicester, and so on 22 June, it was placed inside an elm coffin, 6 feet 4 inches long, 4 feet 4 inches wide and 2 feet 4 inches deep (193 cm × 132 cm × 71 cm), built on wheels to allow it to be moved. The coffin was so large that to wheel it out of the inn and to the newly opened burial ground at the rear of St Martin's Church, the window and wall of his apartment were demolished. A suitably sized grave had been dug, with a sloping approach to avoid the need to lower the coffin from above, but on 23 June, it nonetheless took almost half an hour for twenty men to pull Lambert's enormous coffin into the grave.
Lambert's friends paid for a large gravestone, inscribed:
After death
In late 1809, John Drakard released The life of that wonderful and extraordinary heavy man, the late Danl. Lambert, from his birth to the moment of his dissolution, with an account of men noted for their corpulency, and other interesting matter, the first full biography of Lambert to be released after his death. Lambert's position as the heaviest person in recorded history was soon overtaken by the American Mills Darden (1799–1857), but Lambert had by now become a cult figure, and virtually every item connected with him was preserved for posterity. His clothes and possessions were sold at auction to collectors, and many of them are preserved in museums today.
Across England, many public houses and inns were renamed after Daniel Lambert, particularly in Leicester and Stamford. The Daniel Lambert public house at 12 Ludgate Hill, near the entrance to St Paul's Cathedral in London, was well known, and had a large portrait of Daniel Lambert and Lambert's walking stick on display in the lobby. James Dixon, owner of the Ram Jam Inn in Stamford, bought the suit of clothes Lambert had been wearing when he died and put it on display, renaming the inn the Daniel Lambert.
The term "Daniel Lambert" entered common use in English speech and writing, to refer to any fat man. His name continued in this use long after the details of his life had been largely forgotten; in 1852, Charles Dickens remarked that "Lambert's name is known better than his history". Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby compares the obese George IV to Lambert, and William Makepeace Thackeray used the term in Vanity Fair to refer to the obese Joseph Sedley, and in The Luck of Barry Lyndon to refer to the fat servant Tim. As time progressed, "Daniel Lambert" came to mean anything exceptionally large; Herbert Spencer's The Study of Sociology used the phrase "a Daniel Lambert of learning", while Thomas Carlyle referred sarcastically to Oliver Cromwell as "this big swollen Gambler and gluttonous hapless 'spiritual Daniel Lambert'". In 1874, The Times, in reviewing the newly translated French comedy La Fiammina by Mario Uchard in which a character is named "Daniel Lambert", noted that the name is "always associated in the English mind with the notion of obesity", and in 1907, almost 100 years after Lambert's death, the Château de Chambord was referred to as "the Daniel Lambert among châteaux". Nellie Lambert Ensall, at the time the heaviest woman in Britain, claimed in 1910 to be Daniel Lambert's great-granddaughter, but her claim is likely to be untrue; Lambert was unmarried and is unlikely to have had any children.
In 1838, the English Annual published a series of poems, purportedly written by Lambert and found amongst his papers at the Waggon and Horses after his death. No source published during Lambert's lifetime mentions his having any interest in poetry or in any reading matter other than periodicals on field sports, and it is unclear why his papers should have been with him in Stamford at his death, rather than at his home in Leicester. The discoverer of the poems is credited only as "Omega". It is likely that the poems are a hoax.
P. T. Barnum and General Tom Thumb
P. T. Barnum and the tall General Tom Thumb (Charles Sherwood Stratton) visited Stamford in 1846 and donated one of Thumb's costumes to Dixon to be displayed alongside Lambert's. General Tom Thumb visited Stamford again in 1859 and was tied up inside one of Lambert's stockings. In 1866, General Tom Thumb, with his equally short wife Lavinia Warren (Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump), her sister Minnie Warren (Huldah Pierce Warren Bump) and Barnum's other celebrated dwarf Commodore Nutt (George Washington Morrison Nutt) visited Stamford. All four were able to pass through the knee of Lambert's breeches together. In 1866, Lambert's and Tom Thumb's clothes were sold to the Old London Tavern in Stamford; they were later in the possession of Stamford Museum. (In , it was announced that the Stamford Museum would close in , with its collection transferred to Stamford Library.)
The 1806 waxwork of Lambert was exported to the United States and was on show in New Haven, Connecticut, by 1813. By 1828, the effigy was displayed in the Boston Vauxhall Gardens dressed in a complete set of Lambert's clothes. It was later bought by P. T. Barnum and displayed at Barnum's American Museum in New York, but the museum was destroyed by fire in 1865 and, although workmen endeavoured to save the waxwork, it melted in the heat and was destroyed.
In popular memory
Lambert is still a popular character in Leicester, described in 2009 by the Leicester Mercury as "one of the city's most cherished icons"; several local public houses and businesses are named after him. Sue Townsend's play The Ghost of Daniel Lambert featuring Leicester actor Perry Cree, tells the story of how Lambert's ghost watches disapprovingly over the 1960s demolition and redevelopment of Leicester's historic town centre, premiered at Leicester's Haymarket Theatre in 1981. Lambert is also a popular figure in Stamford, and local football team Stamford A.F.C. are nicknamed "The Daniels", after him.
A set of Lambert's clothes, together with his armchair, walking stick, riding crop and prayer book, are on permanent display at the Newarke Houses Museum in Leicester. Stamford Museum exhibited a tailor's dummy, dressed with Daniel Lambert's clothes as if they are being made up for him, plus his hat and a portrait. The Daniel Lambert pub in Ludgate Hill no longer exists, and the memorabilia formerly displayed there are now on permanent display at the George Hotel in Stamford. The Daniel Lambert pub in Stamford has also closed.
In 2009, on the 200th anniversary of his death, Leicester celebrated Daniel Lambert Day, and over 800 people attended an event in his name at Newarke Houses Museum.
See also
William Ball (Shropshire Giant)
Notes and references
Notes
References
Bibliography
External links
Newarke Houses Museum
Stamford Museum
The Life of that wonderful and extraordinarily heavy man, Daniel Lambert: from his birth to the moment of his dissolution, (New York, 1818). From the Digital Collections of the National Library of Medicine.
1770 births
1809 deaths
British prison officials
Burials in Lincolnshire
People from Leicester
Obesity in the United Kingdom |
420340 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000%20in%20India | 2000 in India | The following lists events that happened during 2000 in the Republic of India.
Incumbents
President of India – K. R. Narayanan
Prime Minister of India – Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Vice President of India – Krishna Kant
Chief Justice of India – Adarsh Sein Anand
Governors
Andhra Pradesh – C. Rangarajan
Arunachal Pradesh – Arvind Dave
Assam – Srinivas Kumar Sinha
Bihar – V. C. Pande
Chhattisgarh – D. N. Sahay (starting 1 November)
Goa – Mohammed Fazal
Gujarat – Sunder Singh Bhandari
Haryana – Mahabir Prasad (until 18 June), Babu Parmanand (starting 19 June)
Himachal Pradesh – Vishnu Kant Shastri (until 23 November), Suraj Bhan (starting 23 November)
Jharkhand – Prabhat Kumar (starting 15 November)
Jammu and Kashmir – Girish Chandra Saxena
Karnataka – V. S. Ramadevi
Kerala – Sukhdev Singh Kang
Madhya Pradesh – Bhai Mahavir
Maharashtra – P.C. Alexander
Manipur – Ved Marwah
Meghalaya – M.M. Jacob
Mizoram – A. Padmanabhan (until 30 November), Ved Marwah (starting 30 November)
Nagaland – Om Prakash Sharma
Odisha – M. M. Rajendran
Punjab – J. F. R. Jacob
Rajasthan – Anshuman Singh
Sikkim – Chaudhary Randhir Singh (until 17 May), Kidar Nath Sahani (starting 17 May)
Tamil Nadu – M. Fathima Beevi
Tripura – Siddheswar Prasad (until 22 June), Krishna Mohan Seth (starting 22 June)
Uttar Pradesh – Suraj Bhan (until 23 November), Vishnu Kant Shastri (starting 23 November)
Uttarakhand – Surjit Singh Barnala (starting 9 November)
West Bengal – Viren J. Shah
Events
National income - 21,398,857 million
3 January – A landmine explodes in a busy vegetable market in the heart of Indian-ruled Kashmir, killing 15 people; other border skirmishes with Pakistan kill a further four.
3 January – Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee accuses Pakistan of being behind the hijacking of an Indian plane and urges that Pakistan be declared a terrorist state.
6 January – India arrests four Kashmiri terrorists in connection with the week-long hijacking in December.
24 February – A review of national security was ordered, after an expert committee's report on the incursion of Pakistani-backed forces into Kashmir in mid-1999 exposed serious shortcomings. The Subramanyam committee recommends a new "national security planning and decision-making structure for India in the nuclear age". Fresh clashes are reported in late February along the Line of Control between Indian- and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.
Late February – Parliamentary sessions are disrupted by protests led by the opposition Indian National Congress party, complaining that civil servants (who may not join political organizations) are being allowed to join the Hindu nationalist organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) in some states. Congress accuses the RSS of promoting intolerance and says the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government was pursuing a secret RSS-inspired agenda whereby India could cease to be a secular state.
Late February – The BJP-led government's first budget since its October 1999 election victory was criticized by foreign investors for failing to impose tighter curbs on state subsidies. Despite the rising government deficit, there was to be a big increase in military spending, reflecting tension with Pakistan. This will be financed in part by surcharges on income tax and corporation tax.
20 March – Pakistan agrees to the construction of the long-discussed gas pipeline which will transport natural gas from Iran to India via Pakistan.
20 March – US President Bill Clinton makes a groundbreaking visit to improve ties
20 March – 36 Sikh killed in Kashmir
4 April – 532 Assamese secessionist rebels surrender in a symbolic ceremony. Whilst Assam's chief minister hails this as a sign of failing public support for secession, the leader of the United Liberation Front of Assam denies that the "rebels" are active members of his or other organizations.
23 April – Under criticism for doing "too little, too late" in response to a severe drought in Rajasthan and Gujarat in the northwest, Prime Minister Vajpayee appeals to the nation for charitable donations to help the region in a televised address on many local channels.
Late April – The state government of Bihar agrees to support proposals to create a new state – unofficially named Jharkhand – from its southern districts.
12 May- Miss India Lara Dutta crowned Miss Universe 2000 in Cyprus.
25 May – The central bank intervenes on the foreign exchange markets and announces moves to stabilize the rupee after the currency hit a record low against the U.S. dollar.
Late May – Journalists lead national and international condemnation of a proposed law which will demand information from reporters concerning "terrorist" activities.
1 June – 2000 – Pen Power, an Encyclopedia of published letters to the editors from some 200 letter writers was released by M.V.Kamath, Chairperson of Prasar Bharati. The veteran journalist declares that Pen-Power should be prescribed as a text book in all Journalism colleges.
Early June – Clashes between security forces and terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir kill 17 people. Violence in the region has become a daily occurrence as it also has in the far-eastern state of Tripura where killings of Bengalis by Christian separatist rebels have prompted the deployment of an extra 3,000 paramilitary troops by the government.
Mid-June – Prime Minister Vajpayee approves a measure to provide 320,000 government employees with free telephones. India has only 26 phone lines per 1,000 people.
11 June – Rajesh Pilot, a senior member of the opposition Congress party, dies in a car crash. Hundreds of supporters mourn outside the home of the popular politician who, analysts say, was an important figure of stability within the party and a likely successor to Congress leader Sonia Gandhi.
Mid-June – Reliance Industries, the country's biggest private company, announces plans to enter into the information technology industry. A new subsidiary, Reliance Infocomm, will oversee the laying of fibre-optic cables to connect the top 115 cities to the Internet.
Mid-June – London-based human rights group Amnesty International criticizes India, along with Bangladesh and Pakistan, for insufficiently protecting the rights of women, who, it says, are subjected to negative bias in investigations of abuse.
16 June – 34 lower-caste Hindus are killed in the northeastern state of Bihar; eight suspects are arrested two days later. The massacre was believed to be a revenge killing for 12 upper-caste Hindus who were killed a week before. The banned private army Ranvir Sena was believed to have been responsible for the latest killing and for 350 other deaths since 1994.
Mid-June – Archaeologists announce a significant discovery of treasure believed to be around 5,000 years old in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. The jewelry was thought to belong to a civilization from the Indus Valley not previously thought to have spread so far afield.
Late June – The government announces plans to subsidize health insurance for the "poorest of the poor".
Late June – Eight executives from the independent television station Channel V are arrested and charged with obscenity and indecency after screening a program in which two teenage girls were encouraged to strip on the streets of Mumbai for a small cash incentive.
24 June – Almost 1 billion people worldwide reportedly tune in to watch the International Indian Film Awards held at the Millennium Dome in London, England. The Indian film industry, known as Bollywood, has its second-largest following in the UK, mostly amongst the country's ethnic Indian population, but receives little attention from the British press.
26 June – The state assembly of Jammu and Kashmir angers the federal government when it resolves to ask for a return of the region's autonomous status which was revoked in 1953. The government refuses to discuss the proposal in parliament in early July and rejects the calls outright.
27 June – The Supreme Court calls on the government to review its list of employees and remove "the indolent, infirm, and those of doubtful integrity, reputation, or utility".
28 June – India joins a select group of six countries when it commences regular summits with the European Union. The other five countries which have regular consultations with the EU are Canada, China, Japan, Russia and the U.S.
Early July – The first passenger rail link between India and Bangladesh in 26 years was opened. The line between Benapole in Bangladesh and Petrapole in West Bengal was closed due to lack of commercial interest in 1974.
Early July – Wildlife experts announce an investigation into the mysterious sudden deaths of 12 of the 56 rare Royal Bengal tigers in Nandankanan Zoo in Orissa. There are thought to be fewer than 4,000 tigers in the wild in India.
Mid-July – The UN's Population Fund condemns the government for its lack of commitment to tackle the imbalance between numbers of males and females in the country which it was thought was largely due to the feticide and infanticide of baby girls. There are estimated to be 960 women to every 1,000 men.
Mid-July – A landslide in Mumbai's slum district kills at least 60 people after torrential rain. A further 200 people are feared lost under the rubble.
15 July – Prime Minister Vajpayee announces that long-distance domestic phone lines will be fully deregulated from 15 August to help boost the country's information technology industry.
17 July – More than 50 people are killed when a Boeing 737 passenger plane crashes in a residential area of Patna.
July – Authorities in Sikkim uphold complaints from local Buddhists and ban expeditions up the northeast face of the world's third highest mountain peak, Kanchenjunga, which was revered by local people as a deity.
22 July – The government announces the launch of a National Population Stabilization Fund to help promote family planning programs in the country, especially in the northern states which contain half of all Indians. The population officially passed the 1 billion mark on 11 May, although the UN believes that figure had already been reached on 15 August 1999.
23 July – Minister for Law Ram Jethmalani resigns from the cabinet blaming strained relations with Attorney General Soli Sorabjee.
Late July – Bal Thackeray, leader of the far-right Shiv Sena group, was released within hours of his arrest. The court claims that too much time has passed since his alleged crimes of promoting "communal enmity" to warrant prosecution. The Maharashtra state government, whose decision to press the charges had prompted threats from Shiv Sena supporters to disrupt commerce in Mumbai, says it will appeal against the ruling.
Late July – Thousands of police officers in the crime-plagued eastern state of Bihar go on strike to demand better compensation for the families of fallen comrades, and less "political interference" in their work.
Late July – 10,000 homes are destroyed and 40 people killed in severe flooding in the northwestern state of Rajasthan.
24 July – The government's commitment to privatization plans was confirmed with the naming of ex-journalist and committed free-market economist Arun Shourie as minister for privatization.
24 July - Hizbul Mujahideen commander Abdul Majeed Dar announces unilateral ceasefire with Indian forces in Kashmir valley.
Late July – The government and separatist rebels from the far-eastern border state of Nagaland agree to extend their ceasefire for a further year in an attempt to bring a lasting solution to the 53-year rebellion.
30 July – The Indian film idol Rajkumar was part of a group taken hostage by a notorious Karnataka bandit known as Veerappan. A popular outcry places the state government under strong pressure to negotiate Rajkumar's release, but in August the Supreme Court rules out a deal involving the release of imprisoned members of Veerappan's elephant poaching and timber smuggling band. One of Rajkumar's fellow hostages manages to escape from his captors on 28 September
1 August – Bangaru Laxman, a junior minister in the cabinet, was appointed as the new president of the ruling BJP. Laxman was the first lower-caste Hindu and southern Indian to hold the position and says he will look to expand the party's support base in the south. As a known moderate it was thought he will also seek to mend strained relations with the Hindu right.
Early August – Around 90 Hindus are massacred by Muslim separatists in Indian-administered Kashmir. The violence was thought to be a hostile reaction to peace initiatives begun by the largest separatist group Hizbul Mujahideen.
Early August – Five people suspected of being witches are burned alive by 200 angry villagers in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Almost all of the village's 1,500 inhabitants flee their homes after the crime.
Early August – Severe rainfall over the Himalayas causes widespread devastation across northern and eastern areas of the country. More than 100 people are killed and over 5 million made homeless in the states of Himachal Pradesh, West Bengal, and Assam.
Early August – Thousands of women demonstrate in New Delhi in support of the government's proposed "reservations bill" which will guarantee women one-third of all parliamentary seats. Pressure groups note that despite the prime minister's promises the bill has not been listed on the current parliamentary schedule.
8 August – A ceasefire initiated on 24 July between the government and the Kashmiri separatist group Hizbul Mujahideen falls apart after only 15 days after accusations that the government has fired on some of the group's members. Prime Minister Vajpayee urges that his government was still prepared to discuss peace initiatives but states that any deal will have to be worked out within the framework of the Indian constitution, which Hizbul Mujahideen has flatly rejected as a basis for peace. The government also refuses to address the group's key demand that Pakistan be involved in any talks.
Late August – The regionalist debate was invigorated by government proposals to share out the revenue of the various states. Delegates from ten states meet with the prime minister to urge him to drop the proposals. They claim the policy will penalize states which have managed to increase revenue through hard-won reforms.
Late August – Over 100 people die in severe monsoon rains in southern India. In the face of the torrential downpour more than 50,000 people are evacuated, mostly from Hyderabad which receives over half of its average annual rainfall in 24 hours.
24 August – The army claims it has killed at least ten Pakistani soldiers after attacking around 40 troops attempting to penetrate Indian territory. It was the worst cross-border incident since an unofficial ceasefire was agreed in June.
6 September – 300,000 telecom workers begin an indefinite strike to protest against the government's decision to transform the department of telecommunications into a state-run corporation.
Early September – The onslaught against overpopulation continues in the western state of Maharashtra when the state's government decides to withhold benefits from May 2001 for families with more than two children. A two-child maximum was already a prerequisite for employment by the state, and the authorities are also considering enforcing a law to prevent women from marrying under the age of 18.
Mid-September – The environmentalist group Greenpeace criticizes the government for not doing enough to enforce regulations banning the dumping of international toxic waste in India.
Mid-September – The World Health Organization (WHO) warns that 1 billion people worldwide are regularly exposed to levels of air pollution 100 times greater than recommended guidelines. The greatest risk was from the use of solid fuel in poor households, rather than from industrial smog in large cities. It notes that 500,000 children from rural areas die every year from respiratory infections in India where 80% of homes use solid fuel for cooking and heating.
September – On average in India 24 women are raped every day and 14 killed to "protect their family's honour" according to the UN's latest State of the World's Population report. It also reveals that 40% of Indian women are subjected to domestic violence.
Late September – India and South Africa sign a defense cooperation agreement in Cape Town covering peacekeeping, weapons development and procurement, and counter-terrorism. South Africa hopes that India's experience in peacekeeping can be applied in conflict resolution in southern Africa.
29 September – Newspapers hail the conviction of former prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao as a landmark moment in Indian law. He was found guilty of corruption in a bribery scandal dating from 1993 and the decision was interpreted by the press as a clear signal that high rank does not provide legal protection.
End of September – Flooding in eastern states has left many millions homeless and has killed 850 people in the state of West Bengal alone.
30 September – The Communist Party of India - Marxist (CPI-M), the third largest party at federal level, has its status as a "national" party revoked by the electoral commission. The move was a serious threat to the party which controls two states outright, including the populous state of West Bengal, and was the leading coalition partner in another.
Early October – A senior Hindu leader urges the government to establish a national Christian church and expel foreign missionaries. The country's Christian community was often subject to violent intimidation from extremist Hindu activists.
3 October – Prime Minister Vajpayee signs a bilateral agreement with Russian President Vladimir Putin to increase ties between the two countries including cooperation on issues of defense.
Mid-October – The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) revises its predictions, lowering the forecast rate of economic growth for 2000 from 7% to 5.8%.
Mid-October – The chief minister of the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh complains that Chinese soldiers are making regular forays across the agreed Line of Actual Control to harass villagers. The Chinese government dismisses the claims as inaccurate.
Mid-October – A court in the western state of Gujarat rules in favour of the vertical extension of the controversial Sardar Sarovar dam on the River Narmada. Work on the dam was halted in 1994 due to strong local objections. Supporters of the project point to the beneficial effects of more water for the drought-plagued region and an increase in hydroelectric power while opponents argue that the subsequent displacement of thousands of villagers around the river was insupportable.
1 November – Chhattisgarh, carved out of Madhya Pradesh, becomes India's 26th state.
6 November – Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was sworn in as the new chief minister of West Bengal following the retirement of Jyoti Basu, the world's longest-serving elected communist leader.
9 November – Uttaranchal, now known as Uttarakhand, carved out of Uttar Pradesh, becomes India's 27th state.
Early November – Syed Salahuddin, leader of the Kashmiri separatist group Hizbul Mujahideen, calls on Muslim nations to cut ties with India and says the group will not renew a unilateral ceasefire. It calls for the Indian government to officially recognize that Jammu and Kashmir was a disputed territory and for any further negotiations to include the Pakistani government and the people of Kashmir.
Mid-November – Three months of extreme embarrassment for the state governments of Tamil Nadu and Karnataka end when the notorious aging bandit Veerappan suddenly releases an even older veteran actor, Rajkumar, he had held captive since August. The authorities, keenly aware of the popularity of Rajkumar, agreed in August to grant some of Veerappan's demands which included the official recognition of Tamil as a language used in business in Karnataka, and the release of prisoners held under strict anti-terrorist laws. It remains unclear what exactly prompted the release of Rajkumar.
15 November – Sonia Gandhi easily wins reelection as leader of the Congress (I) party, beating Jitendra Prasada by 7,448 votes to 94. Prasada was the first person to challenge a member of the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty which has dominated Congress since the 1950s.
15 November – Jharkhand, carved out of Bihar, becomes India's 28th state.
Late November – Violent protests force the government to rethink plans to close heavily polluting industries in Delhi. Workers from the doomed factories clash with police while demonstrating against the environmentally motivated decision which would lead to job losses.
Late November – Ten people, including three Indian soldiers, are killed in a landmine attack in Kashmir on the first day of a government ceasefire held to coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The terrorist group Hizbul Mujahideen claim responsibility for the attack condemning the ceasefire as a publicity stunt intended to win over international opinion.
Late November – India's central vigilance commissioner N. Vittal declares that the country's entire political system depends on illegal funding.
1 December – Miss India first runner-up Priyanka Chopra wins the Miss World 2000 title.
2 December – Pakistan offers to exercise "maximum restraint" in contested border areas of Kashmir as a beginning to negotiations with the Indian authorities. India insists that before there can be talks there must be a complete cessation of firing across the Line of Control.
Early December – Political turmoil was ignited by the anniversary of the destruction of a mosque by Hindu extremists at Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, in 1992. It leads to calls for the resignation of Prime Minister Vajpayee and leaves the lower house of parliament, the Lok Sabha, in stalemate. Vajpayee suggests that the construction of a Hindu temple on the site of the mosque, reputedly the birthplace of a Hindu deity, was "an expression of national yearning".
17 December – An alliance of Kashmiri separatists, the Hurriyat, begin talks to discuss a unified response to the Indian government's ceasefire but divisions between the factions drag the conference into a second day.
20 December – In response to the Indian government's extension of its unilateral ceasefire in Kashmir for a further month, the Pakistani authorities announce that they will partially withdraw troops from the disputed line of control.
Late December – Relations with Pakistan are damaged when Prime Minister Vajpayee accuses the Pakistani authorities of being behind threats made by the extremist Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Toiba against his own person. The group, which was based in Pakistan, launched a surprise attack on the historic Red Fort in Delhi on 22 December, killing three people and undermining Vajpayee's Ramadan ceasefire, which had been extended for an extra month two days earlier.
Law
Mid-October – The Information Technology Act 2000 comes into force providing regulations for e-commerce and punishment for improper use of the Internet. Digital signatures are now legal, and distributors of cyber pornography can face up to five years imprisonment. The act includes a controversial clause allowing police to make searches and arrest suspects in public places without a warrant.
Births
21 January – Naga Vaishnavi, murder victim (died 2010)
25 February - Ivana (actress), actress.
5 April –
Ayush Mahesh Khedekar, actor
Mugdha Vaishampayan, singer
25 May - Sivaangi Krishnakumar, actress, playback singer and television personality.
11 October – Sparsh Khanchandani, actress
Deaths
27 March – Priya Rajvansh, film actress (b. 1937)
6 May – Balivada Kantha Rao, novelist and playwright (b. 1927).
22 May – Bahadoor, actor (b. 1930).
10 July – Vakkom Majeed, freedom fighter and politician (b. 1909).
5 August – Lala Amarnath, cricketer (b. 1911).
26 August – Balan K. Nair, actor (b. 1933).
7 November – Chidambaram Subramaniam, politician and Minister (b. 1910).
31January- K.N. Singh actor
See also
List of Bollywood films of 2000
References
India
Years of the 20th century in India
2000s in India
India |
420350 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander%20Berkman | Alexander Berkman | Alexander Berkman (November 21, 1870June 28, 1936) was a Russian-American anarchist and author. He was a leading member of the anarchist movement in the early 20th century, famous for both his political activism and his writing.
Berkman was born into a wealthy Jewish family in Vilna in the Russian Empire (present-day Vilnius, Lithuania) and emigrated to the United States in 1888. He lived in New York City, where he became involved in the anarchist movement. He was the one-time lover and lifelong friend of anarchist Emma Goldman. In 1892, undertaking an act of propaganda of the deed, Berkman made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate businessman Henry Clay Frick during the Homestead strike, for which he served 14 years in prison. His experience in prison was the basis of his first book, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist.
After his release from prison, Berkman served as editor of Goldman's anarchist journal, Mother Earth, and later established his own journal, The Blast. In 1917, Berkman and Goldman were sentenced to two years in jail for conspiracy against the newly instated draft. After their release from prison, they were arrested—along with hundreds of others—and deported to Russia. Initially supportive of that country's Bolshevik revolution, Berkman and Goldman soon became disillusioned, voicing their opposition to the Soviets' use of terror after seizing power and their repression of fellow revolutionaries. They left the Soviet Union in late 1921, and in 1925 Berkman published a book about his experiences, The Bolshevik Myth.
While living in France, Berkman continued his work in support of the anarchist movement, producing the classic exposition of anarchist principles, Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism. Suffering from ill health, Berkman took his own life in 1936.
Life
Early years
Berkman was born Ovsei Osipovich Berkman in the Lithuanian city of Vilnius (then called Vilna, and part of the Vilna Governorate in the Russian Empire). He was the youngest of four children born into a well-off Lithuanian Jewish family. Berkman's father, Osip Berkman, was a successful leather merchant, and his mother, Yetta Berkman (née Natanson), came from a prosperous family.
In 1877, Osip Berkman was granted the right, as a successful businessman, to move from the Pale of Settlement to which Jews were generally restricted in the Russian Empire. The family moved to Saint Petersburg, a city previously off-limits to Jews. There, Ovsei adopted the more Russian name Alexander; he was known among family and friends as Sasha, a diminutive for Alexander. The Berkmans lived comfortably, with servants and a summer house. Berkman attended the gymnasium, where he received a classical education with the youth of Saint Petersburg's elite.
As a youth, Berkman was influenced by the growing radicalism that was spreading among workers in the Russian capital. A wave of political assassinations culminated in a bomb blast that killed Tsar Alexander II in 1881. While his parents worried—correctly, as it turned out—that the tsar's death might result in repression of the Jews and other minorities, Berkman became intrigued by the radical ideas of the day, including populism and nihilism. He became very upset when his favorite uncle, his mother's brother Mark Natanson, was sentenced to death for revolutionary activities.
Soon after Berkman turned 12, his father died. The business had to be sold, and the family lost the right to live in Saint Petersburg. Yetta moved the family to Kovno, where her brother Nathan lived. Berkman had shown great promise as a student at the gymnasium, but his studies began to falter as he spent his time reading novels. One of the books that interested him was Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons (1862), with its discussion of nihilist philosophy. But what truly moved him was Nikolay Chernyshevsky's influential 1863 novel, What Is to Be Done?, and Berkman felt inspired by Rakhmetov, its puritanical protagonist who is willing to sacrifice personal pleasure and family ties in single-minded pursuit of his revolutionary aims.
Soon, Berkman joined a group at school that was reading and discussing revolutionary literature, which was prohibited under the new tsar, Alexander III. He distributed banned material to other students and wrote some radical tracts of his own, which he printed using supplies pilfered from the school. He turned in a paper titled "There Is No God", which resulted in a one-year demotion as punishment on the basis of "precocious godlessness, dangerous tendencies and subordination".
Berkman's mother died in 1887, and his uncle Nathan Natanson became responsible for him. Berkman had contempt for Natanson for his desire to maintain order and avoid conflict. Natanson could not understand what Berkman found appealing in his radical ideas, and he worried that Berkman would bring shame to the family. Late that year, Berkman was caught stealing copies of the school exams and bribing a handyman. He was expelled and labelled a "nihilist conspirator".
Berkman decided to emigrate to the United States. When his brother left for Germany in early 1888 to study medicine, Berkman took the opportunity to accompany him and from there made his way to New York City.
New York City
Soon after his arrival in New York, where he knew no one and spoke no English, Berkman became an anarchist through his involvement with groups that had formed to campaign to free the men convicted of the 1886 Haymarket bombing. He joined the Pioneers of Liberty, the first Jewish anarchist group in the U.S. The group was affiliated with the International Working People's Association, the organization to which the Haymarket defendants had belonged, and they regarded the Haymarket men as martyrs. Since most of its members worked in the garment industry, the Pioneers of Liberty took part in strikes against sweatshops and helped establish some of the first Jewish labor unions in the city. Before long, Berkman was one of the prominent members of the organization.
Although he wasn't fluent in English, Berkman did speak German; he soon came under the influence of Johann Most, the best known anarchist in the United States and an advocate of propaganda of the deed—attentat, or violence carried out to encourage the masses to revolt. He became a typesetter for Most's German-language newspaper Freiheit.
In 1889, Berkman met and began a romance with Emma Goldman, another Russian immigrant. He invited her to Most's lecture. Soon Berkman and Goldman fell in love and became inseparable. Despite their disagreements and separations, Goldman and Berkman would share a mutual devotion for decades, united by their anarchist principles and love for each other.
By the end of the year, they moved into a communal apartment with Berkman's cousin, Modest Aronstam (referred to as "Fedya" in both Berkman's Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist and Goldman's Living My Life), and Goldman's friend, Helene Minkin, along principles inspired by What Is to Be Done? Living according to the example of Rakhmetov, Berkman denied himself even the smallest pleasures, and expected his comrades to do the same. Aronstam, in contrast, occasionally brought home flowers. Frictions between the two grew: "Every penny spent for ourselves was so much taken from the Cause," Berkman fumed. "Luxury is a crime, a weakness." With time, however, the two cousins reconciled.
Berkman eventually broke with Most and aligned himself with the autonomists. The autonomists, an anarchist group associated with Josef Peukert, emphasized individual freedom. They feared the domination of the anarchist movement by a single individual and opposed the establishment of anarchist organizations. Consequently, the autonomists were opposed to Most. Soon, Berkman was working for the autonomists' publications, and , but he remained committed to the concept of violent action as a tool for inspiring revolutionary change.
At the end of 1891, Berkman learned that Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, whom he admired, had canceled an American speaking tour on the basis that it was too expensive for the struggling anarchist movement. While Berkman was disappointed, the frugality of the action further elevated Kropotkin's stature in his eyes.
Attentat: Frick assassination attempt
In 1892, Berkman, Goldman, and Aronstam relocated to Worcester, Massachusetts, where they operated a successful luncheonette. At the end of June, Goldman saw a newspaper headline that brought to her attention the trio's first opportunity for political action: the Homestead Strike. In June 1892, workers at a steel plant in Homestead, Pennsylvania were locked out when negotiations between the Carnegie Steel Company and the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers failed. Henry Clay Frick, the factory's notoriously anti-union manager, hired 300 armed guards from the Pinkerton Detective Agency to break the union's picket lines. When the Pinkerton guards arrived at the factory on the morning of July 6, a gunfight broke out. Nine union workers and seven guards were killed in the 12-hour fight.
Newspapers across the country defended the union workers, and the trio decided to assassinate Frick. They believed the assassination would arouse the working class to unite and revolt against the capitalist system. Berkman's plan was to assassinate Frick and then kill himself; Goldman was to explain Berkman's motives after his death; and Aronstam was to follow Berkman in the event that he failed in his mission. Emulating his Russian idols, Berkman tried to make a bomb, but when that failed, he went to Pittsburgh with the plan to use a handgun.
Arriving in Pittsburgh on July 14, Berkman sought out anarchists Henry Bauer and Carl Nold. They were followers of Most, but supported the Homestead strike. Berkman had never met either man but counted on their support. Nold invited Berkman to stay with him, and he and Bauer introduced Berkman to several local anarchists.
Berkman was ready to carry out the assassination on July 21. He wore a new suit and a black derby hat, and in his pockets he had a gun and a dagger fashioned from a steel file. He went to Frick's office and asked to see him, saying he was the representative of a New York hiring agency, but he was told Frick was too busy to meet him. The following night, Berkman checked into a hotel under the name Rakhmetov, his role model from What Is to Be Done? On July 23, he returned to Frick's office. While the attendant told Frick that the New York employment agent had returned to see him, Berkman burst into the office and took aim at Frick's head. After two shots, Berkman was tackled to the ground. Still, he managed to pull out the dagger and stab Frick three times.
A carpenter who was working nearby heard the commotion and hit Berkman in the head with his hammer, but the blow only stunned him. The gunshots and struggle could be heard and seen from the street, and within minutes Frick's office had attracted all sorts of people, but Berkman continued to resist. A deputy sheriff aimed his gun at Berkman, but Frick said, "Don't shoot. Leave him to the law." As the police led Berkman to the jail, an angry crowd gathered and shouted at Berkman. When he was questioned by police, Berkman said he had arrived in Pittsburgh on July 21 and that he had acted alone. A dynamite capsule was discovered in his mouth after a policeman noticed that he was chewing on something.
On July 24, a police officer took Berkman for a portrait. He lent Berkman his own tie for the picture. The following day, Aronstam arrived in Pittsburgh with pockets full of dynamite to finish Berkman's botched assassination attempt. Somehow rumors of his arrival had preceded him, and he saw a newspaper headline that read "Was Not Alone. Berkmann Had Accomplices in His Mission of Murder. Is Aaron Stamm Here?" Aronstam became frightened, hid the dynamite in an outhouse, and returned to New York.
Most of the anarchists in Pittsburgh were questioned by police. Bauer and Nold were arrested and charged with complicity in Berkman's plot. Everywhere, anarchists took sides for or against Berkman and his attentat. The autonomists supported him, as did many anarchists across the country. Peukert spoke out in his defense. Also defending Berkman was Dyer Lum, an anarchist who had been a comrade of the Haymarket defendants, and Lucy Parsons. Among those who criticized Berkman were Jo Labadie, Benjamin Tucker, and many other anarchists who believed the anarchist struggle should be peaceful. Berkman's most prominent critic was Most, who belittled Berkman as a nuisance or a flunky hired by Frick himself to garner sympathy. Most published an article in his newspaper titled "Reflections on Attentats" in which he wrote that propaganda of the deed was doomed to be misunderstood in the U.S. and that it could only backfire. Most wrote that Berkman's action had proven this; while Berkman might have demonstrated a certain heroism, in all other respects his attempt was a "total failure".
Berkman was deeply interested in the debate concerning his action. He was almost heartbroken by the rebuke from Most, who had "preached propaganda by deed all his life—now he repudiates the first attentat in this country". He was encouraged by the words of Kropotkin, who wrote that "Berkman has done more to spread the anarchist idea among the masses who do not read our papers than all the writings that we may publish. He has shown that there are among the anarchists, men capable of being revolted by the crimes of capitalism to the point of giving their life to put an end to these crimes, or at least to open a way to such an end."
Trial
Berkman declined the services of a lawyer for his trial. The warden cautioned him against this choice, but Berkman replied "I don't believe in your laws. I don't acknowledge the authority of your courts. I am innocent morally". Bauer and Nold visited him with their lawyers, who offered to represent him at no charge, but Berkman politely refused. As the trial approached, Berkman drafted a speech that he would read in court. Written in German because his English was still poor, it was 40 pages long and took two hours to read. Berkman tried to learn the date of his trial, but it was kept secret by the district attorney out of fear of an attack by Berkman's comrades. Berkman therefore was unaware of his trial until the morning it began.
When Berkman was brought to the courtroom on September 19, the jury had already been empaneled. The district attorney had selected the jury without allowing Berkman to examine prospective jurors, and the judge had no objection to the unusual procedure. Berkman was charged with six counts: felonious assault with the intent to kill Frick; felonious assault with the intent to kill Lawrence Leishman, who had been in Frick's office at the time of the attack; feloniously entering the offices of the Carnegie Steel Company on three occasions; and unlawfully carrying concealed weapons. Berkman pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Frick told the jury about the attempt on his life. The clothes he wore that day, bloody and riddled with holes, were shown to the jury. A physician testified that both of Berkman's weapons, the gun and the dagger, could have caused death. Leishman testified that Berkman fired his pistol at him once and Berkman asked, "Well, did I intend to kill you?" "I think so", Leishman replied, to which Berkman said, "Well that's not true. I didn't intend to do it." Several witnesses told the jury that Berkman had visited the Carnegie offices three times. Berkman's dagger and gun were placed into evidence, and the prosecution rested.
Berkman was asked to call his witnesses, but he had none. Instead, he asked to read his statement to the jury. A German translator was brought to the court. As an atheist, Berkman refused to be sworn in. He began reading his prepared statement. When the translator began to speak on his behalf to the jury, Berkman discovered the man was incompetent. He felt the man's voice was "cracked and shrill" as he spoke to the jury in broken English himself. The effect of the statement, Berkman thought, was being lost. After about an hour, the judge told Berkman it was time to finish his oration.
Without leaving the jury box, the jurors found Berkman guilty on all charges. The judge gave Berkman the maximum sentence for each count: a total of 21 years in prison and one year in the workhouse, to be served consecutively. Berkman argued that he should be sentenced only for the attempt on Frick's life and that the other charges were elements of the main crime of assault with the intent to kill, but the judge overruled his objection. In four hours, Berkman had been tried, convicted, and sentenced. He was brought to serve his sentence at Pennsylvania's Western Penitentiary.
Prison
Within weeks of his arrival at prison, Berkman began planning his suicide. He tried to sharpen a spoon into a blade, but his attempt was discovered by a guard and Berkman spent the night in the dungeon. He thought about beating his head against the bars of his cell, but worried that his efforts might injure him but leave him alive. Berkman wrote a letter to Goldman, asking her to secure a dynamite capsule for him. A letter was smuggled out of the prison and arrangements were made for her to visit Berkman in November 1892, posing as his sister. Berkman knew as soon as he saw Goldman that she had not brought the dynamite capsule.
Between 1893 and 1897, the years when Bauer and Nold were also in the Western Penitentiary for their part in the assassination attempt, the three men surreptitiously produced 60 issues of a hand-written anarchist newsletter by transferring their work from cell to cell. They managed to send the completed newsletters, which they called Prison Blossoms, to friends outside the prison. Participating in Prison Blossoms, initially written in German and later in English, helped Berkman improve his English. He developed a friendship with the prison chaplain, John Lynn Milligan, who was a strong advocate on behalf of the prison library. Milligan encouraged Berkman to read books from the library, a process that furthered his knowledge of English.
Berkman frequently clashed with the prison's management over the mistreatment of his fellow prisoners. Sometimes he was put into solitary confinement, with one stay lasting 16 months. When Berkman smuggled reports of corruption and brutality outside the prison, resulting in an investigation, he was taken to the dungeon and put in a straitjacket.
Letters from friends were like lifelines to Berkman. "The very arrival of a letter is momentous," he wrote. "It brings a glow into the prisoner's heart to feel that he is remembered." Goldman and anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre were regular correspondents, and other friends wrote frequently.
In 1897, as Berkman finished the fifth year of his sentence, he applied to the Pennsylvania Board of Pardons. Having served as his own attorney, Berkman had failed to object to the trial judge's rulings and thus had no legal basis for an appeal; a pardon was his only hope for early release. The Board of Pardons denied his application in October 1897. A second application was rejected in early 1899.
Now an escape seemed like Berkman's only option. The plan was to rent a house across the street from the prison and dig a tunnel from the house to the prison. Berkman had been given access to a large portion of the prison and had grown familiar with its layout. In April 1900, a house was leased. The tunnel would be dug from the cellar of the house to the stable inside the prison yard. When the digging was complete, Berkman would sneak into the stable, tear open the wooden flooring, and crawl through the tunnel to the house.
Digging the tunnel turned out to be more difficult than expected. The soil was rocky, which forced the men to dig deeper than planned. There, they discovered a leaking gas main, which required the installation of special pumps to bring fresh air to the men. To hide the noise from the digging, one of the crew played piano and sang in the house while the others worked below. On July 5, Berkman visited the prison stable, planning to make his escape. He was horrified to discover that the entrance was blocked by a large load of stones and bricks recently dumped for a construction project.
Three weeks later, some children playing in the street wandered into the yard of the now-vacant house. One of them fell into the cellar and discovered the tunnel. While the prison's Board of Inspectors was unable to identify the inmate involved in the escape attempt, the warden punished Berkman by sending him to solitary confinement for nearly a year. Days after he was released from solitary, Berkman tried to hang himself with a strip of his blanket.
Soon things began looking up for Berkman. He received word that his sentence had been reduced by two-and-a-half years, thanks to a new law. He also received his first visitor in nine years. A month later, Goldman was able to visit under an assumed name. The warden retired and his successor improved the prison for all prisoners.
Early in his incarceration, Berkman questioned whether two men could love one another. He was aware, as he later wrote, that incidents of rape or attempted rape took place "almost every week, yet no one has ever been taken to court ... on such charges". Some of Berkman's own friendships within the prison became physical. He became intimate with one prisoner, "Johnny", when the two were confined to the dungeon. He discussed homosexuality with another prisoner, "George", a formerly married physician who told Berkman about his own homosexual prison affair.
In 1905, Berkman was transported from the Western Penitentiary to the Allegheny County Workhouse, where he spent the final 10 months of his sentence. He found conditions in the workhouse "a nightmare of cruelty, infinitely worse than the most inhuman aspects of the penitentiary." The guards beat inmates at the slightest provocation, and one particularly sadistic guard shoved prisoners down the stairs. Berkman felt mixed emotions; while he was excited about the prospect of freedom, he was concerned about the friends he had made in the prison, and he was worried about what his life as a free man would be like.
Release
Berkman was released from the workhouse on May 18, 1906, after serving 14 years of his sentence. He was met at the workhouse gates by newspaper reporters and police, who recommended that he leave the area. He took the train to Detroit, where Goldman met him. She found herself "seized by terror and pity" at his gaunt appearance. Later, at a friend's house, Berkman felt overwhelmed by the presence of well-wishers. He became claustrophobic and almost suicidal. Nevertheless, he agreed to a joint lecture tour with Goldman.
Back in New York after the tour, Berkman and Goldman tried to rekindle their romantic relationship, but had lost passion for each other. Instead, Berkman was attracted to some of the younger women in the movement, including a teenager named Becky Edelsohn.
Berkman continued to suffer from depression and increasingly spoke about committing suicide. He began a new lecture tour, but when he failed to appear in Cleveland, concerned friends sent a telegram to Goldman in New York. She worried that he had killed himself. Anarchists across the country searched for Berkman in police stations, hospitals, and morgues. Even newspapers wondered where he was, speculating that he had been kidnapped by Pittsburgh detectives, by Secret Service agents, or by "agents of millionaires" who opposed his message. Three days later, Berkman appeared in New York and contacted Goldman. He said the lecture tour had made him feel miserable. He had purchased a handgun in Cleveland with the intention of killing himself in a city where nobody knew him, but he was unable to complete the act.
After resting for several months, Berkman began to recover. He remained anxious about his lack of employment. He considered returning to his old job as a printer, but his skills had become obsolete in light of innovations in linotype machines. With Goldman's encouragement, Berkman began to write an account of his prison years, Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist, and she invited him to become the editor of her journal, Mother Earth. He served as editor from 1907 to 1915, and took the journal in a more provocative and practical direction, in contrast to the more theoretical approach which had been favored by the previous editor, Max Baginski. Under Berkman's stewardship, circulation of Mother Earth rose as high as 10,000 and it became the leading anarchist publication in the U.S.
Ferrer Center
Berkman helped establish the Ferrer Center in New York during 1910 and 1911, and served as one of its teachers. The Ferrer Center, named in honor of Spanish anarchist Francisco Ferrer, included a free school that encouraged independent thinking among its students. The Ferrer Center also served as a community center for adults.
The Ludlow massacre and the Lexington Avenue explosion
In September 1913, the United Mine Workers called a strike against coal-mining companies in Ludlow, Colorado. The largest mining company was the Rockefeller family-owned Colorado Fuel & Iron Company. On April 20, 1914, the Colorado National Guard attacked a tent colony of striking miners and their families and, during a day-long fight, 26 people were killed.
During the strike, Berkman organized demonstrations in New York in support of the miners. In May and June, he and other anarchists led several protests against John D. Rockefeller Jr. The protests eventually moved from New York City to Rockefeller's home in Tarrytown, New York, and resulted in beatings, arrests, and imprisonments of anarchists. The strong police response to the Tarrytown protests led to a bomb plot by several Ferrer Center anarchists.
In July, three associates of Berkman—Charles Berg, Arthur Caron, and Carl Hanson—began collecting dynamite and storing it at the apartment of another conspirator, Louise Berger. Some sources, including Charles Plunkett, one of the surviving conspirators, say that Berkman was the chief conspirator, the oldest and most experienced member of the group. Berkman denied any involvement or knowledge of the plan.
At 9 a.m. on July 4, Berger left her apartment for the Mother Earth offices. Fifteen minutes later a deadly explosion took place. The bomb had exploded prematurely, shaking the sixth story of Berger's tenement building, wrecking the three upper floors and killing Berg, Caron, Hanson, and a woman, Marie Chavez, who apparently was not involved in the conspiracy. Berkman arranged the dead men's funerals.
The Blast and the Preparedness Day Bombing
In late 1915, Berkman left New York and went to California. In San Francisco the following year, he started his own anarchist journal, The Blast. Although it was published for just 18 months, The Blast was considered second only to Mother Earth in its influence among U.S. anarchists.
On July 22, 1916, a bomb exploded during the San Francisco Preparedness Day Parade, killing ten people and wounding 40. Police suspected Berkman, although there was no evidence, and ultimately their investigation focused on two local labor activists, Thomas Mooney and Warren Billings. Although neither Mooney nor Billings were anarchists, Berkman came to their aid: raising a defense fund, hiring lawyers, and beginning a national campaign on their behalf. Mooney and Billings were convicted, with Mooney sentenced to death and Billings to life imprisonment.
Berkman arranged for Russian anarchists to protest outside the American embassy in Petrograd during the Russian Revolution, which led U.S. President Woodrow Wilson to ask California's governor to commute Mooney's death sentence. When the governor reluctantly did so, he said that "the propaganda in [Mooney's] behalf following the plan outlined by Berkman has been so effective as to become world-wide." Billings and Mooney both were pardoned in 1939.
World War I
In 1917 the U.S. entered World War I and Congress enacted the Selective Service Act, which required all men between the ages of 21 and 30 to register for military conscription. Berkman moved back to New York, where he and Goldman organized the No Conscription League of New York, which proclaimed: "We oppose conscription because we are internationalists, anti-militarists, and opposed to all wars waged by capitalistic governments." The organization was at the forefront of anti-draft activism, and chapters were established in other cities. The No Conscription League changed its focus from public meetings to disseminating pamphlets after police started disrupting the group's public events in search of young men who had not registered for the draft.
Berkman and Goldman were arrested during a raid of their offices on June 15, 1917, during which police seized what The New York Times described as "a wagon load of anarchist records and propaganda material". The pair were charged under Espionage Act of 1917 with "conspiracy to induce persons not to register", and were held on $25,000 bail each.
Berkman and Goldman defended themselves during their trial. Berkman invoked the First Amendment, asking how the government could claim to fight for "liberty and democracy" in Europe while suppressing free speech at home:
Will you proclaim to the world that you who carry liberty and democracy to Europe have no liberty here, that you who are fighting for democracy in Germany, suppress democracy right here in New York, in the United States? Are you going to suppress free speech and liberty in this country, and still pretend that you love liberty so much that you will fight for it five thousand miles away?
The jury found them guilty and Judge Julius M. Mayer imposed the maximum sentence: two years' imprisonment, a $10,000 fine, and the possibility of deportation after their release from prison. Berkman served his sentence in the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, seven months of which he spent in solitary confinement for protesting the beating of other inmates. When he was released on October 1, 1919, Berkman looked "haggard and pale"; according to Goldman, the 21 months Berkman served in Atlanta took a greater toll on him than his 14-year incarceration in Pennsylvania.
Russia
Berkman and Goldman were released at the height of the first U.S. Red Scare; the Russian Revolutions of 1917, combined with anxiety about the war, produced a climate of anti-radical and anti-foreign sentiment. The U.S. Justice Department's General Intelligence Division, headed by J. Edgar Hoover and under the direction of Attorney General Alexander Mitchell Palmer, initiated a series of raids to arrest leftists. While they were in prison, Hoover wrote: "Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman are, beyond doubt, two of the most dangerous anarchists in this country and if permitted to return to the community will result in undue harm." Under the 1918 Anarchist Exclusion Act, the government deported Berkman, who had never applied for U.S. citizenship, along with Goldman and more than two hundred others, to Russia aboard the Buford.
At a farewell banquet in Chicago, Berkman and Goldman were told the news of the death of Henry Clay Frick, whom Berkman had tried to kill more than 25 years earlier. Asked for a comment by a reporter, Berkman said Frick had been "deported by God".
Berkman's initial reaction to the Bolshevik revolution was enthusiastic. When he first heard of their coup, he exclaimed "this is the happiest moment of my life", and he wrote that the Bolsheviks were the "expression of the most fundamental longing of the human soul". Arrival in Russia stirred great emotions in Berkman, and he described it as "the most sublime day in my life", surpassing even his release after 14 years in prison.
Berkman and Goldman spent much of 1920 traveling through Russia collecting material for a proposed Museum of the Revolution. As the pair traveled around the country, they found repression, mismanagement, and corruption instead of the equality and worker empowerment they had dreamed of. Those who questioned the government were demonized as counter-revolutionaries, and workers still labored under severe conditions. They met with Lenin, who assured them that government suppression of press liberties was justified. "When the Revolution is out of danger," he told them, "then free speech might be indulged in".
Strikes broke out in Petrograd in March 1921 when workers demonstrated for better food rations and more autonomy for their unions. Berkman and Goldman supported the strikers, writing: "To remain silent now is impossible, even criminal." The unrest spread to the port of Kronstadt, where Trotsky ordered a military response. In the battle that ensued, 600 sailors were killed; 2,000 more were arrested; and 500 to 1,500 Soviet troops died. In the wake of these events, Berkman and Goldman decided there was no future in the country for them. Berkman wrote in his diary:
Gray are the passing days. One by one the embers of hope have died out. Terror and despotism have crushed the life born in October. ... Dictatorship is trampling the masses under foot. The Revolution is dead; its spirit cries in the wilderness. ...
I have decided to leave Russia.Berkman and Goldman left the country in December 1921. Berkman moved to Berlin and almost immediately began to write a series of pamphlets about the Russian Revolution. "The Russian Tragedy", "The Russian Revolution and the Communist Party", and "The Kronstadt Rebellion" were published during the summer of 1922.
Berkman planned to write a book about his experience in Russia, but he postponed it while he assisted Goldman as she wrote a similar book, using as sources material he had collected. Work on Goldman's book, My Two Years in Russia, was completed in December 1922, and the book was published in two parts with titles not of her choosing: My Disillusionment in Russia (1923) and My Further Disillusionment in Russia (1924). Berkman worked on his book, The Bolshevik Myth, throughout 1923 and it was published in January 1925.
Now and After
Berkman moved to Saint-Cloud, France, in 1925. He organized a fund for aging anarchists including Sébastien Faure, Errico Malatesta, and Max Nettlau. He continued to fight on behalf of anarchist prisoners in the Soviet Union, and arranged the publication of Letters from Russian Prisons, which detailed their persecution.
In 1926, the Jewish Anarchist Federation of New York asked Berkman to write an introduction to anarchism intended for the general public. By presenting the principles of anarchism in plain language, the New York anarchists hoped that readers might be swayed to support the movement or, at a minimum, that the book might improve the image of anarchism and anarchists in the public's eyes. Berkman produced Now and After: The ABC of Communist Anarchism, first published in 1929 and reprinted many times since (often under the title What Is Communist Anarchism? or What Is Anarchism?). Anarchist Stuart Christie wrote that Now and After is "among the best introductions to the ideas of anarchism in the English language" and historian Paul Avrich described it as "the clearest exposition of communist anarchism in English or any other language".
Final years and death
Berkman spent his last years eking out a precarious living as an editor and translator. He and his companion, Emmy Eckstein, relocated frequently within Nice in search of smaller and less expensive quarters. Aronstam, who had changed his name to Modest Stein and attained success as an artist, became a benefactor, sending Berkman a monthly sum to help with expenses. In the 1930s his health began to deteriorate, and he underwent two unsuccessful operations for a prostate condition in early 1936. After the second surgery, he was bed-ridden for months. In constant pain, forced to rely on the financial help of friends and dependent on Eckstein's care, Berkman decided to commit suicide. In the early hours of June 28, 1936, unable to endure the physical pain of his ailment, Berkman tried to shoot himself in the heart with a handgun, but he failed to make a clean job of it. The bullet punctured a lung and his stomach and lodged in his spinal column, paralyzing him. Goldman rushed to Nice to be at his side. Berkman recognized her but was unable to speak. He sank into a coma in the afternoon, and died at 10 o'clock that night.
Goldman made funeral arrangements for Berkman. It had been his desire to be cremated and have his ashes buried in Waldheim Cemetery in Chicago, near the graves of the Haymarket defendants who had inspired him, but she could not afford the expense. Instead, Berkman was buried in a common grave in Cochez Cemetery in Nice.
Berkman died weeks before the start of the Spanish Revolution, modern history's clearest example of an anarcho-syndicalist revolution. In July 1937, Goldman wrote that seeing his principles in practice in Spain "would have rejuvenated [Berkman] and given him new strength, new hope. If only he had lived a little longer!"
Bibliography
Books by Berkman
Deportation: Its Meaning and Menace; Last Message to the People of America, with Emma Goldman. New York: M.E. Fitzgerald. 1919. .
Edited collections
References
Footnotes
Works cited
Further reading
External links
Alexander Berkman Papers at the International Institute of Social History
Alexander Berkman letters in the Emma Goldman Papers at Rubenstein Library, Duke University
Biographical articles
Berkman, Alexander (1932). "An Enemy of Society." An autobiographical outline.
Goldman Emma (1922). "A Sketch of Alexander Berkman."
Goldman Emma (July 12, 1936). "Alexander Berkman's Last Days."
Staff writer (December 22, 1919). "Pioneer Anarchists Leave Crop of 60,000 Reds in U.S." New-York Tribune.
Online collections of works
Alexander Berkman at Anarchy Archive
Alexander Berkman at Libcom
Alexander Berkman at RevoltLib
Alexander Berkman Archive at the Kate Sharpley Library
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420352 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001%20in%20India | 2001 in India | Events in the year 2001 in the Republic of India.
Incumbents
President of India – K. R. Narayanan
Prime Minister of India – Atal Bihari Vajpayee
Vice President of India – Krishna Kant
Chief Justice of India – Adarsh Sein Anand until 10 January, Sam Piroj Bharucha
Governors
Andhra Pradesh – C. Rangarajan
Arunachal Pradesh – Arvind Dave
Assam – Srinivas Kumar Sinha
Bihar – V. C. Pande
Chhattisgarh – D. N. Sahay
Goa – Mohammed Fazal
Gujarat – Sunder Singh Bhandari
Haryana – Babu Parmanand
Himachal Pradesh – Suraj Bhan
Jharkhand – Prabhat Kumar
Jammu and Kashmir – Girish Chandra Saxena
Karnataka – V. S. Ramadevi
Kerala – Sukhdev Singh Kang
Madhya Pradesh – Bhai Mahavir
Maharashtra – P.C. Alexander
Manipur – Ved Marwah
Meghalaya – M.M. Jacob
Mizoram – Ved Marwah (until 17 May), Amolak Rattan Kohli (starting 17 May)
Nagaland – Om Prakash Sharma
Odisha – M. M. Rajendran
Punjab – J. F. R. Jacob
Rajasthan – Anshuman Singh
Sikkim – Chaudhary Randhir Singh (until 17 May), Kidar Nath Sahani (starting 17 May)
Tamil Nadu – M. Fathima Beevi (until 2 July), C. Rangarajan (starting 2 July)
Tripura – Krishna Mohan Seth
Uttar Pradesh – Vishnu Kant Shastri
Uttarakhand – Surjit Singh Barnala
West Bengal – Viren J. Shah
Events
National income - 23,152,430 million
January
1 January – Calcutta officially becomes Kolkata, reverting to its precolonial name.
1 January Dr. Leo Rebello's Encyclopedia of Letters Pen Power and All India Letter Writers Association is entered as a World Record in the Limca Book of Records.
2 January – Power cuts leave huge swathes of northern India in darkness for two days starting early on 2 January. A minor fault in Uttar Pradesh leads to a breakdown in the regional grid across Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Kashmir, Punjab, and Rajasthan.
Early January – The government announces that it aims to double the number of aircraft operated by Air India in the next five to seven years as well as to sell off a 60% share in the company. Air India's stock of aging craft is thought to have dulled the company's competitive edge in recent years.
Early January – The president of the Indian Science Congress, R.S. Paroda, warns a conference of 3,000 Indian scientists that the country could face a severe food shortage in 2020 as the population size outstrips the country's level of supplies.
4 January – The government tests its first homemade jet fighter, the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA). The plane, originally scheduled to take its maiden flight in 1991, has taken 17 years to develop and will not be ready for service until 2010.
9 January-21 February – More than 100 million people – almost 2% of the world's population – attend the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Allahabad, making it the largest gathering of human beings in history. On the festival's most important day an estimated 20 million Hindu pilgrims bathe in the sacred waters of the three rivers which meet near the town. The festival is held every 12 years.
15 January – Voters in Indian-administered Kashmir are able to participate in the first local elections in 23 years. The polls decide positions on some 125 village councils. Islamic militants have urged a boycott of the vote, which they say will undermine the separatist movement.
15 January – In a sign of improving relations, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee meets with the visiting chairman of China's National People's Congress, Li Peng. Both leaders say they have made substantial progress in discussing their two countries' disputed borders.
16 January- 11 people are killed when six members of the Kashmiri separatist guerrilla group Lashkar-e-Toiba attempt to storm Srinagar's civilian airport.
Mid-January – The government announces that it is willing to meet the United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) for open negotiations on ending the 20-year insurgency in the northeastern state.
Mid-January – The eastern state of Orissa urges further government assistance in the face of a major drought. Officials estimate that the state has lost around $150.7 million in failed rice crops alone. It is thought that deforestation has played a major part in the drought.
17 January – Pakistan reacts angrily to news that the Indian military has successfully test-fired an improved Agni-II intermediate ballistic missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead to anywhere in Pakistan.
Mid-January – Researchers reveal that unusually high sea temperatures caused by the extreme weather effect known as El Niño have irreversibly damaged coral reefs off India's western coast.
Late January – 150 million children across India are immunized against polio in one of the largest vaccination projects ever undertaken.
Late January – The government extends its ceasefire in Kashmir for another month despite continuing separatist violence.
26 January – The 7.7 Gujarat earthquake shakes Western India with a maximum Mercalli intensity of X (Extreme), leaving 13,805–20,023 dead and about 166,800 injured.
Late January – The UK-based human rights group Amnesty International urges the government to crack down on the widespread use of torture by police.
Late January- Researchers in Bangalore announce that the common antibiotic Triclosan has significant effects against the malaria parasite. Malaria is thought to kill around 1 million people every year worldwide.
February
Early February – Authorities and aid workers in Gujarat warn that disease is now the biggest problem threatening the 1 million people made homeless by the January earthquake. Fears of a major epidemic are increased as the thousands of corpses still trapped beneath fallen buildings begin to decompose.
Early February – The government grants refugee status to Ogyen Trinley Dorje, a controversial claimant to the 17th Karmapa title. The Karmapa was in India since escaping Tibet in early 2000.
2 February – An unprecedented telephone conversation between Prime Minister Vajpayee and Pakistani military leader General Pervez Musharraf is hailed as a major step in relations between the two countries. Musharraf contacts his Indian counterpart to offer further emergency aid for the survivors of the Gujarat earthquake.
Early February – The drug manufacturer Cipla, based in Mumbai, announces that it plans to offer anti-AIDS drugs at very low prices. The three-drug cocktail used to help AIDS victims currently costs around $12,000 per patient per year. Cipla says it will offer a three-tier pricing structure with wholesalers paying $1,200, governments $600, and the French charity Médecins sans Frontières just $350 per patient per year.
Mid-February – In a sign of thawing relations, Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh begins an official visit to Myanmar. He is the first Indian minister to go to the country since the military junta came to power there in 1988.
Mid-February – Violent protests by Kashmiri separatists in Srinagar intensify. Five Indian policemen are killed on 19 February alone in riots sparked by the death of four stone-throwing demonstrators killed by police in Haigam, 40 km north of Srinagar, four days earlier.
21 February – A study conducted by Centre for Science and Environment in Enmakaje, Kasaragod district, Kerala brings out Endosulfan tragedy.
Late February – The government extends its ceasefire in separatist Kashmir for an extra three months.
Late February – A unilateral 15-day ceasefire is declared by the government in the far northeastern separatist state of Manipur. The cessation of hostilities will begin on 1 March to coincide with the start of the local Yaosang festival.
March
1 March - As per 2001 Census of India, India becomes the second nation in the world to register one billion people in its population. The first was China in 1979.
13 March - Tehelka broke it's sting operation story of Operation West End.
15 March – Defense Minister George Fernandes resigns in a bribery scandal which threatens to bring down the government. The leader of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Bangaru Laxman, has already left his position, but the departures fail to calm opposition parties, who continue to stall the workings of parliament for a third day on 16 March. Journalists released secretly filmed footage on the Internet, showing government members from the defense ministry and other senior figures accepting bribes from bogus arms dealers.
23 March - Madhavpura Mercantile Cooperative Bank - Ketan Parekh scam.
28 March – A counter-insurgency Special Operations Group (SOG) patrol claims to have killed Salaudin Ayubi, the Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Toiba's leader in the Kashmir valley, in a shootout near Srinagar. There has been a spate of attacks by militants in Srinagar in recent months, although the ceasefire announced by the Indian government in November remains nominally in place.
April
Beginning of April – Widespread strike action by private owners of buses, taxis, and motorized rickshaws contributes to chaotic traffic conditions in Delhi, as new rules come into force requiring a switch from diesel fuel to compressed natural gas in a bid to combat urban air pollution.
Early April – Customs and excise chief B.P. Verma is arrested on charges of corruption.
2 April-4 April – A conference in Delhi, organized under the UN Environment Programme's Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), brings together for the first time the members of a new task force on the future of tigers in the wild – thought to number 5,000–7,000 in total.
Early April – In a bold attempt to hasten an end to violence in separatist Kashmir, the government offers unconditional peace talks to Kashmiri militants. However, with no invitation to the Pakistani authorities it is not likely to attract much response from the separatists.
Early April – The Tibetan spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso, welcomes news that tens of thousands of Dalits (lower-caste Hindus) are to convert to Buddhism on 14 October.
Early April – Tea production in the northeastern region of Darjeeling is adversely affected by an indefinite general strike called by the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) over the government's failure to identify the perpetrators of an attack on their leader, Subhas Ghising.
Mid-April – Extra troops are dispatched to the Bangladeshi border after 18 soldiers are killed in escalating shooting incidents. Tension in the region has mounted over a disputed section of the border south of Assam.
Mid-April – Opposition parties recommence the disruption of parliament in an attempt to force the government to launch an investigation into an allegedly corrupt arms deal.
18 April – The country's space program is brought into a new era with the successful test launch of its geostationary satellite launch vehicle, the GSLV-D1, at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh. The program had caused embarrassment for the country's space agency in late March when the first test launch, broadcast live on television, was aborted as flames burst from the craft on ignition. Communications satellites launched in India have hitherto been propelled by Arianespace or Russian rockets, and the GSLV-D1 is planned as a less costly alternative.
22 April – The U.S.-based current affairs magazine TIME apologizes emphatically for the offense caused by the printing of a depiction of Muhammad – considered a blasphemy in Islam – which had sparked large riots in Kashmir the previous day.
22 April – The government is outraged when medical reports suggest that many of the 16 soldiers killed by Bangladeshi forces in border skirmishes were mutilated and tortured before being murdered.
May
1 May – The number of Tibetan children under the age of 13 crossing the Himalayas to enter India doubled to 1,500 in the first four months of the year according to the Reception Centre for Tibetan Refugees.
Early May – Ten people are killed in pre-electoral clashes in the northeastern state of Assam as the outlawed separatist United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) clashes with soldiers. State elections are to be held on 10 May.
Early May – Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pramod Mahajan announces that the government will open up the country's arms production industry to private investors, including up to 26% to foreign capital.
Mid-May – The ruling BJP suffers defeat in five key state elections, losing ground to the opposition Congress (I) party in Assam, Kerala, and Pondicherry. In Tamil Nadu a coalition allied to Congress (I) sweeps to power making Jayaram Jayalalitha, a former film star with a conviction for bribery, chief minister there. In West Bengal the communist Left Front is returned to power continuing its record as the world's longest serving elected communist government.
Mid-May – Prime Minister Vajpayee announces that India will honour the ASEAN treaty keeping Southeast Asia a nuclear weapons-free zone.
Mid-May – Tarun Gogoi, the new Congress (I) chief minister of Assam, declares that he will press for a ceasefire with separatist rebels, but he faces opposition from the BJP-controlled federal government.
Mid-May – Indian troops cooperate with their Myanmar counterparts in a joint offensive along their common border. Rebels from Nagaland, Manipur, and Assam are targeted.
24 May – The government extends an offer of talks on Kashmir to Pakistani ruler General Pervez Musharraf but ends India's six-month unilateral ceasefire in the disputed region
June
2 June – The federal government imposes direct rule in the northeastern state of Manipur after the state government collapsed.
Early June – Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh signs a defense deal with Russia worth a potential $10 billion including plans to establish an air-defense system to cover the entire country and several projects to develop new aircraft.
6 June – Police intercept an illegal consignment of 85 human skulls near the border with eastern Nepal. The heads were apparently en route to the lucrative tourist trade in the Himalayan country and are believed to have been raided, some fairly recently, from Christian graveyards in northeast India. No smugglers are caught.
10 June – The Kashmiri separatist All Party Hurriyat Conference announces the suspension of all strikes and rallies in the province pending a summit between Indian and Pakistani leaders scheduled for July.
15 June – A plot to bomb the United States embassy in New Delhi, allegedly masterminded by the notorious Osama bin Laden, is foiled by police.
17 June – Thousands of demonstrators clash with police and set fire to the Manipur state legislature in Imphal. The protests are over an agreement between the government and separatist rebels from the neighbouring state of Nagaland to extend their three-year ceasefire for another year, and to widen the deal to areas beyond the state. The protestors claim that the extension will undermine regional security.
18 June – The government announces that Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf is expected in India on 14 July for a landmark summit with Indian leaders.
21 June – A deal is signed by which the world-famous Taj Mahal monument is to receive private sponsorship from the Taj Hotel Group.
22 June – At least 64 people die when a train plunges off a bridge in Kerala state. The following day 50 people drown in West Bengal when an overcrowded boat capsizes on the Ganges River.
July
Early July – Police in the southern state of Tamil Nadu are ordered to shoot violent protestors on sight following unrest in the region prompted by the brief detention of the state's former chief minister Muthuvel Karunanidhi. The arrest was ordered by new chief minister Jayaram Jayalalitha, an arch-rival of Karunanidhi.
4 July – The country's first ever private FM radio station – Radio City – is launched in Bangalore.
Early July – Archaeologists announce the discovery of possibly the world's second-largest Buddhist stupa (a holy domed building containing relics or artifacts associated with Buddha) in Bihar. It is believed to date from the 6th century.
5 July – Thousands of women clash with police in Imphal, Manipur, in protest at the federal government's negotiations with neighboring Naga rebels. The rally deliberately contravenes a curfew imposed in the city after riots in June.
Early July – The transport ministry announces plans ahead of the India-Pakistan summit to open links with Pakistan, including across the Line of Control in Kashmir.
First half of July – 500,000 people are displaced by severe flooding in the eastern state of Orissa.
13 July – Shabir Shah, the leader of the Jammu and Kashmir Democratic Party (JKDP), is arrested ahead of the landmark India-Pakistan summit in Agra.
17 July – Hopes for a new era in Indo-Pakistani relations are disappointed when the summit between Prime Minister Vajpayee and newly appointed Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf fails to make progress on the Kashmir issue and ends without agreement.
23 July – 30,000 people clash with police again in Imphal in continuing protests against the government's peace proposals with neighbouring Naga rebels.
25 July – Famed Bandit Queen turned M.P. Phoolan Devi is assassinated by masked gunman at the gate of her New Delhi residence at the age of 37.
Late July – Prime Minister Vajpayee accepts the invitation from Pakistani President Musharraf to travel to Pakistan for a second round of bilateral talks. However, his acceptance comes amid reports that he has privately derided Musharraf's diplomatic skills.
31 July – The ruling BJP orders Prime Minister Vajpayee to remain in office, rejecting his offer to resign. Vajpayee cited difficulties in maintaining a workable coalition in government.
August
9 August – The security status of four districts of Jammu is changed, so that now all six districts of Jammu as well as all six districts of the Kashmir valley are designated "disturbed areas", leaving Ladakh as the only part of Jammu and Kashmir not covered by the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act
September
Early September – India's first police office dedicated specifically to Internet crimes opens in Bangalore.
21 September – J. Jayalalithaa, the controversial former film star, is forced to resign as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu after the Supreme Court ruled her appointment was invalid due to her conviction for corruption.
23 September – Three-year-old U.S.-led economic sanctions against India's external defense trade are lifted as part of the U.S. attempt to bolster its regional alliances against Islamic militants. The sanctions were imposed on India and Pakistan in 1998 after they both conducted nuclear weapons tests.
Late September – 10,000 soldiers are deployed along the border with Nepal in an effort to combat the flow of militants and criminals who are thought to use southern Nepal as a base for operations in India.
30 September – Madhavrao Scindia, the deputy leader of the opposition Congress (I) party, is one of eight people killed in a plane crash.
October
1 October – 38 people are killed in a concerted attack on Indian government buildings in Srinagar, Kashmir. A Pakistani suicide bomber from the Jaish-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammad) detonates a government jeep packed with explosives at the entrance of the buildings, while troops disguised as policemen enter the complex and begin firing. The All-Party Hurriyat Conference of Muslim separatists and the Pakistani government both immediately condemn the attack but the Indian government accuses the Pakistani authorities of collusion.
2 October – Keshubhai Patel resigns his position as chief minister of Gujarat following the poor showing of his BJP in elections there. He is replaced by the BJP's general secretary, Narendra Modi.
2 October – U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell suggests that Muslim Kashmiri separatists in India will be targets in the "war on terrorism".
7 October – Narendra Modi is sworn in as the chief minister of Gujarat.
8 October – Despite increased tensions after attacks in Kashmir, Prime Minister Vajpayee and Pakistani President Musharraf agree to cooperate against international terrorism in a rare telephone conversation.
12 October – The U.S. freezes the assets of the Pakistani-based Kashmiri separatist group Jaish-e-Mohammad as one of its targeted terrorist groups.
15 October – The disgraced former defence minister George Fernandes is reappointed to his post. He left the cabinet in March over a prominent corruption scandal.
16 October – Despite pressure from the U.S. to renew negotiations over Kashmir, the government insists that it will continue to repel incursions into Indian-administered Kashmir by rebels it says are backed by Pakistan. Indian forces began shelling positions on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control the previous day.
22 October – Interest rates are cut to their lowest level since 1973, falling by half a percentage point to 6.5%.
24 October – President K.R. Narayanan signs into law the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance granting extra powers to the police in an effort to combat terrorism. As well as allowing the detention of suspected terrorists for up to three months without charge, the decree makes it a duty for people to report suspicious behavior.
26 October – Japan becomes the latest country to lift economic sanctions imposed on India and Pakistan after both countries conducted nuclear tests in 1998.
November
1 November – The government accuses neighboring Pakistan of provocation, saying it has been slowly increasing its military presence in Kashmir.
4 November – Hundreds of thousands of Dalit Hindus convert to Buddhism in one of the largest mass conversions in recent years under the leadership of Udit Raj at New Delhi.
6 November – Around 15,000 labourers, peasants, women, and lower caste Hindus demonstrate in New Delhi against the government's cooperation with international financial institutions, which they claim is self-destructive.
12 November – A strike called by groups opposed to a plan for greater representation for the ethnic Bodo people brings the state of Assam to a standstill. India's central government has proposed creating Bodo councils in regions where they form a majority of the population, but non-Bodos have raised fears that they will become the targets for racial discrimination at the hands of the new councils.
November - Sikkim becomes the first state in India to launch online lottery, Playwin.
December
7 December – The government of the state of Meghalaya is toppled by a vote of no confidence. The United Democratic Party will be replaced by an opposition coalition called the People's Forum of Meghalaya.
13 December – Six gunmen injure 22 people and kill six police officers before they themselves are killed in a dramatic "suicide" attack on the central parliament buildings in New Delhi. No members of the government are hurt. The government blames the attack on two Pakistan-based Kashmiri militant groups, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Toiba, the former of which had also attacked the local government centre in Indian-administered Kashmir in October.
Early December – The economy shows signs of a rapid slowdown as inflation strikes a 20-year low of 2.27% at the beginning of the month, falling from a 10-year high of 8.57% in February.
Mid-December – Tension between India and Pakistan escalates rapidly after the Indian government accuses its Pakistani counterpart of supporting a terrorist attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi. The threat of all-out war between India and Pakistan looms large across the New Year with both sides massing forces along their common border. There is an exchange of mortar fire across the "line of control", the de facto border in Kashmir, on 2 January. However, the leaders of both countries express hope that conflict could be avoided amid a massive international diplomatic effort, including a regional visit from UK Prime Minister Tony Blair. Some of the heat is released when the leadership of the groups believed to have been involved in the parliamentary attack are arrested in Pakistan and Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee announces that war is "unnecessary".
Law
The Energy Conservation Act, 2001
Births
14 June – Sreeleela, actress
19 June – Saloni Daini, actress
29 August – Jannat Zubair Rahmani, actress
10 November – Riyan Parag, cricketer
28 December – Yashasvi Jaiswal, cricketer
Deaths
12 February – Bhakti Barve, actress (born 1948).
13 May – R.K. Narayan, novelist (born 1906).
7 May － Malti Bedekar, feminist author (born 1905).
21 July – Sivaji Ganesan, actor (born 1927).
25 July – Phoolan Devi, bandit turned politician, assassinated (born 1963).
28 October – Pradeep Kumar, actor (born 1925).
5 December – Dharam Singh, field hockey player (born 1919).
10 December – Ashok Kumar, actor (born 1911).
31 December – Harshad Mehta, stockbroker (born 1954)
Full date unknown
Chandrakant Mandare, actor and artist (born 1913).
See also
List of Bollywood films of 2001
References
India
Years of the 21st century in India
2000s in India
India |
420368 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibari%20Misora | Hibari Misora | was a Japanese singer, actress and cultural icon. She received a Medal of Honor for her contributions to music and for improving the welfare of the public, and was the first woman to receive the People's Honour Award, which was conferred posthumously for giving the public hope and encouragement after World War II.
Misora recorded a total of 1,200 songs and sold 68 million records. After she died, consumer demand for her recordings grew significantly, and, by 2001, she had sold more than 80 million records. By 2019, record sales surpassed 100 million. Her swan-song is often performed by numerous artists and orchestras as a tribute to her, including notable renditions by The Three Tenors (Spanish/Italian), Teresa Teng (Taiwanese) and Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan (Mexican).
Each year there is a special on Japanese television and radio featuring her songs. A memorial concert for Misora was held at the Tokyo Dome on November 11, 2012. It featured numerous musicians such as Ai, Koda Kumi, Ken Hirai, Kiyoshi Hikawa, Exile, AKB48 and Nobuyasu Okabayashi amongst others, paying tribute by singing her most famous songs.
Biography
Life and career
Misora was born on May 29, 1937 in Isogo-ku, Yokohama, Japan. Her father, , was a fishmonger and her mother, , a housewife. Katō displayed musical talent from an early age after singing for her father at a World War II send-off party in 1943 at the age of six. Masukichi had invested a small fortune taken from the family's savings to begin a musical career for his daughter. In 1945 at the age of eight, Kazue made her debut at a concert hall in Yokohama. At that same time, she also changed her surname from Katō to , at the suggestion of her mother. In 1946 at the age of nine, entered the NHK Nodo Jiman singing competition. Judges did not pass her because they felt her voice was too mature and that it was inappropriate for a child to sing an adult song. Later that same year, she appeared on another NHK broadcast, and this time impressed Japanese composer Masao Koga with her singing ability. He considered her to be a child prodigy with the courage, understanding, and emotional maturity of an adult. Over the next few years, Misora became an accomplished singer and was touring notable concert halls to sold-out crowds. While the general public loved her, she was criticized by the social and cultural elites for sounding too much like a grown woman and for singing boogie woogies and love songs rather than children’s songs.
Kazue began her recording career in 1949 at the age of 12, now with the name , which means "lark in the beautiful sky," and starred in the film . The film gained her nationwide recognition. That same year, she recorded her first single for Nippon Columbia. It became a commercial hit, selling more than 450,000 copies. She subsequently recorded "Kanashiki kuchibue", which was featured on a radio program and was a national hit. As an actress, she starred in more than 150 movies between 1949 and 1971, and won numerous awards. Her performance in Tokyo Kid (1950), in which she played a street orphan, made her symbolic of both the hardship and the national optimism of post-World War II Japan.
In June 1950, Misora was one of the first entertainers from Japan to visit the United States after the war. She performed in Hawaii and California.
In 1956, Misora was briefly engaged to musician Mitsuru Ono. Their engagement was called off when Misora was told she would have to give up her career in order to marry.
On January 13, 1957, Misora was attacked and injured with hydrochloric acid at Asakusa International Theater. The suspect was identified as an overly enthusiastic fan of hers.
In 1962, Misora married actor Akira Kobayashi. They divorced in 1964, and she never remarried. Her mother, who had been opposed to the marriage, would later state that the unhappiest moment in her life was when her daughter married Kobayashi and the happiest moment was when they divorced.
Between 1949 and 1971, Misora would appear in 8 to 12 films per year, and in the majority of these films top billing would be given to her. These films would range from light contemporary romances to period films with some sword fighting action. In many of her period films, she would be cast either in male roles or in female roles disguised as men. After she ended her film career, Misora would sometimes sing in male drag in many of her television performances.
In 1973, Misora's younger brother, Tetsuya Katō, was prosecuted for gang-related activity. Although NHK did not acknowledge any connection, Misora was excluded from Kōhaku Uta Gassen for the first time in 18 years. Offended, she refused to appear on any NHK programs for years afterwards. Nevertheless, Misora eventually did make peace with NHK and appeared in the 1979 Kouhaku as a special guest. This would be her final appearance on the program before her death. Misora would appear occasionally on other NHK programs, but felt she no longer had a reason to perform on Kouhaku.
In 1978, Misora adopted her seven-year-old nephew, Tetsuya's son Kazuya Katō.
In 1980 on the 35th year anniversary of her debut, Misora performed a recital at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo.
Illness and death
The 1980s were incredibly difficult years for Misora. Her mother passed away in 1981 and a year later her best friend, fellow singer and actress Chiemi Eri, died. Misora’s brothers both died in 1983 and 1986, respectively. Misora and her mother had been extremely close; not only had Kimie been her daughter's number one fan, but also she had worked as Misora's producer/manager throughout her career. To cope with her sorrow, Misora, having already been known as a hard drinker, increased her drinking and smoking even further.
In April 1987, Misora suddenly collapsed on stage at a concert performance in Fukuoka. She was rushed to a nearby hospital, where she was diagnosed with avascular necrosis brought on by chronic hepatitis. Doctors did not reveal to the press that she was also suffering from cirrhosis so as to not cause worry to her fans and associates. She was immediately admitted, but eventually showed signs of recovery in August. She commenced recording a new song in October, and in April 1988 performed at her comeback concert at Tokyo Dome. At the time, the audience was unaware that she had still not fully recovered and spent her backstage time lying in a bed with an oxygen tank. Despite overwhelming pain in her legs, Misora performed a total of 40 songs. Once off the stage after the last song, she collapsed and was taken away by an ambulance that was on standby.
Misora's health improvement was to be temporary, as her liver weakened from decades of heavy drinking and her condition worsened. Yet, she continued to perform live while hiding the true nature of her health from her fans. On February 7, 1989 (less than a month after the Heisei period began), Misora held her final concert in Kokura. It was the start of a nationwide tour which had to be cancelled due to her failing health. On March 21, she wrapped up her nearly four-and-a-half-decade career with a 10-hour live radio show for Nippon Broadcasting System. She was later hospitalized at Juntendo University Hospital in Tokyo with interstitial pneumonitis.
On the morning of June 24, 1989, Misora died at Juntendo. She was 52. Her death was widely mourned throughout Japan and many felt the Shōwa period had truly come to an end. The major television networks had to cancel their regular programming that evening to bring the news of her death and instead aired various tributes.
Legacy
In 1993, a monument depicting Misora's portrait with an inscribed poem was erected in her memory near Sugi no Osugi in Ōtoyo, Kōchi. In 1947, a 10-year old Misora had been involved in a serious bus collision in Ōtoyo. While recovering from her injuries, she remained in the town and reportedly visited Sugi no Osugi and wished to become the top singer in Japan. Misora’s father was so upset, he demanded that she stopped singing. The young Misora responded “If I can’t sing, then I will die.” She eventually returned to Tokyo, where she began her recording career in 1949 at the age of 12.
In 1994, the Hibari Misora Museum opened in Arashiyama, Kyoto. This multi-story museum complex traced the history of Misora's life and career in various multimedia exhibits, and displayed various memorabilia. It attracted more than 5 million visitors, until it closed down November 30, 2006 as to allow a scheduled renovation of the building. The main exhibits were relocated to the Shōwa period section of the Edo-Tokyo Museum, until a renovation was completed. The brand new Hibari Misora Theater opened in its place on April 26, 2008, and includes a CD for sale of a previously unreleased song. A bronze statue of her debut was built as a memorial in Yokohama in 2002 and attracts around 300,000 visitors per year.
Beginning in 1990, television and radio stations play Misora's song annually on her birth date to show respect. In a national poll by NHK in 1997, the song was voted the greatest Japanese song of all time by more than 10 million people. The song is still prominently performed by numerous artists and orchestras as a tribute to Misora, including notable renditions by The Three Tenors (Spanish/Italian), Teresa Teng (Taiwanese), Mariachi Vargas de Tecalitlan (Mexican) and Twelve Girls Band (Chinese).
On November 11, 2012, a memorial concert for Misora was held at the Tokyo Dome. It featured numerous musicians such as Ai, Koda Kumi, Ken Hirai, Kiyoshi Hikawa, Exile, AKB48 and Nobuyasu Okabayashi amongst others, paying tribute to Misora by covering her most famous songs.
In September 2019, Misora's voice became focused on after was used for a version of the Vocaloid engine known as "VOCALOID:AI", which tried to recreate her singing vocals. The Vocaloid performance also used a full 3D rendering of the singer.
After Misora's death in 1989, a TBS television drama special aired later that same year under the title The Hibari Misora Story (), starring Kayoko Kishimoto as Misora. In 2005, also on TBS, Aya Ueto portrayed Misora in The Hibari Misora Birth Story ().
On 29 May 2017, Google celebrated Hibari Misora’s 80th birthday with a doodle.
Question of Korean ancestry
Hibari Misora's ancestry has been a matter of dispute. Prior to her death in 1989, there had been assumptions that she was of ethnic Korean ancestry, and that she and her family held Korean passports. This claim spread around widely. Upon her death, however, author Rō Takenaka and journalist Tsukasa Yoshida launched a thorough investigation into her background, and concluded that Misora was Japanese.
Notable songs
Kappa Boogie Woogie (, 1949)
Kanashiki Kuchibue (, 1949)
Tokyo Kiddo (, 1950)
Echigo Jishi No Uta (, 1950)
Omatsuri Mambo (, 1952)
Ringo Oiwake (, 1952)
Minatomachi 13-banchi (, 1957)
Hanagasa Dōchū (, 1957)
Yawara (, 1964)
Kanashii Sake (, 1966)
Makkana Taiyō (, 1967)
Jinsei Ichiro (, 1970)
Aisansan (, 1986)
Midaregami (, 1987)
Kawa no nagare no yō ni (, 1989)
Arekara (, 2019; posthumous)
Filmography
Hibari Misora appeared in 166 films:
1940s
(1940s complete)
Nodo jimankyō jidai (のど自慢狂時代)(1949)
Shin-Tokyo ondo: bikkuri gonin otoko (新東京音頭 びっくり五人男)(1949)
Odoru ryū kyūjō (踊る龍宮城, lit. "Dancing Dragon Palace")(1949)
Akireta musume-tachi (あきれた娘たち), alternate title: Kingorō no kodakara sōdō (金語楼の子宝騒動)(1949)
Kanashiki kuchibue (悲しき口笛, lit. "Sad whistling")(1949)
Odoroki ikka (おどろき一家)(1949)
Home run kyō jidai (ホームラン狂時代, lit. "The Age of Home run Madness")(1949)
1950s
(1950s is complete)
Hit Parade (ヒットパレード – 1950)
Akogare no Hawaii kōro (憧れのハワイ航路 – 1950)
Hōrō no utahime (放浪の歌姫, lit. "The Wandering Songstress" – 1950)
Mukō sangen ryōdonari continued: 3rd Story - donguri utagassen (続・向う三軒両隣 第三話 どんぐり歌合戦 – 1950)
Enoken no sokonuke daihōsō (エノケンの底抜け大放送 – 1950)
Mukō sangen ryōdonari continued: 4th Story - koi no mikeneko (続・向う三軒両隣 第四話 恋の三毛猫)(1950)
Aozora tenshi (青空天使, lit. "Blue Sky Angel" – 1950)
Tokyo Kid (東京キッド – 1950)
Sakon torimonochō: senketsu no tegata (左近捕物帖 鮮血の手型, lit. "Sakon Detective Story: The Fresh Blood Handprint" – 1950)
Ōgon Batto: Matenrō no kaijin (黄金バット 摩天楼の怪人, lit. "Golden Bat: Mysterious stranger of the Skyscraper" – 1950)
Tonbo kaeri dōchū (とんぼ返り道中 – 1950)
Watashi wa josei no. 1 (1950) – as herself, the short film
Chichi koishi (父恋し – 1951)
Uta matsuri: Hibari shichi henge (唄祭り ひばり七変化, lit. "Song Festival: Hibari Quick Change" – 1951)
Naki nureta ningyō (泣きぬれた人形, lit. "The Doll Wet from Crying" – 1951)
Kurama tengu: Kakubējishi (鞍馬天狗 角兵衛獅子 – 1951)
Haha wo shitaite (母を慕いて, lit. "Yearning for Mother" – 1951)
Hibari no komoriuta (ひばりの子守唄, lit. "Hibari's Lullaby" – 1951)
Kurama tengu: Kurama no himatsuri (鞍馬天狗 鞍馬の火祭 – 1951)
Ano oka koete (あの丘越えて, lit. "Cross that Hill" – 1951)
Yōki-na wataridori (陽気な渡り鳥 – 1952)
Kurama tengu: Tengu kaijō (鞍馬天狗 天狗廻状 – 1952)
Tsukigata Hanpeita (月形半平太 – 1952)
Hibari no Sākasu Kanashiki Kobato (ひばりのサーカス 悲しき小鳩, lit. "Hibari's Circus: Sad Little Dove" – 1952)
Ushiwakamaru (牛若丸 – 1952)
Futari no hitomi (二人の瞳) a.k.a. Girls Hand in Hand US title (1952)
Ringo-en no shōjo (リンゴ園の少女, lit. "Girl of Apple Park" – 1952)
Hibari-hime hatsuyume dōchū (ひばり姫初夢道中 – 1952)
Mita katakure! (三太頑れっ！ – 1953)
Hibari no utau tamatebako (ひばりの歌う玉手箱, lit. "Hibari's Singing Treasure Chest" – 1953)
Shimai (姉妹, lit. "Sisters" – 1953)
Hibari no yōki-na tenshi (ひばりの陽気な天使 – 1953)
Hibari torimonochō: Utamatsuri happyaku yachō (ひばり捕物帳 唄祭り八百八町, lit. "Hibari Detective Story: Song Festival Across Tokyo" – 1953)
Hibari no kanashiki hitomi (ひばりの悲しき瞳 – 1953)
Yama wo mamoru kyōdai (山を守る兄弟, lit. "The Brothers who Protect the Mountain") (1953)
Ojōsan shachō (お嬢さん社長, lit. "Madame Company President" – 1953)
Misora Hibari no haru ha uta kara (美空ひばりの春は唄から, lit. "Hibari Misora's Spring is from Song" – 1954)
Hiyodori sōshi (ひよどり草紙 – 1954)
The Dancing Girl of Izu (伊豆の踊子, Izu no odoriko – 1954), a film adaptation of Yasunari Kawabata's story The Dancing Girl of Izu
Uta shigure oshidori wakashū (唄しぐれ おしどり若衆 – 1954)
Seishun romance seat: Aozora ni owasu (青春ロマンスシート 青空に坐す – 1954)
Bikkuri gojūsantsugi (びっくり五十三次, lit. "Surprising 53 Stations of the Tōkaidō" – 1954)
Yaoya Oshichi furisode tsukiyo (八百屋お七 ふり袖月夜 – 1954)
Wakaki hi wa kanashi (若き日は悲し – 1954)
Uta goyomi Onatsu Seijūrō (歌ごよみ お夏清十郎 – 1954)
Shichihenge tanuki goten (七変化狸御殿, lit. "Quick Change Tanuki Palace" – 1954)
Ōedo senryōbayashi (大江戸千両囃子 – 1955)
Musume sendōsan (娘船頭さん – 1955)
Seishun kōro: Umi no wakōdo (青春航路 海の若人 – 1955)
Uta matsuri mangetsu tanuki-gassen (歌まつり満月狸合戦 – 1955)
Furisode kyōenroku (ふり袖侠艶録 – 1955)
Takekurabe (たけくらべ, Adolescence a.k.a. Growing Up Twice a.k.a. Growing Up a.k.a. Child's Play) (1955) – a film adaptation of Higuchi Ichiyō's novel Takekurabe
So Young, So Bright (ジャンケン娘 Janken musume – 1955)
Furisode kotengu (ふり袖小天狗 – 1955)
Fuefuki Wakamusha (笛吹若武者 – 1955)
Utamatsuri Edokko Kin-san torimonochō (唄祭り 江戸っ子金さん捕物帖 – 1955)
Rikidōzan monogatari dotō no otoko (力道山物語 怒濤の男 – 1955)
Hatamoto taikutsu otoko: nazo no kettōjō (旗本退屈男 謎の決闘状 – 1955)
Utae! Seishun Harikiri Musume (歌え！青春 はりきり娘 – 1955)
(銭形平次捕物控 死美人風呂) (1956)
(おしどり囃子) (1956)
(恋すがた狐御殿 Koi sugata kitsune goten) (1956)
Peach Boy (宝島遠征 Takarajima ensei) (1956)
(ふり袖太平記) (1956)
(ふり袖捕物帖 若衆変化) (1956)
(鬼姫競艶録) (1956)
(銭形平次捕物控 まだら蛇 Zenigata Heiji torimono hikae: madara hebi) (1957)
(大江戸喧嘩纏) (1957)
(旗本退屈男 謎の紅蓮搭) (1957)
(ふり袖捕物帖 ちりめん駕籠) (1957)
(ロマンス誕生 Romansu tanjō) (1957)
(おしどり喧嘩笠 Oshidori kenkagasa) (1957)
(怪談番町皿屋敷) (1957)
a.k.a. Big Hit Three Color Daughters (1957)
(青い海原) (1957)
(ふり袖太鼓) (1957)
(ひばりの三役 競艶雪之丞変化) (1957)
(ひばりの三役 競艶雪之丞変化 後篇) (1957)
(娘十八御意見無用)
(おしどり駕籠)
The Badger Palace a.k.a. The Princess of Badger Palace (大当り狸御殿 Ōatari tanukigoten) (1958)
(丹下左膳)
Edo Girl Detective (ひばり捕物帖 かんざし小判 Hibari torimonochō: Kanzashi koban) (1958)
(恋愛自由型) (1958)
(花笠若衆) (1958)
(女ざむらい只今参上 Onnazamurai tadaima sanjō) (1958)
(おこんの初恋 花嫁七変化) (1958)
(ひばりの花形探偵合戦) (1958)
(希望の乙女) (1958)
(隠密七生記) (1958)
Secret of the Golden Coin (ひばり捕物帖 自雷也小判 Hibari torimonochō: jiraiya koban) (1958)
(娘の中の娘 Musume no Naka no Musume) (1958)
(唄祭り かんざし纏) (1958)
Young Blades' Obligations: Cherry Blossom in Long Sleeves (いろは若衆 ふり袖ざくら Iroha wakashū: Furisode sakura) (1959)
The Great Avengers (忠臣蔵 桜花の巻 菊花の巻 Chūshingura: ōka no maki, kikka no maki) (1959)
(鞍馬天狗) (1959)
(東京べらんめえ娘 Tokyo beranmē musume) (1959)
(孔雀城の花嫁) (1959)
The Revenger in Red (紅だすき喧嘩状 Beni-dasuki kenkajō) (1959)
(お染久松 そよ風日傘) (1959)
(水戸黄門 天下の副将軍) (1959)
(江戸っ子判官とふり袖小僧) (1959)
(血闘水滸伝 怒濤の対決) (1959)
Young Blades Obligations: Flower Palanquin Pass (いろは若衆 花駕籠峠 Iroha wakashū: hana kago tōge) (1959)
(べらんめえ探偵娘 Beranmē tanteijō) (1959)
(ひばり捕物帖 ふり袖小判) (1959)
The Prickly-mouthed Geisha (べらんめえ芸者 Beranmē geisha) (1959)
1960s – 1980s
(Zoku beran me-e geisha) (1960)
Samurai Vagabond (Tonosama – Yaji kita) (1960)
(Oja kissa) (1960)
Sword of Destiny (Koken wa arezu: tsukage ittōryu) (1960)
Ishimatsu: The One-Eyed Avenger (Hibari no mori no ishimatsu) (1960)
(Hizakura kotengu) (1961)
(Hakubajō no hanayome) (1961)
(Beran me-e geisha makari tōru) (1961)
(Sen-hime to Hideyori) (1962)
Hibari Traveling Performer (Hibari no Hahakoi Guitar) (1962)
Cosmetic Sales Competition (Minyo no Tabi Akita Obako) (1963)
(Hibari, Chiemi, Izumi: Sannin yoreba) (1964)
(Noren ichidai: jōkyō) (1966)
Festival of Gion (Gion matsuri) (1968) a.k.a. Gion Festival a.k.a. Kurobe's Sun a.k.a. The Day the Sun Rose
Songs in films
Her songs also appeared in 5 Japanese films:
Shichihenge tanuki goten (七変化狸御殿 – 1954)
Janken musume (ジャンケン娘 – 1955)
Tenryū bōkoigasa (天竜母恋い笠 – 1960)
Uogashi no Onna Ishimatsu (魚河岸の女石松 – 1961)
Hana to Ryū: Seiun-hen Aizō-hen Dotō-hen (花と龍 青雲篇 愛憎篇 怒濤篇 – 1973)
See also
Best selling music artists
References
Bibliography
External links
Official website
Official museum website
1937 births
1989 deaths
20th-century Japanese actresses
Acid attack victims
Nippon Columbia artists
Enka singers
Japanese child actresses
Japanese child singers
Japanese women pop singers
Japanese film actresses
Japanese women jazz singers
Singers from Yokohama
People of Shōwa-period Japan
People's Honour Award winners
Japanese contraltos
20th-century Japanese women singers
20th-century Japanese singers
Japanese racehorse owners and breeders |
420373 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%CE%A0-calculus | Π-calculus | In theoretical computer science, the -calculus (or pi-calculus) is a process calculus. The -calculus allows channel names to be communicated along the channels themselves, and in this way it is able to describe concurrent computations whose network configuration may change during the computation.
The -calculus has few terms and is a small, yet expressive language (see ). Functional programs can be encoded into the -calculus, and the encoding emphasises the dialogue nature of computation, drawing connections with game semantics. Extensions of the -calculus, such as the spi calculus and applied , have been successful in reasoning about cryptographic protocols. Beside the original use in describing concurrent systems, the -calculus has also been used to reason about business processes and molecular biology.
Informal definition
The -calculus belongs to the family of process calculi, mathematical formalisms for describing and analyzing properties of concurrent computation. In fact, the -calculus, like the λ-calculus, is so minimal that it does not contain primitives such as numbers, booleans, data structures, variables, functions, or even the usual control flow statements (such as if-then-else, while).
Process constructs
Central to the -calculus is the notion of name. The simplicity of the calculus lies in the dual role that names play as communication channels and variables.
The process constructs available in the calculus are the following (a precise definition is given in the following section):
concurrency, written , where and are two processes or threads executed concurrently.
communication, where
input prefixing is a process waiting for a message that was sent on a communication channel named before proceeding as binding the name received to the name Typically, this models either a process expecting a communication from the network or a label c usable only once by a goto c operation.
output prefixing describes that the name is emitted on channel before proceeding as Typically, this models either sending a message on the network or a goto c operation.
replication, written , which may be seen as a process which can always create a new copy of Typically, this models either a network service or a label c waiting for any number of goto c operations.
creation of a new name, written , which may be seen as a process allocating a new constant within The constants of are defined by their names only and are always communication channels. Creation of a new name in a process is also called restriction.
the nil process, written , is a process whose execution is complete and has stopped.
Although the minimalism of the -calculus prevents us from writing programs in the normal sense, it is easy to extend the calculus. In particular, it is easy to define both control structures such as recursion, loops and sequential composition and datatypes such as first-order functions, truth values, lists and integers. Moreover, extensions of the have been proposed which take into account distribution or public-key cryptography. The applied due to Abadi and Fournet put these various extensions on a formal footing by extending the with arbitrary datatypes.
A small example
Below is a tiny example of a process which consists of three parallel components. The channel name is only known by the first two components.
The first two components are able to communicate on the channel , and the name becomes bound to . The next step in the process is therefore
Note that the remaining is not affected because it is defined in an inner scope.
The second and third parallel components can now communicate on the channel name , and the name becomes bound to . The next step in the process is now
Note that since the local name has been output, the scope of is extended to cover the third component as well. Finally, the channel can be used for sending the name . After that all concurrently executing processes have stopped
Formal definition
Syntax
Let Χ be a set of objects called names. The abstract syntax for the -calculus is built from the following BNF grammar (where x and y are any names from Χ):
In the concrete syntax below, the prefixes bind more tightly than the parallel composition (|), and parentheses are used to disambiguate.
Names are bound by the restriction and input prefix constructs. Formally, the set of free names of a process in –calculus are defined inductively by the table below. The set of bound names of a process are defined as the names of a process that are not in the set of free names.
Structural congruence
Central to both the reduction semantics and the labelled transition semantics is the notion of structural congruence. Two processes are structurally congruent, if they are identical up to structure. In particular, parallel composition is commutative and associative.
More precisely, structural congruence is defined as the least equivalence relation preserved by the process constructs and satisfying:
Alpha-conversion:
if can be obtained from by renaming one or more bound names in .
Axioms for parallel composition:
Axioms for restriction:
Axiom for replication:
Axiom relating restriction and parallel:
if is not a free name of .
This last axiom is known as the "scope extension" axiom. This axiom is central, since it describes how a bound name may be extruded by an output action, causing the scope of to be extended. In cases where is a free name of , alpha-conversion may be used to allow extension to proceed.
Reduction semantics
We write if can perform a computation step, following which it is now .
This reduction relation is defined as the least relation closed under a set of reduction rules.
The main reduction rule which captures the ability of processes to communicate through channels is the following:
where denotes the process in which the free name has been substituted for the free occurrences of . If a free occurrence of occurs in a location where would not be free, alpha-conversion may be required.
There are three additional rules:
If then also .
This rule says that parallel composition does not inhibit computation.
If , then also .
This rule ensures that computation can proceed underneath a restriction.
If and and , then also .
The latter rule states that processes that are structurally congruent have the same reductions.
The example revisited
Consider again the process
Applying the definition of the reduction semantics, we get the reduction
Note how, applying the reduction substitution axiom, free occurrences of are now labeled as .
Next, we get the reduction
Note that since the local name has been output, the scope of is extended to cover the third component as well. This was captured using the scope extension axiom.
Next, using the reduction substitution axiom, we get
Finally, using the axioms for parallel composition and restriction, we get
Labelled semantics
Alternatively, one may give the pi-calculus a labelled transition semantics (as has been done with the Calculus of Communicating Systems).
In this semantics, a transition from a state to some other state after an action is notated as:
Where states and represent processes and is either an input action , an output action , or a silent action .
A standard result about the labelled semantics is that it agrees with the reduction semantics up to structural congruence, in the sense that
if and only if
Extensions and variants
The syntax given above is a minimal one. However, the syntax may be modified in various ways.
A nondeterministic choice operator can be added to the syntax.
A test for name equality can be added to the syntax. This match operator can proceed as if and only if and are the same name.
Similarly, one may add a mismatch operator for name inequality. Practical programs which can pass names (URLs or pointers) often use such functionality: for directly modeling such functionality inside the calculus, this and related extensions are often useful.
The asynchronous -calculus
allows only outputs with no continuation, i.e. output atoms of the form , yielding a smaller calculus. However, any process in the original calculus can be represented by the smaller asynchronous -calculus using an extra channel to simulate explicit acknowledgement from the receiving process. Since a continuation-free output can model a message-in-transit, this fragment shows that the original -calculus, which is intuitively based on synchronous communication, has an expressive asynchronous communication model inside its syntax. However, the nondeterministic choice operator defined above cannot be expressed in this way, as an unguarded choice would be converted into a guarded one; this fact has been used to demonstrate that the asynchronous calculus is strictly less expressive than the synchronous one (with the choice operator).
The polyadic -calculus allows communicating more than one name in a single action: (polyadic output) and (polyadic input). This polyadic extension, which is useful especially when studying types for name passing processes, can be encoded in the monadic calculus by passing the name of a private channel through which the multiple arguments are then passed in sequence. The encoding is defined recursively by the clauses
is encoded as
is encoded as
All other process constructs are left unchanged by the encoding.
In the above, denotes the encoding of all prefixes in the continuation in the same way.
The full power of replication is not needed. Often, one only considers replicated input , whose structural congruence axiom is .
Replicated input process such as can be understood as servers, waiting on channel
to be invoked by clients. Invocation of a server spawns a new copy of
the process , where a is the name passed by the client to the
server, during the latter's invocation.
A higher order -calculus can be defined where not only names but processes are sent through channels.
The key reduction rule for the higher order case is
Here, denotes a process variable which can be instantiated by a process term. Sangiorgi
established that the ability to pass processes does not
increase the expressivity of the -calculus: passing a process P can be
simulated by just passing a name that points to P instead.
Properties
Turing completeness
The -calculus is a universal model of computation. This was first observed by Milner in his paper "Functions as Processes", in which he presents two encodings of the lambda-calculus in the -calculus. One encoding simulates the eager (call-by-value) evaluation strategy, the other encoding simulates the normal-order (call-by-name) strategy. In both of these, the crucial insight is the modeling of environment bindings – for instance, " is bound to term " – as replicating agents that respond to requests for their bindings by sending back a connection to the term .
The features of the -calculus that make these encodings possible are name-passing and replication (or, equivalently, recursively defined agents). In the absence of replication/recursion, the -calculus ceases to be Turing-complete. This can be seen by the fact that bisimulation equivalence becomes decidable for the recursion-free calculus and even for the finite-control -calculus where the number of parallel components in any process is bounded by a constant.
Bisimulations in the -calculus
As for process calculi, the -calculus allows for a definition of bisimulation equivalence. In the -calculus, the definition of bisimulation equivalence (also known as bisimilarity) may be based on either the reduction semantics or on the labelled transition semantics.
There are (at least) three different ways of defining labelled bisimulation equivalence in the -calculus: Early, late and open bisimilarity. This stems from the fact that the -calculus is a value-passing process calculus.
In the remainder of this section, we let and denote processes and denote binary relations over processes.
Early and late bisimilarity
Early and late bisimilarity were both formulated by Milner, Parrow and Walker in their original paper on the -calculus.
A binary relation over processes is an early bisimulation if for every pair of processes ,
whenever then for every name there exists some such that and ;
for any non-input action , if then there exists some such that and ;
and symmetric requirements with and interchanged.
Processes and are said to be early bisimilar, written if the pair for some early bisimulation .
In late bisimilarity, the transition match must be independent of the name being transmitted.
A binary relation over processes is a late bisimulation if for every pair of processes ,
whenever then for some it holds that and for every name y;
for any non-input action , if implies that there exists some such that and ;
and symmetric requirements with and interchanged.
Processes and are said to be late bisimilar, written if the pair for some late bisimulation .
Both and suffer from the problem that they are not congruence relations in the sense that they are not preserved by all process constructs. More precisely, there exist processes and such that but . One may remedy this problem by considering the maximal congruence relations included in and , known as early congruence and late congruence, respectively.
Open bisimilarity
Fortunately, a third definition is possible, which avoids this problem, namely that of open bisimilarity, due to Sangiorgi.
A binary relation over processes is an open bisimulation if for every pair of elements and for every name substitution and every action , whenever then there exists some such that and .
Processes and are said to be open bisimilar, written if the pair for some open bisimulation .
Early, late and open bisimilarity are distinct
Early, late and open bisimilarity are distinct. The containments are proper, so .
In certain subcalculi such as the asynchronous pi-calculus, late, early and open bisimilarity are known to coincide. However, in this setting a more appropriate notion is that of asynchronous bisimilarity.
In the literature, the term open bisimulation usually refers to a more sophisticated notion, where processes and relations are indexed by distinction relations; details are in Sangiorgi's paper cited above.
Barbed equivalence
Alternatively, one may define bisimulation equivalence directly from the reduction semantics. We write if process immediately allows an input or an output on name .
A binary relation over processes is a barbed bisimulation if it is a symmetric relation which satisfies that for every pair of elements we have that
(1) if and only if for every name
and
(2) for every reduction there exists a reduction
such that .
We say that and are barbed bisimilar if there exists a barbed bisimulation where .
Defining a context as a term with a hole [] we say that two processes P and Q are barbed congruent, written , if for every context we have that and are barbed bisimilar. It turns out that barbed congruence coincides with the congruence induced by early bisimilarity.
Applications
The -calculus has been used to describe many different kinds of concurrent systems. In fact, some of the most recent applications lie outside the realm of traditional computer science.
In 1997, Martin Abadi and Andrew Gordon proposed an extension of the -calculus, the Spi-calculus, as a formal notation for describing and reasoning about cryptographic protocols. The spi-calculus extends the -calculus with primitives for encryption and decryption. In 2001, Martin Abadi and Cedric Fournet generalised the handling of cryptographic protocols to produce the applied calculus. There is now a large body of work devoted to variants of the applied calculus, including a number of experimental verification tools. One example is the tool ProVerif due to Bruno Blanchet, based on a translation of the applied -calculus into Blanchet's logic programming framework. Another example is Cryptyc , due to Andrew Gordon and Alan Jeffrey, which uses Woo and Lam's method of correspondence assertions as the basis for type systems that can check for authentication properties of cryptographic protocols.
Around 2002, Howard Smith and Peter Fingar became interested that -calculus would become a description tool for modeling business processes. By July 2006, there is discussion in the community about how useful this would be. Most recently, the -calculus has formed the theoretical basis of Business Process Modeling Language (BPML), and of Microsoft's XLANG.
The -calculus has also attracted interest in molecular biology. In 1999, Aviv Regev and Ehud Shapiro showed that one can describe a cellular signaling pathway (the so-called RTK/MAPK cascade) and in particular the molecular "lego" which implements these tasks of communication in an extension of the -calculus. Following this seminal paper, other authors described the whole metabolic network of a minimal cell. In 2009, Anthony Nash and Sara Kalvala proposed a -calculus framework to model the signal transduction that directs Dictyostelium discoideum aggregation.
History
The -calculus was originally developed by Robin Milner, Joachim Parrow and David Walker in 1992, based on ideas by Uffe Engberg and Mogens Nielsen. It can be seen as a continuation of Milner's work on the process calculus CCS (Calculus of Communicating Systems). In his Turing lecture, Milner describes the development of the -calculus as an attempt to capture the uniformity of values and processes in actors.
Implementations
The following programming languages implement the -calculus or one of its variants:
Business Process Modeling Language (BPML)
occam-π
Pict
JoCaml (based on the Join-calculus)
RhoLang
Notes
References
Process calculi
Theoretical computer science |
420387 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan%20Air%20Lines%20Flight%20123 | Japan Air Lines Flight 123 | Japan Air Lines Flight 123 () was a scheduled domestic passenger flight from Tokyo to Osaka, Japan. On August 12, 1985, the Boeing 747 operating the service suffered a severe structural failure and decompression 12 minutes into the flight. After flying under minimal control for a further 32 minutes, the 747 crashed in the area of Mount Takamagahara, from Tokyo.
The aircraft, featuring a high-density seating configuration, was carrying 524 people. The crash killed 15 crew and 505 passengers. Some of the passengers survived the initial impact, but died hours later while awaiting rescue. All four survivors were seriously injured. The crash of Flight 123 is the deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history.
Japan's Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission (AAIC), assisted by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, concluded that the structural failure was caused by a faulty repair by Boeing technicians following a tailstrike incident seven years earlier. When the faulty repair eventually failed, it resulted in a rapid decompression that ripped off a large portion of the tail and caused the loss of all on-board hydraulic systems, disabling the aircraft's flight controls.
Background
Aircraft
The accident aircraft, a Boeing 747SR-46, registration JA8119 (serial number 20783, line number 230), was built and delivered to Japan Air Lines in 1974. It had accumulated slightly more than 25,000 flight hours and 18,800 cycles at the time of the accident (one cycle consisting of takeoff, cabin pressurization, depressurization, and landing).
1978 tailstrike incident
On June 2, 1978, while operating Japan Air Lines Flight 115 along the same route, JA8119 bounced heavily on landing while carrying out an instrument approach to runway 32L at Itami Airport. The pilot then excessively flared the aircraft, causing a severe tail strike on the second touchdown. No fatalities occurred among the 394 people on board, but 25 people were injured, 23 minor and 2 serious. The tailstrike cracked open the aft pressure bulkhead. The damage was repaired by Boeing technicians, and the aircraft was returned to service. The aircraft had flown for 8,830 hours at the time of the tailstrike incident.
Crew
At the time of the accident, the aircraft was on the fifth of its six planned flights of the day. The flight had 15 crew members, including 3 cockpit crew and 12 cabin crew.
The cockpit crew consisted of:
Captain , aged 49, served as a training instructor for First Officer Yutaka Sasaki on the flight, supervising him while handling the radio communications, while also acting as the first officer. Takahama was a veteran pilot, having logged around 12,423 total flight hours, roughly 4,842 hours of which were accumulated flying 747s.
First Officer , age 39, was undergoing training for promotion to the rank of captain, and flew Flight 123 as one of his final training/evaluation flights, acting as captain on the flight. He had about 3,963 total flight hours to his credit, and had logged roughly 2,665 hours in the 747.
Flight Engineer , age 46, was a veteran flight engineer with approximately 9,831 total flight hours, of which roughly 3,846 hours were accrued flying 747s.
Passengers
The flight was around the Obon holiday period in Japan when many Japanese people make yearly trips to their hometowns or resorts. Twenty-two non-Japanese were on board the flight, including four residents of Hong Kong, two each from Italy and the United States, and one each from West Germany and the United Kingdom. Some ostensible foreigners had dual nationality, and some of them were residents of Japan.
The four survivors, all women, were seated on the left side and toward the middle of seat rows 54–60, in the rear of the aircraft. Among the victims were Japanese singer and actor Kyu Sakamoto, and banker Akihisa Yukawa, the father of violinist and composer Diana Yukawa.
The flight connected two of the largest cities of Japan, and a number of other celebrities initially booked the flight but ultimately avoided the tragedy by either switching to another flight or using the Tokaido Shinkansen instead. These include Sanma Akashiya, Masataka Itsumi and his family, Johnny Kitagawa, and the cast of Shōten at the time. Members of the Shonentai were also scheduled to travel with Kitagawa, but ultimately stayed behind in Tokyo.
Sequence of events
Take-off and decompression
The aircraft landed as JL366 at Haneda Airport in Ōta, Tokyo, Japan from Fukuoka Airport at 5:12p.m. After almost an hour on the ground, Flight 123 pushed back from gate 18 at 6:04p.m. and took off from Runway 15L at 6:12p.m., 12 minutes behind schedule. Twelve minutes after takeoff at 6:24p.m., at near cruising altitude over Sagami Bay east of Higashiizu, Shizuoka, the aircraft underwent rapid decompression, bringing down the ceiling around the rear lavatories, damaging the unpressurised fuselage aft of the plane, unseating the vertical stabilizer, and severing all four hydraulic lines. A photograph taken from the ground shows the vertical stabilizer missing.
The pilots set their transponder to broadcast a distress signal. Captain Takahama contacted Tokyo Area Control Center to declare an emergency, and to request to return to Haneda Airport, descending and following emergency landing vectors to Oshima. Tokyo Control approved a right-hand turn to a heading of 090° east back towards Oshima, and the aircraft entered an initial right-hand bank of 40°, several degrees greater than observed previously. Captain Takahama ordered First Officer Sasaki to reduce the bank angle, and expressed confusion when the aircraft did not respond to the control wheel being turned left. The flight engineer reported that hydraulic pressure was dropping. The captain repeated the order to reduce the bank angle, as the autopilot had disengaged. He ordered the first officer to bank it back, then ordered him to pull up. None of these attempted maneuvers produced a response. The pilots realised the aircraft had become virtually uncontrollable, and Captain Takahama ordered the copilot to descend.
6:27–6:34p.m.
Heading over the Izu Peninsula at 6:26p.m., the aircraft turned away from the Pacific Ocean and back towards the shore, but only turned right far enough to fly a north-westerly course. Seeing that the aircraft was still flying west away from Haneda, Tokyo Control contacted the aircraft again. After confirming that the pilots were declaring an emergency, the controller asked the nature of the emergency. At this point, hypoxia appears to have begun setting in, as the pilots did not respond. Also, the captain and co-pilot asked the flight engineer repeatedly if hydraulic pressure had been lost, seemingly unable to comprehend it. Tokyo Control contacted the aircraft again and repeated the direction to descend and turn to a 90° heading to Oshima. Only then did the captain report that the aircraft had become uncontrollable. (Tokyo: "Japan Air 124 [sic] fly heading 090 radar vector to Oshima." JAL123: "But now uncontrol." Tokyo: "Uncontrol, roger understood.")
The aircraft traversed Suruga Bay and passed over Yaizu, Shizuoka, at 6:31:02p.m. Tokyo Control asked if they could descend, and Captain Takahama replied that they were now descending, stating that their altitude was . Captain Takahama declined Tokyo Control's suggestion to divert to Nagoya Airport away, instead preferring to land at Haneda, which had the facilities to handle the 747. The flight data recorder shows that the flight did not descend, but was rising and falling uncontrollably. With the total loss of hydraulic control and non-functional control surfaces, the aircraft entered phugoid oscillations lasting about 90 seconds, in which airspeed decreased as it climbed and increased as it fell. The rise in airspeed increased the lift over the wings, resulting in the aircraft climbing and slowing down, then descending and gaining speed again. Almost immediately after the separation of the stabiliser and rudder removed the only means of damping yaw, the aircraft began to exhibit Dutch roll, simultaneously yawing right and banking left, before yawing back left and banking right. At some points the banking motion became very profound, with large arcs of around 50° in cycles of 12 seconds.
Despite the complete loss of control, the pilots continued to turn the control wheel, pull on the control column, and move the rudder pedals up until the moment of the crash. The pilots also began efforts to establish control using differential engine thrust, as the aircraft slowly wandered back towards Haneda. Their efforts were of limited success. The unpressurised aircraft rose and fell in an altitude range of for 18 minutes, from the moment of decompression until around 6:40p.m., with the pilots seemingly unable to figure out how to descend without flight controls. This is possibly due to the effects of hypoxia at such altitudes, as the pilots seemed to have difficulty comprehending their situation as the aircraft pitched and rolled uncontrollably. The pilots possibly were focused, instead, on the cause of the explosion they had heard, and the subsequent difficulty in controlling the jet. The flight engineer did say they should put on their oxygen masks when word reached the cockpit that the rear-most passenger masks had stopped working. None of the pilots put on their oxygen masks, however, though the captain simply replied "yes" to both suggestions by the flight engineer to do so. The accident report indicates that the captain's disregard of the suggestion is one of several features "regarded as hypoxia-related in [the] CVR record[ing]." Their voices can be heard relatively clearly on the cockpit area microphone for the entire duration, until the crash, indicating that they did not put on their oxygen masks at any point in the flight.
6:34–6:48p.m.: Limited control
At 6:35p.m. the flight engineer responded to multiple (hitherto unanswered) calls from Japan Air Tokyo via the selective-calling system. Having just been informed about the inoperative oxygen masks, the flight engineer voiced the (erroneous) assumption that the R-5 door was broken and informed the company that they were making an emergency descent. Japan Air Tokyo asked if they intended to return to Haneda, to which the flight engineer responded that they were making an emergency descent, and to continue to monitor them.
Eventually, the pilots were able to regain limited control of the aircraft by adjusting engine thrust. In doing so, they were able to dampen the phugoid cycle and somewhat stabilise their altitude. However, given jet engines' inertia and the resulting response time (to changes in throttle), "[s]uppressing of Dutch roll mode by use of the differential thrust between the right and left engines is estimated practically impossible for a pilot." Shortly after 6:40p.m., the landing gear was lowered using the emergency extension system in an attempt to dampen the phugoid cycles and Dutch rolls further. This was somewhat successful, as the phugoid cycles were dampened almost completely, and the Dutch roll was damped significantly, but lowering the gear also decreased the directional control the pilots were getting by applying power to one side of the aircraft, and the aircrew's ability to control the aircraft deteriorated.
Shortly after lowering the gear, the flight engineer asked if the speed brakes should be used, but the pilots did not acknowledge the request. The aircraft then began a right-hand descending 420° turn from a heading of 040° at 6:40p.m. to a heading of 100° at 6:45p.m., flying in a loop over Otsuki, due to a thrust imbalance created from having the power setting on Engine 1 (the left-most engine) higher than the other three engines. The aircraft also began descending from to , as the pilots had reduced engine thrust to near idle from 6:43 to 6:48p.m. Upon descending to at 6:45:46p.m., the pilots again reported an uncontrollable aircraft. At this time, the aircraft began to turn slowly to the left, while continuing to descend. The thicker air allowed the pilots more oxygen, and their hypoxia appeared to have subsided somewhat, as they were communicating more frequently. The pilots also appeared to be understanding how grave their situation had become, with Captain Takahama exclaiming, "This may be hopeless" at 6:46:33p.m. At 6:47p.m., the pilots recognised that they were beginning to turn towards the mountains. Despite efforts by the crew to get the aircraft to continue to turn right, it instead turned left, flying directly towards the mountainous terrain on a westerly heading.
Around 6:50p.m., a photographer on the ground captured a photograph of the aircraft, which showed that the vertical stabiliser was missing.
6:48–6:55p.m.: Final loss of control
As the aircraft continued west, it descended below and was getting dangerously close to the mountains. Because of the thicker air at lower altitude, the cabin altitude alert momentarily turned off at this time, before resuming for the rest of the flight. The captain briefly ordered maximum engine power to attempt to get the aircraft to climb to avoid the mountains, and engine power was added abruptly at 6:48p.m., before being reduced back to near idle, then at 6:49p.m., it was ordered raised again. This greatly excited the phugoid motion, and the aircraft pitched up, before pitching back down after power was reduced. When power was added again, the aircraft rapidly pitched up to 40° and the airspeed dropped down to at 6:49:30p.m., briefly stalling at . The captain immediately ordered maximum power at 6:49:40p.m. as the stick shaker sounded. The aircraft's airspeed increased as it was brought into an unsteady climb. Possibly in order to prevent another stall, at 6:51p.m., the captain lowered the flaps to 5 units – due to the lack of hydraulics, using an alternate electrical system - in an additional attempt to exert control over the stricken jet. It took 3 minutes and 10 seconds for the trailing edge flaps to reach 5 units. The leading edge flaps except for the left and right outer groups were also extended and the extension was completed at 6:52:39p.m. From 6:49:03 to 6:52:11p.m., Japan Air Tokyo attempted to call the aircraft again via the selective-calling radio system. During the entire period, the SELCAL alarm continued to ring, to which the pilots did not react.
The aircraft reached at 6:53p.m., when the captain reported an uncontrollable aircraft for the third time. Shortly afterward, the controller asked the crew to switch the radio frequency to 119.7 for Tokyo Approach. Although the pilots did not acknowledge the request over the radio, they switched frequencies as instructed. Tokyo Approach then contacted the flight via the SELCAL system, briefly activating the corresponding alarm again until the flight engineer responded. At this point, the flight crew requested to be given their position, which, at 6:54p.m., was reported to the flight as northwest of Haneda, and west of Kumagaya. At 6:55p.m., the captain requested flap extension, and the co-pilot called out a flap extension to 10 units, but the flaps had already extended past 5 units at 6:54:30p.m. and had reached 20 units 1 minute and 2 seconds later. Meanwhile, the aircraft had started banking abnormally towards the right, this may be most likely due to an imbalance in the lift generated by the left and right flaps. Power was increased at the same time. While the flaps continued to extend, a differential thrust setting caused engine power on the left side to be slightly higher than on the right side, adding to the roll to the right.
One minute later, the flaps were extended to about 25 units, the bank angle exceeded 60°, and the nose began to drop. It is likely that the flaps did not extend symmetrically, resulting in a lift imbalance between the left and right wing. Captain Takahama immediately ordered the flaps to be retracted and power was added abruptly, but still with higher power settings on the left engines than on the right. The asymmetric thrust settings continued to increase as the bank angle continued and exceeded 80°. The captain was heard on the CVR desperately requesting for the flaps to be retracted and for more power to be applied in a last-ditch effort to raise the nose. The aircraft continued an unrecoverable right-hand descent towards the mountains as the bank angle recovered to about 70° and engines were pushed to full power, during which the ground proximity warning system sounded.
In the final moments, as the airspeed exceeded , the pitch attitude leveled out and the aircraft ceased descending, with the aircraft and passengers/crew being subjected to 3 g of upward vertical acceleration.
6:56p.m.: Impact
The aircraft was still in a 40° right-hand bank when the right-most (#4) engine struck the trees on top of a ridge located north-northwest of Mount Mikuni at an elevation of , which can be heard on the CVR recording. The backward shock of the impact, measuring 0.14 g, in addition to causing the loss of the thrust of the 4th engine, caused the aircraft to roll sharply to the right and the nose to drop again. The aircraft continued on this trajectory for 3 seconds until the right wing clipped another ridge containing a "U-shaped ditch" west-northwest of the previous ridge at an elevation of . It is speculated that this impact separated the remainder of the weakened tail from the airframe, along with the outer third of the right wing, and the remaining three engines, which were "dispersed ahead". After this impact, the aircraft flipped on its back, struck another ridge northwest from the second ridge, near Mount Takamagahara, and exploded.
The impact registered on a seismometer located in the Shin-Etsu Earthquake Observatory at Tokyo University from 6:56:27p.m. as a small shock, to 6:56:32p.m. as a larger shock, believed to have been caused by the final crash. The shockwaves took an estimated 2.0–2.3 seconds to reach the seismometer, making the estimated time of the final crash 6:56:30p.m. Thus, 32 minutes had elapsed from the bulkhead failure to the crash.
Crash site
The aircraft crashed at an elevation of in Sector 76, State Forest, 3577 Aza Hontani, Ouaza Narahara, Ueno Village, Tano District, Gunma Prefecture. The east-west ridge is about north-northwest of Mount Mikuni. Ed Magnuson of Time magazine said that the area where the aircraft crashed was referred to as the "Tibet" of Gunma Prefecture.
Delayed rescue operation
A United States Air Force navigator stationed at Yokota Air Base published an account in 1995 that stated that the U.S. military had monitored the distress calls and prepared a search-and-rescue operation that was aborted at the call of Japanese authorities. A U.S. Air Force C-130 crew was the first to spot the crash site 20 minutes after impact, while it was still daylight, and radioed the location to the Japanese and Yokota Air Base, where an Iroquois helicopter was dispatched. An article in the Pacific Stars and Stripes from 1985 stated that personnel at Yokota were on standby to help with rescue operations, but were never called by the Japanese government.
A JSDF helicopter later spotted the wreck after nightfall. Poor visibility and the difficult mountainous terrain prevented it from landing at the site. The pilot reported from the air no signs of survivors. Based on this report, JSDF personnel on the ground did not set out to the site on the night of the crash. Instead, they were dispatched to spend the night at a makeshift village erecting tents, constructing helicopter landing ramps, and engaging in other preparations, from the crash site. Rescue teams set out for the site the following morning. Medical staff later found bodies with injuries suggesting that people had survived the crash only to die from shock, exposure overnight in the mountains, or injuries that, if tended to earlier, would not have been fatal. One doctor said, "If the discovery had come 10 hours earlier, we could have found more survivors."
One of the four survivors, off-duty Japan Air Lines flight purser recounted from her hospital bed that she recalled bright lights and the sound of helicopter rotors shortly after she awoke amid the wreckage, and while she could hear screaming and moaning from other survivors, these sounds gradually died away during the night.
Investigation
The official cause of the crash according to the report published by Japan's Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission is:
The aircraft was involved in a tailstrike incident at Osaka International Airport seven years earlier as JAL Flight 115, which damaged the aircraft's aft pressure bulkhead.
The subsequent repair of the bulkhead did not conform to Boeing's approved repair methods. For reinforcing a damaged bulkhead, Boeing's repair procedure calls for one continuous splice plate with three rows of rivets. The Boeing repair technicians, however, had used two splice plates parallel to the stress crack. Cutting the plate in this manner negated the effectiveness of one of the rows of rivets, reducing the part's resistance to fatigue cracking to about 70% of that for a correct repair. The post-repair inspection by JAL did not discover the defect, as it was covered by overlapping plates. During the investigation, the Accident Investigation Commission calculated that this incorrect installation would fail after about 11,000 pressurization cycles; the aircraft accomplished 12,318 successful flights from the time that the faulty repair was made to when the crash happened.
Consequently, after repeated pressurization cycles during normal flight, the bulkhead gradually started to crack near one of the two rows of rivets holding it together. When it finally failed, the resulting rapid decompression ruptured the lines of all four hydraulic systems and ejected the vertical stabiliser. With many of the aircraft's flight controls disabled, the aircraft became uncontrollable.
In an unrelated incident on 19 August 1982, while under the control of the first officer, JA8119 suffered a runway strike of the No. 4 engine on landing at Chitose Air Base in poor visibility. This was repaired successfully and the aircraft again returned to service. This incident did not contribute to the Flight 123 accident.
Aftermath and legacy
The Japanese public's confidence in Japan Air Lines took a dramatic downturn in the wake of the disaster, with passenger numbers on domestic routes dropping by one-third. Rumors persisted that Boeing had admitted fault to cover up shortcomings in the airline's inspection procedures, thereby protecting the reputation of a major customer. In the months after the crash, domestic traffic decreased by as much as 25%. In 1986, for the first time in a decade, fewer passengers boarded JAL's overseas flights during the New Year period than the previous year. Some of them considered switching to All Nippon Airways, JAL's main competitor, as a safer alternative.
JAL paid ¥780 million (US$7.6 million) to the victims' relatives in the form of "condolence money" without admitting liability. JAL president Yasumoto Takagi resigned. In the aftermath of the incident, Hiroo Tominaga, a JAL maintenance manager, died from suicide intended to atone for the incident, as did Susumu Tajima, an engineer who had inspected and cleared the aircraft as flightworthy, due to difficulties at work. In the end, Japan Airlines, Boeing, and the Japanese government paid substantial compensation to the victims' families.
In compliance with standard procedures, Japan Air Lines retired flight number 123 for their Haneda-Itami routes, changing it to Flight 121 and Flight 127 on September 1, 1985. While Boeing 747s were still used on the same route operating with the new flight numbers in the years following the crash, they were replaced by the Boeing 767 or Boeing 777 in the mid-1990s. Boeing 747-100SRs continued to serve JAL on domestic routes until their retirement in 2006, having been replaced by newer widebody aircraft such as the Boeing 747-400D and Boeing 777, introduced during the 1990s and early 2000s. Boeing 747 operations at JAL ended in 2011 when the last 747-400 was returned to the lessor as part of the airline's efforts to cut costs, with twin-engined widebodies such as the Boeing 777, Boeing 787 Dreamliner, and Airbus A350 operating these routes today.
In 2009, stairs with a handrail were installed to facilitate visitors' access to the crash site. Japan Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism Minister Seiji Maehara visited the site on August 12, 2010, to remember the victims. Families of the victims, together with local volunteer groups, hold an annual memorial gathering every August 12 near the crash site in Gunma Prefecture.
The crash led to the 2006 opening of the Safety Promotion Center, which is located in the Daini Sogo Building on the grounds of Haneda Airport. This center was created for training purposes to alert employees to the importance of airline safety and their responsibility to ensure safety. The center has displays regarding aviation safety, the history of the crash, and selected pieces of the aircraft and passenger effects (including handwritten farewell notes). It is open to the public by appointment made between one day and two months before the visit.
The captain's daughter, Yoko Takahama, who was a high-school student at the time of the crash, went on to become a flight attendant for Japan Air Lines.
On June 24, 2022, an oxygen mask belonging to Japan Air Lines Flight 123 was found near the crash site during road repair work. The discovery came nearly a year after engine parts were also found in the same area.
In popular culture
The events of Flight 123 were featured in "Out of Control," a season-three (2005) episode of the Canadian TV series Mayday, which is entitled Air Emergency and Air Disasters in the U.S., and Air Crash Investigation in the UK and elsewhere around the world. The dramatization was broadcast with the title ""(translation: Osutaka Ridge) in Japan. The flight was also included in a Mayday season-six (2007) Science of Disaster special, entitled "Fatal Flaw", which was broadcast with the title "Fatal Fix" in the United Kingdom, Australia, and Asia. The crash was covered again in season 23 of Mayday, in the episode titled "Pressure Point".
It is featured in season 1, episode 2, of the TV show Why Planes Crash, in an episode called "Breaking Point".
The documentary series Aircrash Confidential featured the crash in a second-season episode titled "Poor Maintenance", which first aired on March 15, 2012, on the Discovery Channel in the United Kingdom.
The National Geographic Channel's documentary series Seconds from Disaster featured the accident in season six, episode six, titled "Terrified over Tokyo", released December 3, 2012.
Climber's High, the best-selling novel by Hideo Yokoyama, revolves around the reporting of the crash at the fictional newspaper Kita-Kanto Shimbun. Yokoyama was a journalist at the Jōmō Shimbun at the time of the crash. A film released in 2008, and also titled Climber's High, is based on the novel.
In 2009, the film Shizumanu Taiyō, starring Ken Watanabe, was released for national distribution in Japan. The film gives a semifictional account of the internal airline corporate disputes and politics surrounding the crash. The film does not mention Japanese Air Lines by name, using the name "National Airlines", instead. JAL not only refused to co-operate with the making of the film, but also bitterly criticised the film, saying that it "not only damages public trust in the company but [also] could lead to a loss of customers." The movie features music by Diana Yukawa, whose father was one of the victims of this disaster.
The cockpit voice recording of the incident was incorporated into the script of a 1999 play called Charlie Victor Romeo.
The 2004 album Reise, Reise by German band Rammstein is loosely inspired by the crash. The final moments of the cockpit voice recording are hidden in the pregap of the first track on some CD pressings of the album.
See also
List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft
Bibliography
(Tailstrike incident report)
References
External links
Learning from the Past (Archive) Japan Air Lines
Crash of Japan Air Lines B-747 at Mt. Osutaka
JAL123 CVR (cockpit voice recorder) transcript
"Christopher Hood's Research about JL123."
()
The record of JAL123 (Japanese with English place names) (Archive)
Planesafe.org: JAL123 (Archive)
The New York Times: J.A.L.'s Post-Crash Troubles
Aviation accidents and incidents caused by loss of control
Airliner accidents and incidents caused by in-flight structural failure
Airliner accidents and incidents involving in-flight depressurization
Airliner accidents and incidents caused by maintenance errors
Aviation accidents and incidents in Japan
Aviation accidents and incidents in 1985
1985 in Japan
123
Accidents and incidents involving the Boeing 747
August 1985 events in Asia
History of the Japan Air Self-Defense Force
Airliner accidents and incidents caused by tailstrikes |
420438 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven%20Tyler | Steven Tyler | Steven Victor Tallarico (born March 26, 1948), known professionally as Steven Tyler, is an American singer, best known as the lead singer of the Boston-based rock band Aerosmith, in which he also plays the harmonica, piano and percussion. He has been called the "Demon of Screamin'" due to his high screams and his powerful wide vocal range. He is also known for his on-stage acrobatics. During his performances, Tyler usually dresses in colorful, sometimes androgynous outfits and makeup with his trademark scarves hanging from his microphone stand.
In the 1970s, Tyler rose to prominence as the lead singer of Aerosmith, which released such hard rock albums as Toys in the Attic and Rocks, along with a string of hit singles, including "Dream On", "Sweet Emotion" and "Walk This Way". By the late 1970s and early 1980s, Tyler had a heavy drug and alcohol addiction and the band's popularity waned. In 1986, Tyler completed drug rehabilitation and Aerosmith rose to prominence again when Tyler and Joe Perry joined Run-DMC for a re-make of "Walk This Way", which became a Top 5 hit. Aerosmith subsequently launched a comeback with the multi-platinum albums Permanent Vacation, Pump, Get a Grip and Nine Lives, which produced a combined thirteen Top 40 singles and won the band numerous awards. During this time, the band embarked on their longest concert tours, promoted their singles with conceptual music videos, and made appearances in television, film and video games.
Since the late 1980s, Tyler has embarked on several solo endeavors, including guest appearances with musicians including Alice Cooper, Mötley Crüe, Santana, Pink and Keith Anderson, film and TV work, authoring a book, and solo music, including the Top 40 single "(It) Feels So Good" in 2011. Tension with his Aerosmith bandmates arose in 2009 and 2010 after he fell off the stage at a concert, and had a relapse with prescription drugs, receiving treatment in 2009. He also signed on to American Idol without telling the other members of the band. Nonetheless, Tyler has continued to record music and perform with Aerosmith, after more than 50 years as a member of the group. In 2016, he released his debut solo album, We're All Somebody from Somewhere, a country rock album that included the single "Love Is Your Name". Tyler supported the album with the "Out on a Limb" tour. Tyler continues to perform both solo, with backing from the Loving Mary Band, and with Aerosmith.
Tyler is included in Rolling Stones list of 100 Greatest Singers. He was ranked third on Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalists of All Time. In 2001, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Aerosmith and in 2013, Tyler and his songwriting partner Joe Perry received the ASCAP Founders Award and were inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Early life and education
Steven Victor Tallarico was born on March 26, 1948, at the Stuyvesant Polyclinic in Manhattan, New York, and moved to the Bronx when he was three years old. The family relocated to 100 Pembrook Drive in Northeast Yonkers in 1957 when he was about nine years old. Tallarico is the son of Susan Ray (; June 2, 1925July 4, 2008), a secretary, and Victor A. Tallarico (May 14, 1916September 10, 2011), a classical musician and pianist who taught music at Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx.
Tyler's father was of Italian and German descent, while his mother was of Polish, English and African-American ancestry. He has claimed on a number of occasions that his maternal grandfather was Ukrainian, and changed his surname from "Czarnyszewicz" (from ) to "Blancha" (possibly from ). Genealogist Megan Smolenyak established that Steven Tyler's grandfather was Polish, born Felix Czarnyszewicz in 1892 in Klichaw, in today's Belarus. In 1914 he emigrated to the US and changed his surname to Blancha. There he married Bessie Elliott, with whom he had four children, including Steven's mother Susan. Felix's brother was Florian Czarnyszewicz, a well-known Polish writer who emigrated to Argentina. Florian Czarnyszewicz is best known for his novel Nadberezeńcy which describes the fate of Poles living in the lands between the Berezina and Dnieper rivers between 1911 and 1920.
His paternal grandfather, Giovanni Tallarico, was from Cotronei, Calabria, Italy. Tyler learned on the genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? that his maternal great-great-great-grandfather Robert Elliot was part African-American and part European-American. Steven has one older sister named Lynda.
Tyler attended Roosevelt High School on Tuckahoe Road in Yonkers, New York which was about a mile from his house, but was expelled from the school just before graduation due to marijuana use. He later graduated from Quintano School for Young Professionals.
At 17, Tyler spent time in Greenwich Village, New York, the highlight of which was seeing a Rolling Stones concert. Tyler states that he and his friends "hung around for a while, buzzing like crazy just because we got to touch them." He added, "Everybody told me that I looked just like Mick Jagger with my big lips and Keith Richards basically was the music I used to love more than anything." A photo in the band's autobiography Walk This Way shows Tyler standing behind Mick Jagger outside a hotel.
During this period, Tyler sang backing vocals on The Left Banke Too, the second album by baroque pop group the Left Banke.
Career
Formation and success of Aerosmith (1970–1978)
Before Aerosmith, Tyler wrote what would become one of Aerosmith's signature songs, "Dream On". In 1969, Tyler attended a local rock show in Sunapee, New Hampshire, where he first saw future bandmates Joe Perry (guitars) and Tom Hamilton (bass), who at the time were playing in a band called the Jam Band. Tyler later stated he was struck by their raw power and attitude.
Around 1970, Tyler, Perry and Hamilton decided to form a band. Tyler, who had played drums in many of his previous bands while in school, insisted that he would be the frontman and lead singer. Joey Kramer, an old acquaintance of Tyler's from New York, was recruited to play the drums. Tyler invited his boyhood friend, Ray Tabano, to play rhythm guitar. Driven by a collective ambition to launch their careers as full-time musicians and hopeful recording artists, the band moved to the Boston area, and shared a small apartment at 1325 Commonwealth Avenue in Allston in the fall of 1970.
Shortly after relocating to Boston, Tyler's dissatisfaction with Tabano's lack of passion and dedication prompted the band to replace Tabano with Brad Whitford. Although Tyler was never billed as the "leader" of Aerosmith, he co-managed, with drummer Joey Kramer, the assets of the band and directed its activities during this formative period.
After spending time on the Boston club circuit under the tutelage of their first manager, Frank Connelly, the band began working with New York managers Steve Leber and David Krebs. Leber describes the band as "the closest thing I've ever seen to the Rolling Stones". In early 1972, the managers arranged the gig at the legendary nightclub Max's Kansas City to showcase the group to record company executives. They subsequently signed a record deal with Columbia Records in 1972 and released their eponymous debut album in 1973. This was followed by their second album, Get Your Wings in 1974.
Around this time, Aerosmith continued to tour wherever they could and opened for bands like Mott the Hoople. The band had a minor hit in "Dream On", which peaked at number 59 in 1973, but Aerosmith did not break into the mainstream until the back-to-back releases of their next sets of albums, Toys in the Attic (1975) and Rocks (1976). In 1975, they achieved their first top-40 hit in "Sweet Emotion". Soon after, "Dream On" was re-released and hit number six in 1976, followed by another top-10 hit "Walk This Way". Additionally, Rocks produced the hit singles "Last Child", "Back in the Saddle" and "Home Tonight".
By 1976, Aerosmith found themselves headlining huge stadiums and major rock music festivals. That year, Tyler emerged as a prominent rock star and sex symbol in his own right, gracing the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. The band's fifth album, Draw the Line, catapulted them to international fame and recognition, launching tours in Europe and Japan. A series of Hot 100 hits continued throughout the remainder of the decade, including "Draw the Line", "Kings and Queens" and "Chip Away the Stone". Aerosmith's first five albums have
all since gone multiplatinum and all five are considered to be among the greatest hard rock albums of all time.
Aerosmith toured heavily throughout the mid- to late 1970s, and their live shows during this time period were captured through 1978's live album Live! Bootleg and the 1989 VHS release Live Texxas Jam '78. Also in 1978, Tyler made his acting debut as the leader of the Future Villain Band in the film Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, alongside his Aerosmith bandmates. The film also spawned Aerosmith's cover of the Beatles hit "Come Together", which was Aerosmith's last top-40 single for nine years.
Decline of Aerosmith (1979–1983)
As the decade wore on, the fast-paced life of touring, recording, living together and using drugs began to take its toll on the band. Tyler and Perry often were called the Toxic Twins for their legendary intake of stimulants and heroin. Their relationship is well documented in many of Aerosmith's video releases, as well as in the Aerosmith Behind the Music. On July 28, 1979, after a huge quarrel at a World Series of Rock concert in Cleveland, Perry left Aerosmith to begin his own band, the Joe Perry Project. Night in the Ruts was released that fall, and Aerosmith forged on with new guitarist Jimmy Crespo.
In the fall of 1980, Tyler was injured in a motorcycle crash that left him hospitalized for two months, and unable to tour or record for much of 1981. When the band reconvened in the studio, Tyler formed a writing partnership with Crespo, co-writing and producing the album Rock in a Hard Place (1982). Brad Whitford had left in 1981, shortly after recording the guitar parts for the album's lead single, "Lightning Strikes". Whitford was replaced by Rick Dufay, and the band continued to tour into 1983. As the 1980s decade wore on, Tyler's drug abuse increased. His heroin addiction was at its worst between 1979 and 1982, when he would roam the streets of New York City looking for dealers.
Reuniting and getting clean (1984–1986)
On February 14, 1984, Perry and Whitford, who left the band in 1979 and 1981, respectively, attended an Aerosmith show. According to the band's Behind the Music special on VH1, Tyler alleged that he made the first phone call to Perry, encouraging them to meet up again. Backstage, they all met and Perry and Whitford agreed to join the band once again. With the new reunion, the band also fired their managers Leber and Krebs, hired new manager Tim Collins (who was managing Joe Perry), and signed a new record contract with Geffen Records. Aerosmith embarked on a reunion tour, the Back in the Saddle Tour, and recorded once again, releasing Done with Mirrors in 1985. However, the band was still using drugs, especially Tyler, who collapsed while performing in Springfield, Illinois, on the 1984 tour. In 1986, the band held a meeting in which the band members staged an intervention on Tyler, and persuaded him to enter a drug rehabilitation program. After he completed rehabilitation, his bandmates did likewise; all had completed treatment by the mid-1980s.
Comeback and superstardom (1986–1999)
Aerosmith rose to prominence again when Tyler and Perry appeared on Run–D.M.C.'s cover of Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" in 1986, a track that combined elements of hip-hop and rock, that broke down the barriers between the two genres, broke rap into the mainstream, and introduced Aerosmith to a new generation. The track hit number four on the charts and launched a famous music video that had heavy rotation. This paved the way for Aerosmith to mount a significant comeback. Tyler and Perry renewed their songwriting partnership, but were also working with outside songwriting collaborators brought in by the record company, such as Desmond Child and Jim Vallance. To give Aerosmith a slick sound accessible to mainstream audiences, they received help from producer Bruce Fairbairn. Aerosmith released Permanent Vacation in 1987, which became a huge multiplatinum success and launched three top-20 hits ("Dude (Looks Like a Lady)", "Angel" and "Rag Doll"). The band launched a tour with the emerging Guns N' Roses, opening many shows. Permanent Vacation was followed by 1989's Pump, which was even more successful, selling 7 million copies and producing three top-10 hits ("Love in an Elevator", "Janie's Got a Gun" and "What it Takes") and one top-40 hit ("The Other Side"). Pump in particular had Tyler expand his musical horizons, co-writing the innovative hit "Janie's Got a Gun", which won the first Grammy award for the band. The band toured with many emerging acts and performed in locations such as Australia for the first time. In the late 1980s, Tyler also guested on albums by comedian Sam Kinison, Alice Cooper (a fellow '70s rocker also launching a successful comeback) and popular contemporaries Mötley Crüe. Around that time, Tyler and Perry appeared at a Bon Jovi concert in Milton Keynes and performed "Walk This Way".
With the twin successes of Permanent Vacation and Pump, the band became an MTV sensation and Tyler became a household name. The band was featured on a "Wayne's World" sketch on Saturday Night Live in 1990, which was listed by E! in 2004 as SNL'''s most unforgettable moment. That same year, Aerosmith recorded one of the first episodes of MTV Unplugged. In 1991, Aerosmith was one of the first bands to be featured on The Simpsons. That year, the band also signed a $30 million record deal with their old label Columbia, for which they would begin recording the following year. The box set Pandora's Box was released by Columbia in late 1991, and the band filmed a music video for "Sweet Emotion" to promote the release. Earlier in the year, the band also performed "Dream On" with an orchestra at MTV's 10th Anniversary celebration; their filmed performance was used as the official video for the song. After a brief break, the band returned to the studio in 1992 to record their next album. The band's A&R man John Kalodner criticized some of the early material being considered for this album, targeting Tyler's sexually profane lyrics in particular.
However, the band eventually began recording again and released Get a Grip in 1993, which became their most successful album worldwide, selling over 15 million copies and producing a series of hit singles ("Cryin'", "Livin' on the Edge", "Eat the Rich", "Amazing" and "Crazy"). While the album had mixed reviews and received some criticism for over-using outside collaborators, Aerosmith won more awards during this time than any other, winning two Grammy Awards, four MTV Video Music Awards, two American Music Awards, a People's Choice award and a Billboard Award. The band became well known for their videos at this time, which featured film-like storylines and up-and-coming actors and actresses such as Edward Furlong, Stephen Dorff, Jason London, Josh Holloway and most notably Alicia Silverstone. Tyler's daughter Liv made her acting debut in the band's video for "Crazy" in 1994. The band also launched their biggest and most extensive tour yet, performing over 240 shows in nearly 30 countries, including touring Latin America for the first time and performing in many European countries for the first time.
After the 18-month Get a Grip Tour ended in December 1994, the band took a break in 1995 to spend time with their families. They needed to rest due to the grueling lifestyle of the previous 10 years under the helm of manager Tim Collins, who helped orchestrate much of the band's comeback and sustained success. Tyler and Perry also began writing for a new album, and the band performed a couple of one-off shows in Boston to try out the new material. They also vacationed together with their families in Florida. Aerosmith, however, almost broke up after Tim Collins spread rumors that band members were deriding each other and that Tyler was being unfaithful to his wife and using drugs again during recording sessions in Miami. The band subsequently fired Collins in 1996 in the middle of recording for their next album. In 1997, they released Nine Lives, which went double platinum, launched three hits ("Falling in Love (Is Hard on the Knees)", "Hole in My Soul" and "Pink"), and won the band their fourth Grammy for "Pink". They toured for over two years in support of the album. In 1997, Tyler and Perry were featured in a commercial for the GAP. That fall, the band's tell-all autobiography was released.
In 1998, while on tour in support of Nine Lives, Tyler suffered a ligament injury when a microphone stand fell hard onto his knee. Tyler and the band finished the show, but they had to cancel several dates, and Tyler had to wear a leg cast while filming the video for "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing". The song was the band's first number-one hit and the only song to date by a rock band to debut at number one on the Hot 100. It has since become a slow-dance staple, and at the time introduced Aerosmith and Steven Tyler to yet another new generation. The song was written for the film Armageddon, which featured Tyler's daughter Liv. In 1999, Tyler and Perry joined Kid Rock and Run–D.M.C. to perform "Walk This Way" at the MTV Video Music Awards. Earlier that year, the band had the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith open at Walt Disney World.
Continued success and touring (2000–2008)
In 2001, Aerosmith played at the Super Bowl XXXV halftime show and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. The band released the album Just Push Play, which featured the top-10 hit "Jaded". At the 2001 Indianapolis 500, Tyler sang the National Anthem in traditional Aerosmith style – complete with a raspy voice, bluesy swagger and a hard rocker yell. When Tyler sang the National Anthem, he changed the words which caused a public outcry. Instead of singing "Land of the free and the home of the brave", he changed the words to "Land of the free and the home of the Indianapolis 500." This received negative reactions from veterans and fans, leading Tyler to issue a public apology.
In 2002, Aerosmith's two-hour-long Behind the Music was released, chronicling the band's tumultuous history and current activities and touring. They were also honored as MTV Icons. In the summer, they released the compilation O, Yeah! The Ultimate Aerosmith Hits, which went double platinum and included the new track "Girls of Summer".
In 2003, Tyler received an honorary degree from Berklee College of Music, and in 2005, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Massachusetts Boston. In 2003, he inducted AC/DC into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Later in the year, he went on tour with Aerosmith for the Rocksimus Maximus Tour with KISS. In 2004, Aerosmith released the blues cover album Honkin' on Bobo and launched a brief tour with Cheap Trick, focused on smaller markets. Tyler sang the National Anthem to kick off the 2004 World Series at Fenway Park. The 2004 film The Polar Express featured Tyler singing "Rockin' on Top of the World" alongside a group of computer-animated elves resembling Aerosmith.
In 2005, Tyler sang lead vocals on Santana's hit single "Just Feel Better" and made a cameo appearance in the film Be Cool. In 2006, after recovering from throat surgery and the grueling Rockin' the Joint Tour, Tyler performed with Joe Perry and the Boston Pops Orchestra for the orchestra's annual Fourth of July concert, his first major public appearance since the surgery. That year, Tyler recorded a duet with country music artist Keith Anderson, titled "Three Chord Country and American Rock & Roll".
Later that year, the Aerosmith compilation Devil's Got a New Disguise was released, which included two new tracks. Tyler hit the road with Aerosmith again for the Route of All Evil Tour with Mötley Crüe and also made several more public appearances. He made a cameo appearance on the sitcom Two and a Half Men, playing himself. On October 14, 2006, Tyler sang "God Bless America" during the seventh-inning stretch at game three of the National League Championship Series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. On November 24, he volunteered by serving Thanksgiving dinner to the needy at a restaurant in West Palm Beach, Florida, before an Aerosmith show there. In 2007, Tyler kept active in Aerosmith with the band's world tour which had them perform in 19 countries. That same year, Steven and Liv Tyler were profiled on E! True Hollywood Story.On May 21, 2008, Tyler checked into Las Encinas Hospital rehabilitation clinic in Pasadena, California, to recover from multiple leg surgeries. He made a public statement saying, "The 'foot repair' pain was intense, greater than I'd anticipated. The months of rehabilitative care and the painful strain of physical therapy were traumatic. I really needed a safe environment to recuperate where I could shut off my phone and get back on my feet." In June 2008, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith was released, the franchise's first video game based solely around one band and the most successful game based around a band. On July 14, 2008, Tyler's mother, Susan Tallarico, died at age 84.
On July 18, 2008, Tyler appeared with Billy Joel at the last concert to be played at Shea Stadium. Backed by Joel's band, he sang lead vocals on "Walk This Way". In August 2008, HarperCollins won an auction to publish Tyler's autobiography. That same month, Tyler performed with trumpeter Chris Botti in Boston. The concert was released as a CD/DVD, Chris Botti In Boston in March 2009. In December 2008, Tyler made a surprise appearance at the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concerts at Nassau Coliseum (December 12, 2008) and the Izod Center (December 13, 2008). At the Izod Center, he collaborated with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra on "Dream On" and "Sweet Emotion".
Touring, American Idol, Does the Noise in My Head Bother You? and Music from Another Dimension! (2009–2014)
On August 5, 2009, while on the Guitar Hero Aerosmith Tour, Tyler fell off a stage near Sturgis, South Dakota, injuring his head and neck and breaking his shoulder. He was airlifted to Rapid City Regional Hospital. (August 8, 2009; published by the Associated Press); retrieved August 11, 2009. Aerosmith was forced to cancel the rest of their 2009 tour, except for two shows in Hawaii in October.
On November 9, 2009, the media reported that Tyler had no contact with the other members of Aerosmith and that they were unsure if he was still in the band. On November 10, 2009, Joe Perry confirmed Tyler had quit Aerosmith to pursue a solo career and was unsure whether the move was indefinite. No replacement was announced. Despite rumors of leaving the band, and notwithstanding Perry's comment as reported earlier the same day, Tyler joined the Joe Perry Project onstage November 10, 2009, at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza and performed "Walk This Way". According to sources at the event, Tyler assured the crowd that despite rumors to the contrary, he is "not quitting Aerosmith."
On December 22, 2009, Rolling Stone reported that Tyler had checked into rehab for pain management. In 2010, he embarked on the Cocked, Locked, Ready to Rock Tour with Aerosmith, which had them perform over 40 concerts in 18 countries. On September 16, 2010, it was reported he would have his first solo project. He wrote "Love Lives", a theme song for the Japanese sci-fi movie Space Battleship Yamato. The song was based on the English translated script, as well as on some clips of the film itself. The single was released on November 24, a week before the movie was released.
On September 22, 2010, Fox confirmed that Tyler would replace Simon Cowell as a judge for the tenth season of American Idol alongside Randy Jackson and fellow new judge Jennifer Lopez (who replaced Kara DioGuardi and Ellen DeGeneres). In December 2010, Tyler performed at the Kennedy Center Honors, honoring Paul McCartney by performing several tracks from Abbey Road.
On January 19, 2011, Tyler made his debut appearance as a judge on American Idol during the premiere of the show's 10th season, which aired through the end of May. On April 2, 2011, Tyler presented an award at the 2011 Kids' Choice Awards. The following day, he performed with Carrie Underwood at the Academy of Country Music Awards. Underwood and Tyler performed Underwood's song "Undo It" and completed their segment with an energetic version of the Aerosmith classic "Walk This Way". On May 3, 2011, he released his autobiography Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?, which reached number two on The New York Times Best Seller List in the category Hardcover Non-fiction. The book was accompanied by the new single "(It) Feels So Good", released May 10. The single reached number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100. In addition, during breaks in between Idol, Tyler worked on new material for Aerosmith's next studio album. Tyler performed the Aerosmith song "Dream On" on the season finale of American Idol on May 25.
In September 2011, he starred as the inspiration for Andy Hilfiger's fashion line, "Andrew Charles". Tyler developed a signature scarf collection called "Rock Scarf" for Andrew Charles. On October 22, 2011, Tyler set off for an 18-date Aerosmith tour across Latin America and Japan. On October 25, it was reported by TMZ that Tyler slipped in his hotel shower in Paraguay and injured his face, including losing several teeth. Tyler was rushed to the hospital, and the scheduled show was postponed for the following night. When he did finally perform after the opening song, he proudly displayed his broken tooth which he had on a string around his neck. He then removed his sunglasses to reveal a nasty black eye.
On January 22, 2012, Tyler sang the National Anthem at the AFC Championship Game. On March 11, 2012, a special about Aerosmith aired on 60 Minutes, where some of the comments made by the band members highlighted the still-contentious relationships in the band. On March 22, Perry surprised Tyler with a performance of "Happy Birthday" on American Idol in advance of Tyler's 64th birthday. On March 26, 2012, Aerosmith announced their "Global Warming Tour" with dates in many major North American cities from June 16 to August 8, preceded by a performance on May 30 for Walmart shareholders. In April, a Burger King television commercial featuring Tyler debuted. Aerosmith's new album, Music from Another Dimension! was set for release on November 6, 2012 and the band debuted their new single "Legendary Child" with a performance of the song on the season finale of American Idol on May 23.
On July 12, 2012, Tyler announced that he would be leaving American Idol after two seasons, with a statement saying, "After some long ... hard ... thoughts ... I've decided it's time for me to let go of my mistress 'American Idol' before she boils my rabbit. I strayed from my first love, AEROSMITH, and I'm back — but instead of begging on my hands and knees, I got two fists in the air and I'm kicking the door open with my band. The next few years are going to be dedicated to kicking some serious ass — the ultimate in auditory takeover ..." However, the reports suggest that Tyler was dumped by the American Idol bosses. Tyler has since indicated that his troubles with his bandmates were the primary reason he signed up to do American Idol. He was replaced by Keith Urban.
On August 12, Aerosmith wrapped up the first leg of their Global Warming Tour with a rescheduled performance in Bristow, Virginia, and on August 28, the band released two singles simultaneously, the rocker "Lover Alot" and the ballad "What Could Have Been Love", both of which were coproduced and cowritten by Tyler. On September 22, Aerosmith performed at the iHeartRadio music festival in Las Vegas. On November 6, the new Aerosmith album Music from Another Dimension! was released, and on November 8, the band began the second leg of their Global Warming Tour, which took the band to 14 North American cities through December 13. On January 21, 2013, Aerosmith released "Can't Stop Lovin' You" (featuring Carrie Underwood) as the fourth single from Music from Another Dimension!. He briefly returned to American Idol in season 12, auditioning dressed up as a woman named "Pepper" in front of the judges (Randy Jackson, Nicki Minaj, Keith Urban and Mariah Carey).
On February 20, it was announced that Tyler and his songwriting partner Joe Perry would be recipients of the ASCAP Founders Award at the society's 30th Annual Pop Music Awards on April 17. Two days later, it was announced that the duo would be inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame at a ceremony to be held on June 13.
In late April and early May 2013, Aerosmith extended their Global Warming Tour to Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and Singapore. This marked the band's first performances in Australia in 23 years, and the band's first-ever performances in the latter three countries. While down-under in April 2013, Tyler told New Zealand media of his "dear Maori friends" and why the band had opted only to play Dunedin for their first New Zealand concert date. He also confessed to having the hots for J-Lo (Jennifer Lopez) while working on American Idol and told of how it turned out to be one of the best things he ever did. Tyler also appeared in Moscow, Russia, on November 9 for the Miss Universe 2013 pageant as one of the judges and performed "Dream On". On May 30, Aerosmith performed as part of the "Boston Strong" charity concert for victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. The band also performed at a handful of shows in the U.S. and Japan in July and August In the fall of 2013, Aerosmith extended their tour to Central and South America, including their first-ever performances in Guatemala, El Salvador and Uruguay.
From May 17 to June 28, 2014, Tyler performed 15 shows with Aerosmith on the European leg of the Global Warming Tour. This was followed by the Let Rock Rule Tour (featuring Slash with Myles Kennedy and the Conspirators as the opening act), which sent Aerosmith to 19 locations across North America from July 10 to September 12.
We're All Somebody from Somewhere solo album, "Out on a Limb" solo tour, and continued touring with Aerosmith (2015–2022)
On March 31, 2015, Tyler stated that he was working on his first solo country album. On April 6, it was announced that he signed a record deal with Scott Borchetta's Dot Records (a division of the Big Machine Label Group). On May 13, Tyler released the lead single, "Love Is Your Name", from his forthcoming debut album. He promoted the song on the Bobby Bones Show, iHeartMedia, CBS This Morning, Entertainment Tonight and the American Idol season-14 finale. To increase his exposure to the country audience, Tyler appeared as himself in an episode of the musical drama series Nashville, performing a cover of "Crazy" with Juliette Barnes (portrayed by Hayden Panettiere).
On June 13, Tyler rejoined his Aerosmith bandmates for the Blue Army Tour, which sent the band to 17 North American locations through August 7; this was followed by a one-off performance in Moscow on September 5. From the fall of 2015 through the spring of 2016, Tyler completed work on his solo album, We're All Somebody from Somewhere, which was released on July 15, 2016. A second single, "Red, White & You", was released in January 2016, followed by the third single (the title track) in June 2016. From July through September 2016, Tyler will be performing with his backing band Loving Mary on the 19-date Out on a Limb Tour; this was preceded by a pair of performances in Niagara Falls in March 2016 and a benefit show for his charity Janie's Fund in New York City in May 2016.
Since December 2015, in various interviews, Tyler and fellow Aerosmith bandmates Brad Whitford and Joe Perry all discussed the possibility of an Aerosmith farewell tour or "wind-down tour" slated to start in 2017. Perry has suggested the tour could last for two years and Tyler said it could potentially last "forever"; Tyler and Whitford also discussed the potential of doing one last studio album.
From September through October 2016, Tyler rejoined Aerosmith for a nine-date tour of Latin America, called the Rock 'N' Roll Rumble Tour, preceded by a performance at the Kaaboo Festival in San Diego.
In April 2017, Tyler performed with Aerosmith in Phoenix, Arizona for the NCAA Final Four men's basketball tournament and also performed two solo shows with Loving Mary in Japan. Tyler rejoined Aerosmith for a "farewell" tour of Europe in the spring and summer of 2017, titled the Aero-Vederci Baby! Tour. After the European leg concluded in July, the band played in South America in September and October 2017 The last few dates of the tour had to be canceled, however, due to health issues. Tyler also performed a handful of solo shows in 2017 with the Loving Mary Band.
In January 2018, Tyler hosted an inaugural red carpet gala for his charity "Janie's Fund" during the 60th Grammy Awards. In February, he starred in a commercial for Kia Motors that aired during Super Bowl LII; the ad featured Tyler as a race car driver that went back in time, set to the soundtrack of the Aerosmith classic "Dream On". In the spring and summer of 2018, Tyler played approximately two dozen concerts across North America and Europe with the Loving Mary Band as his backing band.
On August 15, Tyler appeared with Aerosmith on NBC's Today show to announce a residency in Las Vegas called "Deuces Are Wild", a reference to both Las Vegas casino gambling and their 1994 single of the same name. The band was booked to play 50 shows from April 2019 thru June 2020 at the Park Theater. In July and August 2019, it performed at a festival in Minnesota and played nine shows at three MGM venues in Maryland, New Jersey and Massachusetts.
In March 2022, Aerosmith announced the return of the Deuces Are Wild residency, which was set to begin in June. On May 24, 2022, the band announced that the June and July dates would be canceled due to Tyler checking himself into a rehab facility. The band shared that Tyler relapsed after having foot surgery to prepare for the upcoming shows.
Dirico Motorcycles (Red Wing Motorcycles)
On September 15, 2007, at New Hampshire International Speedway, Tyler announced the launch of Dirico Motorcycles, which are designed by Tyler, engineered by Mark Dirico, and built by AC Custom Motorcycles in Manchester, New Hampshire. Tyler has been a long-time motorcycle fan and riding enthusiast,
Steven Tyler also participates in a variety of charity auctions involving motorcycles, including the Ride for Children charity.
Politics
In the early months of 2013, an act was forwarded into the Hawaii legislature entitled the Steven Tyler Act (Hawaii Senate Bill 465). The act would give more privacy to public figures such as government officials and celebrities on vacation. Tyler and numerous other celebrities all lobbied for it. The legislation would give public figures the right to sue paparazzi for taking unwanted photographs. The bill's sponsor is Maui state legislator J. Kalani English. The bill was cleared through the Judiciary Committee on Friday, February 8, 2013.
In August 2015, Aerosmith attended the first Republican Party presidential debate held in Cleveland, as the band was in town for a Pro Bowl concert appearance. Tyler was reportedly a guest of candidate Donald Trump, rather than sitting with the band. Tyler's agent told reporters that he was there to promote his copyright reform ideas.
Personal life
Persona
Tyler has been known to have an androgynous persona both on and offstage such as flamboyant clothes and makeup. In his 2011 memoir Does the Noise in My Head Bother You?, Tyler wrote, "I've been misquoted as saying that I'm more female than male. Let me set the record straight -- it's more half and half, and I love the fact that my feelings are akin to puella eternis (Latin for "the eternal girl"). What better to be like than the stronger of the species?". (Correct Latin would be "puella aeterna".)
Family and relationships
In 1973, Tyler obtained guardianship of 16-year-old Julia Holcomb so that she could live with him in Boston. They dated and took drugs together for three years. Holcomb was referred to by the pseudonym "Diana Hall" by the editor of the Aerosmith autobiography Walk This Way in an attempt to conceal her identity, but other sources have confirmed her identity. Pressures leading to their split included their age difference (Tyler was 25 when they first met), a withdrawn marriage proposal, a house fire, and a planned pregnancy that resulted in an abortion when Tyler was worried that the smoke from the fire, as well as drugs, might lead to birth defects. Look Away, a documentary about sexual abuse in the rock music industry, features Holcomb's story.
Band member Ray Tabano wrote in Walk This Way that the abortion "really messed Steven up," because the fetus was male. Tyler wrote, "It was a big crisis. It's a major thing when you're growing something with a woman, but they convinced us that it would never work out and would ruin our lives. You go to the doctor and they put the needle in her belly and they squeeze the stuff in and you watch. And it comes out dead. I was pretty devastated. In my mind, I'm going, Jesus, what have I done?"
Holcomb, who later took the name "Julia Misley," filed suit in December 2022, alleging that Tyler sexually assaulted her and forced her to undergo the abortion, plying her with drugs and alcohol after promising to care for her in the guardianship agreement. In February 2023, Tyler was officially named a defendant in the lawsuit, which also claimed he used his fame and status to "groom, manipulate, exploit, [and] sexually assault" Misley over the course of three years, beginning when she was 16 and he was in his mid-20s. In a motion to dismiss the lawsuit that was filed in March 2023, Tyler claimed their relationship was consensual and that he had immunity because he was her legal guardian at the time. The motion further stated that Tyler's actions with regards to the abortion decision were legitimate, justified, and in good faith.
Tyler had a brief relationship with fashion model Bebe Buell, during which he fathered actress Liv Tyler, born in 1977. Buell initially claimed that the father was Todd Rundgren to protect her daughter from Tyler's drug addiction. Through Liv's marriage to British musician Royston Langdon and relationship with entertainment manager David Gardner, Tyler has three grandchildren.
In 1978, he married Cyrinda Foxe, an ex-Warhol model and the former wife of New York Dolls' lead singer David Johansen, and fathered model Mia Tyler (born on December 22, 1978). He and Foxe divorced in 1987; in 1997, she published Dream On: Livin' on the Edge With Steven Tyler and Aerosmith, a memoir of her life with Tyler. Foxe died from a brain tumor in 2002.
On May 28, 1988, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Tyler married clothing designer Teresa Barrick. With Barrick, he fathered a daughter, Chelsea, in 1989 and a son, Taj, in 1991. In February 2005, the couple announced that they were separating due to personal problems.
The divorce was finalized in January 2006. Tyler began a relationship with Erin Brady in 2006. They got engaged in December 2011 but called it off in January 2013.
Tyler's 2023 denial of sexual assault and claim of immunity has drawn scrutiny and has perplexed several attorneys who were experts in the field of sexual assault. On reviewing Tyler's answer to the suit launched against him that same year, the victim's lawyer claimed—and legal experts stated—that Tyler was "gaslighting" and "there is no such thing as immunity to a caregiver or guardian for sex abuse."
Health
In 2006, immediately after a two-hour performance in Florida, Tyler got into an argument during which he yelled. He awoke the next morning to find that he had a hoarse voice. On March 22, 2006, the Washington Post reported that Tyler would undergo surgery for an "undisclosed medical condition". A statement from Tyler's publicist read in part, "Despite Aerosmith's desire to keep the tour going as long as possible, [Tyler's] doctors advised him not to continue performing to give his voice time to recover." Aerosmith's remaining North American tour dates in 2006 on the Rockin' the Joint Tour were subsequently canceled.
The cause was diagnosed as a ruptured blood vessel in his throat, which was successfully sealed off using a laser by Dr. Steven M. Zeitels, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Laryngeal Surgery and Voice Rehabilitation. In the words of Tyler: "He just took a laser and zapped the blood vessel." After a few weeks of rest, Tyler and the rest of Aerosmith entered the studio on May 20, 2006, to begin work on their new album.
Tyler's first public performance after the surgery was July 3–4, 2006, with Joe Perry at the Hatch Shell in Boston, with the Boston Pops Orchestra. The duo sang "Dream On", "Walk This Way" and "I Don't Want to Miss a Thing" as part of the Boston Pops July 4 Fireworks Spectacular. Tyler's throat surgery was featured in 2007 on an episode of the National Geographic Channel series, Incredible Human Machine.
In a September 2006 interview with Access Hollywood, Tyler revealed that he had been suffering from hepatitis C for the past 11 years. He was diagnosed with the disease in 2003 and had undergone extensive treatment from 2003 to 2006, including 11 months of interferon therapy, which he said was "agony". The disease is usually spread through blood-to-blood contact, or by sharing used needles.
Tyler has publicly acknowledged his struggles with drug and alcohol addiction. In a 2019 interview, Tyler recalled: "'There was a moment in '88 where management and the band pulled an intervention on me. They thought, "Get the lead singer sober, and all our problems would be over"...I am grateful and owe a thanks to them for my sobriety'". Tyler added: "'I have had many times in my life where I just couldn't handle — whether it was a marriage or my addiction had reared its ugly head — and the rest of the guys in the band are not unlike that. But we have all seen each other through it, and we are here today'".
Discography
Studio albums
Singles
Collaborative work
Music videos
Filmography
Philanthropy
Tyler launched Janie's Fund – named after Aerosmith's 1989 track "Janie's Got a Gun" – in 2015 to providing protection and counseling for young female victims of abuse, and he has helped raise over $2.4 million for the organization since then. Janie's House, established in 2017 in Atlanta, offers shelter for victims of abuse or neglect, with space for 30 live-in clients and 24-hour medical facilities available.
Awards and nominations
Emmy Award nomination in 2011: – Outstanding Performer in an Animated Program – for playing the Mad Hatter on Wonder Pets: Adventures in Wonderland''
References
External links
20th-century American male actors
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420454 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph%20Hall | Ralph Hall | Ralph Moody Hall (May 3, 1923 – March 7, 2019) was an American politician who served as the United States representative for from 1981 to 2015. He was first elected in 1980, and was the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology from 2011 to 2013. He was also a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. In 2004, he switched to the Republican Party after having been a member of the Democratic Party for more than 50 years.
At 91, he was the oldest serving member of Congress at the end of his last term in office, the oldest person to ever serve in the House of Representatives, the oldest one ever elected to a House term, the oldest House member ever to cast a vote, and also the last member of Congress from the G.I. Generation. Michigan Congressman John Dingell and he were the last two World War II veterans serving in Congress.
On March 6, 2014, Hall was challenged in the Republican primary by five other Republicans. He received 45.42% of the vote, which was under 50%, the amount required to avoid a runoff election. In the runoff, Hall faced former U.S. Attorney John Ratcliffe, who finished second in the primary with 28.77% of the vote. On May 27, 2014, Ratcliffe defeated Hall in the runoff election, 53 to 47%.
Early life, education, and law career
Hall was born in Fate, Texas, and was a lifelong resident of Rockwall County, northeast of Dallas. He graduated from Rockwall High School in 1941. He joined the U.S. Navy on December 10, 1942, serving as an aircraft carrier pilot from 1942 to 1945 during World War II, attaining the rank of lieutenant.
When he was young, Hall pumped gas for a man and woman whom he later identified as the infamous gangsters Bonnie and Clyde.
He attended Texas Christian University in Fort Worth during 1943. After the war, he attended the University of Texas (1946–1947), and received a law degree from Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1951. He was admitted to the Texas Bar in 1951 and maintained a private law practice in Rockwall for many years.
Early political career (1950–1973)
Hall was elected county judge of Rockwall County, Texas, in November 1950. He held that position until 1962.
In 1962, he was elected to the Texas State Senate after incumbent Ray Roberts won a special election to replace Sam Rayburn in Congress. As a state senator, he chaired a variety of committees:
Consumer Protection (1969–1972)
County, District, and Urban Affairs (1969–1972)
Historical and Recreational Sites (1969–1970)
Motion Picture Theater Industry (1969–1970)
Counties, Cities, and Towns (1967–1968)
Local and Uncontested Bills (1967–1968)
Transportation (1965–1966)
In 1972, he ran for lieutenant governor of Texas and lost the Democratic primary, getting only 15% of the vote. Bill Hobby won the primary with a plurality of 33%, and won the general election.
Business (1973–1980)
He was the president and CEO of Texas Aluminum Corp. and general counsel of Texas Extrusion Co., Inc. He was founding member and chairman of Lakeside National Bank of Rockwall, and was chairman of the directors of Lakeside News, Inc. He was a counsel for the aircraft parts maker Howmet Corporation from 1970 to 1974.
As of 2006, he was serving as the chairman, president, or director of Crowley Holding Co., Bank of Crowley, Lakeside National Bank, Lakeside Bancshares Inc., North & East Trading Co., and Linrock Inc.
Later political career (1980–2015)
Elections
In 1980, incumbent Democratic U.S. congressman Ray Roberts of Texas's 4th congressional district decided to retire. Hall won the Democratic primary with 57% of the vote. In the general election, he defeated Republican business manager John Wright, with 52% of the vote, the closest race in the district's history and the lowest winning percentage in a general election in Hall's political career. He was the fourth person to represent the 4th District since its creation in 1903. The district's second congressman, Rayburn, the longtime Speaker of the House, represented the district for 48 years. He has never won re-election in a general election with less than 58% of the vote.
2004
In November 2004, Hall ran for his first full term as a Republican. He got heavy White House backing, from then-President George W. Bush in the three-way GOP primary that year, defeating two opponents. Hall won the primary with 78% of the vote, and the general election with 67% of the vote, defeating Democratic candidate Jim Nickerson and Libertarian Kevin D. Anderson.
2006
Hall defeated Democratic candidate Glenn Melancon and Libertarian candidate Kurt Helm in the 2006 general election with 67% of the vote.
2008
In the general election, Hall again faced Democratic nominee Glenn Melancon and was re-elected with 69% of the vote.
2010
In the Republican primary, Hall won the nomination with 57% of the vote, his worst performance in a primary election since his first election in 1980. It was a six-candidate race, with his closest opponent, Steve Clark, winning 30% of the vote. In the general election, he won re-election with 73% of the vote against Democratic candidate VaLinda Hathcox and two other candidates.
2012
Hall won the Republican primary with 58% of the vote. He won over Democratic candidate VaLinda Hathcox in the general election for the second race in a row, this time by 73 to 24%.
2014
In May 2013, Hall announced his bid for an 18th term in the U.S. House. On December 20, 2013, he said that the 2014 campaign would be his last, regardless of the result.
In the March 4, 2014 Republican primary, Hall led a six-candidate field with 29,815 votes (45.4%). Because he did not obtain a majority of the ballots cast, Hall was forced to enter the May 27, 2014 runoff election with the runner-up, former U.S. Attorney John Lee Ratcliffe of Heath, who received 18,891 votes (28.8%).
Ratcliffe defeated Hall in a contentious and expensive March 21 runoff. With the loss, Hall became the only sitting Republican U.S. representative from Texas to unsuccessfully seek renomination to his or her seat out of 257 attempts since statehood. No Democrat even filed, meaning that the runoff was the real contest for the seat. Accordingly, Ratcliffe was elected unopposed, and assumed office on January 3, 2015.
Tenure
Hall described himself as "an old-time conservative Democrat." For many years, he was one of the most conservative Democrats in the House. He was an early supporter of a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget and also favored legislation requiring a super majority on any tax increases. He frequently opposed the Clinton Administration, and voted for three of the four articles of impeachment against President Bill Clinton. He endorsed George W. Bush for President in 2000, becoming one of the few Democratic politicians to do so. The two had been friends for many years.
While Hall was very conservative even by Texas Democratic standards, his conservatism can be attributed to the demographics of the 4th District. It had once been reliably Democratic, but became increasingly friendly to Republicans as Dallas' suburban growth spilled into the western portion of the district; indeed, the district included a small portion of Dallas itself. The 4th has not supported the Democratic nominee for president since 1964. Despite this district's increasingly Republican tilt, Hall won 10 more terms as a Democrat with an average of 60% of the vote. In 1994, for instance, he was re-elected by a 19-point margin, even as other conservative Democratic congressmen lost their seats. By the turn of the century, he was the only elected Democratic official above the county level in what had become one of the most conservative districts in Texas.
Like many in the Democratic Party, he voted against the North American Free Trade Agreement. In 1999, he was one of six Democratic congressmen who supported a Republican tax cut plan. He has been an original co-sponsor of bills to repeal the estate tax and the marriage tax.
In late 2002, he voted for the resolution allowing the use of force in Iraq. In March 2003, he voted for a budget that included Bush's 10-year, $726 billion tax cut plan. The plan passed the House 215–212.
2004 party switch
Hall was frequently urged to switch parties, especially after the Republicans took control of the House in 1995. Even as Democrats with far less conservative voting records than Hall's, such as Greg Laughlin, Jimmy Hayes, Billy Tauzin, and Nathan Deal, all switched parties, he insisted that he would remain a Democrat as long as it did not hurt his constituents. He said that he had an obligation to "pull my party back toward the middle." He was one of the co-founders of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of moderate and conservative Democratic congressmen.
In 2003, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay engineered a controversial mid-decade redistricting. Hall was the only White Democratic congressman not targeted by the remap, but his district was shifted slightly to the north. Tyler, the heart of the 4th for a century, was shifted to the neighboring 1st District. It did, however, pick up a portion of Collin County, which had been part of the district until the 1980s round of redistricting.
In January 2004, on the final day for candidates to file to get their names on the ballot for the March 9, 2004, primary, Hall switched parties and became a Republican. He said that Republicans refused to put money for his district into a spending bill, and when he asked why, "the only reason I was given was that I was a Democrat." He also cited concerns with his Democratic criticism of President Bush; he had not attended Democratic caucus meetings for some time due to the criticism leveled at Bush, his longtime friend. He told the press, "The country is at war. When the country is at war you need to support the president. Some of my fellow congressmen have not been doing that."
After the switch, which became official on January 5, 2004, the GOP allowed him to keep his seniority. He became chairman of the House Energy Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality. He also joined the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservative House Republicans.
Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI)
The Northern Mariana Islands are a U.S. commonwealth in the Pacific with a large garment industry. Billing records of Preston Gates Ellis and Rouvelas Meeds, an international law firm employed by the CNMI, the government of the islands, show numerous contacts between the law firm and Hall's office. He said his dealings with the law firm were with Lloyd Meeds, a partner with the firm, which at the time listed 36 attorneys on staff, not with Jack Abramoff, the firm's representative for the CNMI contract. In 2006, he said of the Northern Marianas, "They were good allies, and I believed their government should handle their affairs and not have us impose labor laws on them."
In December 1996, Hall and E.K. Slaughter, a friend, and their wives visited the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The trip was arranged by the National Security Caucus Foundation (NSCF), which told him that the trip would be paid for by that group. Greg Hilton, the director of the now-defunct NCSF, had no funding for such trips; he only arranged them with CNMI officials. Hilton said he was led to believe by officials of Preston Gates that the CNMI would pay the expenses and be reimbursed by the private sector. In fact, Preston Gates paid the expenses for such trips and billed the CNMI for reimbursement. For the trip of Hall, Slaughter and their wives, Abramoff billed the CNMI $12,800.
In September 1997, Democratic Representative Neil Abercrombie placed remarks in the Congressional Record describing a teenager described as "Katrina", whose story had been widely publicized, stating that an "employer had lured her to the CNMI under false pretenses" and that "she was also forced into service as a prostitute."
Abramoff's staff contacted Hall's office 15 times in the two months following Abercrombie's remarks. In November 1997, he entered into the Congressional Record a statement saying that upon reviewing those remarks, he had "felt that Congressman Abercrombie had relied on an erroneous and misleading article published by the Reader's Digest some months ago." The article, according to Hall, said that the teenager "was forced to perform lewd sex acts with customers before a video camera." He quoted a report by the acting attorney general of the CNMI in response: "in fact...she wanted to do nude dancing...to support her family."<ref name="CR">Statement by Ralph Hall, November 13, 1997, Congressional Record</ref> The remarks by Abercrombie did not cite that source, and the Reader's Digest June 1997 story by Henry Hurt, "Shame on American Soil", does not refer to a child named Katrina.
In his remarks, he also said, "I intend to seek further information on matters as reported by the Reader's Digest author—and I would hope that a fair-minded person like Congressman Abercrombie would accompany me early next year if, and when, we can both work a visit into our schedule—a visit that would not involve the expenditure of any American tax dollars.
Asked in 2006 how the 1996 trip benefited the Texas 4th Congressional District he represents, he said, "I think it benefits my constituents if you do anything that benefits the peace through strength people, when you're going out to bring information to them to help win the Cold War. That's a benefit to them, to their strategic interests." The last gasps of the Cold War ended in 1991.
He also said "the whole thing was about ... them setting their own minimum wage. They had told me they would waive their foreign aid in return for setting their own minimum wage." His comments in the Congressional Record in 1997 do not mention a minimum wage and the CNMI receives no foreign aid.
Views on climate change
On December 1, 2011, Hall gave an interview to National Journal in which he expressed disbelief in anthropogenic climate change. He accused climate scientists of concocting the evidence for anthropogenic climate change to receive federal research grants, citing the Climategate controversy and calling investigations which had largely exonerated them "straw-man reviews". He stated, "I'm really more fearful of freezing. And I don't have any science to prove that, but we have a lot of science that tells us they're not basing it on real scientific facts." He responded to allegations that Republicans could be called anti-science in light of these views by saying, "I'm not anti-science, I'm pro-science, but we ought to have some believable science.... We have to be more careful what outlays we make for something that hasn't been proved."
Legislation sponsored
Hall introduced into the House the North Texas Invasive Species Barrier Act of 2014 (H.R. 4032; 113th Congress), a bill that would exempt the North Texas Municipal Water District from prosecution under the Lacey Act for transferring water containing invasive species from Oklahoma to Texas. The Lacey Act protects plants and wildlife by creating civil and criminal penalties for various violations, including transferring invasive species across state borders.
Committee assignments
Committee on Science and Technology, Chairman Emeritus''
Subcommittee on Energy
Subcommittee on Space
Committee on Energy and Commerce
Subcommittee on Environment and Economy
Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations
Caucus memberships
International Conservation Caucus
Republican Study Committee
Tea Party Caucus
Personal life
Hall married the former Mary Ellen Murphy on November 14, 1944, while he was serving in the United States Navy in Pensacola, Florida. They had three sons, Hampton, Brett, and Blakeley, and (as of 2013) have five grandchildren. She died on August 27, 2008.
In January 2004, regarding his switch of party, Hall said "I talked with some of my family. Some agreed, some did not. My wife didn't agree. She'd rather I quit than switch parties."
Hall died of natural causes on March 7, 2019, in Rockwall, Texas, at the age of 95.
Electoral history
:
Source:
Source:
See also
List of American politicians who switched parties in office
List of United States representatives who switched parties
References
External links
Profile at SourceWatch
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1923 births
2019 deaths
20th-century American politicians
21st-century American politicians
United States Navy pilots of World War II
American United Methodists
County judges in Texas
Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas
Military personnel from Texas
People from Rockwall County, Texas
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Texas
Tea Party movement activists
Texas state senators
20th-century Methodists
United States Navy officers |
420456 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book%20of%20Judith | Book of Judith | The Book of Judith is a deuterocanonical book included in the Septuagint and the Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christian Old Testament of the Bible but excluded from the Hebrew canon and assigned by Protestants to the apocrypha. It tells of a Jewish widow, Judith, who uses her beauty and charm to kill an Assyrian general who has besieged her city, Bethulia. With this act, she saves nearby Jerusalem from total destruction. The name Judith (), meaning "praised" or "Jewess", is the feminine form of Judah.
The surviving manuscripts of Greek translations appear to contain several historical anachronisms, which is why some Protestant scholars now consider the book non-historical. Instead, the book may be a parable, theological novel, or perhaps the first historical novel. The Roman Catholic Church has historically maintained that the book is an authentic history from the reign of Manasseh and that the names in the book were changed at a later date for an unknown reason. The Jewish Encyclopedia identifies the real name of "Bethulia" as Shechem and argues that the name was changed because of the feud between the Jews and Samaritans. If this is the case, it would explain why other names seem anachronistic as well.
Historical context
Original language
It is not clear whether the Book of Judith was originally written in Hebrew or Greek, as the oldest existing version is from the Septuagint, a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures. It is most generally agreed that the book was written either in Hebrew or Aramaic. When he did his Vulgate translation, Jerome believed the book was composed in a Semitic language, specifically claiming that it was written "in Chaldean words". Carey A. Moore argued that the Greek text of Judith was a translation from a Hebrew original, and used many examples of conjectured translation errors, Hebraic idioms, and Hebraic syntax. The extant Hebrew manuscripts are very late and only date back to the Middle Ages. The two surviving Hebrew manuscripts of Judith are translated from the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate. The Hebrew versions name important figures directly, such as the Seleucid king Antiochus IV Epiphanes, and place the events during the Hellenistic period when the Maccabees battled the Seleucid monarchs. However, because the Hebrew manuscripts mention kingdoms that had not existed for hundreds of years by the time of the Seleucids, it is unlikely that these were the original names in the text. Jeremy Corley argued that Judith was originally composed in Greek that was carefully modeled after Hebrew and pointed out "Septuagintalisms" in the vocabulary and phrasing of the Greek text.
Canonicity
In Judaism
While the author was likely Jewish, there is no evidence aside from its inclusion in the Septuagint that the Book of Judith was ever considered authoritative or a candidate for canonicity by any Jewish group. The Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible does not contain it; it is not found among the Dead Sea Scrolls or any early Rabbinic literature. Speculated reasons for its exclusion include the possible lateness of its composition, possible Greek origin, apparent support of the Hasmonean dynasty (to which the early rabbinate was opposed), and perhaps the brash and seductive character of Judith herself.
After disappearing from circulation among Jews for over a millennium, however, references to the Book of Judith and the figure of Judith herself resurfaced in the religious literature of crypto-Jews who escaped Christian persecution after the capitulation of the Caliphate of Córdoba. The renewed interest took the form of "tales of the heroine, liturgical poems, commentaries on the Talmud, and passages in Jewish legal codes." Although the text does not mention Hanukkah, it became customary for a Hebrew midrashic variant of the Judith story to be read on the Shabbat of Hanukkah as the story of Hanukkah takes place during the time of the Hasmonean dynasty.
That midrash, whose heroine is portrayed as gorging the antagonist on cheese and wine before cutting off his head, may have formed the basis of the minor Jewish tradition to eat dairy products during Hanukkah. In that respect, medieval Jewry appears to have viewed Judith as the Hasmonean counterpart to Queen Esther, the heroine of the holiday of Purim. The textual reliability of the Book of Judith was also taken for granted, to the extent that biblical commentator Nachmanides (Ramban) quoted several passages from a Peshitta (Syriac version) of Judith in support of his rendering of Deuteronomy 21:14.
In Christianity
Although early Christians, such as Clement of Rome, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria, read and used the Book of Judith, some of the oldest Christian canons, including the Bryennios List (1st/2nd century), that of Melito of Sardis (2nd century), and Origen (3rd century), do not include it. Jerome, when he produced his Latin translation of the Hebrew Bible, the Vulgate, counted it among the apocrypha, (though he later changed his mind, quoted it as scripture, and said he merely expressed the views of the Jews), as did Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, and Epiphanius of Salamis.
Many influential fathers and doctors of the Church, including Augustine, Basil of Caesarea, Tertullian, John Chrysostom, Ambrose, Bede the Venerable and Hilary of Poitiers, considered Judith sacred scripture both before and after councils that formally declared it part of the biblical canon. In a 405 letter, Pope Innocent I declared it part of the canon. In Jerome's Prologue to Judith, he claims that the Book of Judith was "found by the Nicene Council to have been counted among the number of the Sacred Scriptures". Interestingly, no such declaration has been found in the Canons of Nicaea, and it is uncertain whether Jerome was referring to the book's use during the council's discussion or spurious canons attributed to that council. Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin speculates that Jerome was correct about the Council of Nicea establishing a canon and that the documents about this have been lost to time.
Regardless of Judith's status at Nicaea, the book was also accepted as scripture by the councils of Rome (382), Hippo (393), Carthage (397), and Florence (1442) and eventually dogmatically defined as canonical by the Roman Catholic Church in 1546 in the Council of Trent. The Eastern Orthodox Church also accepts Judith as inspired scripture; this was confirmed in the Synod of Jerusalem in 1672. The canonicity of Judith is typically rejected by Protestants, who accept as the Old Testament only those books that are found in the Jewish canon. Martin Luther viewed the book as an allegory, but listed it as the first of the eight writings in his Apocrypha. In Anglicanism, it has the intermediate authority of the Apocrypha of the Old Testament and is regarded as useful or edifying, but is not to be taken as a basis for establishing doctrine.
Judith is also referred to in chapter 28 of 1 Meqabyan, a book considered canonical in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church.
Contents
Plot summary
The story revolves around Judith, a daring and beautiful widow, who is upset with her Jewish countrymen for not trusting God to deliver them from their foreign conquerors. She goes with her loyal maid to the camp of the enemy general, Holofernes, with whom she slowly ingratiates herself, promising him information on the Israelites. Gaining his trust, she is allowed access to his tent one night as he lies in a drunken stupor. She decapitates him, then takes his head back to her fearful countrymen. The Assyrians, having lost their leader, disperse, and Israel is saved. Though she is courted by many, Judith remains unmarried for the rest of her life.
Literary structure
The Book of Judith can be split into two parts or "acts" of approximately equal length. Chapters 1–7 describe the rise of the threat to Israel, led by the evil king Nebuchadnezzar and his sycophantic general Holofernes, and is concluded as Holofernes' worldwide campaign has converged at the mountain pass where Judith's village, Bethulia, is located. Chapters 8–16 then introduce Judith and depict her heroic actions to save her people. The first part, although at times tedious in its description of the military developments, develops important themes by alternating battles with reflections and rousing action with rest. In contrast, the second half is devoted mainly to Judith's strength of character and the beheading scene.
The New Oxford Annotated Apocrypha identifies a clear chiastic pattern in both "acts", in which the order of events is reversed at a central moment in the narrative (i.e., abcc'b'a').
Part I (1:1–7:23)
A. Campaign against disobedient nations; the people surrender (1:1–2:13)
B. Israel is "greatly terrified" (2:14–3:10)
C. Joakim prepares for war (4:1–15)
D. Holofernes talks with Achior (5:1–6.9)
E. Achior is expelled by Assyrians (6:10–13)
E'. Achior is received in the village of Bethulia (6:14–15)
D'. Achior talks with the people (6:16–21)
C'. Holofernes prepares for war (7:1–3)
B'. Israel is "greatly terrified" (7:4–5)
A'. Campaign against Bethulia; the people want to surrender (7:6–32)
Part II (8:1–16:25)
A. Introduction of Judith (8:1–8)
B. Judith plans to save Israel (8:9–10:8), including her extended prayer (9:1–14)
C. Judith and her maid leave Bethulia (10:9–10)
D. Judith beheads Holofernes (10:11–13:10a)
C'. Judith and her maid return to Bethulia (13.10b–11)
B'. Judith plans the destruction of Israel's enemy (13:12–16:20)
A'. Conclusion about Judith (16.1–25)
Similarly, parallels within Part II are noted in comments within the New American Bible Revised Edition: Judith summons a town meeting in Judith 8:10 in advance of her expedition and is acclaimed by such a meeting in Judith 13:12–13; Uzziah blesses Judith in advance in Judith 8:5 and afterwards in Judith 13:18–20.
Literary genre
Most contemporary exegetes, such as Biblical scholar Gianfranco Ravasi, generally tend to ascribe Judith to one of several contemporaneous literary genres, reading it as an extended parable in the form of a historical fiction, or a propaganda literary work from the days of the Seleucid oppression.
It has also been called "an example of the ancient Jewish novel in the Greco-Roman period". Other scholars note that Judith fits within and even incorporates the genre of "salvation traditions" from the Old Testament, particularly the story of Deborah and Jael (Judges 4–5), who seduced and inebriated the Canaanite commander Sisera before hammering a tent-peg into his forehead.
There are also thematic connections to the revenge of Simeon and Levi on Shechem after the rape of Dinah in Genesis 34.
In the Christian West from the patristic period on, Judith was invoked in a wide variety of texts as a multi-faceted allegorical figure. As a "Mulier sancta", she personified the Church and many virtues – Humility, Justice, Fortitude, Chastity (the opposite of Holofernes' vices Pride, Tyranny, Decadence, Lust) – and she was, like the other heroic women of the Hebrew scriptural tradition, made into a typological prefiguration of the Virgin Mary. Her gender made her a natural example of the biblical paradox of "strength in weakness"; she is thus paired with David and her beheading of Holofernes paralleled with that of Goliath – both deeds saved the Covenant People from a militarily superior enemy.
Main characters
Judith, the heroine of the book, introduced in chapter 8. A God-fearing woman, she is the daughter of Merari, a Simeonite, and widow of a certain Manasseh or Manasses, a wealthy farmer. She sends her maid or "waitingwoman" to Uzziah to challenge his decision to capitulate to the Assyrians if God has not rescued the people of Bethulia within five days, and she uses her charm to become an intimate friend of Holofernes, but beheads him allowing Israel to counter-attack the Assyrians. Judith's maid, not named in the story, remains with her throughout the narrative and is given her freedom as the story ends.
Holofernes, the villain of the book. He is a dedicated soldier of his king, general-in-chief of his army, whom he wants to see exalted in all lands. He is given the task of destroying the rebels who did not support the king of Nineveh in his resistance against Cheleud and the king of Media, until Israel also becomes a target of his military campaign. Judith's courage and charm occasion his death.
Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Nineveh and Assyria. He is so proud that he wants to affirm his strength as a sort of divine power, although Holofernes, his Turtan (commanding general), goes beyond the king's orders when he calls on the western nations to "worship only Nebuchadnezzar, and ... invoke him as a god". Holofernes is ordered to take revenge on those who refused to ally themselves with Nebuchadnezzar.
Achior, an Ammonite leader at Nebuchadnezzar's court; in chapter 5 he summarises the history of Israel and warns the king of Assyria of the power of their God, the "God of heaven", but is mocked. He is protected by the people of Bethulia and becomes a Jew and is circumcised on hearing what Judith has accomplished.
Bagoas, or Vagao (Vulgate), the eunuch who had charge over Holofernes' personal affairs. His name is Persian for a eunuch. He brought in Judith to recline with Holofernes and was the first one who discovered his beheading.
Uzziah or Oziah, governor of Bethulia; together with Cabri and Carmi, he rules over Judith's city. When the city is besieged by the Assyrians and the water supply dries up, he agrees to the people's call to surrender if God has not rescued them within five days, a decision challenged as "rash" by Judith.
Judith's prayer
Chapter 9 constitutes Judith's "extended prayer", "loudly proclaimed" in advance of her actions in the following chapters. This runs to 14 verses in English versions, 19 verses in the Vulgate.
Historicity of Judith
Today, it is generally accepted that the Book of Judith is ahistorical. The fictional nature "is evident from its blending of history and fiction, beginning in the very first verse, and is too prevalent thereafter to be considered as the result of mere historical mistakes."
Thus, the great villain is "Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled over the Assyrians" (1:1), yet the historical Nebuchadnezzar II was the king of Babylonia. Other details, such as fictional place names, the immense size of armies and fortifications, and the dating of events, cannot be reconciled with the historical record. Judith's village, Bethulia (literally "virginity") is unknown and otherwise unattested to in any ancient writing.
The Catholic Church has always considered the book to be a historical document. Jerome's translation for the Vulgate was based on an Aramaic manuscript and was shorter because he removed passages from the Greek that he could not understand or find in the Aramaic. The Aramaic manuscript used by Jerome has long since been lost. The original Douay-Rheims Bible and subsequent commentaries by Reverend George Leo Haydock state that the book truly is set within the rule of the Neo-Assyrian Empire during the reign of Manasseh of Judah.
As such, there have been various attempts by both scholars and clergy to understand the characters and events in the Book as allegorical representations of actual personages and historical events. Much of this work has focused on linking Nebuchadnezzar with various conquerors of Judea from different time periods and, more recently, linking Judith herself with historical female leaders, including Queen Salome Alexandra, Judea's only female monarch (76–67 BC) and its last ruler to die while Judea remained an independent kingdom.
Identification of Nebuchadnezzar with Ashurbanipal
For hundreds of years, the most generally accepted view within the Roman Catholic Church is that the book of Judith is occurs during the reign of Ashurbanipal, a notoriously cruel and brutal Assyrian king whose reign was marked by various military campaigns and invasions. Ashurbanipal ruled the Neo-Assyrian Empire from 668 to 627 B.C. The original 1610 Douay-Rheims and the Haydock Biblical commentary both state that the book occurs in the reign of King Manasseh of Judah, which would correspond with Ashurbanipal's reign. In fact, Ashurbanipal's records even name Manasseh as one of a number of vassals who assisted his campaign against Egypt. Specifically, the original Douay-Rheims and its 1738 revision by Bishop Richard Challoner both claim that "Nabuchodonosor" was known as "Saosduchin" and succeeded Asarhaddan "in the kingdom of the Assyrians". This can only possibly be Ashurbanipal.
In his comparison between the Book of Judith and Assyrian history, Catholic priest and scholar Fulcran Vigouroux (1837–1915) attempts an identification of Nabuchodonosor with Ashurbanipal and his rival Arphaxad king of the Medes with Phraortes (665–653 B.C.), the son of Deioces, founder of Ecbatana. Another prominent French Catholic apologist, Bishop Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, expressed a similar view. It is unclear where the name "Saosduchin" came from, although it is possible that it was derived from the Canon of Kings by the astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. This record is not perfect, and Ptolemy likely got Ashurbanipal confused with his older brother, Šamaš-šuma-ukin, who ruled over Babylon, not Assyria. This would be a plausible explanation for the origin of the Greek name “Saosduchin”.
As argued by Vigouroux, the two battles mentioned in the Septuagint version of the Book of Judith are a reference to the clash of the two empires in 658–657 and to Phraortes' death in battle in 653, after which Ashurbanipal continued his military actions with a large campaign starting with the Battle of the Ulaya River (652 BC) on the 18th year of this Assyrian king. Contemporary sources make reference to the many allies of Chaldea (governed by Ashurbanipal's rebel brother Shamash-shum-ukin), including the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah, which were subjects of Assyria and are mentioned in the Book of Judith as victims of Ashurbanipal's Western campaign.
During that period, as in the Book of Judith, there was no king in Judah since the legitimate sovereign, Manasseh of Judah, was being held captive in Nineveh at this time. As a typical policy of the time, all leadership was thus transferred in the hands of the High Priest of Israel in charge, which was Joakim in this case (Judith 4:6). The profanation of the temple (Judith 4:3) might have been that under king Hezekiah (see 2 Chronicles, xxix, 18–19), who reigned between c. 715 and 686 BC.
Although Nebuchadnezzar and Ashurbanipal's campaigns show clear and direct parallels, the main incident of Judith's intervention has not been found in any known historical records. Additionally, the reasons for the name changes are difficult to understand, unless the text was transmitted without character names before they were added by the Greek translator, who lived centuries later. Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin argues the possibility that the book of Judith is a roman à clef, a historical record with different names for people and places. Ashurbanipal is never referenced by name in the Bible, except perhaps for the corrupt form "Asenappar" in 2 Chronicles and Ezra 4:10 or the anonymous title "The King of Assyria" in 2 Chronicles (33:11), which means his name might have never been recorded by Jewish historians, which could explain the lack of his name in the book of Judith.
Identification of Nebuchadnezzar with Artaxerxes III Ochus
The identity of Nebuchadnezzar was unknown to the Church Fathers, but some of them attempted an improbable identification with Artaxerxes III Ochus (425–338 BC), not on the basis of the character of the two rulers, but due to the presence of a "Holofernes" and a "Bagoas" in Ochus' army. This view also gained currency with scholarship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Identification of Nebuchadnezzar with Tigranes the Great
Modern scholars argue in favor of a 2nd–1st century context for the Book of Judith, understanding it as a sort of roman à clef, i.e. a literary fiction whose characters stand for some real historical figure, generally contemporary to the author. In the case of the Book of Judith, Biblical scholar Gabriele Boccaccini, identified Nebuchadnezzar with Tigranes the Great (140–56 BC), a powerful King of Armenia who, according to Josephus and Strabo, conquered all of the lands identified by the Biblical author in Judith.
Under this theory, the story, although fictional, would be set in the time of Queen Salome Alexandra, the only Jewish regnant queen, who reigned over Judea from 76 to 67 BC.
Like Judith, the Queen had to face the menace of a foreign king who had a tendency to destroy the temples of other religions. Both women were widows whose strategical and diplomatic skills helped in the defeat of the invader. Both stories seem to be set at a time when the temple had recently been rededicated, which is the case after Judas Maccabee killed Nicanor and defeated the Seleucids. The territory of Judean occupation includes the territory of Samaria, something which was possible in Maccabean times only after John Hyrcanus reconquered those territories. Thus, the presumed Sadducee author of Judith would desire to honor the great (Pharisee) Queen who tried to keep both Sadducees and Pharisees united against the common menace.
Location of Bethulia
Although there is no historically recorded "Bethulia", the book of Judith gives an extremely precise location for where the city is located, and there are several possible candidates of ancient towns in that area that are now ruins. It has widely been speculated that, based on location descriptions in the book, that the most plausible historical site for Bethulia is Shechem. Shechem is a large city in the hill-country of Samaria, on the direct road from Jezreel to Jerusalem, lying in the path of the enemy, at the head of an important pass and is a few hours south of Geba. The Jewish Encyclopedia subscribes to the theory, suggesting that it was called by a pseudonym because of the historical animosity between the Jews and Samaritans. The Jewish Encyclopedia claims that Shechem is the only location that meets all the requirements for Bethulia's location, further stating: "The identity of Bethulia with Shechem is thus beyond all question".
The Catholic Encyclopedia writes: "The city was situated on a mountain overlooking the plain of Jezrael, or Esdrelon, and commanding narrow passes to the south (); at the foot of the mountain there was an important spring, and other springs were in the neighborhood (). Moreover it lay within investing lines which ran through Dothain, or Dothan, now Tell Dothân, to Belthem, or Belma, no doubt the same as the Belamon of , and thence to Kyamon, or Chelmon, "which lies over against Esdrelon" (). These data point to a site on the heights west of Jenin (Engannim), between the plains of Esdrelon and Dothan, where Haraiq el-Mallah, Khirbet Sheikh Shibel and el-Bârid lie close together. Such a site best fulfills all requirements for the location of Bethulia.
The Madaba Map mosaic from the 6th century AD, shows a settlement named "Betylion" (Greek Β[ΗΤ]ΥΛΙΟΝ). Many believe this to be Bethulia, but this is unlikely because it is located much farther south. This Betylion is located on the Egyptian border with Gaza, in modern-day Sheikh Zuweid. It is more likely that the name "Betylion" refers to the Arab Bedouin tribe.
Place names specific to the Book of Judith
Whilst a number of the places referred to are familiar biblical or modern place names, there are others which are considered fictional or whose location is not otherwise known. These include:
1:5 – the territory of Ragae, possible Rages or Rhages, cf. Tobit 1:16
1:6 – the rivers Euphrates and Tigris are mentioned, as well as the Hydaspes (Jadason in the Vulgate). Hydaspes is also the Greek name for the Jhelum River in modern India and Pakistan
2:21 – the plain of Bectileth, three days' march from Nineveh
4:4 – Kona
4:4 – Belmain
4:4 – Choba
4:4 – Aesora. The Septuagint calls it Aisora, Arasousia, Aisoraa, or Assaron, depending on the manuscript.
4:4 – The valley of Salem
4:6 and several later references – Bethulia, a gated city (Judith 10:6). From the gates of the city, the valley below can be observed (Judith 10:10)
4:6 – Betomesthaim or Betomasthem. Some translations refer to "the people of Bethulia and Betomesthaim" as a unit, which "faces (singular) Esdraelon opposite the plain near Dothan. The Encyclopaedia Britannica refers to the "Plain of Esdraelon" as the plain between the Galilee hills and Samaria.
4:6 – A plain near Dothan (Dothian in the Vulgate)
7:3 – Cyalon or Cynamon, also facing Esdraelon. The Encyclopedia of the Bible notes that "some scholars have felt that this name is a corruption for Jokneam", but its editors argue that there is "little evidence to support this conjecture".
7:18 – Egrebeh, which is near Chubi, beside the Wadi Mochmur.
8:4 – Balamon. Some versions state that Manasseh, Judith's husband, had been buried in a field between Dothan and Balamon (Jerusalem Bible, New Revised Standard Version); others state that he was buried in Bethulia where he had died (Vulgate, Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition).
15:4 – Along with Betomesthaim, some authorities also mention Bebai.
Later artistic renditions
The character of Judith is larger than life, and she has won a place in Jewish and Christian lore, art, poetry and drama. Her name, which means "she will be praised" or "woman of Judea", suggests that she represents the heroic spirit of the Jewish people, and that same spirit, as well as her chastity, have endeared her to Christianity.
Owing to her unwavering religious devotion, she is able to step outside of her widow's role, and dress and act in a sexually provocative manner while clearly remaining true to her ideals in the reader's mind, and her seduction and beheading of the wicked Holofernes while playing this role has been rich fodder for artists of various genres.
In literature
The first extant commentary on The Book of Judith is by Hrabanus Maurus (9th century). Thenceforth her presence in medieval European literature is robust: in homilies, biblical paraphrases, histories and poetry. An Old English poetic version is found together with Beowulf (their epics appear both in the Nowell Codex). "The opening of the poem is lost (scholars estimate that 100 lines were lost) but the remainder of the poem, as can be seen, the poet reshaped the biblical source and set the poem's narrative to an Anglo–Saxon audience."
At the same time she is the subject of a homily by the Anglo-Saxon abbot Ælfric. The two conceptual poles represented by these works will inform much of Judith's subsequent history.
In the epic, she is the brave warrior, forceful and active; in the homily she is an exemplar of pious chastity for cloistered nuns. In both cases, her narrative gained relevance from the Viking invasions of the period. Within the next three centuries Judith would be treated by such major figures as Heinrich Frauenlob, Dante, and Geoffrey Chaucer.
In medieval Christian art, the predominance of church patronage assured that Judith's patristic valences as "Mulier Sancta" and Virgin Mary prototype would prevail: from the 8th-century frescoes in Santa Maria Antigua in Rome through innumerable later bible miniatures. Gothic cathedrals often featured Judith, most impressively in the series of 40 stained glass panels at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris (1240s).
In Renaissance literature and visual arts, all of these trends were continued, often in updated forms, and developed. The already well established notion of Judith as an exemplum of the courage of local people against tyrannical rule from afar was given new urgency by the Assyrian nationality of Holofernes, which made him an inevitable symbol of the threatening Turks. The Italian Renaissance poet Lucrezia Tornabuoni chose Judith as one of the five subjects of her poetry on biblical figures.
A similar dynamic was created in the 16th century by the confessional strife of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Both Protestants and Catholics draped themselves in the protective mantle of Judith and cast their "heretical" enemies as Holofernes.
In 16th-century France, writers such as Guillaume Du Bartas, Gabrielle de Coignard and Anne de Marquets composed poems on Judith's triumph over Holofernes. Croatian poet and humanist Marko Marulić also wrote an epic on Judith's story in 1501, the Judita. Italian poet and scholar Bartolomeo Tortoletti wrote a Latin epic on the Biblical character of Judith (Bartholomaei Tortoletti Iuditha uindex e uindicata, 1628). The Catholic tract A Treatise of Schisme, written in 1578 at Douai by the English Roman Catholic scholar Gregory Martin, included a paragraph in which Martin expressed confidence that "the Catholic Hope would triumph, and pious Judith would slay Holofernes". This was interpreted by the English Protestant authorities at the time as incitement to slay Queen Elizabeth I. It served as the grounds for the death sentence passed on printer William Carter who had printed Martin's tract and who was executed in 1584.
In painting and sculpture
The subject is one of the most commonly shown in the Power of Women topos. The account of Judith's beheading of Holofernes has been treated by several painters and sculptors, most notably Donatello and Caravaggio, as well as Sandro Botticelli, Andrea Mantegna, Giorgione, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Titian, Horace Vernet, Gustav Klimt, Artemisia Gentileschi, Jan Sanders van Hemessen, Trophime Bigot, Francisco Goya, Francesco Cairo and Hermann-Paul. Also, Michelangelo depicts the scene in multiple aspects in one of the Pendentives, or four spandrels on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Judy Chicago included Judith with a place setting in The Dinner Party.
In music and theatre
The famous 40-voice motet Spem in alium by English composer Thomas Tallis, is a setting of a text from the Book of Judith. The story also inspired oratorios by Antonio Vivaldi, W. A. Mozart and Hubert Parry, and an operetta by Jacob Pavlovitch Adler. Marc-Antoine Charpentier has composed, Judith sive Bethulia liberata H.391, oratorio for soloists, chorus, 2 flutes, strings, and continuo (? mid-1670s). Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre (EJG.30) and Sébastien de Brossard have composed a cantate Judith.
Alessandro Scarlatti wrote an oratorio in 1693, La Giuditta, as did the Portuguese composer Francisco António de Almeida in 1726; Juditha triumphans was written in 1716 by Antonio Vivaldi; Mozart composed in 1771 La Betulia Liberata (KV 118), to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio. Arthur Honegger composed an oratorio, Judith, in 1925 to a libretto by René Morax. Operatic treatments exist by Russian composer Alexander Serov, Judith, by Austrian composer Emil von Reznicek, Holofernes, and Judith by German composer Siegfried Matthus. The French composer Jean Guillou wrote his Judith-Symphonie for Mezzo and Orchestra in 1970, premiered in Paris in 1972 and published by Schott-Music.
In 1840, Friedrich Hebbel's play Judith was performed in Berlin. He deliberately departs from the biblical text:
I have no use for the biblical Judith. There, Judith is a widow who lures Holofernes into her web with wiles, when she has his head in her bag she sings and jubilates with all of Israel for three months. That is mean, such a nature is not worthy of her success [...]. My Judith is paralyzed by her deed, frozen by the thought that she might give birth to Holofernes' son; she knows that she has passed her boundaries, that she has, at the very least, done the right thing for the wrong reasons.
The story of Judith has been a favourite of latter-day playwrights; it was brought alive in 1892 by Abraham Goldfaden, who worked in Eastern Europe. The American playwright Thomas Bailey Aldrich's Judith of Bethulia was first performed in New York, 1905, and was the basis for the 1914 production Judith of Bethulia by director D. W. Griffith. A full hour in length, it was one of the earliest feature films made in the United States. English writer Arnold Bennett in 1919 tried his hand at dramaturgy with Judith, a faithful reproduction in three acts; it premiered in spring 1919 at Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne. In 1981, the play "Judith among the Lepers" by the Israeli (Hebrew) playwright Moshe Shamir was performed in Israel. Shamir examines the question why the story of Judith was excluded from the Jewish (Hebrew) Bible and thus banned from Jewish history. In putting her story on stage he tries to reintegrate Judith's story into Jewish history. English playwright Howard Barker examined the Judith story and its aftermath, first in the scene "The Unforeseen Consequences of a Patriotic Act", as part of his collection of vignettes, The Possibilities. Barker later expanded the scene into a short play Judith.
Notes
References
Further reading
External links
The Book of Judith Full text (also available in Arabic)
Craven, Toni Judith: Apocrypha, The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women 31 December 1999 at Jewish Women's Archive
Toy, Crawford Howell; Torrey, Charles C.JUDITH, BOOK OF at The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906
Book of Judith
Deuterocanonical books
Ancient Hebrew texts
Historical novels
Jewish apocrypha
Biblical women in ancient warfare
Historical books |
420471 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You%20Don%27t%20Know%20Jack%20%28franchise%29 | You Don't Know Jack (franchise) | You Don't Know Jack is a series of video games developed by Jackbox Games (formerly known as Jellyvision Games) and Berkeley Systems, as well as the title of the first You Don't Know Jack game in the series. You Don't Know Jack, framed as a game show "where high culture and pop culture collide", combines trivia with comedy.
While it is primarily a PC and Mac-based franchise with over two dozen releases and compilations for those platforms, there have been a few entries released for consoles: two for the original PlayStation, and the 2011 release which had versions for the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo DS and Wii. In 2012, Jackbox Games developed and published a social version of the game on Facebook with cross-platform versions subsequently released for iOS, Android and Kindle. On November 5, 2013, the majority of the franchise's many volumes and spinoffs were reissued onto Steam by Jackbox Games.
On November 18, 2014, You Don’t Know Jack 2015 was released as part of The Jackbox Party Pack on Windows, macOS, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and later Nintendo Switch, iPad, Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Nvidia Shield, Apple TV, and Xfinity X1. On October 17, 2018, You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream was released as part of The Jackbox Party Pack 5 for the same platforms as You Don't Know Jack 2015, with the exception of PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
History
In 1991, Jellyvision's former identity, Learn Television, released the award-winning film The Mind's Treasure Chest, which featured lead character Jack Patterson. When Learn Television sought to use new multimedia technologies to create a more active learning experience, the company teamed up with Follett Software Company and developed "That's a Fact, Jack!", a reading motivation CD-ROM game show series covering young adult fiction, targeted to 3rd through 10th graders. The game would give a title for a child to read, and then ask questions related to that title.
The idea for You Don't Know Jack began while That's a Fact, Jack! was still in development. The game's title comes from the more vulgar version of the phrase: "You don't know jack shit".
Gameplay
Most versions of the game can be played by up to three players. The game can be played by only one player on the website and the iOS app. The game can be played by up to four players on the tabletop version, You Don't Know Jack 2011 (except for the PC, WebTV, and Nintendo DS versions, which are limited to two players), the OUYA version, Party and the game in The Jackbox Party Pack titled You Don't Know Jack 2015. The Full Stream edition in The Jackbox Party Pack 5 can accommodate up to eight players plus up to 10,000 additional "Audience" members. All versions of the game feature the voice of an off-screen host, who reads questions aloud, provides instructions regarding special question types, and pokes fun at the players.
The game usually opens with a green room segment, in which the players are prompted to enter their names and given instructions for play. The audio during this segment includes rehearsing singers, a busy producer, and a harassed studio manager/host. The only graphics are a large "On Air/Stand By" sign in the middle of the screen, visual representations of the players' button assignments, and a box for name entry. If the players take too long to think of their names or if the players press the "return" or "enter" key without typing in their names, then the announcer will name the players.
In games starting with the Netshow, on certain days, such as Christmas Eve, or certain times such as a Saturday night, or even during Twilight, the announcer will mention the time of day or the special holiday, and sometimes grumble about the game being played at that time or on that day. There is no box for name entry in the second episode of The Ride. In the PlayStation versions, after the game is finished, players can name themselves next to the score recorded. In the console versions of You Don't Know Jack 2011, the OUYA version, and the single-player games of You Don't Know Jack 2015, the players are prompted to choose their names that they typed in before starting the game. (The console versions of You Don't Know Jack 2011 also allows players to make new names in the "Contestants" section.)
If one or more players choose the "I don't care" option, the announcer or the host will tell that they refused to enter their names. Additionally in these games, the sign-in screen is famous for an Easter egg where if the player types in the phrase "fuck you" as their name. The phrase will be changed to a good name afterwards. In You Don't Know Jack 2011 and OUYA, the announcer will tell the player that they have no friends or didn't use proper English.
In You Don't Know Jack 2015, the host will punish the player for typing the offending name. If the player does it once, the host will deduct $1,000 from their score. If the player does it again, the host will deduct $50,001 from their score. (The deduction is only cinematic, and does not persist to the first question of the game.) If the player does it three or more times, the host will end the game with a goat, forcing the player to return to the main menu of the game.
Most versions of You Don't Know Jack offer the choice of playing a 7- or 21-question game; some versions offer only 15 questions (the Netshow, Louder! Faster! Funnier!, 5th Dementia and Mock 2), and others offer only 13 questions (The Ride), 11 questions (HeadRush, You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS, OUYA, Party, You Don't Know Jack 2015 and Full Stream), or 7 questions ("The Lost Gold" and the Flash website). In a 21-question game, there is a brief intermission after the tenth question. Most questions are multiple choice, with some occasional free-entry questions, or mini-games. The Facebook version offers only 5 questions.
In its original format (Vol. 1, Sports, Vol. 2, Movies, TV, Vol 3, HeadRush, Offline, Louder! Faster! Funnier! and "The Lost Gold"), before each question, one player is given a choice of three categories. Each has a humorous title that has some connection to the topic of the corresponding question. After a short animated introduction, which is often followed by a sung jingle about the question number, the host asks the question. Typically, the question is multiple choice and players are given 10 seconds to select an answer. The first player to "buzz in" and give the correct answer wins the money for that question and gets to choose the next category.
If a player answers incorrectly, they lose money, but not before the host wisecracks about it. If all players answer incorrectly, or if none of the players buzz in and answer the question before the timer runs out, the host will reveal the correct answer; failing to answer doesn't affect a player's score, the host will then randomly choose a player to select another category. In The Ride, 5th Dementia, Mock 2, the website, You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS, the Facebook version, OUYA, Party, You Don't Know Jack 2015 and Full Stream, the category is chosen by the host or pre-assigned to an episode.
Players can still buzz and answer within 10 seconds in The Ride, 5th Dementia and Mock 2, while in You Don't Know Jack 2011, the Facebook version, OUYA, Party, You Don't Know Jack 2015 and Full Stream, all players answer separately within 20 seconds (more than one player can select the same answer). There are occasionally other question types offered (see below).
In earlier versions' multi-player games, each player is allowed one chance to "screw" an opponent in each half of a full (21-question) game, or once in an entire short (7-question) game. Using the "screw" forces the opponent to give an answer to a question within 10 seconds. If the player who is "screwed" answers correctly, they win the money while the player who "screwed" them loses money. This basic design has changed slightly in some versions of the game.
For example, in the teen spinoff HeadRush, the screws are replaced by pairs of false teeth, so players "bite" their opponent instead. In The Ride, the feature is known as "FlakJack" and allows a player to fire multiple screws into the screen, partially or totally obscuring the question and answers. The player then chooses an opponent, who must answer even if the question is no longer readable. In German-language versions of the series, nails are used instead of screws.
In You Don't Know Jack 2011, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015, if a player uses the screw on an opponent, they only have 5 seconds to answer the question. If the screwed player answers incorrectly or fails to answer before the 5 seconds are up, the player who used the screw takes the money from them. It is possible to use the screw on yourself, but after the host tells you about the screw, you will still lose the money based on the time you used it at.
In Full Stream, either one or two screws (depending on the total number of players in the game, not counting Audience members) could be awarded in one of two ways: (1) they could be given to the player(s) who gave the fewest correct answers in Question 3, the "DisOrDat" round; and (2) to the lowest-scoring player(s) at the break before Question 6, which starts Round Two. (Several factors—too numerous to name here—determined how many screws would be awarded in each case, and players could only hold one screw at a time.) Unlike previous versions of the game, screws can affect all other players instead of just one (most notably if they have not yet answered before the screw is activated), and they make the question more difficult to answer for the players instead of forcing them to answer within a short amount of time.
Those include removing all vowels from the answers on their devices, flipping the text of the question and the answers upside-down or backwards on their devices, making the text of the question and the answers on their devices extremely small or large, making the answers hashtagged on their devices, putting the answers on their devices into shades of gray, or bouncing the answers around the screen in the style of a DVD screensaver program. Others include forcing the players to enter a password, scroll through an excessively long "Terms of Service" form, or change their screen names before being able to select an answer. After the correct answer is revealed, the player who used the screw earns extra money.
In earlier games, different category options were worth differing amounts of money, which was revealed after a category was chosen. This amount indicated how difficult the question would be. Amounts initially varied between $1,000, $2,000, & $3,000, and were doubled during the second round of questions. However, Vol. 1, Sports, Vol. 2 and Movies occasionally featured questions hosted by guests spawned from Fiber Optic Field Trips and Celebrity Collect Calls; these were worth $5,000 and appeared as the first question of the second round.
Later games in the series didn't give players three randomly generated categories, but instead gave a set number of questions in a set order. In The Ride, players 'buzz in' to set the amount of money the question is worth. Values could range from only a few hundred dollars to $10,000 or more. In 5th Dementia, the amounts of money each player sets add up to the total amount. In Mock 2, the host chooses a category and sets the amount of money to either $1,000, $2,000, or $3,000.
In the website, You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS, the Facebook version, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015, players win money based on how long it took to answer correctly within the 20 seconds. The money is not doubled on the website or the Facebook version, but it was doubled in You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015. In Full Stream, all questions in categories the host selected are worth $1,000 (double in Round 2).
Some of the volumes have a feature called "Don't Be a Wimp", which is activated if one player has a very large lead. If no one answers a question, the host may deride the leading player, calling on the audience to shout "Don't be a wimp!", and forcing the leader to answer the question.
In some volumes, the host also punishes a player who buzzes in too early; the question disappears and a text box shows up, leaving the player with 10 seconds to type the answer. For The Ride and 5th Dementia, this is replaced by different punishments: the player is forced to pick from a list of four nonsensical answers, all of which are wrong, or both the question and answers are scrambled. This punishment is only triggered if a player buzzes in at the very instant that the question appears on the screen. In those three instances, the player that buzzed in too early is not permitted to "screw" the other players.
In some volumes, the host removes the question so the players don't cheat; the four possible choices are still shown.
Question types
The majority of You Don't Know Jack questions are multiple choice, with four possible choices. Some questions are fill-in-the-blank, requiring a typed response.
Special questions are also played during the game. Each version of You Don't Know Jack has its own different types of special questions, but some of the most common are:
DisOrDat: This exists in all versions except Vol. 1 and Sports. Only one player plays the DisOrDat with a 30-second time limit (in earlier games, this is played by the player that got the question right, in later games, this is played by the player with the lowest score). The player is given two categories and seven different subjects, and it is up to the player to determine which category the subject falls under (or, in some cases, whether the subject fits both of the two categories). For example, the player might have to determine if Jay Leno was a daytime or a nighttime talk show host, if orecchiette is a type of pasta or a parasite, or if "Urban" is the name of a Pope or a Britney Spears song. Money is added for every correct answer, and deducted (or stolen by the other player(s) in the offline version of You Don't Know Jack 2011, Roku, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015) for every wrong answer, as usual; any questions not answered before the 30 seconds expires are treated as wrong, and penalized accordingly. In Full Stream, all players play the DisOrDat simultaneously with a 5- or 10-second time limit for each subject.
Gibberish Questions: These exist in all versions except HeadRush, the PlayStation versions, the website, You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS, Roku, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015. Players are given a mondegreen: a nonsensical phrase whose syllables rhyme with a more common phrase or title. For example, "Pre-empt Tires, Like Crack" could be the gibberish to The Empire Strikes Back. The question has a time limit of 30 seconds, and the first player to buzz in and type the correct answer wins the money. Clues are given as time passes, but the money decreases by 5% of the initial starting value with every 1.5 seconds that elapse. The money could go unrewarded if the amount goes down to $0. In The Ride, the money decreases steadily over the entire 30 seconds. This question is famous for an Easter egg where if the first player types in the phrase "fuck you" ("fuck off" in the British version, and "Arschloch" in the German versions) as the answer, the host will respond annoyed and will either deduct $50,000 from their score or reset their score to $0 (whichever punishment is bigger), may deduct an additional $100,000 from their score, and may change their name. If another player does it, the host will respond by chastising that player for a lack of originality, but will not deduct any money from their score or change their name. If a third player does it, the host will declare the game to be over and leave, automatically closing out the software. If the player presses any key while the host is talking, the host will say an extra statement regarding that the game is ending regardless of what the player does before the software closes out. This Easter egg varies in later volumes of the game. In the 5th Dementia, the host will respond by deducting $100,000 from the first player that typed the offending answer and replacing the player's spaceship avatar with a bare foot. If another player does it, the host will deduct $2 from that player's score. If a third player does it, the host will declare the game to be over and leave, automatically closing out the software as usual. No additional dialogue from the host is provided from pressing any keys. Furthermore, no name change is given to any of the players. In "The Lost Gold", the host will respond by deducting $52,681 from the first player that typed the offending answer and changing the player's name to "Arschloch" (a hold-over from the German Vol. 4, where the easter egg is triggered by typing "Arschloch"). If another player does it, the host will deduct $92,681 from that player's score, but will not change their name. If a third player does it, the host will declare the game to be over and leave, but instead of forcing the software to close out, the host will take the players to a joke mini-game called "Gorilla Hunter"; the player is given six bullets, but there's nothing to shoot at and the gun cannot be reloaded, forcing the players to exit the game manually through the pause menu. In the Facebook version, the host mocks the player saying that he can say the "nasty words" as well and proceeds to say a lot of them bleeped-out of context; no extra money is lost other than the normal wrong answer penalty. In Full Stream, after the answer is revealed, the host will beam an Easter egg to the device of any players who entered in “fuck you” which explains the history of the Easter egg to them, with the host assuming they entered it in only for the Easter egg, and like in the Facebook version, no extra money is lost.
Anagram Questions: These only exist in 5th Dementia and "The Lost Gold", and follow the same rules as the Gibberish Questions; however, instead of trying to figure out a rhyme, players must rearrange the letters given into a saying, name, or other group (as in the famous example of "genuine class" being an anagram of "Alec Guinness"). Unlike in other question types requiring a typed-in answer, the answer to an Anagram Question must be spelled exactly right to win the money. This type of question also appears in the Facebook version, but instead of being text-based, it is multiple choice.
HeadButt: Only existing in HeadRush, these also follow the rules of the Gibberish Questions. Players are given a word equation (for example, "color of pickles + opposite of night") and have to put it together to form a name or other group (in this case, the color of pickles is "Green", and the opposite of night is "Day", so the answer would be "Green Day").
Fiber Optic Field Trips: These only exist in Vol. 1, Sports, Vol. 2, and Movies, and only appear in full (21-question) games. The host calls a random person from out of the phonebook and asks them to come up with a trivia question. Fiber Optic Field Trips are initiated during the first half of the game, and the trivia question hosted by the special guest is the first question of the second half. All categories for this question type are worth $5,000.
Celebrity Collect Calls: These only exist in Vol. 2 and follow the same basic format as the Fiber Optic Field Trips. The host calls a celebrity and asks them to come up with a trivia question. Celebrities include Tim Allen, Florence Henderson, and Vanessa L. Williams. Sometimes, the conversation between the host and the celebrity lasts a very long time.
Pub Quizzes: These replace the Fiber Optic Field Trips and Celebrity Collect Calls in the British version of the game. Instead of calling a random person in a city, the host calls a bartender in a random pub within the UK to give the players a question.
Trash Talkin' with Milan: Only existing in HeadRush, "Milan the Janitor" (voiced by Igor Gasowski) hosts a standard multiple choice question about grammar.
Bug Out: This only exists in 5th Dementia. The goal is simple: Bugs will crawl and display a choice. When you see a choice that does not match the clue, buzz in. In a multiplayer match, if you are right, your opponents pay you money, but if you are wrong, you pay your opponents.
Fill in the Blank: Instead of having four answers to choose from, you have to type the answer out.
Sequel Question: Some questions have questions that refer to them and are guaranteed to appear immediately after them. When this happens, all three selectable categories will refer to the Sequel Question. In The Ride, 5th Dementia, Mock 2, the website, You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015, all questions are arranged into 'episodes' whose questions always appear in the same order. This allows for a question to refer to any previous question, and for running jokes to be made. In You Don't Know Jack 2011, as the question sets are set into episodes, there will be questions that are 20 or 30 questions after the first. ('A Harp out of Harp' related to Cookie's party episode.) In Full Stream, there are also Sequel Questions, most notably in a series of questions with a "Special Guest" (see Guest Host Question below). Additionally, in Full Stream, certain series of questions can also trigger a specific post-game event, like with the question “This Question Is Computer Generated”, which is followed by Nate Shapiro hosting an episode of Truth Talk 23/7 after the game.
Pissed About A Question: A special kind of Sequel Question. This only exists in both Offline volumes. Jellyvision creates new questions about angry letters they have received from irritated players. Each of these questions is based upon a letter from a viewer who complained about the previous question.
RoadKill/Coinkydink: This only exists in The Ride (as RoadKill) and Mock 2 (as Coinkydink). In this fast-paced question type, players are given two clues (for example, "Sexy voice" and "Hefty kid"). Several words fly past in rapid succession, and the players must buzz in when the word on the screen connects the two clues in a pair (in this case, the answer is "husky"). At the end of the question, players can earn a bonus for choosing the category which all the correct answers have in common.
Jack BINGO: This only exists in The Ride. A five-letter word related to the episode's theme is first given (for example, W-I-M-P-S in an episode about gym class). A clue to an answer is provided, after which the letters in the given word are randomly lit. The players must buzz in when the first letter to the clue's answer is lit. (In the example, the clue may be "SNL's Doug and Wendy __"; the player rings in when the "W" is lit for the word "Whiner.") $500 and that answer's letter is given to the first player who is correct, and the next clue is given; a $500 penalty is received for wrongly timed responses. The first to collect enough answers to spell out the given word wins the prize declared before the start of this mini-round; it can go unrewarded if nobody finishes the word after a set number of clues.
ThreeWay: This only exists in Vol. 3 and the first PlayStation version. Players are given three words that have something in common (for example, solid, liquid, and gas) and several clues that only relate to one of the words (for example, "__ Plumr"). Players must match the clues to the proper words. The possible answers flash up on the screen, and the players must buzz in when the correct answer appears (in this case, "liquid").
Wendithap'n: This exists in Louder! Faster! Funnier!, Mock 2 and "The Lost Gold" and its German version You Don't Know Jack Vol. 4 (as Wann War Was?) and follows the same rules as the ThreeWay. The player is given an event (either in pop culture history, or in sequence order) and must decide if several other events occurred before it, after it, or never occurred at all.
Guest Host Question: Someone else hosts the question, and it appears in Vol. 3 and The Ride. In Full Stream, this question is known as a "Special Guest" Question with Jimmy Fallon (which bleeds over into the rest of that particular game).
Impossible Questions: Only existing in Vol. 3 and the first PlayStation version, Impossible Questions are worth very large amounts of money, but as the name implies, they are almost always very, very difficult. Examples of Impossible Questions include what color eyes the bald guy has on the box of You Don't Know Jack Sports, the number of years between the invention of the can and that of the first practical can opener within a two-year range (high or low), what number between one and nine the host is thinking of, or what the third word is in the third scene in the third act of Richard III. They can be either multiple choice or fill-in-the-blank. In a case of double-bluffing, one question, 'What has four legs, a tail, and barks?', has the category 'It's a Dog!' and the answer 'a dog'. "The Lost Gold" has a variation of this question as well, not formally named and consisting of Pirate-themed questions such as "What was the name of Blackbeard's Parrot?" This was connected to the game's plot - as explained in the game's introduction, a pirate has been cursed to haunt the game until its players accrue enough 'booty'. The pirate has thus secretly arranged the pirate-themed questions, which he believes are still common knowledge, in an attempt to speed up the process, not realizing how obscure and archaic his knowledge has become.
Super Audio Question: A sound will play, and the host will ask you a question about it.
Whatshisname Question: In this question, the host is trying to remember a certain name of a person, place, or other group. A clue is provided every few seconds, and the player must buzz in and type the name to win the money. This question is known in HeadRush as Old Man's Moldy Memories and in You Don't Know Jack 2015 as Foggy Facts with Old Man which both feature the character of "Old Man" (voiced by Andy Poland) in which he hosts the question.
Picture Question: This is similar to the Super Audio Question, but based on a picture rather than a sound.
Who's The Dummy?: This exists in You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS, the Facebook version, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015. The host has taken up ventriloquism, and asks a trivia question by way of his ventriloquist dummy, Billy O'Brien (or his sister Betty O'Brien). As the host explains, he has difficulty pronouncing consonant sounds such as B's, P's, and M's (which become D's, T's, and N's, respectively, and are translated as such in the text of the question and the answer choices), which adds a minor layer of difficulty to the question. The dummy also hosts one question in Full Stream.
Cookie's Fortune Cookie Fortunes (with Cookie "Fortune Cookie" Masterson): This exists in You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS, the Facebook version, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015. This mini-round appears randomly and includes trivia questions inspired by cliche fortune cookie messages that Cookie Masterson receives. For example, the fortune "You have a magnetic personality." leads to a question regarding which metal-based fictional character might be most attracted to him.
Funky Trash: This exists in You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS, the Facebook version, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015. The host roots through the trash of a famous person, and the players must identify that person by his or her trash. For example, a World War I ambulance driver's license, cigar butts from Cuba, and a can of ointment for 6-toed cats would be clues to Ernest Hemingway.
It's The Put The Choices Into Order Then Buzz In And See If You Are Right Question: This exists in You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS, the Facebook version, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015. The host gives three or four items and the player has to buzz in to the corresponding correct answer. The question is multiple choice, meaning that, technically, the player does not have to put the answers into the right order themselves but rather just pick the right order out of the four possibilities. For example, the player might have to determine the order in which the St. Louis Arch, the McDonald's Golden Arches, and the Archie comic book series debuted. Answering correctly awards the player an extra $1,000, however, the extra money is not lost if a player is wrong.
Nocturnal Admissions (with Cookie Masterson): Only existing in You Don't Know Jack 2011, Cookie Masterson tells the player about a dream he had, which is based on a movie. The player then has to tell which movie that dream was about. The characters of the movie are replaced by Cookie himself, his cats and his mother, which often makes it difficult to figure out the correct one. For example, Cookie tells of a dream in which he transferred his mind into a fake cat body so he could learn the culture of his two cats. He does this to help with his mother's research, but falls into love with the cat world and is therefore attacked by his mother's troops. The correct answer to this dream would be James Cameron's Avatar.
Wrong Answer of the Game: Not a question in and of itself, the Wrong Answer of the Game appears in You Don't Know Jack 2011, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015. Before the beginning of the game, Schmitty announces a satirical sponsor for the episode (similar to The Ride). If a player manages to buzz in with the wrong answer associated with the sponsor, they win $4,000 (double in Round 2) and a 'prize' from the sponsor, instead of losing money. For example, in the episode sponsored by 'BloodCo.', answering with the incorrect answer 'Dracula' awards money and a bucket of human blood.
Elephant, Mustard, Teddy Roosevelt or Dracula? / Kangaroo, Peanut, Albert Einstein or Uranus? / Octopus, Coffee, Queen Elizabeth or Frankenstein?: First appeared in the iOS and Facebook versions, questions in this category always have the same four answer choices: Elephant, Mustard, Teddy Roosevelt and Dracula. The question is posed in definition form, such as "Could be considered a Bull Moose". The player must decide, of the four answer choices, which one fits the definition. In this case, the answer is Teddy Roosevelt; he ran for president in 1912 as the Progressive Party's candidate, and his party was nicknamed the Bull Moose Party. The concept is the same in You Don't Know Jack 2015 with Kangaroo, Peanut, Albert Einstein, and Uranus, and in Full Stream with Octopus, Coffee, Queen Elizabeth, and Frankenstein, which could be either the monster or the Doctor (and is specified in the question's animation).
Data Mining: This only exists in Full Stream. A selection of a well-known personality's search history, in the form of queries or statements, are read to the players, who then have to choose the correct person the searches came from. For example, the searches "Directions to get around that track", "Is 'I ain't no' grammatically correct?", and "Why do these bananas taste like [REDACTED]?" would belong to Gwen Stefani (referencing lyrics from her song Hollaback Girl). Data Mining is a spiritual successor to Funky Trash.
Player's Choice: This only exists in Full Stream. At a moment of the game, the Binjpipe host asks players, including the audience, to vote between two question categories. The question with the highest percentage of the votes is the question that will be asked. (In case of a 50%/50% tie, the Binjpipe host chooses between the two, presumably at random.) Examples of choices include: "An easy question" or "A hard question", and "A question with airhorns" or "A question ABOUT airhorns".
Binjpipe Recommends: This only exists in Full Stream. A question is based on the genre, subject(s) or rating of a movie or TV show that is recommended by Binjpipe, presumably influenced by your prior "viewing choices" or internet research as referred to in the question.
Jack Attack
The final round of the game, called the Jack Attack in most versions and also known as the HeadRush in HeadRush, is a word association question. The category for this final round—which generally describes the desired correct answers—was determined differently, depending on which version of the game is being played. In earlier versions of the game, this was based on the final selected category; in later versions, the category is selected by the game or pre-assigned to an episode.
In most versions of the game, a word, phrase, or name appears in the middle of the screen, to which the player must find an associated word or phrase that fits the overall category. For example, Star Wars might be the associated word, and the correct answer fitting "movie stars" could be Harrison Ford. Other possibilities offered might include actors not in that film, or other objects or concepts related to the film but which are not stars of the movie. For each associated subject, several potential matches appear on screen one-at-a-time for only a few seconds each before disappearing, and only one is correct. The topics and/or potential answers are sometimes humorous.
Players win money if they buzz in when the correct match is displayed on the screen. An incorrect guess deducts money from the player's score—not just once, but every time the player buzzes in incorrectly (it is possible to buzz in incorrectly multiple times while the same incorrect answer is shown). The money earned or lost was $2,000 in most You Don't Know Jack volumes, $5,000 in HeadRush, an amount set by the players in The Ride and 5th Dementia, $4,000 in You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS and Roku, $1,000 in the Facebook version, and $100, $500, or $1,000 in Full Stream depending on how long it takes the player to press the answer. Multiple players play simultaneously, playing to the same words. The words that are not matched will be cycled back in once all seven subjects have been attempted.
Jack Attack ends after either all seven subjects are either (a) matched with the right answer, or (b) attempted twice (some subjects are attempted three times). The exceptions are in some episodes of You Don't Know Jack 2011 and iOS, and all episodes of the Facebook version and You Don't Know Jack 2015, where all seven subjects are only shown once.
In Full Stream, only six subjects are given per "Attack". In each case, the same clue and subject in the center of the screen are presented to the players, with six associated words—added two at a time—can all be available at once, and more than one answer can be correct. Players earn money for correct choices and lose money for incorrect choices. Then the players choose their answers, the less money is earned or lost per choice (either $1,000, $500, or $100). And since each player answers separately on their device, all players can score—either positively or negatively—on all the answers, but only once per selected answer.
In all versions of the game, the running total of each player's score is not shown anywhere on the screen during Jack Attack, and this part of the game is usually accompanied by ominous music or ambient sounds. This creates tension between players because of the uncertainty of ranking, and the unsettling atmosphere.
Game show theme
Throughout the You Don't Know Jack franchise, there has been a running theme of You Don't Know Jack taking place on a self-titled televised game show where the players are the contestants. This idea is shown by satirical fake commercials that can be heard while starting the game, and in most games, after the game has finished (see below).
In Full Stream, instead of the game taking place on a traditional broadcast TV game show, the game becomes a show hosted on a fictional streaming service called Binjpipe. Between questions, the game navigates through the Binjpipe interface. During the game, a new female host (representing Binjpipe) speaks before the game, and hosts some question types like Binjpipe Recommends and Data Mining.
Commercials
One of the unique features of the game takes place after it has ended. Before you start a new game, you can choose to listen to You Don't Know Jack staff performing parodies of various radio commercials. The commercials vary in absurdity, selling products such as scented suppositories or foreign language cassettes to help you learn how to speak American.
They also featured phony news stories about everyday things. Examples: "Oxygen: Gas of Life? or Secret Military Death-Vapor?" or "People are falling unconscious for 8 hours every night. What is the 'sleeping disease'? Do you have it? Find out tonight."
Most You Don't Know Jack games feature recurring characters like "Chocky the Chipmunk", a breakfast cereal mascot with the catchphrase "Pink and tartie!" or "Xenora: Queen of Battle", a parody of Xena, Warrior Princess that gets involved in overtly erotic situations. Others are "The Movie Ending Phone", "1-800-me4-sale", "Cancer Stick tobacco lip balm", "Momma's Pride Human Breast Milk", "Buster's Bait Shop" and parodies of public service announcements from the fictional "United States Department of Condescending Paternalism".
The first CD-ROM for The Ride features a CD of a selection of these commercials from the previous games in the series. The disc was titled You Don't Hear Jack and has since been released as a separate product on CD. A second disc titled You Don't Hear Jack 2 was also released featuring commercials from newer versions of You Don't Know Jack. Both are available for digital download.
In Full Stream, commercials for Binjpipe are heard during the sign-in screen while players join in the game. In the post-game, radio shows are heard instead of commercials.
Hosts
There have been many different hosts of You Don't Know Jack over the years. The following is a list of hosts and the games they appear in.
Nate Shapiro (voiced by Harry Gottlieb) – Nate Shapiro was the first host of the series. He hosts Vol. 1, the Netshow, the tabletop game, and episodes 49 to 58 of The Ride. He also hosts a post-game radio show known as Truth Talk 23/7 in Full Stream. He is not to be confused with "Nate the Intern" from the Flash incarnation (voiced by Production & SQA Coordinator Nathan Fernald).
Guy Towers (voiced by Andy Poland) – He hosts Sports, Sports: The Netshow, and episodes 17 to 32 of The Ride.
Buzz Lippman (voiced by Peter B. Spector) – He hosts Vol. 2 and appears in some episodes of The Ride. He is Nate Shapiro's cousin.
Cookie Masterson (voiced by Tom Gottlieb) – Cookie Masterson is the most well-known host of the franchise. He originally served as the sign-in host, taking down players' names in the opening green room segments of Vol. 1, Sports and Vol. 2. He hosts the Netshow, Movies, Vol. 3, the first PlayStation version, episodes 1 to 16 of The Ride, Offline, You Don't Know Jack 2011, iOS, the Facebook version, OUYA, Party, You Don't Know Jack 2015 and Full Stream. He also hosted the daily webshows that appeared on the You Don't Know Jack website from December 2006 through September 2008 (with one special episode in November 2010). He was also the announcer for the short-lived You Don't Know Jack TV show in 2001.
Josh "Schmitty" Schmitstinstein (voiced by Phil Ridarelli) – Josh Schmitstinstein, or "Schmitty", well known as the host of the Quiplash series, is the most recent of all the American CD-ROM hosts. He hosts the Netshow, TV, episodes 33 to 48 of The Ride, Louder! Faster! Funnier! (the second Offline game), 5th Dementia (the Online game), Mock 2 (the second PlayStation game), and "The Lost Gold". He also hosted one particular question in Cookie's volume of Offline. He also announced the sponsors in You Don't Know Jack 2011, the Facebook version, OUYA, Party and You Don't Know Jack 2015. In Full Stream, he hosts a post-game radio show called You Don't Know Jack: Oldies Radio.
Bob (voiced by Andy Poland) – The host of HeadRush.
Jack Cake (voiced by Paul Kaye) – The host of the only British version of You Don't Know Jack.
Quizmaster Jack (voiced by Axel Malzacher in Vol. 1 and Kai Taschner in Vol. 2, Vol. 3: 'Abwärts!, & Vol. 4) – The host of the German versions of You Don't Know Jack.
Masatoshi Hamada – The host of the only Japanese version of You Don't Know Jack, and the only host who is not a fictional character.
Troy Stevens (played by Paul Reubens) – The host of the 2001 You Don't Know Jack TV show. He is the only host whose full physical appearance is known.
Releases
This is a list of the You Don't Know Jack games released:
PC/Mac
Main series
You Don't Know Jack – September 12, 1995
You Don't Know Jack Question Pack – 1996
You Don't Know Jack Vol. 2 – November 30, 1996
Regional versions released in the UK, Germany, France, and Japan.
Released in Germany as You Don't Know Jack.
Released in Japan as You Don't Know Jack Presented by Masatoshi Hamada.
You Don't Know Jack Vol. 3 – October 31, 1997
Released in Germany as You Don't Know Jack Vol. 2.
You Don't Know Jack Vol. 4: The Ride – November 30, 1998
Released in Germany as You Don't Know Jack Vol. 3: Abwärts!
You Don't Know Jack Offline – September 8, 1999
Contains 800 questions from The Netshow plus 200 new questions.
You Don't Know Jack Louder! Faster! Funnier! – March 28, 2000
The sequel to Offline.
You Don't Know Jack 5th Dementia – November 1, 2000
The first game with online functionality.
You Don't Know Jack Vol. 6: The Lost Gold – December 1, 2003
Released in Germany as You Don't Know Jack Vol. 4, featuring online functionality.
You Don't Know Jack – February 8, 2011
Spin-offs
You Don't Know Jack Sports – September 30, 1996
You Don't Know Jack: The Netshow – 1996
Required an Internet connection.
The servers went offline in 2000.
You Don't Know Jack Movies – April 30, 1997
You Don't Know Jack Television – May 9, 1997
You Don't Know Jack Sports: The Netshow – 1997
You Don't Know Jack HeadRush (a teen spin-off game) – April 20, 1998
Console
You Don't Know Jack – September 8, 1999 (PlayStation)
Features questions from Vol. 3, Movies and Offline.
You Don't Know Jack Mock 2 – November 1, 2000 (PlayStation)
Features questions from Vol. 4, Louder! Faster! Funnier! and 5th Dementia.
You Don't Know Jack – February 8, 2011 (PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Wii, Nintendo DS)
You Don't Know Jack – June 11, 2013 (Ouya)
As part of the Jackbox Party Pack
You Don't Know Jack 2015 - November 18, 2014
Released as part of The Jackbox Party Pack.
The game contains 15 episodes from Ouya and Party.
You Don't Know Jack: Full Stream - October 17, 2018
Released as part of The Jackbox Party Pack 5.
Mobile
You Don't Know Jack – April 2011 (iOS)
Removed from App Store in 2012.
You Don't Know Jack – 2012
Based on the Facebook version.
Release:
iOS - December 13, 2012
You Dont Know Jack Lite – 2012 (free version)
Android - May 21, 2013
You Don't Know Jack Party - September 19, 2013 (iOS)
Based on the 2011 and Ouya versions.
Other
You Don't Know Jack (tabletop edition) by Tiger Electronics - 1998
The game came with 500 general knowledge questions on 125 cards; additional 113-card, 450-question expansion packs with TV, Movies and Sports themed trivia were also released.
You Don't Know Jack – 2007–2008
Online beta game on the You Don't Know Jack website.
You Dont Know Jack – 2012 (Roku)
You Don't Know Jack (Facebook) – May 26, 2012
Shut down on March 1, 2015.
Reception
The You Don't Know Jack series shipped 500,000 units by December 1996. Shipments in the United States alone rose to nearly 1 million by February 1998. By 2001, the You Don't Know Jack series had totaled sales of 3.5 million copies. YDKJ sold above 4.5 million copies and drew revenues above $100 million by 2008.
Inside Mac Games named You Don't Know Jack 2 the best puzzle game of 1996. The editors wrote that it "continues the high standards established by Berkeley's breakaway classic". It received a score of 4 out of 5 from MacUser.
You Don't Know Jack Movies was a runner-up for Computer Gaming Worlds 1997 "Puzzle Game of the Year" award, which ultimately went to Smart Games Challenge 2. The editors called Movies a "hilarious party game", and noted that it "came a close second".
You Don't Know Jack XL won two 1996 Spotlight Awards, for "Best Script, Story or Interactive Writing" and "Best Trivia or Puzzle Game".
You Don't Know Jack Vol. 3 was the finalist for GameSpot's 1997 "Best Puzzles and Classics Game" award, which ultimately went to Chessmaster 5500. The editors wrote, "[I]f it weren't for the addition of the Threeway question format (which is a complete dud), You Don't Know Jack III would have reached instant-classic status."
You Don't Know Jack Vol. 4: The Ride won Computer Gaming Worlds award for the best classic game of 1998. The editors wrote, "You Don't Know Jack Vol. 4: The Ride ranks easily as the best since the first of the series found its way into the CGW Hall of Fame. And for that we salute the folks at Berkeley Systems and Jellyvision, game designers who really do know Jack, at least where our funny bones are concerned." It also won the 1998 Spotlight Award for "Best Trivia, Puzzle or Classic Game" from the Game Developers Conference.
You Don't Know Jack: Huge received a score of 4.5 out of 5 from Michael Gowan of Macworld, who wrote that the game "will strain your brain while amusing you with its witty banter and rapid-fire action." In 1998, The Huge collection was named the 48th-best computer game of all time by PC Gamer US, whose editors called it "essential stuff."
Other media
During the 2000 presidential election, Sierra On-Line president David Grenewetzki challenged the presidential candidates to play a political version of You Don't Know Jack. The game had been distributed to a few radio stations, and was described as a "litmus test" of the candidates' political knowledge.
You Don't Know Jack also appeared as two books: You Don't Know Jack: The Book and You Don't Know Jack: The TV Book. Both were published in 1998 by Running Press.
There was also a Tiger Electronic tabletop game of You Don't Know Jack, emceed by Nate Shapiro. It featured question cards with a number code on them and a grey button to open a sliding door to show the answers. It was the first game to feature 4 players instead of 3 players. There were also "Sports", "Movies", and "TV" question packs that were sold separately. A standalone handheld version was also released.
An actual television show version of You Don't Know Jack had a brief run on ABC in prime time during the summer of 2001. It starred Paul Reubens (the actor and comedian best known for his character Pee-wee Herman) as over-the-top game show host Troy Stevens, with Tom Gottlieb's 'Cookie' as the announcer. The show lasted only six episodes, as it received very little buzz and most You Don't Know Jack fans weren't even aware of its existence until long after its cancellation. A previous attempt had been made by Telepictures Productions and Warner Bros. Television in 1996, produced by Ron Greenberg in Chicago; this version, intended as a weekday syndicated show, was not picked up (after initial tests and run-throughs necessitated a retooling of the show; Telepictures subsequently chose to drop the project).
After the You Don't Know Jack TV show ended, another show from the makers of You Don't Know Jack called Smush aired on USA Network in late 2001. It was a game of taking two or more words and combining them into one long word. The show started late at night, but was later pushed to later and later times, even up to 3:00 A.M.; until it was eventually canceled.
In 2001, AMC released You Don't Know Jack about MonsterFest, an online game on their website emceed by Schmitty, and the MonsterFest movie marathon was hosted by Clive Barker and Carmen Electra, who gave clues for the game.
References
External links
Official You Don't Know Jack website (now redirects to the Jackbox Party Pack 1 store page)
Video game franchises
Quiz video games
Windows games
Classic Mac OS games
PlayStation (console) games
Xbox 360 games
PlayStation 3 games
Wii games
Nintendo DS games
Tiger Electronics handheld games
Webby Award winners
Webfoot Technologies games
Video games adapted into television shows
Video games developed in the United States
Video game franchises introduced in 1995 |
420483 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bai%20Juyi | Bai Juyi | Bai Juyi (also Bo Juyi or Po Chü-i; ; 772–846), courtesy name Letian (樂天), was a Chinese musician, poet, and politician during the Tang dynasty. Many of his poems concern his career or observations made about everyday life, including as governor of three different provinces. He achieved fame as a writer of verse in a low-key, near vernacular style that was popular throughout medieval East Asia.
Bai was also influential in the historical development of Japanese literature, where he is better known by the on'yomi reading of his courtesy name, Haku Rakuten (shinjitai: 白楽天). His younger brother Bai Xingjian was a short story writer.
Among his most famous works are the long narrative poems "Chang hen ge" ("Song of Everlasting Sorrow"), which tells the story of Yang Guifei, and "Pipa xing" ("Song of the Pipa").
Life
Bai Juyi lived during the Middle Tang period. This was a period of rebuilding and recovery for the Tang Empire, following the An Lushan Rebellion, and following the poetically flourishing era famous for Li Bai (701－762), Wang Wei (701－761), and Du Fu (712－770). Bai Juyi lived through the reigns of eight or nine emperors, being born in the Dali regnal era (766-779) of Emperor Daizong of Tang. He had a long and successful career both as a government official and a poet, although these two facets of his career seemed to have come in conflict with each other at certain points. Bai Juyi was also a devoted Chan Buddhist.
Birth and childhood
Bai Juyi was born in 772 in Taiyuan, Shanxi, which was then a few miles from location of the modern city, although he was in Zhengyang, Henan for most of his childhood. His family was poor but scholarly, his father being an Assistant Department Magistrate of the second-class. At the age of ten he was sent away from his family to avoid a war that broke out in the north of China, and went to live with relatives in the area known as Jiangnan, more specifically Xuzhou. Bai Juyi's father died in 794, his father's death caused his family to undergo hard times.
Early career
Bai Juyi's official was delayed by seven years due to his father's death. He passed the jinshi examinations in 800. Bai Juyi may have taken up residence in the western capital city of Chang'an, in 801. Not long after this, Bai Juyi formed a long friendship with a scholar Yuan Zhen. 806, the first full year of the reign of Emperor Xianzong of Tang, was the year when Bai Juyi was appointed to a minor post as a government official, at Zhouzhi, which was not far from Chang'an (and also in Shaanxi province). He was made a member (scholar) of the Hanlin Academy, in 807, and Reminder of the Left from 807 until 815, except when in 811 his mother died, and he spent the traditional three-year mourning period again along the Wei River, before returning to court in the winter of 814, where he held the title of Assistant Secretary to the Prince's Tutor. It was not a high-ranking position, but nevertheless one which he was soon to lose.
Exile
While serving as a minor palace official in 814, Bai managed to get himself in official trouble. He made enemies at court and with certain individuals in other positions. It was partly his written works which led him into trouble. He wrote two long memorials, translated by Arthur Waley as "On Stopping the War", regarding what he considered to be an overly lengthy campaign against a minor group of Tatars; and he wrote a series of poems, in which he satirized the actions of greedy officials and highlighting the sufferings of the common folk.
At this time, one of the post-An Lushan warlords (jiedushi), Wu Yuanji in Henan, had seized control of Zhangyi Circuit (centered in Zhumadian), an act for which he sought reconciliation with the imperial government, trying to get an imperial pardon as a necessary prerequisite. Despite the intercession of influential friends, Wu was denied, thus officially putting him in the position of rebellion. Still seeking a pardon, Wu turned to assassination, blaming the Prime Minister, Wu Yuanheng, and other officials: the imperial court generally began by dawn, requiring the ministers to rise early in order to attend in a timely manner; and, on July 13, 815, before dawn, the Tang Prime Minister Wu Yuanheng was set to go to the palace for a meeting with Emperor Xianzong. As he left his house, arrows were fired at his retinue. His servants all fled, and the assassins seized Wu Yuanheng and his horse, and then decapitated him, taking his head with them. The assassins also attacked another official who favored the campaign against the rebellious warlords, Pei Du, but was unable to kill him. The people at the capital were shocked and there was turmoil, with officials refusing to leave their personal residences until after dawn.
In this context, Bai Juyi overstepped his minor position by memorializing the emperor. As Assistant Secretary to the Prince's Tutor, Bai's memorial was a breach of protocol — he should have waited for those of censorial authority to take the lead before offering his own criticism. This was not the only charge which his opponents used against him. His mother had died, apparently caused by falling into a well while looking at some flowers, and two poems written by Bai Juyi — the titles of which Waley translates as "In Praise of Flowers" and "The New Well" — were used against him as a sign of lack of Filial Piety, one of the Confucian ideals. The result was exile. Bai Juyi was demoted to the rank of Sub-Prefect and banished from the court and the capital city to Jiujiang, then known as Xun Yang, on the southern shores of the Yangtze River in northwest Jiangxi Province. After three years, he was sent as Governor of a remote place in Sichuan. At the time, the main travel route there was up the Yangzi River. This trip allowed Bai Juyi a few days to visit his friend Yuan Zhen, who was also in exile and with whom he explored the rock caves located at Yichang. Bai Juyi was delighted by the flowers and trees for which his new location was noted. In 819, he was recalled back to the capital, ending his exile.
Return to the capital and a new emperor
In 819, Bai Juyi was recalled to the capital and given the position of second-class Assistant Secretary. In 821, China got a new emperor, Muzong. After succeeding to the throne, Muzong spent his time feasting and heavily drinking and neglecting his duties as emperor. Meanwhile, the temporarily subdued regional military governors, jiedushi, began to challenge the central Tang government, leading to the new de facto independence of three circuits north of the Yellow River, which had been previously subdued by Emperor Xianzong. Furthermore, Muzong's administration was characterized by massive corruption. Again, Bai Juyi wrote a series of memorials in remonstrance.
As Governor of Hangzhou
Again, Bai Juyi was sent away from the court and the capital, but this time to the important position of the thriving town of Hangzhou, which was at the southern terminus of the Grand Canal and located in the scenic neighborhood of West Lake. Fortunately for their friendship, Yuan Zhen at the time was serving an assignment in nearby Ningbo, also in what is today Zhejiang, so the two could occasionally get together, at least until Bai Juyi's term as Governor expired.
As governor of Hangzhou, Bai Juyi realized that the farmland nearby depended on the water of West Lake, but, due to the negligence of previous governors, the old dike had collapsed and the lake had dried out to the point that the local farmers were suffering from severe drought. He ordered the construction of a stronger and taller dike, with a dam to control the flow of water, thus providing water for irrigation, relieving the drought, and improving the livelihood of the local people over the following years. Bai Juyi used his leisure time to enjoy the beauty of West Lake, visiting the lake almost every day. He ordered the construction of a causeway to allow walking on foot, instead of requiring the services of a boat. A causeway in the West Lake (Baisha Causeway, 白沙堤) was later referred to as Bai Causeway in Bai Juyi's honor, but the original causeway built by Bai Juyi named Baigong Causeway () no longer exists.
Life near Luoyang
In 824, Bai Juyi's commission as governor expired, and he received the nominal rank of Imperial Tutor, which provided more in the way of official salary than official duties, and he relocated his household to a suburb of the "eastern capital," Luoyang. At the time, Luoyang was known as the eastern capital of the empire and was a major metropolis with a population of around one million and a reputation as the "cultural capital," as opposed to the more politically oriented capital of Chang'an.
Governor of Suzhou
In 825, at age 53, Bai Juyi was given the position of Governor (Prefect) of Suzhou, situated on the lower reaches of the Yangtze River and on the shores of Lake Tai. For the first two years, he enjoyed himself with feasts and picnic outings, but after a couple years he became ill and was forced into a period of retirement.
Later career
After his time as Prefect of Hangzhou (822-824) and then Suzhou (825-827), Bai Juyi returned to the capital. He then served in various official posts in the capital, and then again as prefect/governor, this time in Henan, the province in which Luoyang was located. It was in Henan that his first son was born, though only to die prematurely the next year. In 831 Yuan Zhen died. For the next thirteen years, Bai Juyi continued to hold various nominal posts but actually lived in retirement.
Retirement
In 832, Bai Juyi repaired an unused part of the Xiangshan Monastery, at Longmen, about 7.5 miles south of Luoyang. Bai Juyi moved to this location, and began to refer to himself as the "Hermit of Xiangshan". This area, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is famous for its tens of thousands of statues of Buddha and his disciples carved out of the rock. In 839, he experienced a paralytic attack, losing the use of his left leg, and became a bedridden invalid for several months. After his partial recovery, he spent his final years arranging his Collected Works, which he presented to the main monasteries of those localities in which he had spent time.
Death
In 846, Bai Juyi died, leaving instructions for a simple burial in a grave at the monastery, with a plain style funeral, and to not have a posthumous title conferred upon him. He has a tomb monument in Longmen, situated on Xiangshan across the Yi River from the Longmen cave temples in the vicinity of Luoyang, Henan. It is a circular mound of earth high and in circumference, with a tall monument inscribed "Bai Juyi".
Works
Bai Juyi has been known for his plain, direct, and easily comprehensible style of verse, as well as for his social and political criticism. Besides his surviving poems, several letters and essays are also extant.
He collected his writings in the anthology called the .
History
One of the most prolific of the Tang poets, Bai Juyi wrote over 2,800 poems, which he had copied and distributed to ensure their survival. They are notable for their relative accessibility: it is said that he would rewrite any part of a poem if one of his servants was unable to understand it. The accessibility of Bai Juyi's poems made them extremely popular in his lifetime, in both China and Japan, and they continue to be read in these countries today.
Famous poems
One of Bai's most famous poems is "Chang hen ge" ("Song of Everlasting Sorrow"), a long narrative poem that tells the story of the famous Tang dynasty concubine Yang Guifei and her relationship with Emperor Xuanzong of Tang.
Another of Bai's famous poems is "The Song of the Pipa Player". Like Du Fu, Bai had a strong sense of social responsibility and is well known for his satirical poems, such as The Elderly Charcoal Seller. Also he wrote about military conflicts during the Tang dynasty. Poems like "Song of Everlasting Sorrow" were examples of the peril in China during the An Lushan rebellion.
Bai Juyi also wrote intensely romantic poems to fellow officials with whom he studied and traveled. These speak of sharing wine, sleeping together, and viewing the Moon and mountains. One friend, Yu Shunzhi, sent Bai a bolt of cloth as a gift from a far-off posting, and Bai Juyi debated on how best to use the precious material:
Bai's works were also highly renowned in Japan, and many of his poems were quoted and referenced in The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu. Zeami Motokiyo also quoted from Bai, in his Noh plays, and even wrote one, Haku Rakuten, about the Japanese god of poetry repelling the Chinese poet from Japan, in opposition to Bai's (perceived) challenge to the country's poetic autonomy.
Poetic forms
Bai Juyi was known for his interest in the old yuefu form of poetry, which was a typical form of Han poetry, namely folk ballad verses, collected or written by the Music Bureau. These were often a form of social protest. And, in fact, writing poetry to promote social progress was explicitly one of his objectives. He is also known for his well-written poems in the regulated verse style.
Art criticism
Bai was a poet of the middle Tang dynasty. It was a period after the An Lushan Rebellion, the Tang Empire was in rebuilding and recovery. As a government official and a litterateur, Bai observed the court music performance that was seriously affected by Xiyu (西域, Western regions), and he made some articles with indignation to criticize that phenomenon. As an informal leader of a group of poets who rejected the courtly style of the time and emphasized the didactic function of literature, Bai believing that every literary work should contain a fitting moral and a well-defined social purpose. That makes him not satisfied with cultural performance styles of Tang court.
For instance, in his work of Faqu ge (), translated as Model Music, is a poem regard to a kind of performing art, he made the following statement: "All the faqu's now are combined with songs from the barbarians; but the barbarian music sounds evil and disordered whereas Han music sounds harmonious!" ()
Faqu is a kind of performing style of Yanyue, a part of court music performance. In this poem, Bai Juyi strongly criticized Tang Daqu, which was itself heavily influenced by some nonnative musical elements absent in the Han Daqu-the original form of Daqu. Tang culture was an amalgamation of the culture of the ethnic Han majority, the culture of the "Western Region" (), and Buddhism. The conflict between the mainstream Han culture and minority culture exposed after the An Lushan Rebellion. The alien culture was so popular and it had seriously threatened the status of Han culture.
Musical performances at the Tang court are of two types: seated performances () and standing performances (). Seated performances were conducted in smaller halls with a limited number of dancers, and emphasized refined artistry. Standing performances involves numerous dancers, and were usually performed in courtyards or squares intended for grand presentations.
Bai's another poem, Libuji (), translated as Standing Section Players, reflected the phenomenon of "decline in imperial court music". In this poem, Bai mercilessly pointed out that music style of both seated performances and standing performances were deeply influenced by foreign culture.
Seated performances are more elegant than standing performances. Players in the Seating Section were the most qualified performers, while the performing level of the players in the Standing Section were a bit poor (). In Bai Juyi's time, those two performances were full of foreign music, the Yayue (, literally: "elegant music") was no longer be performed in those two sections. The Yayue music was only performed by the players who were eliminated from those two sections (). This poem shows the culture changing in the middle Tang dynasty and the decline of Yayue, a form of classical music and dance performed at the royal court and temples
In those two poems of Bai reflected the situation of political and culture in the middle Tang dynasty after the An Lushan Rebellion, and he was concerned that the popularity of foreign music could lead the Tang society into chaos.
The pipa in the poems of Bai Juyi represents the expression of love, the action of communicating, and especially the poet's feelings on listening to music.
Appraisal
Bai Juyi is considered one of the greatest Chinese poets, but even during the ninth century, sharp divide in critical opinions of his poetry already existed. While some poets like Pi Rixiu only had the highest praise for Bai Juyi, others were hostile, like Sikong Tu () who described Bai as "overbearing in force, yet feeble in energy (qi), like domineering merchants in the market place." Bai's poetry was immensely popular in his own lifetime, but his popularity, his use of vernacular, the sensual delicacy of some of his poetry, led to criticism of him being "common" or "vulgar". In a tomb inscription for Li Kan (), a critic of Bai, poet Du Mu wrote, couched in the words of Li Kan: "...It has bothered me that ever since the Yuanhe Reign we have had poems by Bai Juyi and Yuan Zhen whose sensual delicacy has defied the norms. Excepting gentlemen of mature strength and classical decorum, many have been ruined by them. They have circulated among the common people and been inscribed on walls; mothers and fathers teach them to sons and daughters orally, through winter's cold and summer's heat their lascivious phrases and overly familiar words have entered people's flesh and bone and cannot be gotten out. I have no position and cannot use the law to bring this under control."
Bai was also criticized for his "carelessness and repetitiveness", especially his later works. He was nevertheless placed by Tang poet Zhang Wei () in his Schematic of Masters and Followers Among the Poets () at the head of his first category: "extensive and grand civilizing power".
Modern assessment
Burton Watson says of Bai Juyi: "he worked to develop a style that was simple and easy to understand, and posterity has requited his efforts by making him one of the most well-loved and widely read of all Chinese poets, both in his native land and in the other countries of the East that participate in the appreciation of Chinese culture. He is also, thanks to the translations and biographical studies by Arthur Waley, one of the most accessible to English readers".
In popular culture
Bai Juyi is one of the main characters of the 2017 Chinese fantasy film Legend of the Demon Cat, where he is portrayed by Huang Xuan. It the movie, the poet is solving a murder mystery and struggles to finish his famous poem, "Song of Everlasting Regret".
See also
Li Shidao
List of emperors of the Tang dynasty
Salt in Chinese history#The moral debate over salt and society
West Lake
Works cited
Hinsch, Bret. (1990). Passions of the Cut Sleeve. University of California Press.
Hinton, David (2008). Classical Chinese Poetry: An Anthology. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. / .
Kubin, Wolfgang (=Wolfgang Kubin, book review ), Weigui Fang, 'Den Kranich fragen. 155 Gedichte von Bai Juyi, in: ORIENTIERUNGEN. Zeitschrift zur Kultur Asiens (Journal sur la culture de l'Asie), n ° 1/2007, pp. 129–130.
Nienhauser, William H (ed.). The Indiana Companion to Traditional Chinese Literature. Indiana University Press 1986.
Arthur Waley, The Life and Times of Po Chü-I, 772-846 A.D (New York,: Macmillan, 1949). 238p.
Waley, Arthur (1941). Translations from the Chinese. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
Watson, Burton (1971). Chinese Lyricism: Shih Poetry from the Second to the Twelfth Century. (New York: Columbia University Press).
References
External links
Bai Juyi: Poems — English translations of Bai Juyi's poetry.
Translations of Chinese poems
Chinese poems in translation
Six Bai Juyi's poems included in 300 Selected Tang Poems, translated by Witter Bynner
Article on the Shanghai Oriental Pearl Tower that was based on a poem by Bai Juyi
English translation of Bai Juyi's "A Poem for the Swallows(《燕詩》 /《燕詩示劉叟》)"
Books of the Quan Tangshi that include collected poems of Bai Juyi at the Chinese Text Project:
Book 424, Book 425, Book 426, Book 427, Book 428,
Book 429, Book 430, Book 431, Book 432, Book 433,
Book 434, Book 435, Book 436, Book 437, Book 438,
Book 439, Book 440, Book 441, Book 442, Book 443,
Book 444, Book 445, Book 446, Book 447, Book 448,
Book 449, Book 450, Book 451, Book 452, Book 453,
Book 454, Book 455, Book 456, Book 457, Book 458,
Book 459, Book 460, Book 461, Book 462
772 births
846 deaths
9th-century Chinese musicians
8th-century Chinese poets
9th-century Chinese poets
Buddhist poets
Tang dynasty Buddhists
Tang dynasty musicians
Guqin players
Musicians from Henan
Poets from Henan
Politicians from Zhengzhou
Tang dynasty poets
Tang dynasty government officials
Three Hundred Tang Poems poets
Writers from Zhengzhou |
420493 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco%20de%20Miranda | Francisco de Miranda | Sebastián Francisco de Miranda y Rodríguez de Espinoza (28 March 1750 – 14 July 1816), commonly known as Francisco de Miranda (), was a Venezuelan military leader and revolutionary who fought in the American Revolutionary War, the French Revolution and the Spanish American wars of independence. He is regarded as a precursor of South America's liberation from the Spanish Empire, and remains known as the "First Universal Venezuelan" and the "Great Universal American".
Born in Caracas in the Viceroyalty of New Granada into a wealthy family, Miranda left to pursue an education in Madrid in 1771 and subsequently enlisted in the Spanish army.
In 1780, following Spain's entry into the American Revolutionary War, he was sent to Cuba and fought the British at Pensacola. Accused of espionage and smuggling, he fled to the United States in 1783. Miranda returned to Europe in 1785 and travelled through the continent, gradually formulating his plans for Spanish American independence. From 1791 on, he took an active part in the French Revolution, serving as a general during the Battle of Valmy and the Flanders campaign. An associate of the Girondins, he became disillusioned by the Revolution and was forced to leave for Britain.
In 1806, Miranda launched an unsuccessful expedition to liberate Venezuela with volunteers from the United States. He returned to Caracas following the outbreak of the Venezuelan War of Independence in 1810 and was granted dictatorial powers after the establishment of the First Republic. In 1812, the republic collapsed and Miranda was forced to finalize an armistice with Spanish royalists. Other revolutionary leaders including Simón Bolívar considered his capitulation treasonous, and allowed his arrest by the Spanish authorities. He was taken to a prison in Cádiz, where he died four years later.
Early life
Miranda was born in Caracas, Venezuela Province, in the Spanish colonial Viceroyalty of New Granada, and baptized on 5 April 1750. His father, Sebastián de Miranda Ravelo, was a Spanish immigrant from the Canary Islands who had become a successful and wealthy merchant, and his mother, Francisca Antonia Rodríguez de Espinoza, was a wealthy Venezuelan.
Growing up, Miranda enjoyed a wealthy upbringing and attended the finest private schools. However, he was not necessarily a member of high society; his father faced some discrimination from rivals due to his Canarian roots.
Education
Miranda's father, Sebastián, always strove to improve the situation of the family, and in addition to accumulating wealth and attaining important positions, he ensured his children a college education. Miranda was first tutored by Jesuits, Jorge Lindo and Juan Santaella, before entering the Academy of Santa Rosa.
On 10 January 1762, Miranda began his studies at the Royal and Pontifical University of Caracas, where he studied Latin, the early grammar of Nebrija, and the Catechism of Ripalda for two years. Miranda completed this preliminary course in September 1764 and became an upperclassman. Between 1764 and 1766, Miranda continued his studies, studying the writings of Cicero and Virgil, grammar, history, religion, geography and arithmetic.
In June 1767, Miranda received his baccalaureate degree in the Humanities. It is unknown if Miranda received the title of Doctor, as the only evidence in favor of this title is his personal testimony stating he received it in 1767, at age 17.
Issues of ethnic lineage
Beginning in 1767, Miranda's studies were disrupted in part due to his father's rising prominence in Caracas society. In 1764, Sebastián de Miranda was appointed the captain of the local militia known as the Company of the White Canary Islanders by the governor, José Solano y Bote. Sebastián de Miranda directed his regiment for five years, but his new title and societal position bothered the white aristocracy (the Mantuanos). In retaliation, a competing faction formed a militia of its own and two local aristocrats, Don Juan Nicolas de Ponte and Don Martin Tovar Blanco, filed a complaint against Sebastián de Miranda.
Sebastián de Miranda requested and was granted honorary military discharge to avoid further antagonizing the local elite, and spent many years attempting to clear the family name and establish the "purity" of his family line. The need to establish the "cleanliness" of the family bloodline was important to maintain a place in society in Caracas, as it was what allowed the family to attend university, to marry in the church, and to attain government positions. In 1769, Sebastián produced a notarized genealogy to prove that his family had no African, Jewish or Muslim ancestors, according to the records in the National Archive of Venezuela. Miranda's father obtained a blood cleanliness certificate, which should not be confounded with the blood nobility certificate.
In 1770, Sebastián proved his family's rights through an official patent, signed by Charles III, which confirmed Sebastián's title and societal standing. The court ruling, however, created an irreconcilable enmity with the aristocratic elite, who never forgot the conflict nor forgave the challenge, which inevitably influenced subsequent decisions by Miranda.
Voyage to Spain (1771–1780)
After the court victory of his father, Miranda decided to pursue a new life in Spain, and, on 25 January 1771, Miranda left Caracas from the port of La Guaira for Cadiz, Spain, on a Swedish frigate, the Prince Frederick. Miranda landed at the Port of Cadiz on 1 March 1771, where he stayed for two weeks with a distant relative, Jose D'Anino, before leaving for Madrid.
In Madrid
On 28 March 1771, Miranda travelled to Madrid and took an interest in the libraries, architecture, and art that he found there. In Madrid, Miranda pursued his education, especially modern languages, as they would allow him to travel throughout Europe. He also sought to expand his knowledge of mathematics, history, and political science, as he aimed to serve the Spanish Crown as a military officer. During this time, he also pursued genealogical research of his family name to establish his ties to Europe and Christianity, which was especially important to him after his father's struggles to legitimize their family line in Caracas.
It was in Madrid that Miranda began to build his personal library, which he added to as he traveled, collecting books, manuscripts and letters.
In January 1773, Miranda's father transferred 85,000 reales vellon (silver coins), to help his son obtain the position of captain in the Princess's Regiment.
Early campaigns
During his first year as a captain, Miranda traveled with his regiment mainly in North Africa and the southern Spanish province of Andalusia. In December 1774, Spain declared war with Morocco, and Miranda experienced his first combat during the conflict.
While Miranda was assigned to guard the stations of an unwanted colonial presence in North Africa, he began to draw connections to the similar colonial presence in Spanish South America. His first military feat took place during the Siege of Melilla, held from 9 December 1774 to 19 March 1775, in which the Spanish forces managed to repel the Moroccan sultan, Mohammed ben Abdallah. However, despite the actions taken and danger faced, Miranda did not get an award or promotion and was assigned to the garrison of Cadiz.
Despite Miranda's success in the military, he faced many disciplinary complaints, ranging from complaints that he spent too much time reading, to financial discrepancies, to the most serious disciplinary charges of violence and abuse of authority. One of Miranda's well-known enemies was Colonel Juan Roca, who charged Miranda with the loss of company funds and brutalities against soldiers in Miranda's regiment. The account of the dispute was sent to Inspector General O'Reilly and eventually reached King Charles III, who ordered Miranda to be transferred back to Cadiz.
Missions in America (1781–1784)
The American Revolution
Spain became involved in the American Revolutionary War in order to expand their territories in Louisiana and Florida and to seek a recapture of Gibraltar. The Spanish Captain-General of Louisiana, Bernardo de Gálvez, in 1779 launched several offensives at Baton Rouge and Natchez, securing the way for the reconquest of Florida.
Spanish forces had begun mobilising to support their American allies, and Miranda was ordered to report to the Regiment of Aragon, which sailed from Cadiz in spring of 1780 under Victoriano de Navia's command. Miranda reported to his chief, General Juan Manuel Cagigal y Monserrat, in Havana, Cuba. From their headquarters in Cuba, de Cagigal and Miranda participated in the Siege of Pensacola on 9 May 1781, and Miranda was awarded the temporary title of lieutenant colonel during this action. Miranda also contributed to the French success during the Battle of the Chesapeake when he helped the Comte de Grasse raise needed funds and supplies for the battle.
The Antilles
Miranda remained prominent while in Pensacola, and in August 1781, Cagigal secretly sent Miranda to Jamaica to arrange for the release of 900 prisoners-of-war, see to their immediate needs, and acquire auxiliary vessels for the Spanish Navy. Miranda was also asked to perform espionage work while staying with his British hosts. Miranda managed to perform a successful reconnaissance mission and also negotiated an agreement dated 18 November 1781, that regulated the exchange of Spanish prisoners. However, Miranda also entered into a deal with a local merchant, Philip Allwood. Miranda agreed to use the ships he had purchased during his stay in Jamaica to transport Allwood's goods back to Spain to sell them. Upon his return, Miranda was charged with being a spy and smuggler of enemy goods. The order to send Miranda back to Spain pursuant to the judgment of 5 February 1782, of the Supreme Inquisition Council failed to be met due to various faults of form and substance in the administrative process that caused the order to be questioned and, in part, by Cagigal's unconditional support of Miranda.
In 1782, Miranda participated in the Capture of the Bahamas and carried news of the island's fall to Gálvez. Gálvez was angry that the Bahamas expedition had gone ahead without his permission, and he imprisoned Cagigal and had Miranda arrested. Miranda was later released, but this experience of Spanish officialdom may have been a factor in his subsequent conversion to the idea of independence for Spain's American colonies. The efficiency demonstrated by Miranda in the Bahamas led Cagigal to recommend that Miranda be promoted to colonel under the command of the General Commander of the Spanish forces in Cuba, Bernardo de Gálvez, in St. Domingue, which the Spanish American authorities referred to Guarico. This should not be confused with the current Guárico State located today in central Venezuela.
At that time, the Spaniards were preparing a joint action with the French to invade Jamaica, which was a major British stronghold in the region, and Guárico was the ideal place to plan these operations, being close to the island and providing easy access for troops and commanders. Miranda was seen as the right person to plan operations because he had firsthand knowledge of the disposition of the troops and fortifications in Jamaica. However, the Royal Navy decisively defeated the French fleet at the Battle of the Saintes, so the invasion did not materialise and Miranda remained in Guarico.
Exile in the United States
With the failure of the invasion of Jamaica, priorities for the Spanish authorities changed, and the process of the Inquisition against Miranda gained momentum. The authorities sent Miranda to Havana to be arrested and sent to Spain. In February 1783, Minister of the Indies José de Gálvez sent the Captain General of Havana, Don Luis de Unzaga y Amézaga to arrest him. The information of his impending arrest reached Miranda in advance. Aware that he would not be given a fair trial in Spain, Miranda managed, with the help of Cajigal and the American James Seagrove, to slip away on a ship bound for the United States, arriving at New Bern, North Carolina on 10 July 1783. During his time in the United States, Miranda made a critical study of its military defenses, demonstrating extensive knowledge of the development of American conflict and circumstances.
While there, Miranda prepared and fixed a correspondence technique, used for the rest of his journey: he would meet people through the gift or loan of books, and examine the culture and customs of the places through which he passed in a methodical way. Passing through Charleston, Philadelphia, and Boston, he dealt with different characters in American society. In New York City he met the prominent and politically connected Livingston family. Apparently Miranda had a romantic relationship with Susan Livingston, daughter of Chancellor Livingston. Although Miranda wrote to her for years, he never saw her again after leaving New York.
During his time in the United States, Miranda met with many important people. He was personally acquainted with George Washington in Philadelphia. He also met General Henry Knox, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, Samuel Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. He also visited various institutions of the new nation that impressed him such as the Library of Newport and Princeton College.
In Europe (1785–1790)
Great Britain
On 15 December 1784, Miranda left the port of Boston in the merchant frigate Neptuno for London and arrived in England on 10 February 1785. While in London, Miranda was discreetly watched by the Spanish, who were suspicious of him. The reports highlight that Miranda had meetings with people suspected of conspiring against Spain and people considered among the eminent scholars of the time.
Prussia
The first secretary of the U.S. embassy, Colonel William Stephens Smith, whom Miranda knew from his stay in New York, came to England at around the same time. The US Ambassador was John Adams. Miranda visited them many times and continued the conversations about independence he had had with General Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Knox, among many other patriots in Philadelphia, New York, and other cities. Miranda and Smith decided to travel to Prussia to attend military exercises prepared by Prussian king, Frederick the Great. Bernardo del Campo, ambassador of Spain in the British capital since 1783, kept Miranda entertained with the idea that the king was close to resolve his situation. In fact, he was keeping Miranda under surveillance. When Miranda announced his sudden trip to continental Europe, he "gladly" gave Miranda a letter of introduction to the minister (ambassador) of Spain in Berlin who would be in charge of reporting frequently to Madrid. James Penman, an English businessman whom Miranda had befriended in Charleston, was responsible for keeping his papers while he traveled.
However, the Spanish ambassador had secretly intrigued to have Miranda arrested when he reached Calais, France, where he could be handed over to Spain. The plan fell apart because the Venezuelan and his friend went on 10 August 1785 to a Dutch port (Hellevoetsluis) instead.
Sweden
Between September and December 1787 Miranda travelled through Sweden, and he also visited Norway. Miranda arrived in Stockholm on 21 September 1787, from Saint Petersburg, and he stayed in the city until 24 September, returning on 3 October and then staying for almost a month until 1 November. He carried a letter of recommendation from empress Catherine the Great and was also shown support from the Russian ambassador in Stockholm Andrey Razumovsky. Through these connections he was invited to Stockholm Palace and an audience with king Gustav III on 17 October. However, the Spanish ambassador in Stockholm, Ignacio de Corral, demanded that Miranda should be extradited in December, at which time he had already left. He did not win support for his cause, but he later published excerpts from his journal about his experiences in Sweden. When visiting Gothenburg he had an affair with Christina Hall, the wife of one of the wealthiest merchants of Gothenburg John Hall. He also visited the family's country retreat, Gunnebo House, on the outskirts of the city.
Then Miranda made his way to Norway and arrived in Denmark in 1787. But in the Danish press he was accused of being a spy for the Empress of Russia. There is talk of extradition to Spain. But the King of Denmark assures him of his support. Francisco Miranda is bored at the Court of Denmark. He decides to go to Germany. Seeing the canal that connects the Baltic to the North Sea, he imagines the possibility of digging one in Panama that would join the Atlantic and the Pacific. He then traveled to Belgium and Switzerland and, on May 24, 1789, Francisco Miranda arrived in Paris.
Russia
Miranda then travelled throughout Europe, including present-day Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Poland, Greece and Italy, where he remained for over a year. After passing through Constantinople, Turkey, he visited the court of Catherine the Great, who was visiting Kiev and the Crimea. In Crimea, Miranda was received by the influential Prince Grigory Potemkin and later on, when the empress arrived, he was introduced to her. His sojourn in Russia took much longer because of the unexpected hospitality and attention received by the court and the empress. When she realized the dangers surrounding him, particularly the Inquisition order for his apprehension, she decided to protect him at all cost. She instructed all Russian ambassadors in Europe to assist him in any form and with great care, in order to protect him from the persecution in place. She extended him a Russian passport. He was also introduced to the king of Poland, Stanisław II August, with whom he exchanged many intellectual and political views on America and Europe. The king invited him to Poland. In Hungary, he stayed in the palace of Prince Nicholas Esterházy, who was sympathetic to his ideas, and wrote him a letter of recommendation to meet the musician Joseph Haydn.
Attempts to abduct Miranda by the diplomatic representatives of Spain failed as the Russian ambassador in London, Semyon Vorontsov, declared on 4 August 1789, to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Francis Osborne, that Miranda, although a Spanish subject, was a member of the Russian diplomatic mission in London.
Miranda made use of the Spanish–British diplomatic row known as the Nootka Crisis in February 1790 to present to some British cabinet ministers his ideas about the independence of Spanish territories in America.
Miranda and the French Revolution (1791–1798)
Starting in 1791, Miranda took an active part in the French Revolution as marechal de camp. In Paris, he befriended the Girondists Jacques Pierre Brissot and Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve, and he briefly served as a general in the section of the French Revolutionary Army commanded by Charles François Dumouriez, fighting in the 1792 campaign of Valmy.
The Army of the North (Armée de la Belgique) commanded by Miranda laid siege to Antwerp. When Miranda (and John Skey Eustace) failed to take Maastricht in February 1793 they were arrested on the orders of Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville, Chief Prosecutor of the Revolution, and accused of conspiring against the republic with Charles François Dumouriez, the renegade general, who quickly defected to the enemy. Though indicted before the Revolutionary Tribunal – and under attack in Jean-Paul Marat's L'Ami du peuple – he and his lawyer Claude François Chauveau-Lagarde conducted his defence with such calm eloquence that he was declared innocent.
However, Marat denounced Chauveau-Lagarde as a liberator of the guilty. Even so, the campaign of Marat and the rest of the Jacobins against him did not weaken. He was arrested again in July 1793 and incarcerated in La Force prison, effectively one of the ante-chambers of death during the prevailing Reign of Terror. Appearing again before the tribunal, he accused the Committee of Public Safety of tyranny in disregarding his previous acquittal.
Miranda seems to have survived by a combination of good luck and political expediency: the revolutionary government simply could not agree on what to do with him. He remained in La Force even after the fall of Robespierre in July 1794, and was not finally released until January of the following year. The art theorist Quatremère de Quincy was among those who campaigned for his release during this time. Now convinced that the whole direction taken by the Revolution had been wrong, he started to conspire with the moderate royalists against the Directory, and was even named as the possible leader of a military coup. He was arrested and ordered out of the country, only to escape and go into hiding.
He reappeared after being given permission to remain in France, though that did not stop his involvement in yet another monarchist plot in September 1797. The police were ordered to arrest the "Peruvian general", as the said general submerged himself yet again in the underground. With no more illusions about France or the Revolution, he left for England in a Danish boat, arriving in Dover in January 1798.
Expeditions in South America (1804–1808)
Diplomatic negotiations, 1804–1805
In 1804 with informal British help, Miranda presented a military plan to liberate the Captaincy General of Venezuela from Spanish rule. At the time, Britain was at war with Spain, an ally of Napoleon. Home Riggs Popham was commissioned by prime minister Pitt in 1805 to study the plans proposed by Miranda to the British Government, Popham then persuaded the authorities that, as the Spanish Colonies were discontented, it would be easier to promote a rising in Buenos Aires. Disappointed by this decision in November 1805, Miranda travelled to New York, where he rekindled his acquaintance with William S. Smith to organize an expedition to liberate Venezuela. Smith introduced him to merchant Samuel Ogden.
Venezuela and the Caribbean, 1806
Miranda then went to Washington for private meetings with President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison, who met with Miranda but did not involve themselves or their nation in his plans, which would have been a violation of the Neutrality Act of 1794. In New York Miranda privately began organizing a filibustering expedition to liberate Venezuela. Along with Colonel Smith he raised private funds, procured weapons, and recruited soldiers of fortune. Among the 200 volunteers who served under him in this revolt were Smith's son William Steuben and David G. Burnet, who would later serve as interim president of the Republic of Texas after its secession from Mexico in 1836. Miranda hired a ship of 20 guns from Ogden, which he rechristened Leander in honor of his oldest son, and set sail to Venezuela on 2 February 1806.
In Jacmel, Haiti, Miranda acquired two other ships, the Bee and the Bacchus, and their crews. It was in Jacmel on 12 March that Miranda made and raised on the Leander, the first Venezuelan flag, which he had personally designed. On 28 April, a botched landing attempt in Ocumare de la Costa resulted in two Spanish garda costas, Argos and Celoso, capturing the Bacchus and the Bee. Sixty men were imprisoned and put on trial in Puerto Cabello accused of piracy. Ten were sentenced to death, hanged and dismembered in quarters. One of the victims was the printer Miles L. Hall, who for that reason has been considered as the first martyr of the printing press in Venezuela.
Miranda aboard of the Leander escaped, escorted by the packet ship HMS Lilly to the British islands of Grenada, Trinidad, and Barbados, where he met with Admiral Alexander Cochrane. As Spain was then at war with Britain, Cochrane and the governor of Trinidad Sir Thomas Hislop, 1st Baronet agreed to provide some support for a second attempt to invade Venezuela.
The Leander left Port of Spain on 24 July, together with HMS , HMS , HMS , and HMS Lilly, carrying General Miranda and some 220 officers and men. General Miranda decided to land in La Vela de Coro and the squadron anchored there on 1 August. The next day the frigate HMS joined them for three days. On 3 August, 60 Trinidadian volunteers under the Count de Rouveray, 60 men under Colonel Dowie, and 30 seamen and marines from HMS Lilly under Lieutenant Beddingfelt landed. This force cleared the beach of Spanish forces and captured a battery of four 9- and 12-pounder guns; the attackers had four men severely wounded, all from HMS Lilly. Shortly thereafter, boats from HMS Bacchante landed American volunteers and seamen and marines. The Spanish retreated, which enabled this force to capture two forts mounting 14 guns.
General Miranda then marched on and captured Santa Ana de Coro, but found no support from the city residents. However, on 8 August a Spanish force of almost 2,000 men arrived. They captured a master of transport and 14 seamen who were getting water, unbeknownst to Lieutenant Donald Campbell. HMS Lilly landed 20 men on the morning of 10 August; this landing party killed a dozen Spaniards, but was able to rescue only one of the captive seamen. Colonel Downie and 50 men were sent, but the colonel judged the enemy force too strong and withdrew. When another 400 men came from Maracaibo, General Miranda realized that his force was too small to achieve anything further or to hold Coro for long. On 13 August, Miranda ordered his force to set sail again. HMS Lilly and her squadron then carried him and his men safely to Aruba.
In the aftermath of the failed expedition, the Marquis Casa de Irujo, Spanish minister in Washington, denounced the United States support given to General Miranda to invade Venezuela in violation of the Neutrality Act of 1794. The Municipal Council of Caracas indicted Miranda in absence charged him as pirate and traitor condemned to death penalty. The Colonel Smith and Ogden were indicted by a federal grand jury in New York for piracy and violating the Neutrality Act of 1794. Put on trial Colonel Smith claimed his orders came from President Thomas Jefferson and Secretary of State James Madison, who refused to appear in court. Both Colonel Smith and Ogden stood trial and were found not guilty.
Project to attack Venezuela, 1808
Miranda spent the next year in Trinidad as host of governor Hyslop waiting for reinforcements that never came. On his return to London, he was met with better support for his plans from the British government after the failed invasions of Buenos Aires (1806–1807). In 1808 a large military force to attack Venezuela was assembled and placed under the command of Arthur Wellesley, but Napoleon's invasion of Spain suddenly transformed Spain into an ally of Britain, and the force instead went there to fight in the Peninsular War.
The First Republic of Venezuela (1811–1812)
Return to Venezuela
Venezuela achieved de facto independence on Maundy Thursday 19 April 1810, when the Supreme Junta of Caracas was established and the colonial administrators deposed. The Junta sent a delegation to Great Britain to get British recognition and aid. This delegation, which included future Venezuelan notables Simón Bolívar and Andrés Bello, met with and persuaded Miranda to return to his native land. In 1811 a delegation from the Supreme Junta, among them Bolívar, and a crowd of common people enthusiastically received Miranda in La Guaira. In Caracas he agitated for the provisional government to declare independence from Spain under the rule of Joseph Bonaparte.
Miranda gathered around him a group of similarly minded individuals and helped establish an association, la Sociedad Patriotica, modeled on the political clubs of the French Revolution. By the end of the year, the Venezuelan provinces elected a congress to deal with the future of the country, and Miranda was chosen as the delegate from El Pao, Barcelona Province. On 5 July 1811, it formally declared Venezuelan independence and established a republic. The congress also adopted his tricolour as the Republic's flag.
Decay of the First Republic of Venezuela
Crisis of the Republic
The following year Miranda and the young Republic's fortunes turned. Republican forces failed to subdue areas of Venezuela (the provinces of Coro, Maracaibo and Guyana) that had remained royalist. In addition, Venezuela's loss of the Spanish market for its main export, cocoa, caused an economic crisis, which mostly hurt the middle and lower classes, who lost enthusiasm for the Republic. Finally a powerful earthquake and its aftershocks hit the country, which caused large numbers of deaths and serious damage to buildings, mostly in republican areas.
It did not help that it hit on 26 March 1812, as services for Maundy Thursday were beginning. The Caracas Junta had been established on a Maundy Thursday, 19 April 1810 as well, so the earthquake fell on its second anniversary in the liturgical calendar. This was interpreted by many as a sign from Providence. It was explained by royalist authorities as divine punishment for the rebellion against the Spanish Crown.
The archbishop of Caracas, Narciso Coll y Prat, referred to the event as "the terrifying but well-deserved earthquake" that "confirms in our days the prophecies revealed by God to men about the ancient impious and proud cities: Babylon, Jerusalem and the Tower of Babel". Many, including those in the Republican army and the majority of the clergy, began to secretly plot against the Republic or outright defect. Other provinces refused to send reinforcements to Caracas Province. Worse still, whole provinces began to switch sides. On 4 July, an uprising brought Barcelona over to the royalist side.
Miranda's dictatorship
Neighboring Cumaná, now cut off from the Republican centre, refused to recognize Miranda's dictatorial powers and his appointment of a commandant general. By the middle of the month, many of the outlying areas of Cumaná Province had also defected to the royalists. With these circumstances a Spanish marine frigate captain, Domingo Monteverde, operating out of Coro, was able to turn a small force under his command into a large army, as people joined him on his advance towards Valencia, leaving Miranda in charge of only a small area of central Venezuela. In these dire circumstances Miranda was given broad political powers by his government.
Defeat of the Republican army
Bolívar lost control of San Felipe Castle of Puerto Cabello along with its ammunition stores on 30 June 1812. Deciding that the situation was lost, Bolívar effectively abandoned his post and retreated to his estate in San Mateo. By mid-July Monteverde had taken Valencia and Miranda also saw the republican cause as lost. He started negotiations with royalists that finalised an armistice on 25 July 1812, signed in San Mateo. Then Colonel Bolívar and other revolutionary officers claimed his actions as treasonous.
Miranda's arrest
Bolívar and others arrested Miranda and handed him over to the Spanish Royal Army in La Guaira port. For his apparent services to the royalist cause, Monteverde granted Bolívar a passport, and Bolívar left for Curaçao on 27 August. Miranda went to the port of La Guaira intending to leave on a British ship before the royalists arrived, although under the armistice there was an amnesty for political offenses. Bolívar claimed afterwards that he wanted to shoot Miranda as a traitor but was restrained by the others; Bolívar's reasoning was that, "if Miranda believed the Spaniards would observe the treaty, he should have remained to keep them to their word; if he did not, he was a traitor to have sacrificed his army to it."
By handing over Miranda to the Spanish, Bolívar assured himself a passport from the Spanish authorities (passports which, nevertheless, had been guaranteed to all republicans who requested them by the terms of the armistice), which allowed him to leave Venezuela unmolested, and Miranda thought that the situation was hopeless.
Last years (1813–1816)
Miranda never saw freedom again. His case was still being processed when he died in a prison cell at the Penal de las Cuatro Torres at the Arsenal de la Carraca, outside Cádiz, aged 66, on 14 July 1816. He was buried in a mass grave, making it impossible to identify his remains, so an empty tomb has been left for him in the National Pantheon of Venezuela.
Miranda's ideals
Political beliefs
Miranda has long been associated with the struggle of the Spanish colonies in Latin America for independence. He envisioned an independent empire consisting of all the territories that had been under Spanish and Portuguese rule, stretching from the Mississippi River to Cape Horn. This empire was to be under the leadership of a hereditary emperor called the "Inca", in honor of the great Inca Empire, and would have a bicameral legislature. He conceived the name Colombia for this empire, after the explorer Christopher Columbus.
Freemasonry
Similarly to some others in the history of American Independence (George Washington, José de San Martín, Bernardo O'Higgins and Simón Bolívar), Miranda was a Freemason. In London he founded the lodge "The Great American Reunion".
Personal life
After fighting for Revolutionary France, Miranda finally made his home in London, where he had two children, Leandro (1803 – Paris, 1886) and Francisco (1806 – Cerinza, Colombia, 1831), with his housekeeper, Sarah Andrews, whom he later married. He had a friendship with the painter James Barry, the uncle of the surgeon James Barry; Miranda helped to keep the secret that the latter was biologically female. According to historian Linda de Pauw, "Miranda was an ardent feminist, named women as his literary executors, and published an impassioned plea for female education a year before Mary Wollstonecraft published her famous Vindication of the Rights of Women." Miranda's library was sold at auction by R. H. Evans. The first part was sold on 22 July 1828 (and two following days) in London and a copy of the catalogue is at Cambridge University Library (shelfmark Munby.c.132(12)).
Legacy and honours
An oil painting by the Venezuelan artist Arturo Michelena, Miranda en la Carraca (1896), which portrays the hero in the Spanish jail where he died, has become a graphic symbol of Venezuelan history, and has immortalized the image of Miranda for generations of Venezuelans.
In France, the name of Miranda remains engraved on the Arc de Triomphe of Paris, which was built during the First Empire, and his portrait is in the Palace of Versailles. His statue is in the Square de l'Amérique-Latine in the 17th arrondissement.
Miranda's name has been honored several times, including in the name of the Venezuelan state, Miranda (created in 1889), a Venezuelan harbour, Puerto Miranda, a subway station and an important main avenue in Caracas, as well as a number of Venezuelan municipalities named "Miranda" or "Francisco de Miranda".
Both Caracas airbase and a Caracas park are named after him.
The Order of Francisco de Miranda was established in 1939 destined to reward the services done to science, to the progress of the country and to outstanding merit.
In 2006, Venezuela's Flag Day was moved to 3 August, in honor of Miranda's 1806 disembarkation at La Vela de Coro.
One of the Bolivarian missions, Mission Miranda, is named after him.
Miranda's life was portrayed in the Venezuelan film Francisco de Miranda (2006), as well as in the unrelated film Miranda Returns (2007).
José Antonio Calcaño, Venezuelan composer his best-known work is the ballet Miranda en Rusia.
Pensacola, Florida, has a square named after him.
There are statues of Miranda in Ankara, Bogotá, Caracas, Cadiz (Spain), Havana, London, Paris, Patras (Greece), Pensacola (USA), Philadelphia, Funchal, São Paulo (Brazil), St. Petersburg (Russia), Puerto de La Cruz (Spain), and Valmy (France).
The house where Miranda lived in London, 27 Grafton Street (now 58 Grafton Way), Bloomsbury, has a blue plaque that bears his name, and functions today as the Consulate of Venezuela in the United Kingdom.
The Miranda archive called Colombeia rests in the Archivo General de la Nación de Venezuela. In 2007, the UNESCO included this collection in the Memory of the World
Register.
In 2016 the Municipal Council of Caracas agreed to pardon Miranda by acquitting him of charges of treason, piracy, including the death penalty, imposed by the colonial councilors in 1806 after the failed attempt to liberate Venezuela from Spanish rule. At the commemoration of the bicentennial anniversary of his death, the Executive posthumously conferred on him the title of Chief Admiral.
The Venezuelan Remote Sensing Satellite-1 (VRSS-1), launched in 2012, was named after him.
Gallery
References
Further reading
Chavez, Thomas E. Spain and the Independence of the United States: An Intrinsic Gift. University of New Mexico Press, 2003.
Juan Carlos Chirinos. Miranda, el nómada sentimental. Editorial Norma, Caracas, 2006. / Ediciones Ulises, Sevilla, 2017
This cites the following references:
Biggs, James. History of Miranda's Attempt in South America, London, 1809.
The Marqués de Rojas, El General Miranda, Paris, 1884.
The Marqués de Rojas Miranda dans la révolution française, Carácas, 1889.
Robertson, W. S. Francisco de Miranda and the Revolutionizing of Spanish America, Washington, 1909.
Harvey, Robert. "Liberators: Latin America`s Struggle For Independence, 1810–1830". John Murray, London (2000).
Miranda, Francisco de. (Judson P. Wood, translator. John S. Ezell, ed.) The New Democracy in America: Travels of Francisco de Miranda in the United States, 1783–84. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963.
Racine, Karen. Francisco De Miranda: A Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution. Wilmington, Del: SR Books, 2003.
Robertson, William S. "Francisco de Miranda and the Revolutionizing of Spanish America" in Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1907, Vol. 1. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1908. 189–539.
Robertson, William S. Life of Miranda, 2 vols. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1929.
Rumazo González, Alfonso. Francisco de Miranda. Protolíder de la Independencia Americana (Biografía). Caracas: Ediciones de la Presidencia de la República, 2006.
Smith, Denis. General Miranda's Wars: Turmoil and Revolt in Spanish America, 1750–1816. Toronto, Bev Editions (e-book), 2013.
Thorning, Joseph F. Miranda: World Citizen. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1952.
Moisei Alperovich . "Francisco de Miranda y Rusia", V Centenario del descubrimiento de América: encuentro de culturas y continentes. Editorial Progreso, (Moscu), shortened version in Spanish, (1989), , Edit. Progreso, URSS, 380 pages. Russian Version : unabridged, (1986).
Miranda, Omar F. "The Celebrity of Exilic Romance: Francisco de Miranda and Lord Byron." European Romantic Review 27.2 (2016)
External links
Colombeia (In Spanish) – The complete digitized files of Francisco de Miranda, mostly in Spanish, with translations of his documents written in English and French. More than 15 volumes in relation to Miranda's voyages, the French Revolution and the negotiations of Miranda with foreign nations, specially Great Britain.
Grogan, Samuel "Francisco de Miranda", History Text Archive
Another statue by Lorenzo Gonzalez (1977) on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia
"General Miranda's Expedition", Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31 (May 1860). An account of the Leander affair
Diarios: Una selección 1771–1800 – Selections from the diaries of Francisco de Miranda, 1771–1800, Caracas: Monte Avila, 2006
Full text archive of 'General Miranda's Expedition', from the Atlantic Monthly May 1860
1750 births
1816 deaths
Francisco de Miranda
People from Caracas
Central University of Venezuela alumni
French Republican military leaders of the French Revolutionary Wars
Male feminists
People of the Venezuelan War of Independence
Prisoners who died in Spanish detention
Spanish military personnel of the American Revolutionary War
Venezuelan soldiers
Venezuelan generals
Venezuelan revolutionaries
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Flag designers
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French military personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars
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Names inscribed under the Arc de Triomphe |
420502 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontage%20road | Frontage road | A frontage road (also known as an access road, outer road, service road, feeder road, or parallel road) is a local road running parallel to a higher-speed, limited-access road. A frontage road is often used to provide access to private driveways, shops, houses, industries or farms. Where parallel high-speed roads are provided as part of a major highway, these are also known as local lanes. Sometimes a similar arrangement is used for city roads; for example, the collector portion of Commonwealth Avenue in Boston, Massachusetts, is known as a carriage road.
A frontage lane is a paved path that is used for the transportation and travel from one street to another. The difference is that typically a frontage road will follow along the side of a highway, whereas a frontage lane is a short connection between two different roads. Frontage lanes, closely related to a frontage road, are common in metropolitan areas and in small rural towns. Frontage lanes are technically not classified as roads due to their purpose as a bridge from one road to another, and due to the architectural standards that they are not as wide as a standard road, or used as commonly as a standard road, street, or avenue.
Overview
Frontage roads provide access to homes and businesses which would otherwise be cut off by a limited-access road and connect these locations with roads which have direct access to the main roadway. Frontage roads give indirect access to abutting property along a freeway, either preventing the commercial disruption of an urban area that the freeway traverses or allowing commercial development of abutting property. At times, they add to the cost of building an expressway due to costs of land acquisition and the costs of paving and maintenance.
However, the benefits of developing nearby real estate can more than offset the cost of building the frontage roads. Furthermore, a frontage road may be a part of an older highway, so the expense of building a frontage road may be slight. And finally, the cost to purchase access rights from adjacent property may exceed the costs to build frontage roads. Conversely, the existence of a frontage road can increase traffic on the main road and be a catalyst for development; hence there is sometimes an explicit decision made to not build a frontage road.
A backage road is a similar concept, but lies on the back side of the land parcels that abut the controlled access's right of way. Like the frontage road, it serves mainly to provide access to those parcels as an alternative to a frontage road. Regardless of which direction the businesses face, the difference is that backage roads will sandwiched between businesses and be separated from the freeway, whereas frontage roads will be right beside a freeway.
Some make a distinction between frontage roads and parallel roads. Frontage roads may more commonly refer to the one-way roads alongside a freeway, whereas parallel roads more commonly refer to the two-way roads running alongside a freeway.
Advantages
There are several advantages to using frontage roads. One advantage is to separate local traffic from through traffic. When frontage roads are lacking in an urban area, the highway is used as a local road, reducing speeds and increasing congestion.
Another advantage occurs when the highway is closed or just obstructed. This pushes traffic off the highway. Where an urban area has frontage roads, the traffic can easily bypass the obstruction or closure on the frontage road. Where an urban area has no frontage road, traffic is diverted onto and congests local roads, since there is no formal (frontage road) alternative.
Disadvantages
There are also some disadvantages to using frontage roads. When frontage roads are used without controlling the access to the primary road, at every intersection where an intersecting road runs across the primary, the number of conflict points increases one fold for each frontage road, since each frontage road is itself another intersection. A highway with frontage roads can be difficult for pedestrians to cross, for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to when neither the primary road nor the crossing is elevated, or gaps in traffic are few and the intervals between those gaps is long. Such examples include:
US 190 in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana;
LA 1 in West Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana;
Palatine Road in Cook County, Illinois;
The northeast edge of Spur 503 in Denison, Texas;
The Southeast edge of U.S. Route 69 in McAlester, Oklahoma.
A complex example is US 77/Commerce () in Ardmore, Oklahoma, particularly at the Grand Avenue intersection. Right turns from the central carriageways are not allowed; a slip ramp must be taken to the two-way frontage road, where the turning traffic must yield to the through traffic. Only then can a vehicle make a right turn from the signal on the frontage road.
Furthermore, frontage roads can increase urban sprawl. Land along highways is made open for development, allowing shopping centers and other buildings to sprawl.
Cost can also be a disadvantage, as building a highway with frontage roads can be more expensive than building a highway alone.
Local–express lane system
A different alternative to the concept of frontage roads in urban freeways is the local–express system, which is designed to handle closely spaced interchange ramps without disrupting through traffic. Unlike frontage roads, the local lanes are typically high-speed fully controlled-access lanes, conforming to freeway requirements. These local lanes will run along the outside of the inner express lanes.
The outer lanes may also be known as a collector/distributor road where slip ramps provide access to and from the inner mainline lanes. This distinction is usually made when the outer lanes are only present by an interchange and not the full length of the highway.
For even more capacity, frontage roads may feed into and from freeway local lanes although this is less common.
Examples
Argentina
In Argentina, especially around Buenos Aires, frontage roads known as colectoras can be found next to freeways. Examples include Avenida General Paz, Ruta 8, and Ruta 9 coming into Buenos Aires.
Canada
Ontario:
A freeway with a significant remaining network of service roads is the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW). However, most of the slip ramps between St. Catharines and Mississauga were removed during major reconstruction in the 1970s and 1990s. Service roads are no longer able to directly access the QEW; they have been rerouted to intersections with other major roads which have interchanges with the QEW. Nonetheless, the service roads are positioned too close to the QEW to easily widen the freeway unless all the private properties along the service road are bought out. This would be unlikely in the current political environment.
The only remaining slip ramps connecting to service roads are on the QEW running through St. Catharines. These dangerous low-standard ramps (due to lack of acceleration/deceleration lanes) are due to be replaced in a planned extensive reconstruction of the QEW that is currently underway. Similar service roads and slip ramps exist along Highway 401 through Oshawa, but like through St. Catharines, these are also in the process of being replaced with modern ramps.
Highway 427 had its service roads replaced with a collector-express system in the 1970s. However, it has several RIRO access onramps and offramps to serve residential traffic in addition to its standard parclo interchanges with major arterials.
List of service roads on the QEW:
series of broken sections from Cawthra Road in Mississauga to the Garden City Skyway in St. Catharines.
List of service roads on the 403:
North Service Road at QEW/407 junction to Waterdown Rd, Burlington
Service Road at Guelph Line, Burlington
List of RIRO on the 427:
Gibbs Road onto North 427
Eva Road onto/off South 427
Holiday Drive onto/off South 427
Eringate Drive onto/off South 427
Valhalla Inn Road onto North 427
Quebec:
Many autoroutes in the Montreal area (including the A-40, A-520, A-13, A-15 and A-25) maintain networks of frontage roads along at least some of their lengths as they pass through urban/developing areas.
British Columbia:
Bi-directional frontage roads exist both on the North and South sides of the Trans-Canada highway through Abbotsford in the Fraser Valley.
Mexico
In Guadalajara, the López Mateos, Vallarta and Mariano Otero avenues (the latter in the stretch between López Mateos to Niños Héroes) are two-lane avenues surrounded by two one-way frontage roads. Lázaro Cárdenas Expressway is similar, but with three lanes in both the central road and the frontage roads. Because these frontage roads are considered as part of the avenue itself, the central road is known locally as the "central lanes", whereas the frontage roads are known as "lateral lanes". Turns are always forbidden in the central lanes; drivers wishing to make a turn must leave the central lanes and make the turn from the lateral lanes.
Netherlands
Frontage roads are common in the Netherlands and detailed in the Dutch national design manual for bicycle traffic as per pages 121 and 127 where they are referred to as parallel roads. In the Netherlands, engineers have used frontage roads to benefit cyclists as well as automobiles. Because frontage roads only carry local traffic, the speed on these roads is low (their speed limit is 30 km/h), making them an ideal environment for bicyclists. Because the speed and volume is so low, no additional treatments are needed to make a service road a safe bike facility. In the Netherlands, service roads are often linked together with bike paths to help create a comprehensive bicycle route, with the bike path links serving as barriers to through motor traffic. Since service roads serve a dual purpose, they are an inexpensive way to create routes in cycling network, compared to cycletracks or stand-alone bike paths. Extensive amounts of information on frontage roads can be found on Northeastern's webpage.
Mainland China
In the People's Republic of China mainland, roads running next to expressways, taking outgoing traffic and feeding incoming traffic, are called either service roads or auxiliary roads (fudao locally). Where expressways cross larger urban areas, such frontage roads may run next to the expressway itself. Much of the Beijing portion of the Jingkai Expressway, for example, has, in fact, China National Highway 106 acting as a split-direction frontage road. Many newer urban highways are entirely elevated, with parallel access roads running beneath the entire length.
Philippines
Expressways
The North Luzon Expressway maintains two-way service roads that run along both sides of the expressway within Metro Manila limits, which extend from exits and merge into local roads.
To the south, the South Luzon Expressway's Metro Manila Skyway and Pres. Sergio Osmeña Sr. Highway segments (both are apparently local and express roads) has two two-way service roads and the PNR running alongside the road. The tracks are between the East Service Road and the highway, giving access to train stations from Pasay Road railway station to Bicutan railway station. The service roads begin at Gil Puyat Avenue up until the Filinvest City exit.
Other roads
Other major roads in the country with two-way service roads include Roxas Boulevard, which service roads catering to local establishments along the thoroughfare. The East Service Road runs from Kalaw Avenue in Ermita, Manila to C. Rivera Street in Pasay while the shorter West Service Road runs from Vicente Sotto Street to Gil Puyat Avenue within Bay City.
Ortigas Avenue in Greenhills, San Juan contains two service roads. The eastbound one-way service roads from Roosevelt Street to Wilson Street, and from Wilson Street to Connecticut Street provide access to establishments along the road while serving as bus stops for bus routes along Ortigas Avenue. A westbound one-way service road from Connecticut Street to Club Filipino Avenue is primarily a local-express road setup which distributes traffic to the Greenhills Shopping Center and pass-through traffic along Ortigas Avenue.
Quezon Avenue in Quezon City runs an eastbound one-way service road from West Avenue and East Avenue to its intersection with EDSA.
Hong Kong
Frontage roads exist both in city and along major expressways between new towns. Gloucester Road has frontage road running parallel of it from east to west. serves as the frontage road for North Lantau Highway, Hiram's Highway for New Hiram's Highway, and Tai Wo Service Road West and Tai Wo Service Road East for Fanling Highway. Castle Peak Road serves the purpose as a frontage road of Tuen Mun Road to some extent.
India
In India, frontage roads or Service lanes (sometimes called नल्ला "Nullah" in Hindi) exist on most high density dual carriageway roads and dual carriageway highways. On Access controlled Expressways like the Yamuna Expressway, the frontage roads remain separate from the main carriageway throughout the road's length. Retrofitted and previously non-access controlled roads, such as most National Highways, only have service lanes on stretches where fly-overs (overpasses) are built over junctions or through towns.
United States
Alaska
Though Alaska has very few roads that are built to freeway standard, a couple of the highways that are do have frontage roads; notably along the Seward Highway (Alaska Route 1) with Homer Drive running south (from Tudor Road to Dimond Boulevard) and Brayton Drive running north (from DeArmoun Road to Tudor Road); and the Minnesota Drive Expressway (from West 100th Ave to Dimond Boulevard) in South Anchorage. Also, the George Parks Highway (Alaska Route 3) has two-way frontage roads running along it from the Trunk Road exit to the Seward Meridian Parkway exit (Fireweed Road on the south side and Blue Lupine Drive on the north side) in Wasilla.
Arizona
Frontage roads are not very common in Arizona but do exist along certain freeways.
In metropolitan Phoenix, the state's first freeway, Interstate 17 has a frontage road (Black Canyon Highway); some sections of the frontage road was reduced to a single lane in the 1990s when I-17 was widened. Several freeways overbuilt existing arterials, which were converted to frontage roads: Price Road (Tempe), Pima Road (Scottsdale) and Beardsley Road (north Phoenix) on the Loop 101, as well as 59th Avenue on the Loop 202 Ed Pastor (South Mountain) Freeway. In Tucson, I-10 has a two-lane, one-way frontage road, and in between Casa Grande and Tucson, a two-lane, two-way frontage road.
California
The East Shore Freeway, a wrong-way concurrency of 80 and 580 in Berkeley and Emeryville, is served by a frontage which retains the name of the previous road that ran through the corridor: the Eastshore Highway. It is also served by another frontage on the other side of the freeway: West Frontage Road.
Interstate 210 in California near Pasadena and Arcadia has frontage roads which include Corson Street in Pasadena (parallel to I-210 West) and Maple Street (parallel to I-210 East) in Pasadena, while Central Avenue (parallel to I-210 West) and Evergreen Avenue (parallel to I-210 East) are in Arcadia.
In Orange County, frontage roads exist on sections of these four highways:
Interstate 5 (Santa Ana Freeway) between Anaheim Boulevard and State College Boulevard in Anaheim. The northbound frontage road is Anaheim Way and the southbound frontage road is Manchester Avenue.
California State Highway 55 (Costa Mesa Freeway) from its southern terminus north of 19th Street up to Bristol Street in Costa Mesa Both the northbound and southbound frontage roads are signed as Newport Boulevard.
California State Highway 73 (Corona del Mar Freeway) from Red Hill Avenue to Jamboree Road in Newport Beach. Both the northbound and southbound frontage roads are signed as Bristol Street.
The expressway section of Jamboree Road from Edinger Avenue to the start of the SR 261 Toll Road in Irvine.
Illinois
Frontage roads are common in Chicago, where they usually have the name of the street in its place had before the adjacent expressway was constructed. Parts of the Edens Expressway, the Dan Ryan Expressway, the Eisenhower Expressway, and the Kennedy Expressway use frontage roads. In addition, the stretches of Interstate 290 and the Elgin–O'Hare Expressway in Schaumburg have frontage roads.
Massachusetts
Service roads are relatively uncommon in much of New England, and in Boston in particular, largely due to resistance to expressway construction, which necessitated scaled-back rights of way. Still, some unique examples of the type exist in the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway Surface Road, Cross street, and Atlantic Avenue in downtown Boston. As a result of the Big Dig, the carriageways of these streets were re-aligned to function as a two-way service road system through downtown Boston with the Rose Kennedy Greenway park system as their 'median', and the expressway underground. In this special case of a service road, the subterranean I-93 Central Artery expressway is not visible from the surface, but accessible through access ramps into the tunnel system. Just south of downtown, I-93 also includes a short section at-grade service road between exits 16 in South Boston and the I-90 interchange south of Chinatown, in a more typical arrangement of the concept. Typical service roads also exist along the eight-lane freeway section of Massachusetts Route 2 through Arlington and Belmont (two near northwestern suburbs of Boston) and United States Route 1 in Lynnfield.
Michigan
Frontage roads are also common in Metro Detroit, where they are usually referred to as "service drives." As in Texas, they typically run one-way with frequent slip ramps to and from the limited-access roadway, with Texas U-turns at or near many intersections. Unlike Texas, there is usually little commercial development situated along the frontage road itself (see example); the road serves to provide access to the freeway from existing residential streets and commercial surface thoroughfares. Also unlike in many locales in urban Texas, where an exit ramp may actually precede the entrance ramp for the previous interchange to facilitate access to businesses situated directly on the frontage road (in effect, the two interchanges overlap along the frontage road), Michigan slip ramps to and from frontage roads are generally positioned as they normally would be in the absence of the frontage road. Motorists entering and exiting the freeway are not sharing the frontage road simultaneously to as large a degree, reducing weaving. Access to the frontage road between exits is provided by turnarounds and frequent bridging, generally every 1/2 mile, between exits.
Michigan left hand turns are also quite common at surface street-frontage road intersections, with dedicated turnaround lanes (similar to the Texas U-turn) built over the freeway on separate bridges approximately 100 meters from the main intersection and bridging.
With the exceptions of Interstate 275 and the freeway portion of M-53, every Metro Detroit freeway has a frontage road along it for at least a portion of its length. Several other freeways outside Metro Detroit use these as well.
There are two other cities in Michigan where frontage roads running more than one mile in length outside of Metro Detroit can be found. There are frontage roads along Interstate 496 and U.S. Route 127 in Greater Lansing and along Interstate 475 in Downtown Flint. Outside the cities, US-23 has them from Ann Arbor to Fenton, while US-127 has them from Leslie to Mason. New freeway construction in Michigan has not included frontage roads since the completion of Interstate 696, most of which was constructed along the rights of way of major surface arteries, in 1989. Michigan does not build frontage roads in rural areas.
Missouri
Missouri has built frontage roads, typically named "Outer Roads", along Interstate 44 (when it was designated as US 66) between Springfield and Greater St. Louis and along US 67 (not all of it up to freeway standards) between Festus and Poplar Bluff. Outer roads are also found on Interstate 64 in West St. Louis County, Interstate 270 in North St. Louis County, and Missouri Highway 367 between I-270 and Lindbergh Blvd.
Montana
Along Interstate 15, most rural sections of the former US 91 are still in service as frontage roads between Lima and Butte, Butte and Helena, Helena and Great Falls, and from Great Falls north to Shelby.
Some former sections of US 10 in the west (Saint Regis to Butte along Interstate 90) and east (Billings to North Dakota along Interstate 94) also serve as frontage roads.
New Jersey
While service roads are somewhat uncommon on most New Jersey highways, they do exist. In northern New Jersey, Route 3 has several service roads throughout much of its length, due in part to the heavy commercial development in the area. Notably, commuters will often use these service roads to get ahead of regular traffic back ups, often causing accidents which lead to the shut down of said service roads, defeating their purpose. Frontage Roads are also used on Route 24 in Short Hills where Route 124 serves as a service road for about 2 miles. The Garden State Parkway also has a service road in Irvington for a distance.
New Mexico
New York
One-way service roads on either sides of highways are relatively common in New York City and the surrounding areas. Due to the high urban density, this design allows rapid access on and off the highway while also providing a viable alternate route in the case of accidents and traffic. In the borough of Queens, the Van Wyck Expressway has this system implemented for most of its length. On Long Island, the Long Island Expressway (Interstate 495), has one-way service roads on each side of the expressway for most of its length from the Queens–Midtown Tunnel to Riverhead.
North and South Carolina
Service roads can be found alongside interstate highways in North Carolina and South Carolina. Some of these roads have houses facing the highways which they parallel. They may also have highway service, as most of them are located near interchanges. Most service roads in the Carolinas do not have ramps leading to and from their respective highways; rather, as mentioned before, most are located near interchanges, which allows people to exit the highway and go around to the frontage road if needed. Those service roads are also commonly used as roads for farms and their products.
Texas
As of 2007, according to the state comptroller, Texas had built over of frontage roads. This was far more than any other state. The state government's obsession with always building frontage roads alongside major highways is credited to chief highway engineer Dewitt Greer (1940–1968). He started building frontage roads as a measure to reduce right-of-way acquisition costs by ensuring access to new highways for affected landowners; otherwise, the state would have needed to pay them a higher price for cutting off access to their land.
Most Texas freeways have service roads on both sides. In urban and suburban areas, the traffic typically travels one-way, in the direction of the adjacent freeway. Most other areas have two-way traffic, but as an area urbanizes, the frontage road is often converted to one-way traffic (2 lanes). In cases of freeway congestion or shutdown, the frontage road provides an instant detour, subject to delays at each stop sign or stoplight at cross streets.
Where two new Texas freeways meet, especially on the edge of major metropolitan areas, the state will often first build the junctions for the one-way frontage roads—that is, four at-grade intersections—followed by an overpass where one freeway crosses over another. This requires motorists who desire to switch freeways to exit to the adjacent frontage road, turn at an at-grade intersection onto the frontage road for the other freeway, and then merge into the other freeway. As traffic increases at the at-grade intersections, the state slowly adds direct ramps between freeways for the most in-demand traffic movements, thereby reducing such inconvenience for motorists.
Over 80% of Houston freeways have service roads, which locals typically call feeders. Many service roads in urban and suburban areas of Texas have the convenience of Texas U-turns, as a left lane curving under an overpass, allowing drivers to avoid stopping for traffic lights when making a U-turn.
Service roads are often built as part of a multi-phase plan to construct new limited-access highways. They initially serve as a highway with access to local business before the freeway is constructed years later. After the completion of the freeway, frontage roads serve as a major thoroughfare for local activity, such as with the Katy Freeway project (I-10) in Greater Houston. In several cases, a long-range plan has called for a future freeway, but the design has either changed or the project was canceled before completion.
Nicknames for frontage roads vary within the state of Texas. In Houston and East Texas, they are called feeders. Dallas and Fort Worth area residents call their frontage roads "service roads", and "access roads" is the predominant term used in San Antonio. Most signs reference "Frontage Road" despite local regional vernacular (there are signs in Houston that use the term "feeder").
In Houston, the free sections of Beltway 8, SH 249 and FM 1093, not part of the Sam Houston Tollway, Tomball Tollway, and Fort Bend Westpark Tollway (respectively) are composed of frontage roads.
In 2002, the Texas Department of Transportation proposed to discontinue building frontage roads on new freeways, citing studies that suggest frontage roads increase congestion. However, this proposal was widely ridiculed and criticized and was dropped later the same year.
The Stemmons Freeway in Dallas illustrates the practicability of the frontage road: the real estate developer John Stemmons offered free land to the Texas Highway commission in which to build a freeway (Interstate 35E) on the condition that the state build the freeway with frontage roads that would give access to undeveloped property that he owned along the freeway corridor. The state was able to reduce its costs (largely the cost of land acquisition) of building the freeway, and didn't need to acquire and demolish developed property; the developer profited from development along the freeway. San Antonio developer Charles Martin Wender used the same tactic for his Westover Hills development, offering free land through the middle of his property for SH 151 as well as paying half the costs for the initial frontage road construction. Following Wender's lead, several neighboring landowners also donated right-of-way for the route.
Washington
Frontage roads are found in Spokane along a segment of Interstate 90 between its interchange with SR 290 and the exit for East Appleway Boulevard. West of South Havana Street, the westbound frontage road is East Second Avenue and the eastbound frontage road is East Third Avenue. East of South Havana Street, the westbound frontage road is East Third Avenue and the eastbound frontage road is East Fourth Avenue.
See also
References
Road infrastructure
Types of roads
Limited-access roads
de:Anschlussstelle (Autobahn)#Frontage Road |
420521 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick%20W.%20Lanchester | Frederick W. Lanchester | Frederick William Lanchester LLD, Hon FRAeS, FRS (23 October 1868 – 8 March 1946), was an English polymath and engineer who made important contributions to automotive engineering and to aerodynamics, and co-invented the topic of operations research.
Lanchester became a pioneer British motor-car builder, a hobby which resulted in his developing a successful car company, and is considered one of the "big three" English car engineers—alongside Harry Ricardo and Henry Royce.
Biography
Lanchester was born in St John's Wood, London to Henry Jones Lanchester (1834–1914), an architect, and his wife Octavia (1834–1916), a tutor of Latin and mathematics. He was the fourth of eight children; his older brother Henry Vaughan Lanchester also became an architect; his younger sister Edith Lanchester was a socialist and suffragette; and his brothers George Herbert Lanchester and Frank joined him in forming the Lanchester Motor Company.
When he was a year old, his father relocated the family to Brighton, and young Frederick attended a preparatory school and a nearby boarding school, where he did not distinguish himself. He himself, thinking back, remarked that, "it seemed that Nature was conserving his energy". However, he did succeed in winning a scholarship to the Hartley Institution, in Southampton, and after three years won another scholarship, to Kensington College, which is now part of Imperial College. He supplemented his instruction in applied engineering by attending evening classes at Finsbury Technical School. Unfortunately, he ended his education without having obtained a formal qualification.
When he completed his education in 1888, he acquired a job as a Patent Office draughtsman for £3 a week. About this time he registered a patent for an isometrograph, a draughtsman's instrument for hatching, shading and other geometrical design work.
In 1919, at the age of fifty-one, Lanchester married Dorothea Cooper, the daughter of Thomas Cooper, the vicar of St Peter's Church in Field Broughton in Lancashire. The couple relocated to 41 Bedford Square, London, but in 1924 Lanchester built a house to his own design (Dyott End) in Oxford Road, Moseley, Birmingham. The couple remained there for the rest of their life together but did not have any children.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1922, and in 1926 the Royal Aeronautical Society awarded him a fellowship and a gold medal.
In 1925 Lanchester founded a company named Lanchester Laboratories Ltd., to perform industrial research and development work. Although he developed an improved radio and gramophone speaker, he was unable to market it successfully because of the Great Depression. He continued, overworking, until in 1934 his health failed and the company was forced to close. He was diagnosed eventually with Parkinson's disease and was reportedly much grieved that this, along with cataracts in both eyes, prevented him from "doing any official job" during the Second World War.
He was awarded gold medals by the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1941 and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1945.
Although he achieved his fame by his creative brilliance as an engineer, Frederick Lanchester was a man of diverse interests, blessed with a fine singing voice. Using the pseudonym of Paul Netherton-Herries he published two volumes of poetry.
Lanchester, who had never been successful commercially, lived the remainder of his life in straitened circumstances, and it was only through charitable help that he was able to remain in his home. He died at his home, Dyott End, on 8 March 1946.
Work
Gas engines
Near the end of 1888, Lanchester went to work for the Forward Gas Engine Company of Saltley, Birmingham as assistant works manager. His contract of employment included a clause stating that any technical improvements that he made would be the intellectual property of the company. Lanchester wisely struck this out before signing. This action was prescient, for in 1889 he invented and patented a Pendulum Governor to control engine speeds, for which he received a royalty of ten shillings for each one fitted to a Forward Engine. In 1890 he patented a Pendulum Accelerometer, for recording the acceleration and braking of road and rail vehicles.
After the death of the current works manager, Lanchester was promoted to his job. He then designed a new gas engine of greater size and power than any produced by the company before. The engine was a vertical one with horizontal, opposed poppet valves for inlet and exhaust. The engine had a very low compression ratio, but was very economical to operate.
In 1890 Lanchester patented a self-starting device for gas engines. He subsequently sold the rights for his invention to the Crossley Gas Engine Company for a handsome sum.
He rented a small workshop next to the Forward Company's works and used this for experimental work of his own. In this workshop, he produced a small vertical single cylinder gas engine of , running at 600 rpm. This was coupled directly to a dynamo, which Lanchester used to light the Company's office and part of the factory.
Petrol engines
Lanchester began to find the conflict between his job as works manager and his research work irksome. Therefore, in 1893, he resigned his job in favour of his younger brother George. At about the same time, he produced a second engine type similar in design to his previous one but operating on benzene at 800 rpm. An important part of his new engine was the revolutionary carburettor, for mixing the fuel and air correctly. His invention was known as a wick carburettor, because fuel was drawn into a series of wicks, from where it was vapourised. He patented this invention in 1905.
Lanchester installed his new petrol engine in a flat-bottomed launch, which the engine drove via a stern paddle wheel. Lanchester built the launch in the garden of his home in Olton, Warwickshire. The boat was launched at Salter's slipway in Oxford in 1904, and was the first motorboat built in Britain.
Cars
Having put a petrol engine in a boat, the next logical step was to use it for road transport. Lanchester set about designing a four-wheeled vehicle to be driven by a petrol engine. He designed a new petrol engine of , with two crankshafts rotating in opposite directions, for exemplary smoothness, and air cooling by way of vanes mounted on the flywheel. There was a revolutionary epicyclic gearbox (years before Henry Ford adopted it) giving two forward speeds plus reverse, and which drove the rear wheels via chains. With a walnut body, it seated three, side by side. (By contrast, Rudolf Egg's tricycle had a 3 hp (2.2 kW) 402 cc {24½in3) de Dion-Bouton single and was capable of 40 km/h {25 mph}, and Léon Bollée's trike a 1.9 kW {2.5 hp} 650 cc (40 in3) engine of his own design, capable of over 50 km/h {30 mph}.
Lanchester's car was completed in 1895 and given its first test run in 1896, and proved to be unsatisfactory, being underpowered and having transmission problems. Lanchester designed a new 8 hp (6 kW) 2,895 cc (177 in3) air-cooled engine with two horizontally opposed cylinders, still with two crankshafts. He also re-designed the epicyclic gearbox and combined it with the engine. A driveshaft connected the gearbox to a live axle. The new engine and transmission were fitted to the original 1895 car.
Lanchester had relocated his business to larger workshops in Ladywood Road, Fiveways, Birmingham as work on the car progressed and had also sold his house to help finance the cost of his research. A second car was then built with the same engine and transmission but with Lanchester's own design of cantilever suspension. This was completed in 1898 and won a Gold Medal for its design and performance at the Automobile Exhibition and Trials at Richmond. It became known as the Gold Medal Phaeton.
In 1898, Lanchester designed a water-cooled version of his engine, which was fitted to a boat, driving a propeller. In 1900 the Gold Medal Phaeton was entered for the first Royal Automobile Club 1,000 Miles Trial and completed the course successfully after one mechanical failure en route.
Lanchester Engine Company
In December 1899 Lanchester and his brothers created the Lanchester Engine Company in order to manufacture cars that could be sold to the public. A factory was acquired in Montgomery Street, Sparkbrook, Birmingham, known as the Armourer Works. In his new factory, Lanchester designed a new ten horsepower twin cylinder engine. He decided to use a worm drive transmission and designed a machine to cut the worm gears. He patented this machine in 1905 and it continued for 25 years to produce all of the Lanchester worm gears. He also introduced the use of splined shafts and couplings in place of keys and keyways, another innovation that he patented. The back axle had roller bearings and Lanchester designed the machines to make these. His car was designed with the engine placed between the two front seats rather than at the front, and also had a side-mounted tiller rather than a steering wheel. The transmission also included a system similar to modern disc brakes that clamped the clutch disc for braking, rather than using a separate system as in most cars. On 1 December 1902, Lanchester was awarded Patent No. 26,407 for the disc brake.
The new 10 hp car appeared in 1901 and remained in production until 1905, with only minor design modifications. He became a friend of Rudyard Kipling and would send him experimental models to test. In 1905, Lanchester produced a 20 hp four-cylinder engine, and in 1906 he produced a 28 hp six-cylinder engine. Although Sir Henry Royce had already tackled the problem of crankshaft torsional oscillation and consequent vibration in straight-6 engines, Lanchester analysed the problem scientifically and invented the torsional crankshaft vibration damper as a solution to the problem of engine balance. His design, patented in 1907, used a secondary flywheel coupled to the end of the crankshaft with a viscous clutch. At around the same time Lanchester also patented a harmonic balancer to cancel out the unbalanced secondary forces in a four-cylinder engine, using two balance weights rotating at twice crankshaft speed in opposite directions.
The Lanchester Engine Company sold about 350 cars of various designs between 1900 and 1904, when they became bankrupt due to the incompetence of the Board of Directors. It was immediately reformed as The Lanchester Motor Company. During this period he also experimented with fuel injection, turbochargers, added steering wheels in 1907 and invented the accelerator pedal to help control engine operation, which previously would not cease if the operator had problems. He invented (or was the first to use) detachable wire wheels, bearings that were pressure-fed with oil, stamped steel pistons, piston rings, hollow connecting rods, the torsional vibration damper for 6-cylinder engines, and the harmonic balancer for 4-cylinder designs.
Eventually Lanchester became disillusioned with the activities of the company's directors, and in 1910 resigned as general manager, becoming their part-time consultant and technical adviser. His brothers, George and Frank, assumed technical and administrative responsibility for the company.
Daimler Company
In 1909 Lanchester became a technical consultant for the Daimler Company where he became involved in a number of engineering projects including the Daimler-Knight engine, variants of which powered the petrol-electric KPL bus and the Daimler-Renard Road Train, and the first British heavy tanks of World War I and powered all Daimler cars from 1909 to the mid 1930s winning in 1909 the coveted RAC Dewar Trophy.
Daimler-Knight engines
Working with Daimler in Coventry, the American inventor Charles Knight had obtained a British patent for his modified Knight engine on 6 June 1908, and in September 1908 Daimler announced the first 4-cylinder Daimler-Knight engine a double sleeve-valve design developed from Knight's 1904 patents. Daimler had put all its resources into this "rather unsatisfactory engine" (according to Harry Ricardo), but although Lanchester continued to develop and work on the design, "he had realised that it was a forlorn hope from the start."
KPL bus
The hybrid petrol-electric KPL (Knight-Pieper-Lanchester) bus used a pair of 4-cylinder, 12 h.p. (R.A.C. rating) Daimler-Knight engines each coupled to a dynamotor driving one of the rear wheels, using a patent of Henri Pieper. The bus was announced in June 1910 but the Tilling-Stevens company (an associate of the London General Omnibus Company) threatened a patent infringement action, and it was withdrawn in May 1911 after only 10 buses had been made.
Daimler-Renard Road Train
Daimler began importing the Renard Road Train in February 1907. Daimler fitted a number of four-cylinder 'pre-Knight' engines in the Road Train; Lanchester's development work resulted in a 75/80 hp Daimler-Knight 6-cylinder engine for the Daimler-Renard tractor unit in 1910.
The Birmingham Small Arms company (BSA) bought Daimler in 1910, and Lanchester became consultant engineer to the new parent company.
Daimler-Foster tractors
A larger 100 hp 6-cylinder engine with twin crankshafts each driving a sleeve-valve appeared in January 1912, fitted to the larger of two Daimler-Foster agricultural tractors ('Agritractors') made in conjunction with William Foster & Co. of Lincoln. According to Harry Ricardo, the duplication of the whole of the valve operating mechanism involved excessive mechanical complication and introduced grave difficulties in the way of mechanical synchronization. Lanchester designed a new cylinder head for sleeve-valve engines and patented it with Daimler in February 1913. Gaining an extra 5 hp by April 1913, the 105 hp Daimler-Knight engine (coupled with the tractor's massive transmission designed by William Tritton) powered the Daimler-Foster Artillery Tractor, the No. 1 Lincoln Machine, Little Willie, and the British Mark I-IV tanks during World War I.
Lanchester's contract with Daimler was terminated after the Wall Street Crash of 1929; the Lanchester Motor Company's overdraft was also withdrawn, forcing immediate liquidation of its assets. BSA group, the owners of Daimler since 1910, completed the purchase of the Lanchester company in January 1931 and moved production to Radford, Coventry.
Aeronautics
Lanchester began to study aeronautics seriously in 1892, eleven years before the first successful powered flight. Whilst crossing the Atlantic on a voyage to the United States, Lanchester studied the flight of herring gulls, seeing how they were able to use motionless wings to catch up-currents of air. He measured various birds to see how the centre of gravity compared with the centre of support. As a result of his deliberations, Lanchester, eventually formulated his circulation theory of flight. This is the basis of aerodynamics and the foundation of modern aerofoil theory. In 1894 he tested his theory on a number of models. In 1897 he presented a paper entitled "The soaring of birds and the possibilities of mechanical flight" to the Physical Society, but it was rejected, being too advanced for its time. Lanchester realised that powered flight required an engine with a much greater power-to-weight ratio than any existing engine. He proposed to design and build such an engine, but was advised that no one would take him seriously.
Lanchester was discouraged by the attitude to his aeronautical theory, and concentrated on automobile development for the next ten years. In 1906 he published the first part of a two-volume work, Aerial Flight, dealing with the problems of powered flight . In it, he developed a model for the vortices that occur behind wings during flight, which included the first full description of lift and drag. His book was not well received in England, but created interest in Germany where the scientist Ludwig Prandtl mathematically confirmed the correctness of Lanchester's vortex theory. In his second volume, Lanchester turned his attention to aircraft stability, Aerodonetics , developing his phugoid theory which contained a description of oscillations and stalls. During this work he outlined the basic layout used in most aircraft since then. Lanchester's contribution to aeronautical science was not recognised until the end of his life.
In 1909 H. H. Asquith's Advisory Committee for Aeronautics was established, and Lanchester was appointed a member. Lanchester predicted correctly that aircraft would play an increasingly important part in warfare, unlike the military command which envisioned warfare as continuing much the same way it had in the past.
The same year, 1909, Lanchester patented contra-rotating propellers.
In 1914 he gave the Institution of Civil Engineers' 'James Forrest Lecture', on the subject of "The Flying Machine From An Engineering Standpoint".
Lanchester's Power Laws
Lanchester was particularly interested in predicting the outcome of aerial battles. In 1914, before the start of World War I, he published his ideas on aerial warfare in a series of articles in Engineering. They were published in book form in 1916 as Aircraft in Warfare: the Dawn of the Fourth Arm , and included a description of a series of differential equations that are known now as Lanchester's Power Laws. These laws described how two forces would attrit each other in combat, and demonstrated that the ability of modern weapons to operate at long ranges dramatically changed the nature of combat—a force that was twice as large had been twice as powerful in the past, but now it was four times, the square of the quotient.
Lanchester's Laws were originally applied practically in the United States to study logistics, where they developed into operations research (OR) (operational research in UK usage). OR techniques are now widely used, perhaps most so for business.
The post-war company
After the war, the company introduced the more conventional Forty engine, a rival for the Rolls-Royce 40/50 hp; it was joined in 1924 by an overhead cam 21 hp (RAC Rating) six cylinder engine. In 1921 Lanchester was the first company to export left-hand drive cars. Tinted glass was also introduced on these cars for the first time. A 4440 cc straight eight engine was introduced at the 1928 Southport Rally, again with overhead cams: it proved to be the last "real" Lanchester, in 1931 the company was acquired by B.S.A., who had also owned the Daimler Company since 1909. From then until 1956, Lanchester cars were built at the Daimler factory in Coventry as sister cars with Daimler, like R-R with Bentley [ref Lanchester Legacy trilogy].
Legacy
Lanchester was respected by most fellow engineers as a genius, but he did not have the business acumen to convert his inventiveness to financial gain. Whereas James Watt had found an able business partner in Matthew Boulton, who managed business affairs, Lanchester had no such assistance. During most of his career he lacked financial backing to be able to develop his ideas and perform research, as he would have liked. He nonetheless made many contributions in many different fields. He wrote more than sixty technical papers for various institutions and organisations, and received awards from a number of bodies.
Archives
Lanchester's papers, notebooks, and related material are dispersed between a number of archive collections, including those of Coventry University, the University of Southampton Library, Birmingham Museums Trust, the National Aerospace Library, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Cambridge University's Churchill Archives Centre and the Bodleian Library at Oxford University.
Memorials
In 1970, several colleges in Coventry merged to form Lanchester Polytechnic, so named in memory of Frederick Lanchester. It was renamed Coventry Polytechnic in 1987, and became Coventry University in 1992.
Coventry University's Lanchester Library opened in 2000. Its name commemorates Frederick Lanchester and the previous incarnation of the university as Lanchester Polytechnic. Like much of Lanchester's own work, apparently regardless of convention, its form displays the way it functions.
Its distinctive appearance comes from the building's energy efficient specifications, making use of light wells and exhaust stacks to draw air through the building, providing natural ventilation.
An open-air sculpture, the Lanchester Car Monument, in the Bloomsbury, Heartlands, area of Birmingham, designed by Tim Tolkien, is on the site where the Lanchester company built their first four-wheel, petrol car in 1895. It was unveiled by Frank Lanchester's daughter, Mrs Marjorie Bingeman, and the Lanchester historian, Chris Clark at the Centenary Rally in 1995.
Selected publications
(Limited ed. of 640 copies.)
Notes
Explanatory notes
Citations
Further reading
279 pp
315 pp
284 pp
Volumes 1 and 2 are comprehensive illustrated accounts of Lanchester cars. Volume 3 covers Lanchester's other inventions.
External links
"Dr F. W. Lanchester" his 1946 obituary in Flight
Lanchester Interactive Archive at Coventry University
1868 births
1946 deaths
Alumni of Imperial College London
Alumni of the University of Southampton
British automotive engineers
British founders of automobile manufacturers
English inventors
Engineers from London
Fellows of the Royal Aeronautical Society
British operations researchers
Aerodynamicists
People from Lewisham
People from Olton
Fellows of the Royal Society
British automotive pioneers |
420537 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stewart%20Granger | Stewart Granger | Stewart Granger (born James Lablache Stewart; 6 May 1913 – 16 August 1993) was a British film actor, mainly associated with heroic and romantic leading roles. He was a popular leading man from the 1940s to the early 1960s, rising to fame through his appearances in the Gainsborough melodramas.
Early life
He was born James Lablache Stewart in Old Brompton Road, Kensington, West London, the only son of Major James Stewart, OBE and his wife Frederica Eliza (née Lablache). Granger was educated at Epsom College and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. He was the great-great-grandson of the opera singer Luigi Lablache and the grandson of the actor Luigi Lablache.
Stewart Granger lived in Bournemouth at 57 Grove Road with his mother. His mother owned the property now called "East Cliff Cottage Hotel" until 1979.
When he became an actor, he was advised to change his name in order to avoid being confused with the American actor James Stewart. Granger was his Scottish grandmother's maiden name. Offscreen friends and colleagues continued to call him Jimmy for the rest of his life, but to the general public he became Stewart Granger.
Career
Early work 1933–1940
Granger made his film debut as an extra in 1933, starting with The Song You Gave Me (1933). He can also be glimpsed in Give Her a Ring (1933), Over the Garden Wall (1934) and A Southern Maid (1934). It was at this time that he met Michael Wilding and they remained friends until Wilding's death in 1979.
Years of theatre work followed, initially at Hull Repertory Theatre and then, after a pay dispute, at Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Here he met Elspeth March, a leading actress with the company, who became his first wife. His productions at Birmingham included The Courageous Sex and Victoria, Queen and Empress; he also acted at the Malvern Festival in The Millionairess and The Apple Cart and was in the movie Under Secret Orders (1937).
Granger began to get work on stage in London. He appeared in The Sun Never Sets (1938) at the Drury Lane Theatre and in Serena Blandish (1938) opposite Vivien Leigh.
At the Buxton Festival, he played Tybalt in a production of Romeo and Juliet opposite Robert Donat and Constance Cummings. He also acted opposite them both in The Good Natured Man. In London he was in Autumn with Flora Robson and The House in the Square (1940).
Granger had small roles in the movies So This Is London (1939) and Convoy (1940).
War service and after 1940–1943
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Granger enlisted in the Gordon Highlanders, then transferred to the Black Watch with the rank of second lieutenant. However he suffered from stomach ulcers and was invalided out of the army in 1942.
Granger had a small role in the war movie Secret Mission (1942) and a bigger one in a comedy Thursday's Child (1943). He was in a stage production of Rebecca when he was asked to audition for the film that turned him into a star. Granger had been recommended by Donat, who most recently worked with Granger on stage in To Dream Again.
Stardom
Gainsborough melodramas 1943–1946
Granger's first starring film role was as the acid-tongued Rokeby in the Gainsborough Pictures period melodrama The Man in Grey (1943), a movie that helped to make him and his three co-stars – James Mason, Phyllis Calvert and Margaret Lockwood – box-office names in Britain.
Granger followed it with The Lamp Still Burns (1943), playing the love interest of nurse Rosamund John. More popular was Fanny by Gaslight (1944), another for Gainsborough Pictures, which reunited him with Calvert and Mason, and added Jean Kent. The New York Times reported that Granger "is a young man worth watching. The customers... like his dark looks and his dash; he puts them in mind, they say of Cary Grant." It was the second most popular movie at the British box office in 1944.
Another hit was Love Story (1944), where he plays a blind pilot who falls in love with terminally ill Margaret Lockwood, with Patricia Roc co-starring. Granger filmed this at the same time as Waterloo Road (1945), playing his first villain, a "spiv" who has run off with the wife of John Mills. This movie was popular too, and it was one of Granger's favourites. He was too busy to accept a role offered in The Way to the Stars.
Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945), with Calvert and Roc, was more Gainsborough melodrama, another hit. Also popular was Caesar and Cleopatra, supporting Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh; this movie lost money because of its high production cost but was widely seen, and was the first of Granger's movies to be a hit in the U.S. At the end of 1945 British exhibitors voted Granger the second most popular British film star, and the ninth most popular overall. The Times reported that "this six-foot black-visaged ex-soldier from the Black Watch is England's Number One pin up boy. Only Bing Crosby can match him for popularity."
Caravan (1946), starring Granger and Kent, was the sixth most popular movie at the British box office in 1946. Also well liked was The Magic Bow (1946), with Calvert and Kent, where Granger played Niccolò Paganini That year he was voted the third most popular British star, and the sixth most popular overall. James Mason wrote about Granger in his memoir saying "although he seemed to get as much fun from a spot of producer-baiting as anyone I ever worked with, he was deeply conscientious and had a load of theatrical talent. He should have made himself a producer and/or director."
Rank Organisation 1947–1949
Granger went over to Rank, for whom he made a series of historical dramas: Captain Boycott (1947), set in Ireland, directed by Frank Launder; Blanche Fury (1948), with Valerie Hobson; and Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948), an Ealing Studios production. Granger was cast as the outsider, the handsome gambler Philip Christoph von Königsmarck who is perceived as 'not quite the ticket' by the established order, the Hanoverian court where the action is mostly set. Granger stated that this was one of his few movies of which he was proud. However it was a disappointment at the box office, as was Blanche Fury.
Granger wanted a change of pace and so appeared in Woman Hater (1948), a comedy with Edwige Feuillère. In 1949, Granger was reported as earning around £30,000 a year.
That year Granger made Adam and Evelyne, starring with Jean Simmons. The story, about a much older man and a teenager whom he gradually realises is no longer a child but a young woman with mature emotions and sexuality, had obvious parallels to Granger's and Simmons' own lives. Granger had first met the young Jean Simmons when they both worked on Gabriel Pascal's Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). Three years later, Simmons had transformed from a promising newcomer into a star. They married the following year in a bizarre wedding ceremony organised by Howard Hughes: One of his private aircraft flew the couple to Tucson, Arizona, where they were married, mainly among strangers, with Michael Wilding as Granger's best man.
Granger's stage production of Leo Tolstoy's The Power of Darkness (a venture he had intended as a vehicle for him to star with Jean Simmons) was very poorly received when it opened in London at the Lyric Theatre on 25 April 1949. During the run, two men attempted to cut some locks from Granger's hair. The disappointment added to his dissatisfaction with the Rank Organisation, and his thoughts turned to Hollywood.
American career
MGM 1950–1957
In 1949 Granger made his move; MGM was looking for someone to play H. Rider Haggard's hero Allan Quatermain in a movie version of King Solomon's Mines. Errol Flynn was offered the role but turned it down; Granger's signing was announced in August 1949.
On the basis of the huge success of this movie, released in 1950 and co-starring Deborah Kerr and Richard Carlson, he was offered a seven-year contract by MGM. He signed it in May 1950, and MGM announced three vehicles for him: Robinson Crusoe, a remake of Scaramouche and an adaptation of Soldiers Three.
His first movie under the new arrangement was an action comedy Soldiers Three (1951). Granger followed it with location work for Constable Pedley in Canada. This was put on hold so Granger could make a light comedy, The Light Touch, in a role meant for Cary Grant. It was a box office disappointment. However filming resumed on Constable Pedley which became The Wild North (1953) and that was a big hit.
In 1952, Granger starred in Scaramouche in the role of Andre Moreau, the bastard son of a French nobleman, a part Ramón Novarro had played in the 1923 version of Rafael Sabatini's novel. Granger's co-star Eleanor Parker said Granger was the only actor she did not get along with during her entire career. "Everyone disliked this man...Stewart Granger was a dreadful person, rude...just awful. Just being in his presence was bad. I thought at one point the crew was going to kill him." However, the resulting movie was a notable critical and commercial success.
After this came the remake of The Prisoner of Zenda (1952), for which his theatrical voice, stature (6'2") and dignified profile made him a natural. It too was popular.
In 1952 he and Jean Simmons sued Howard Hughes for $250,000 damages arising from an alleged breach of contract. The case was settled out of court.
Columbia borrowed him to play the love interest of Rita Hayworth in Salome (1953), another big hit. Back at MGM he co-starred with his wife in Young Bess (1953), playing Thomas Seymour. The movie was popular, though it did not recover its cost, and it remained a favourite of Granger's.
He had a commercial success in All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953), playing a villain opposite Robert Taylor. Granger lost the role in A Star Is Born, which went to James Mason. He had the title role in Beau Brummell (1954), opposite Elizabeth Taylor, and it was a box-office disappointment. More successful was the adventure story Green Fire (1954), co starring Grace Kelly.
Granger went to Britain to make Footsteps in the Fog (1955), a movie with Simmons, for Columbia. Back at MGM, he was in Moonfleet (1955), cast as adventurer Jeremy Fox in the Dorset of 1757, a man who rules a gang of cut-throat smugglers with an iron fist until he is softened by a 10-year-old boy who worships him and who believes only the best of him. The film was directed by Fritz Lang and produced by John Houseman, a former associate of Orson Welles. It was a flop.
Granger and Taylor were reunited in The Last Hunt (1956), a Western, with Taylor playing the villain, and a box office disappointment. So too was Bhowani Junction (1956), adapted from a John Masters novel about colonial India on the verge of obtaining independence. Ava Gardner played an Anglo-Indian (mixed race) woman caught between the two worlds of the British and the Indians, and Granger the British officer with whom (in a change from the novel) she ultimately fell in love.
Gardner was teamed with Granger in The Little Hut (1957), a sex farce that proved a surprise smash at the box office. He followed it with Gun Glory (1957). It was his last movie under his MGM contract, which ended September 10, 1957. Granger had turned down the role of Messala in the 1959 film Ben-Hur, reportedly because he did not want to take second billing to Charlton Heston.
Leaving MGM 1957–1960
Granger had become a successful cattle rancher. He bought land in New Mexico and Arizona and introduced Charolais cattle to America.
In order to finance this he kept acting. He played a professional adventurer in Harry Black (1958), partly shot in India. He went to Britain to be in a thriller The Whole Truth (1958) for Romulus, for whom he was to make The Nightcomers but it never was filmed.
He returned to Los Angeles to support John Wayne in North to Alaska (1960). By now his marriage to Simmons had ended, and Granger decided to move to Europe.
Later career
Continental European career 1960–1969
In June 1960, Granger announced he would appear in The Leopard; two movies for MGM in Britain, one of which was I Thank a Fool alongside Susan Hayward; Pontius Pilate for Hugo Fregonese; and The Tumbled House for John Farrow. The role in The Leopard ultimately went to Burt Lancaster, the one in I Thank a Fool to Peter Finch, and the Fregonese and Farrow movies were never made. Granger did go to Britain to appear in the thriller The Secret Partner (1961) for MGM.
He went to Italy and played Lot in Robert Aldrich's Sodom and Gomorrah (1962), filmed in Rome. When Sodom started filming, Granger announced he had signed a three-picture deal with MGM, which would include I Thank a Fool, Swordsman of Siena and a third movie for Jacques Bar. He also announced he had reactivated his production company, Tracy Productions, which was scheduled to make Dark Memory by Jonathan Latimer. Granger did not appear in I Thank a Fool, and Dark Memory was not made. Instead Granger stayed in Italy to make Commando (1962), an action movie and Swordsman of Siena (1963), a swashbuckler. Granger was in the war movie The Secret Invasion (1964) for Roger Corman shot in Yugoslavia.
In West Germany, Granger acted in the role of Old Surehand in three Western movies adapted from novels by German author Karl May, with French actor Pierre Brice (playing the fictional Indian chief Winnetou), in Among Vultures (1964), with Elke Sommer; The Oil Prince (1965) (Rampage at Apache Wells) (1965), shot in Yugoslavia; and Old Surehand (Flaming Frontier) (1965). He was teamed with Brice and Lex Barker, also a hero of Karl May movies, in the crime movie Gern hab' ich die Frauen gekillt (Killer's Carnival) (1966).
Granger starred in several Eurospy movies such as Red Dragon (1965), a West Germany-Italian movie shot in Hong Kong; and Requiem for a Secret Agent (1966). He did The Crooked Road (1965), with Robert Ryan under the direction of Don Chaffey in Yugoslavia; Target for Killing (1966), a crime movie with Karin Dor; The Trygon Factor (1966), a British co-production based on a novel by Edgar Wallace.
Granger's last studio picture was The Last Safari (1967), shot in Africa and directed by Henry Hathaway. Granger was billed under Kaz Garas. He later called this "my last real film...the worst film ever made in Africa!"
In 1970, he described his recent movies as "movies not even I will talk about". He later estimated that he made more than $1.5 million in the 1960s but lost all of it.
U.S. television
Granger returned to the U.S. and made a TV movie Any Second Now (1969).
In 1970, he appeared as Colonial Mackenzie on the TV western series The Men from Shiloh in the episode titled "Colonial Mackenzie Versus the West". The Men from Shiloh was previously known as The Virginian. The new version changed the costumes and added moustaches and beards to some of the characters, making the actors look more dashing and realistic for the time. He followed actors Lee J. Cobb, Charles Bickford and John McIntire as the new owner of the Shiloh ranch on prime-time TV for its ninth year (1971). Granger said he accepted the role for money and because it "seemed like it could be a lot of fun", but was disappointed by the lack of character development for his role.
He played Sherlock Holmes in a poorly received 1972 TV film version of The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Retirement
In the 1970s, Granger retired from acting and went to live in southern Spain, where he invested in real estate and resided in Estepona, Málaga. While living there, he became a friend and business partner of former barrister and television producer James Todesco (Eldorado TV series). Together they were involved in real estate investment and development.
He appeared in The Wild Geese (1978) as an unscrupulous banker who hires a unit of mercenary soldiers (Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and others) to stage a military coup in an African nation. His character then makes a deal with the existing government, and betrays the mercenaries.
In 1980, he was diagnosed with lung cancer and was told he had three months to live. Granger later said "I was 67 and had smoked 60 cigarettes a day for 40 years, but the doctor said if I had an operation there might be a chance of two to four more years of life. So I said "Who the hell needs that? But you better give me three months to put my house in order.'" Granger underwent the operation, had a lung and a rib removed, only to be informed he did not have cancer after all but tuberculosis.
He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1980 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the New London Theatre.
Return to acting
He returned to acting in 1981 with the publication of his autobiography Sparks Fly Upward, claiming he was bored. Granger spent the last decade of his life appearing on stage and television including playing Prince Philip in The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982), a guest role in the TV series in The Fall Guy starring Lee Majors, and as a suspect in Murder She Wrote in 1985. He even starred in a German soap-opera titled Das Erbe der Guldenburgs (The Guldenburg Heritage) (1987).
He moved to Pacific Palisades, California.
One of his later roles was in the 1989–1990 Broadway production of The Circle by W. Somerset Maugham, opposite Glynis Johns and Rex Harrison in Harrison's final role. The production actually opened at Duke University for a three-week run, followed by performances in Baltimore and Boston, then opening on 14 November 1989 on Broadway.
In 1990 he toured Europe in The Circle, opposite Ian Carmichael and Rosemary Harris.
Personal life, death, and honors
He was married three times and had four children:
Elspeth March (1938–1948); two children, Jamie and Lindsay
Jean Simmons (1950–1960), (with whom he had starred in Adam and Evelyne, Young Bess and Footsteps in the Fog); one daughter, Tracy
Caroline LeCerf (1964–1969); one daughter, Samantha.
Granger wrote in his autobiography that Deborah Kerr had approached him romantically in the back of his chauffeur-driven car at the time he was making Caesar and Cleopatra. Although he was married to Elspeth March, he states that he and Kerr went on to have an affair. When asked about this revelation, Kerr's response was "What a gallant man he is."
In 1956, Granger became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Granger died in Santa Monica, California on August 16, 1993, from prostate and bone cancer at the age of 80.
His niece is Antiques Roadshow appraiser Bunny Campione (born Carolyn Elizabeth Fisher), the daughter of his sister Iris.
Appraisal
In 1970, Granger said, "Stewart Granger was quite a successful film star, but I don't think he was an actor's actor."
Among the movies that Granger was announced to star in but were made with other actors instead were Ivanhoe (1952), Mogambo (1953), The King's Thief (1955) and Man of the West (1958).
Complete filmography
The Song You Gave Me (1933) as Waiter (uncredited)
A Southern Maid (1933) (uncredited)
Give Her a Ring (1934) as Diner (uncredited)
Over the Garden Wall (1934) (uncredited)
I Spy (1934 film) (uncredited)
Under Secret Orders (1937) (uncredited)
So This Is London (1939) as Laurence
Convoy (1940) as Sutton (uncredited)
Secret Mission (1942) as Sub-Lieutenant Jackson
Thursday's Child (1943) as David Penley
The Man in Grey (1943) as Peter Rokeby
The Lamp Still Burns (1943) as Laurence Rains
Fanny by Gaslight (1944) as Harry Somerford
Love Story (1944) as Kit Firth
Madonna of the Seven Moons (1945) as Nino
Waterloo Road (1945) as Ted Purvis
Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) as Apollodorus
Caravan (1946) as Richard Darrell
The Magic Bow (1946) as Niccolo Paganini
Captain Boycott (1947) as Hugh Davin
Blanche Fury (1948) as Philip Thorn
Saraband for Dead Lovers (1948) as Konigsmark
Woman Hater (1948) as Lord Terence Datchett
Adam and Evelyne (1949) as Adam Black
King Solomon's Mines (1950) as Allan Quatermain
Soldiers Three (1951) as Pvt. Archibald Ackroyd
The Light Touch (1951) as Sam Conride
The Wild North (1952) as Jules Vincent
Scaramouche (1952) as Andre Moreau
The Prisoner of Zenda (1952) as Rudolf Rassendyll / King Rudolf V
Salome (1953) as Commander Claudius
Young Bess (1953) as Thomas Seymour
All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953) as Mark Shore
Beau Brummell (1954) as George Bryan 'Beau' Brummell
Green Fire (1954) as Rian X. Mitchell
Moonfleet (1955) as Jeremy Fox
Footsteps in the Fog (1955) as Stephen Lowry
The Last Hunt (1956) as Sandy McKenzie
Bhowani Junction (1956) as Col. Rodney Savage
The Little Hut (1957) as Sir Philip Ashlow
Gun Glory (1957) as Tom Early
Harry Black (1958) as Harry Black
The Whole Truth (1958) as Max Poulton
North to Alaska (1960) as George Pratt
The Secret Partner (1961) as John Brent aka John Wilson
Sodom and Gomorrah (1962) as Lot
The Legion's Last Patrol (US: Commando) (1962) as Captain Le Blanc
Swordsman of Siena (1962) as Thomas Stanswood
The Shortest Day (1963) as Avvocato (uncredited)
The Secret Invasion (1964) as Maj. Richard Mace
Among Vultures (1964) as Old Surehand
The Crooked Road (1965) as Duke of Orgagna
Red Dragon (1965) as Michael Scott
Flaming Frontier (1965) as Old Surehand
The Oil Prince (1965) as Old Surehand
Killer's Carnival (1966) as David Porter (Vienna segment)
Target for Killing (1966) as James Vine
Requiem for a Secret Agent (1966) as Jimmy Merrill
The Trygon Factor (1966) as Supt. Cooper-Smith
The Last Safari (1967) as Miles Gilchrist
Any Second Now (1969 TV movie) as Paul Dennison
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1972 TV movie) as Sherlock Holmes
The Wild Geese (1978) as Sir Edward Matheson
The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982 TV movie) as Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
A Hazard of Hearts (1987 TV movie) as the elder Lord Vulcan
Hell Hunters (1988) as Martin Hoffmann
Chameleons (1989 TV movie) as Jason
Fine Gold (1989) as Don Miguel
Unmade films
In 1944 it was reported Granger's ambition was to play Rob Roy – J. Arthur Rank announced he was interested in a Rob Roy project in 1945 but it was never made
Digger's Republic for Leslie Arliss as Stafford Parker (1946) – this became Diamond City with David Farrar in the role instead
Self-Made Man (1947) from a script by Alan Campbell about a cocky type who comes out of the RAF and makes and loses a million dollars
Richard Burton claimed Granger turned down the leading role in Odd Man Out (1947), which would make an international star of James Mason.
Christopher Columbus in the title role (1947) – film was eventually made with Fredric March
Pursuit of Love for producer Davis Lewis at Enterprise Studios (1947)
Treacher (1947) produced by Nunnally Johnson for Universal
The Saxon Charm (1947)
Reported as testing for John Huston in Quo Vadis (1949)
The House by the Sea based on book by Jon Godden, with Granger as producer (1949)
The Donnybrook Fighter (1952)
Robinson Crusoe (early 1950s)
Highland Fling (1957)
Ever the Twain (1958)
biography of Miguel de Cervantes for his own production company(1958)
The Night Comers with Jean Simmons – adaptation of Eric Ambler book State of Siege
The Four Winds from a 1954 novel by David Beatty – for his own production company, Tracy Productions (1958)
I Thank a Fool (1962)
Box-office ranking
At the peak of his career, exhibitors voted Granger among the top stars at the box office:
1945 – 9th biggest star in Britain (2nd most popular British star)
1946 – 6th biggest star in Britain (3rd most popular British star)
1947 – 5th most popular British star in Britain
1948 – 5th most popular British star in Britain.
1949 – 7th most popular British star in Britain.
1951 – most popular star in Britain according to Kinematograph Weekly
1952 – 19th most popular star in the US
1953 – 21st most popular star in the US and 8th most popular in Britain
Partial television credits
The Virginian The Men from Shiloh (1970–71) – Starred in 11 of 24 episodes as Col. Alan MacKenzie. Episodes 1 "The West v Colonel MacKenzie", 5 "The Mysterious Mr Tate", 7 "Crooked Corner", 9 "The Price of the Hanging", 11 "Follow the Leader", 12 "Last of the Comencharos", 14 "Nan Allen", 19 "Flight from Memory", 21 "The Regimental Line", 23 "Wolf Track", and 24 "Jump Up".
Hotel – episodes "Glass People", "Blackout" (1983–1987) as Anthony Sheridan / Tony Fielding
The Fall Guy – episode "Manhunter" (1983) as James Caldwell
Murder, She Wrote – episode "Paint Me a Murder" (1985) as Sir John Landry
The Love Boat – episode "Call Me Grandma/A Gentleman of Discretion/The Perfect Divorce/Letting Go" (1985) as General Thomas Preston
The Wizard – episode "The Aztec Dagger" (1987) as Jake Saunders
Das Erbe der Guldenburgs (1987) – two episodes as Jack Brinkley
Pros and Cons (1991) – episode "It's the Pictures That Got Small" (final television appearance)
Partial theatre credits
The Courageous Sex by Mary D. Sheridan – Birmingham, May 1937
The Millionairess by George Bernard Shaw – Malvern Festival, July 1937 – with Elspeth March
The Apple Cart – Malvern Festival, August 1937 – with Elspeth March
Victoria, Queen and Empress – Birmingham Repertory, September 1937 – as Gladstone
The Sun Never Sets – Drury Lane Theatre, London, 1938
Serena Blandish – 1938 – with Vivien Leigh
Romeo and Juliet – Buxton Festival, September 1939 – with Robert Donat and Constance Cummings, as TybaltThe Good Natured Man by Oliver Goldsmith – Buxton Festival, September 1939 – with Robert Donat and Constance CummingsAutumn – with Flora RobsonHouse in the Square – St Martins Theatre, London, April 1940To Dream Again – Theatre Royal, August 1942Rebeccawartime tour of Gaslight with Deborah KerrThe Power of Darkness adapted from by Peter Glenville from the story by Leo Tolstoy – March–April 1949 – with Jean SimmonsThe Circle – 1989 – with Rex Harrison and Glynis JohnsThe Circle - 1990 - with Ian Carmichael and Rosemary Harris
Partial radio performances
Continuous Performance – the Film, BBC (December 1946)
Lux Radio Theatre, King Solomon's Mines'' (1952)
References
External links
Box office reception of Stewart Granger's films in France
Britmovie.co.uk
Photographs and literature
BBC interview with Gloria Hunniford
1913 births
1993 deaths
Male actors from London
Alumni of the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art
British expatriate male actors in the United States
Deaths from cancer in California
Deaths from bone cancer
Deaths from prostate cancer
English male film actors
English emigrants to the United States
English male television actors
English people of Scottish descent
English people of French descent
English people of Italian descent
Black Watch officers
Gordon Highlanders soldiers
People educated at Epsom College
20th-century British male actors
British Army personnel of World War II |
420538 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James%20Goldsmith | James Goldsmith | Sir James Michael Goldsmith (26 February 1933 – 18 July 1997) was a French-British financier, tycoon and politician who was a member of the Goldsmith family.
His controversial business and finance career led to ongoing clashes with British media, frequently involving litigation or the threat of litigation.
In 1994 he was elected to represent a French constituency as a Member of the European Parliament. He founded the short-lived Eurosceptic Referendum Party in the United Kingdom, which became an early campaigner for opposition to Britain's membership of the European Union.
Early life
Born in Paris, Goldsmith was the son of luxury hotel tycoon and former Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Major Frank Goldsmith and his French wife, Marcelle Mouiller, and younger brother of environmental campaigner Edward Goldsmith. Frank Goldsmith had previously changed the family name from the German Goldschmidt to the English Goldsmith. The Goldschmidts, neighbours and rivals of the Rothschild family, were a wealthy, Frankfurt-based, Jewish family that had been influential in international merchant banking since the 16th century. James's great-grandfather was Benedikt Hayum Goldschmidt, founder of the bank and consul to the Grand Duke of Tuscany. James's grandfather was Adolphe Benedict Goldschmidt (1838–1918), a multi-millionaire who moved to London in 1895.
Raised initially in Paris, James Goldsmith had to flee France with his family when Nazi Germany overran the country in 1940, only just managing to escape on the last over-loaded ship from the French port of exit, leaving behind their hotels and much of their property. After that the family relocated to the Bahamas, and Goldsmith was sent to school in Canada, where he founded a business trapping small furbearing animals such as rabbits, skunk and mink. He also attended Millfield and Eton College, which he left early in 1949 at the age of 16, after winning £8,000 () on a horse racing bet of £10 () for a three-horse accumulator at Lewes. With the money, he decided that he should leave Eton immediately; in a speech at his boarding house, he declared that "a man of my means should not remain a schoolboy!" He then took over a business in Paris from his brother Teddy, which sold a cure for rheumatism and electrical plugs and sockets.
Goldsmith served as a Gunner in the British Army's Royal Artillery under the National Service requirements, during which time he received a commission as an officer.
Business career
During the 1950s and 60s, Goldsmith's involvement in finance and as an industrialist involved many risks, and brought him close to bankruptcy several times. His successes included winning the British franchise for Alka-Seltzer and introducing low-cost generic drugs to the UK. He was described in the tabloid press as a greenmail corporate raider and asset stripper, a categorisation he denied vigorously. He claimed the re-organizations he undertook streamlined the operations, removed complacent inefficient management, and increased shareholder value.
Having taken on the management of the Paris business handed on by his brother Teddy, Goldsmith organised a publicity stunt involving an arthritic racehorse. Sales escalated in response and, within a couple of years, the staff had been expanded from two to over a hundred. Goldsmith took on the agency for various slimming remedies and branched out into the manufacture of generic prescription drugs. His acquisition of the distributorship for Slimcea and Procea low-calorie breads was the start of the shift of focus towards the food industry. In the early 1960s, in partnership with Selim Zilkha, Goldsmith founded the Mothercare retail chain, but sold out his share to Zilkha who went on to develop it with great success.
With the financial backing of Sir Isaac Wolfson, he acquired diverse food companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange as Cavenham Foods in 1965. Initially, the group had an annual turnover of £27m and negligible profits. He added bakeries and then confectioners to the group, and then took over a number of wholesalers and retailers, including small chains of tobacco, confectioner and newsagent shops. By rationalising the activities, closing inefficient factories, and improving the management practices, he steadily improved productivity. By 1971, the turnover was £35m and profits were up to £2m.
In June 1971, he launched a bid for Bovril, which was a much larger company with a diverse portfolio including several strong brands (including Marmite, Ambrosia, Virol and Jaffajuice), dairies and dairy farms, and cattle ranches in Argentina. It was run by the third generation of the founding family and Goldsmith concluded that they were ineffectual. The bid was strongly contested and Goldsmith was fiercely attacked by the financial press. The directors tried to induce Beechams and Rowntree Mackintosh to make rival offers but, in the end, they both withdrew.
After the successful bid, Goldsmith sold the dairies and farms to Max Joseph's Express Dairies group for £5.3m, and found buyers in South America for the ranches. Sales of other parts of the company recouped almost all of the £13m that the acquisition had cost him. Some years later, he sold the brand names to Beecham for £36m. Later, he took over Allied Distributors, who owned a miscellaneous portfolio of grocery stores and small chains, including the Lipton shops. As journalists began to question his techniques of dealing with the funds and assets of publicly quoted companies, Goldsmith began dealing through private companies registered in the UK and abroad. These included the French company Générale Occidentale and Hong Kong and then Cayman-registered General Oriental Investments.
In early 1973, Goldsmith travelled to New York to assess US business opportunities, followed by a tour round Central and South America. He took the view that the UK economy was due for a downturn and began aggressively liquidating many of his assets. In December that year, in the midst of financial chaos, he announced that he had acquired a 51% controlling stake in Grand Union, one of the oldest retailing conglomerates in the US. He set Jim Wood – who had revitalised his British retail operations – to work on rationalising the operations of the chain, but ran into continuous obstruction from both unions and management.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Goldsmith received financing from the banking arm of the conglomerate Slater Walker, of which he succeeded founder Jim Slater as Chairman following the company's collapse and rescue by the Bank of England in the secondary banking crisis of 1973–75.
Goldsmith was knighted in the 1976 resignation honours – the so-called "Lavender List" – of Prime Minister Harold Wilson. In early 1980, he formed a partnership with longtime friend and merchant banker, Sir Roland Franklin. Franklin managed Goldsmith's business in the Americas. From 1983 until 1988, Goldsmith, via takeovers in America, built a private holding company, Cavenham Forest Industries, which became one of the largest private owners of timberland and one of the top-five timber-holding companies of any type in America. Goldsmith and Franklin identified a quirk in American accounting whereby companies with substantial timberland holdings would often carry them on their balance sheets at a nominal valuation (as the result of years of depreciation).
Goldsmith, a reader of financial statements, realised that in the case of Crown Zellerbach the underlying value of the timberland assets alone, carried at only $12.5m on the balance sheet, was worth more than the target company's total market capitalisation of around $900m.
With this insight, Goldsmith began raids that left him with a holding company owning huge tracts of timberland acquired at virtually no net cost. The majority of the pulp and paper assets were sold to James River Corporation in 1986, which in turn became a part of Georgia-Pacific in 2000. (The brown paper container division became Gaylord Container).
Additionally, in 1986, Goldsmith's companies reportedly made $90 million from an attempted hostile takeover of the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, although he regarded this profit as an inadequate consolation for the failure to carry the bid through to a successful conclusion. The management of the company coordinated a virulent campaign against Goldsmith, involving unions, the press, and politicians at state and federal level.
Goldsmith retired to Mexico in 1987, having anticipated the market crash that year and liquidated his assets. However, he continued corporate raiding, including an attempt on British-American Tobacco in 1989 (for which he joined Kerry Packer and Jacob Rothschild). He also swapped his American timber assets for a 49.9 percent stake in Newmont Mining and remained on the board of Newmont until he liquidated his stake through open-market trades in 1993. He had been precluded by the original purchase of Newmont from acquiring a controlling shareholding in the company. In 1990, Goldsmith also began a lower-profile, but also profitable, global "private equity style" investment operation. By 1994, executives working in his employ in Hong Kong had built a substantial position in the intermediation of global strategic raw-material flows.
A large Hong Kong-linked and Goldsmith-funded stake in one of the world's largest nickel operations, INCO Indonesia, was also disclosed in the 1990s, showing Goldsmith's ability to position capital before a trend became obvious to others. The group was also a major backer of the Hong Kong-based and Singapore listed major raw material player Noble Group, with low-profile long-time Goldsmith protégé Tobias Brown serving for many years as the company's non-executive chairman.
Goldsmith and the press
Goldsmith attracted little attention until he became embroiled in a damaging dispute with anti-establishment satirical magazine Private Eye. In 1976 Private Eye accused Goldsmith of being part of what amounted to a conspiracy to obstruct the course of justice in relation to the fugitive Lord Lucan, who was wanted for murder of his children's nanny. The article falsely stated that Goldsmith had participated in a meeting supposedly called by John Aspinall to help Lucan. Goldsmith was a regular at his close friend Aspinall's gambling club, the Clermont, where Lucan was one of the house players having their losses written off, rather than a true member. In addition to pursuing a large number of civil lawsuits against the editor of the magazine and a journalist who was also a TV researcher and regarding them as dangerous subversives, Goldsmith sought to bring a criminal libel prosecution, though there had not been one for half a century. Through his actions Goldsmith formed an unlikely friendship with the Labour Party's then Prime Minister Harold Wilson who loathed Private Eye. The access to Wilson aided Goldsmith when, to the horror of Bank of England officials, he became head of the troubled Slater Walker, and this is said to have been the reason for his knighthood. The costly libel suits were eventually settled by Goldsmith, but he was subsequently dogged by disparaging commentary from a wide range of British media.
In November 1977, there were two editions of The Money Programme on BBC; the first gave a critical account of Goldsmith's business history and methods. In the second programme a combative Goldsmith appeared in person and countered the implication of asset stripping by pointing to an investment of over a hundred million pounds his company was making to upgrade their going concerns.
In 1977 Goldsmith bought the French weekly L'Express and between 1979 and 1981 published the UK news magazine NOW! which failed to survive.
In 1999 an episode of The Mayfair Set, a BBC television documentary series by filmmaker Adam Curtis, portrayed the by then deceased Goldsmith as a playboy, speculator and deluded victim of the success as a corporate raider that made him one of the world's richest men.
Into politics
Goldsmith had become increasingly concerned throughout the 1980s about the nature of the European Economic Community, and harboured a deepening suspicion that at its core lay a desire for the domination of the European continent by Germany, a suspicion which was for him confirmed further when in 1992, via the passage of the Maastricht Treaty, the E.E.C. re-titled itself as the European Union, with dramatically centralising governmental powers being enacted over its constituent member nations.
In March 1993 Goldsmith gave a televised lecture publicly declaring opposition to the European Union, which was transmitted across the United Kingdom on Channel 4 Television as part of its Opinions political commentary series, the text of which was published in The Times the following day under the title Creating a Superstate is the way to destroy Europe. In the mid-1990s he financially supported a Eurosceptic think tank entitled the European Foundation.
In 1994 he published The Trap, a book detailing his broader political philosophical thoughts, giving a critique of the dominance of Neoliberalism in the governments of the First World. In its text he criticised their ideological dogmatic pursuance of Free Trade, and the facilitation of the American Melting Pot societal model being copied by the rest of the First World's governments through mass foreign migration, driven by a pursuance of short term economic advantage, which he posited was fatally flawed in societal concept and brought with it great societal dangers. As an economic alternative he espoused a restoration of Classical Liberalism, and a return to Mercantilism. He also advocated the prevention by governmental action of mass migrations by populations from poorer areas of the globe into the First World driven by economic motivation, which he foresaw as an inevitability of escalating Third World population demographics and First World governmental Neo-Liberal and Socialist ideologies.
In 1994 he was elected in France as a member of the European Parliament, representing the Majorité pour l'autre Europe party, and subsequently became the leader of the eurosceptic Europe of Nations group within the European Parliament.
The Referendum Party
In the early 1990s, with the removal of Margaret Thatcher from the United Kingdom's Prime Ministerial office by the Tories, and their enactment into law of the Maastricht Treaty, Goldsmith, who up until that time had retained close links with the Conservative Party, came to the conclusion that it was no longer a serious political vehicle to oppose the European Union's advancing power, and that opposition would have to be created within the party political system beyond its current order of the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Democrats parties, all of which supported the United Kingdom's incorporation into the European Union.
In consequence, in 1994 Goldsmith founded and financed The Referendum Party in the United Kingdom, modelled upon the Majorité pour l'autre Europe, with the objective of seeking a referendum for its national withdrawal from the European Union, which would go on to stand candidates in the country's general election of 1997. As the mid-1990s progressed Goldsmith involved himself in British politics, appearing with increasing regularity in the political press, and in domestic political televised debates, raising opposition to the nature of the European Union and what he perceived was mainstream media culpability in playing down its supranational ambitions, and pouring scorn on a Westminster parliamentary political order that he stated had failed the nation and was now wilfully betraying its governmental sovereignty.
During the 1997 electoral campaign Goldsmith had mailed to approximately five million homes a VHS video cassette film to allow him to address the electorate free from the editorial control of the nation's mainstream media, having previously rejected the idea of by-passing the United Kingdom's legal restrictions on the broadcast of political information by the means of an offshore radio station named "Referendum Radio".
1997 United Kingdom general election
At the 1997 general election, Goldsmith stood as a candidate for the Referendum Party in the London constituency of Putney, against the former Conservative Minister David Mellor, MP, in an electoral contest in which Goldsmith polled 3.5% of the vote. The declaration of the Putney result, which was televised and nationally broadcast live on the night of 1 May 1997, saw a charged atmosphere at the count, with a rowdy crowd in attendance of anti-European Union activists from the Referendum Party, and the recently inaugurated UK Independence Party (which would itself receive only a couple of hundred votes in Putney that night). An acrimonious confrontation between Mellor (who had lost his seat to the Labour Party candidate) and Goldsmith developed on stage after Mellor, in what was to be his valedictory address from politics, personally insulted Goldsmith's candidacy. During the speech, part of the crowd, Goldsmith and some of the other candidates began a gleefully defiant collective repetitive shouting chant of "Out!" in response, in celebration of the perceived substantive damage having been done to a prominent member of the Westminster Parliamentary political order of which they had become so contemptuous.
Goldsmith's electoral performance at Putney had been reasonably insubstantial, in a British electoral culture in which it is notoriously difficult for new political parties or maverick politicians to establish themselves. He was also terminally ill during the election, a fact which he had kept secret beyond his closest personal circle, and which had limited his ability to campaign. When interviewed by the BBC's Michael Buerk during the count prior to the result being announced, he described his chances as being "very remote" - the 1,518 votes that his candidacy had garnered had not in itself defeated the incumbent Mellor, who had lost by 2,976 votes; moreover it amounted to less than 5% of the total votes cast, this being insufficient for Goldsmith to retain the candidate's financial deposit of £500, a part of the 20 million pounds that he had reportedly poured into The Referendum Party in its brief existence. Mellor had correctly predicted at the count that the Referendum Party was "dead in the water", and indeed the party did disappear with Goldsmith's death two months after the election. However, many of the Referendum Party's activists and voters would go on to join and support the nascent UK Independence Party, which would ultimately lead a sea-change in the nation's politics, which almost twenty years later would see the United Kingdom vote to leave the European Union in a referendum on the issue.
Death
Two months after contesting the 1997 general election, Goldsmith died from the effects of pancreatic cancer at a farmhouse that he owned in Benahavís, southern Spain, on 18 July 1997. He was 64 years old.
Personal life
Goldsmith was married three times. At 20 he wed the 17-year-old Bolivian heiress María Isabel Patiño y Borbón, the daughter of tin magnate Antenor Patiño by his wife María Cristina de Borbón y Bosch-Labrús, 3rd Duchess of Dúrcal. When Goldsmith proposed the marriage to Antenor Patiño, it is alleged his future father-in-law replied, "We are not in the habit of marrying Jews". Goldsmith is reported to have replied, "Well, I am not in the habit of marrying [Red] Indians". The story, if true, is typical of Goldsmith's humour. With the heiress pregnant and the Patiños insisting the pair separate, the couple eloped in January 1954. The marriage was brief: rendered comatose by a cerebral haemorrhage in her seventh month of pregnancy, Maria Isabel Patiño de Goldsmith died in May 1954. Her only child, Isabel, was delivered by caesarean section and survived. She was brought up by Goldsmith's family and was married for a few years to French sportsman Arnaud de Rosnay. On her father's death, she inherited a large share of his estate. Isabel has since become an art collector, and is the owner of Hotel Las Alamandas in Mexico.
Goldsmith's next married Ginette Léry, with whom he had a son, Manes, born 1959, and daughter, Alix, born 1964. They divorced in 1978 but shared a house in Paris until his death, and he built her a house on his Cuixmala estate. His son Manes worked for FIFA and CONCACAF and has also owned football teams in Mexico. His daughter Alix took over his properties in Mexico managing them with her husband Goffredo Marcaccini, whom she married in July 1991; together they have four children. Cuixmala and Hacienda de San Antonio are two of the most renowned hotels in Mexico, having won various prizes in the hospitality business.
In 1978 he wed his mistress Lady Annabel Birley, by whom he had already had two children, Jemima, born in 1974, and Zacharias, born in 1975; a third child, Benjamin was born in 1980. After this marriage, Goldsmith embarked on an affair with Laure Boulay de La Meurthe (granddaughter of Bruno, Count of Harcourt and Princess Isabelle of Orléans), with whom he had two more children, Jethro and Charlotte Colbert. Charlotte married Philip Colbert and has a daughter.
Publications
Books
The Trap. Paris: Fixot (1993). .
The Response. New York: Macmillan (1995). .
Pamphlets
Communist Propaganda Apparatus & Other Threats to The Media. London: Conservative Monday Club. Goldsmith's statement to the Media Committee of the Conservative Party at the British House of Commons, January 21, 1981.
Speeches
Small Today, Bigger Tomorrow: Three Speeches from the 1984 Small Business Bureau Conference, with Margaret Thatcher and Milton Stewart. London: Conservative Political Centre (1984). . .
GATT Speech at U.S. Senate (15 November 1994).
Notes
References
Further reading
Books
Geoffrey Wansell, Sir James Goldsmith: The Man and the Myth, HarperCollins, 1982, .
Geoffrey Wansell, Tycoon: Life of James Goldsmith, HarperCollins, 1987, .
Ivan Fallon, Billionaire, Little, Brown, 1991. .
Richard Ingrams, Goldenballs!: The Incredible Story of the Long and Complex Legal Battle Between Sir James Goldsmith and Private Eye. London: Private Eye Productions, 1979. .
Documentaries
The Mayfair Set, a 1999 BAFTA Award-winning documentary series by Adam Curtis describing buccaneer capitalists in the Thatcher years, focusing on James Goldsmith and other members of the Clermont Set.
External links
The Lucky Gambler: Sir James Goldsmith Is a Billionaire Buccaneer, Time, 23 November 1987
, featuring Goldsmith heckling David Mellor
1933 births
1997 deaths
20th-century British businesspeople
British billionaires
British expatriates in France
British expatriates in Spain
British people of German-Jewish descent
British retail company founders
Businesspeople awarded knighthoods
Businesspeople from London
Businesspeople in confectionery
Corporate raiders
Deaths from cancer in Spain
Deaths from pancreatic cancer
James
Knights Bachelor
People educated at Eton College
People educated at Millfield
French emigrants to the United Kingdom
Private equity and venture capital investors
Referendum Party politicians
Royal Artillery officers
20th-century English businesspeople
James Goldsmith |
420561 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsevier | Elsevier | Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as The Lancet, Cell, the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, Trends, the Current Opinion series, the online citation database Scopus, the SciVal tool for measuring research performance, the ClinicalKey search engine for clinicians, and the ClinicalPath evidence-based cancer care service. Elsevier's products and services include digital tools for data management, instruction, research analytics, and assessment.
Elsevier is part of the RELX Group, known until 2015 as Reed Elsevier, a publicly-traded company. According to RELX reports, in 2022 Elsevier published more than 600,000 articles annually in over 2,800 journals; as of 2018 its archives contained over 17 million documents and 40,000 e-books, with over one billion annual downloads.
Researchers have criticized Elsevier for its high profit margins and copyright practices. The company earned £942 million in profit with an adjusted operating margin of 37% in 2018. Much of the research that Elsevier publishes is publicly funded; its high costs have led to accusations of rent-seeking, boycotts, and the rise of alternate avenues for publication and access, such as preprint servers and shadow libraries.
History
Elsevier was founded in 1880 and adopted the name and logo from the Dutch publishing house Elzevir that was an inspiration and has no connection to the contemporary Elsevier. The Elzevir family operated as booksellers and publishers in the Netherlands; the founder, Lodewijk Elzevir (1542–1617), lived in Leiden and established that business in 1580. As a company logo, Elsevier used the Elzevir family's printer's mark, a tree entwined with a vine and the words Non Solus, which is Latin for "not alone". According to Elsevier, this logo represents "the symbiotic relationship between publisher and scholar".
The expansion of Elsevier in the scientific field after 1945 was funded with the profits of the newsweekly Elsevier, which published its first issue on 27 October 1945. The weekly was an instant success and very profitable. The weekly was a continuation, as is stated in its first issue, of the monthly Elsevier, which was founded in 1891 to promote the name of the publishing house and had to stop publication in December 1940 because of the German occupation of the Netherlands.
In May 1939 Klautz established the Elsevier Publishing Company Ltd. in London to distribute these academic titles in the British Commonwealth (except Canada). When the Nazis occupied the Netherlands for the duration of five years from May 1940, he had just founded a second international office, the Elsevier Publishing Company Inc. in New York.
In 1947, Elsevier began publishing its first English-language journal, Biochimica et Biophysica Acta.
In 1971 the firm acquired Excerpta Medica, a small medical abstract publisher based in Amsterdam. As the first and only company in the world that employed a database for the production of journals, it introduced computer technology to Elsevier. In 1978 Elsevier merged with Dutch newspaper publisher NDU, and devised a strategy to broadcast textual news to people's television sets through Viewdata and Teletext technology.
In 1979 Elsevier Science Publishers launched the Article Delivery Over Network Information System (ADONIS) project in conjunction with four business partners. The project aims to find a way to deliver scientific articles to libraries electronically, and would continue for over a decade. In 1991, in conjunction with nine American universities, Elsevier's The University Licensing Project (TULIP) was the first step in creating published, copyrighted material available over the Internet. It formed the basis for ScienceDirect, launched six years later. In 1997, after almost two decades of experiments, ScienceDirect was launched as the first online repository of electronic (scientific) books and articles. Though librarians and researchers were initially hesitant regarding the new technology, more and more of them switched to e-only subscriptions.
In 2004 Elsevier launched Scopus- a multidisciplinary metadata database of scholarly publications, only the second of such kind (after the Web of Science, although free Google Scholar was also launched in 2004). Scopus covers journals, some conference papers and books from various publishers, and measures performance on both author and publication levels. In 2009 SciVal Spotlight was released. This tool enabled research administrators to measure their institution's relative standing in terms of productivity, grants, and publications .
In 2013, Elsevier acquired Mendeley, a UK company making software for managing and sharing research papers. Mendeley, previously an open platform for sharing of research, was greatly criticized for the sale, which users saw as acceding to the "paywall" approach to research literature. Mendeley's previously open-sharing system now allows exchange of paywalled resources only within private groups. The New Yorker described Elsevier's reasons for buying Mendeley as two-fold: to acquire its user data, and to "destroy or coöpt an open-science icon that threatens its business model".
Company statistics
, researchers submitted over 1.8 million research papers to Elsevier-based publications. Over 20,000 editors managed the peer review and selection of these papers, resulting in the publication of more than 470,000 articles in over 2,500 journals. Editors are generally unpaid volunteers who perform their duties alongside a full-time job in academic institutions, although exceptions have been reported. In 2013, the five editorial groups Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, and SAGE Publications published more than half of all academic papers in the peer-reviewed literature. At that time, Elsevier accounted for 16% of the world market in science, technology, and medical publishing. In 2019, Elsevier accounted for the review, editing and dissemination 18% of the world's scientific articles. About 45% of revenue by geography in 2019 derived from North America, 24% from Europe, and the remaining 31% from the rest of the world. Around 84% of revenue by format came from electronic usage and 16% came from print.
The firm employs 8,100 people. The CEO is Kumsal Bayazit, who was appointed on 15 February 2019. In 2018, it reported a mean 2017 gender pay gap of 29.1% for its UK workforce, while the median was 40.4%, the highest yet reported by a publisher in UK. Elsevier attributed the result to the under-representation of women in its senior ranks and the prevalence of men in its technical workforce. The UK workforce consists of 1,200 people in the UK, and represents 16% of Elsevier's global employee population. Elsevier's parent company, RELX, has a global workforce that is 51% female to 49% male, with 43% female and 57% male managers, and 29% female and 71% male senior operational managers.
In 2018, Elsevier accounted for 34% of the revenues of RELX group (£2.538 billion of £7.492 billion). In operating profits, it represented 40% (£942 million of £2,346 million). Adjusted operating profits (with constant currency) rose by 2% from 2017 to 2018. Profits grew further from 2018 to 2019, to a total of £982 million. the first half of 2019, RELX reported the first slowdown in revenue growth for Elsevier in several years: 1% vs. an expectation of 2% and a typical growth of at least 4% in the previous 5 years. Overall for 2019, Elsevier reported revenue growth of 3.9% from 2018, with the underlying growth at constant currency at 2%. In 2019, Elsevier accounted for 34% of the revenues of RELX (£2.637billion of £7.874billion). In adjusted operating profits, it represented 39% (£982m of £2.491bn). Adjusted operating profits (with constant currency) rose by 2% from 2018 to 2019.
In 2019, researchers submitted over two million research papers to Elsevier-based publications. Over 22,000 editors managed the peer review and selection of these papers, resulting in the publication of about 500,000 articles in over 2,500 journals.
In 2020 Elsevier was the largest academic publisher, with approximately 16% of the academic publishing market and more than 3000 journals."
Market model
Products and services
Products and services include electronic and print versions of journals, textbooks and reference works, and cover the health, life, physical, and social sciences.
The target markets are academic and government research institutions, corporate research labs, booksellers, librarians, scientific researchers, authors, editors, physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, medical and nursing students and schools, medical researchers, pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, and research establishments. It publishes in 13 languages including English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, Japanese, Hindi, and Chinese.
Flagship products and services include VirtualE, ScienceDirect, Scopus, Scirus, EMBASE, Engineering Village, Compendex, Cell, Knovel, SciVal, Pure, and Analytical Services, The Consult series (FirstCONSULT, PathCONSULT, NursingCONSULT, MDConsult, StudentCONSULT), Virtual Clinical Excursions, and major reference works such as Gray's Anatomy, Nelson Pediatrics, Dorland's Illustrated Medical Dictionary, Netter's Atlas of Human Anatomy, and online versions of many journals including The Lancet.
ScienceDirect is Elsevier's platform for online electronic access to its journals and over 40,000 e-books, reference works, book series, and handbooks. The articles are grouped in four main sections: Physical Sciences and Engineering, Life Sciences, Health Sciences, and Social Sciences and Humanities. For most articles on the website, abstracts are freely available; access to the full text of the article (in PDF, and also HTML for newer publications) often requires a subscription or pay-per-view purchase.
In 2019, Elsevier published 49,000 gratis open access articles and 370 full open access journals. Moreover, 1,900 of its journals sold hybrid open access options.
Pricing
The subscription rates charged by the company for its journals have been criticized; some very large journals (with more than 5,000 articles) charge subscription prices as high as £9,634, far above average, and many British universities pay more than a million pounds to Elsevier annually. The company has been criticized not only by advocates of a switch to the open-access publication model, but also by universities whose library budgets make it difficult for them to afford current journal prices.
For example, in 2004, a resolution by Stanford University's senate singled out Elsevier's journals as being "disproportionately expensive compared to their educational and research value", which librarians should consider dropping, and encouraged its faculty "not to contribute articles or editorial or review efforts to publishers and journals that engage in exploitive or exorbitant pricing". Similar guidelines and criticism of Elsevier's pricing policies have been passed by the University of California, Harvard University, and Duke University.
In July 2015, the Association of Universities in the Netherlands threatened to boycott Elsevier, which refused to negotiate on any open access policy for Dutch universities. After a year of negotiation, Elsevier pledged to make 30% of research published by Dutch researchers in Elsevier journals open access by 2018.
In October 2018, a complaint against Elsevier was filed with the European Commission, alleging anticompetitive practices stemming from Elsevier's confidential subscription agreements and market dominance. The European Commission decided not to investigate.
The elevated pricing of field journals in economics, most of which are published by Elsevier, was one of the motivations that moved the American Economic Association to launch the American Economic Journal in 2009.
Mergers and acquisitions
RELX Group has been active in mergers and acquisitions. Elsevier has incorporated other businesses that were either complementing or competing in the field of research and publishing and that reinforce its market power, such as Mendeley (after the closure of 2collab), SSRN, bepress/Digital Commons, PlumX, Hivebench, Newsflo, Science-Metrix, and Interfolio.
Conferences
Elsevier also conducts conferences, exhibitions, and workshops around the world, with over 50 conferences a year covering life sciences, physical sciences and engineering, social sciences, and health sciences.
Shill review offer
According to the BBC, in 2009, the firm [Elsevier] offered a £17.25 Amazon voucher to academics who contributed to the textbook Clinical Psychology if they would go on Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble (a large US books retailer) and give it five stars. Elsevier responded by stating "Encouraging interested parties to post book reviews isn't outside the norm in scholarly publishing, nor is it wrong to offer to nominally compensate people for their time. But in all instances the request should be unbiased, with no incentives for a positive review, and that's where this particular e-mail went too far", and that it was a mistake by a marketing employee.
Blocking text mining research
Elsevier seeks to regulate text and data mining with private licenses, claiming that reading requires extra permission if automated and that the publisher holds copyright on output of automated processes. The conflict on research and copyright policy has often resulted in researchers being blocked from their work. In November 2015, Elsevier blocked a scientist from performing text mining research at scale on Elsevier papers, even though his institution already pays for access to Elsevier journal content. The data was collected using the R package "statcheck".
Fossil fuel company consulting and advocacy
Elsevier is one of the most prolific publishers of books aimed at expanding the production of fossil fuels. Since at least 2010 the company has worked with the fossil fuel industry to optimise fossil fuel extraction. It commissions authors, journal advisory board members and editors who are employees of the largest oil firms. In addition it markets data services and research portals directly to the fossil fuel industry to help "increase the odds of exploration success".
Criticism of academic practices
"Who's Afraid of Peer Review"
In 2013, one of Elsevier's journals was caught in the sting set up by John Bohannon, published in Science, called "Who's Afraid of Peer Review?" The journal Drug Invention Today accepted an obviously bogus paper made up by Bohannon that should have been rejected by any good peer-review system. Instead, Drug Invention Today was among many open-access journals that accepted the fake paper for publication. As of 2014, this journal had been transferred to a different publisher.
Fake journals
At a 2009 court case in Australia where Merck & Co. was being sued by a user of Vioxx, the plaintiff alleged that Merck had paid Elsevier to publish the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine, which had the appearance of being a peer-reviewed academic journal but in fact contained only articles favourable to Merck drugs. Merck described the journal as a "complimentary publication", denied claims that articles within it were ghost written by Merck, and stated that the articles were all reprinted from peer-reviewed medical journals. In May 2009, Elsevier Health Sciences CEO Hansen released a statement regarding Australia-based sponsored journals, conceding that they were "sponsored article compilation publications, on behalf of pharmaceutical clients, that were made to look like journals and lacked the proper disclosures." The statement acknowledged that it "was an unacceptable practice." The Scientist reported that, according to an Elsevier spokesperson, six sponsored publications "were put out by their Australia office and bore the Excerpta Medica imprint from 2000 to 2005," namely the Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Medicine (Australas. J. Bone Joint Med.), the Australasian Journal of General Practice (Australas. J. Gen. Pract.), the Australasian Journal of Neurology (Australas. J. Neurol.), the Australasian Journal of Cardiology (Australas. J. Cardiol.), the Australasian Journal of Clinical Pharmacy (Australas. J. Clin. Pharm.), and the Australasian Journal of Cardiovascular Medicine (Australas. J. Cardiovasc. Med.). Excerpta Medica was a "strategic medical communications agency" run by Elsevier, according to the imprint's web page. In October 2010, Excerpta Medica was acquired by Adelphi Worldwide.
Chaos, Solitons & Fractals
There was speculation that the editor-in-chief of Elsevier journal Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Mohamed El Naschie, misused his power to publish his own work without appropriate peer review. The journal had published 322 papers with El Naschie as author since 1993. The last issue of December 2008 featured five of his papers. The controversy was covered extensively in blogs. The publisher announced in January 2009 that El Naschie had retired as editor-in-chief. the co-Editors-in-Chief of the journal were Maurice Courbage and Paolo Grigolini. In June 2011, El Naschie sued the journal Nature for libel, claiming that his reputation had been damaged by their November 2008 article about his retirement, which included statements that Nature had been unable to verify his claimed affiliations with certain international institutions. The suit came to trial in November 2011 and was dismissed in July 2012, with the judge ruling that the article was "substantially true", contained "honest comment", and was "the product of responsible journalism". The judgement noted that El Naschie, who represented himself in court, had failed to provide any documentary evidence that his papers had been peer-reviewed. Judge Victoria Sharp also found "reasonable and serious grounds" for suspecting that El Naschie used a range of false names to defend his editorial practice in communications with Nature, and described this behavior as "curious" and "bizarre".
Plagiarism
Elsevier's 'Duties of Authors' states that authors should ensure they have written entirely original works, and that proper acknowledgement of other's work must always be given. Elsevier claims plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical behaviour. Some Elsevier journals automatically screen submissions for plagiarism, but not all.
Albanian politician, Taulant Muka claimed that Elsevier journal Procedia had plagiarized in the abstract of one of its articles. It is unclear whether or not Muka had access to the entirety of the article.
Scientific racism
Angela Saini has criticized the two Elsevier journals Intelligence and Personality and Individual Differences for having included on their editorial boards such well-known proponents of scientific racism as Richard Lynn and Gerhard Meisenberg; in response to her inquiries, Elsevier defended their presence as editors. The journal Intelligence has been criticized for having "occasionally included papers with pseudoscientific findings about intelligence differences between races." It is the official journal of the International Society for Intelligence Research, which organizes the controversial series of conferences London Conference on Intelligence, described by the New Statesman as a forum for scientific racism.
In response to a 2019 open letter, efforts by Retraction Watch and a petition signed by over 1000 people, on 17 June 2020 Elsevier announced it was retracting an article that J. Philippe Rushton and Donald Templer published in 2012 in the Elsevier journal Personality and Individual Differences. The article had claimed that there was scientific evidence that skin color was related to aggression and sexuality in humans.
One of their Journals, Journal of Analytical and Applied Pyrolysis, was involved in the manipulation of the peer review report.
Manipulation of bibliometrics
According to the signatories of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (see also Goodhart's law), commercial academic publishers benefit from manipulation of bibliometrics and scientometrics, such as the journal impact factor. The impact factor, which is often used as a proxy of prestige, can influence revenues, subscriptions, and academics' willingness to contribute unpaid work. However, there's evidence suggesting that reliability of published research works in several fields may decrease with increasing journal rank.
Nine Elsevier journals, which exhibited unusual levels of self-citation, had their journal impact factor of 2019 suspended from Journal Citation Reports in 2020, a sanction which hit 34 journals in total.
In 2023, the International Journal of Hydrogen Energy, which is published by Elsevier, was criticized for desk-rejecting a submitted article for the main reason that it did not cite enough articles from the same journal.
Control of journals
Resignation of editorial boards
The editorial boards of a number of journals have resigned because of disputes with Elsevier over pricing:
In 1999, the entire editorial board of the Journal of Logic Programming resigned after 16 months of unsuccessful negotiations with Elsevier about the price of library subscriptions. The personnel created a new journal, Theory and Practice of Logic Programming, with Cambridge University Press at a much lower price, while Elsevier continued publication with a new editorial board and a slightly different name (the Journal of Logic and Algebraic Programming).
In 2002, dissatisfaction at Elsevier's pricing policies caused the European Economic Association to terminate an agreement with Elsevier designating Elsevier's European Economic Review as the official journal of the association. The EEA launched a new journal, the Journal of the European Economic Association.
In 2003, the entire editorial board of the Journal of Algorithms resigned to start ACM Transactions on Algorithms with a different, lower-priced, not-for-profit publisher, at the suggestion of Journal of Algorithms founder Donald Knuth. The Journal of Algorithms continued under Elsevier with a new editorial board until October 2009, when it was discontinued.
In 2005, the editors of the International Journal of Solids and Structures resigned to start the Journal of Mechanics of Materials and Structures. However, a new editorial board was quickly established and the journal continues in apparently unaltered form.
In 2006, the entire editorial board of the distinguished mathematical journal Topology resigned because of stalled negotiations with Elsevier to lower the subscription price. This board then launched the new Journal of Topology at a far lower price, under the auspices of the London Mathematical Society. Topology then remained in circulation under a new editorial board until 2009.
In 2023, the editorial board of the open access journal NeuroImage resigned and started a new journal, because of Elsevier's unwillingness to reduce article-processing charges. The editors called Elsevier's $3,450 per article processing charge "unethical and unsustainable".
Editorial boards have also resigned over open access policies or other issues:
In 2015, Stephen Leeder was removed from his role as editor of the Medical Journal of Australia when its publisher decided to outsource the journal's production to Elsevier. As a consequence, all but one of the journal's editorial advisory committee members co-signed a letter of resignation.
In 2015, the entire editorial staff of the general linguistics journal Lingua resigned in protest of Elsevier's unwillingness to agree to their terms of Fair Open Access. Editor-in-chief Johan Rooryck also announced that the Lingua staff would establish a new journal, Glossa.
In 2019, the entire editorial board of Elsevier's Journal of Informetrics resigned over the open-access policies of its publisher and founded open-access journal called Quantitative Science Studies.
In 2020, Elsevier effectively severed the tie between the Journal of Asian Economics and the academic society that founded it, the American Committee on Asian Economic Studies (ACAES), by offering the ACAES-appointed editor, Calla Wiemer, a terminal contract for 2020. As a result, a majority of the editorial board eventually resigned.
In 2023, the editorial board of the journal Design Studies resigned over Elsevier's 1) plans to increase publications seven-fold; 2) the appointment of an external Editor-in-Chief who had not previously published in the journal; and 3) changing the scope of the journal without consulting the editorial team or the journal's parent society.
"The Cost of Knowledge" boycott
In 2003, various university librarians began coordinating with each other to complain about Elsevier's "big deal" journal bundling packages, in which the company offered a group of journal subscriptions to libraries at a certain rate, but in which librarians claimed no economical option was available to subscribe to only the popular journals at a rate comparable to the bundled rate. Librarians continued to discuss the implications of the pricing schemes, many feeling pressured into buying the Elsevier packages without other options.
On 21 January 2012, mathematician Timothy Gowers publicly announced he would boycott Elsevier, noting that others in the field have been doing so privately. The reasons for the boycott are high subscription prices for individual journals, bundling subscriptions to journals of different value and importance, and Elsevier's support for SOPA, PIPA, and the Research Works Act, which would have prohibited open-access mandates for U.S. federally-funded research and severely restricted the sharing of scientific data.
Following this, a petition advocating noncooperation with Elsevier (that is, not submitting papers to Elsevier journals, not refereeing articles in Elsevier journals, and not participating in journal editorial boards), appeared on the site "The Cost of Knowledge". By February 2012, this petition had been signed by over 5,000 academics, growing to over 17,000 by November 2018. The firm disputed the claims, claiming that their prices are below the industry average, and stating that bundling is only one of several different options available to buy access to Elsevier journals. The company also claimed that its profit margins are "simply a consequence of the firm's efficient operation". The academics replied that their work was funded by public money, thus should be freely available.
On 27 February 2012, Elsevier issued a statement on its website that declared that it has withdrawn support from the Research Works Act. Although the Cost of Knowledge movement was not mentioned, the statement indicated the hope that the move would "help create a less heated and more productive climate" for ongoing discussions with research funders. Hours after Elsevier's statement, the sponsors of the bill, US House Representatives Darrell Issa and Carolyn Maloney, issued a joint statement saying that they would not push the bill in Congress.
Plan S
The Plan S open-access initiative, which began in Europe and has since spread to some US research funding agencies, would require researchers receiving some grants to publish in open-access journals by 2020. A spokesman for Elsevier said "If you think that information should be free of charge, go to Wikipedia". In September 2018, UBS advised to sell Elsevier (RELX) stocks, noting that Plan S could affect 5-10% of scientific funding and may force Elsevier to reduce pricing.
Relationship with academic institutions
Colombia
For 14 years, Colciencias, now Minciencias, led negotiations with Elsevier, as a practical and effective response to the informative growth of presumptive problems, allowing a greater number of Higher Education Institutions to join this project, thanks to it saves the scale that is obtained. Colombia has converted in the fourth country with the largest number of documents indexed in Scopus in Latin America (except for Brazil), growing by 57% in the last five years, a rate visibly greater in neighboring countries.
The Colombian National Consortium "Consorcio Colombia" managed by Consortia S.A.S. agreed in 2016 to have better prices for the Consortium members. The current agreement is that (Colombia National Ministry of Science and Technology) Minciencias and (Colombian National ministry of Education) Mineducación reintegrate money to institutions on the total payment of products, with the condition that money must be reinvested in academic and research resources.
Finland
In 2015, Finnish research organizations paid a total of 27 million euros in subscription fees. Over one-third of the total costs went to Elsevier. The information was revealed after successful court appeal following a denied request on the subscription fees, due to confidentiality clauses in contracts with the publishers. Establishing of this fact lead to creation of tiedonhinta.fi petition demanding more reasonable pricing and open access to content signed by more than 2800 members of the research community. While deals with other publishers have been made, this was not the case for Elsevier, leading to the nodealnoreview.org boycott of the publisher signed more than 600 times.
In January 2018, it was confirmed that a deal had been reached between those concerned.
France
The French Couperin consortium agreed in 2019 to a 4-year contract with Elsevier, despite criticism from the scientific community.
The French École Normale Supérieure has stopped having Elsevier publish the journal Annales Scientifiques de l'École Normale Supérieure (as of 2008).
Effective on 1 January 2020, the French Academy of Sciences stopped publishing its 7 journals Comptes rendus de l'Académie des Sciences with Elsevier and switched to Centre Mersenne.
Germany
Since 2018 and as of 2023, almost no academic institution in Germany is subscribed to Elsevier.
Germany's DEAL project (Projekt DEAL), which includes over 60 major research institutions, has announced that all of its members are cancelling their contracts with Elsevier, effective 1 January 2017. The boycott is in response to Elsevier's refusal to adopt "transparent business models" to "make publications more openly accessible". Horst Hippler, spokesperson for the DEAL consortium states that "taxpayers have a right to read what they are paying for" and that "publishers must understand that the route to open-access publishing at an affordable price is irreversible". In July 2017, another 13 institutions announced that they would also be cancelling their subscriptions to Elsevier journals. In August 2017, at least 185 German institutions had cancelled their contracts with Elsevier. In 2018, whilst negotiations were ongoing, around 200 German universities that cancelled their subscriptions to Elsevier journals were granted complimentary open access to them until this ended in July of the year.
On 19 December 2018, the Max Planck Society (MPS) announced that the existing subscription agreement with Elsevier would not be renewed after the expiration date of 31 December 2018. MPS counts 14,000 scientists in 84 research institutes, publishing 12,000 articles each year.
In 2023 Elsevier and DEAL reached a tentative agreement on a publish and read model, which would take effect until 2028 if at least 70 % of the eligible institutions opt into it.
Hungary
In March 2018, the Hungarian Electronic Information Service National Programme entered negotiations on its 2019 Elsevier subscriptions, asking for a read-and-publish deal. Negotiations were ended by the Hungarian consortium in December 2018, and the subscription was not renewed.
Iran
In 2013, Elsevier changed its policies in response to sanctions announced by the US Office of Foreign Assets Control that year. This included a request that all Elsevier journals avoid publishing papers by Iranian nationals who are employed by the Iranian government. Elsevier executive Mark Seeley expressed regret on behalf of the company, but did not announce an intention to challenge this interpretation of the law.
Italy
CRUI (an association of Italian universities) sealed a 5-year-long deal for 2018–2022, despite protests from the scientific community, protests focused on aspects such as the lack of prevention of cost increases by means of the double dipping.
Netherlands
In 2015, a consortium of all of Netherlands' 14 universities threatened to boycott Elsevier if it could not agree that articles by Dutch authors would be made open access and settled with the compromise of 30% of its Dutch papers becoming open access by 2018. Gerard Meijer, president of Radboud University in Nijmegen and lead negotiator on the Dutch side noted, "it's not the 100% that I hoped for".
Norway
In March 2019, the Norwegian government on behalf of 44 institutions — universities, university colleges, research institutes, and hospitals — decided to break negotiations on renewal of their subscription deal with Elsevier, because of disagreement regarding open-access policy and Elsevier's unwillingness to reduce the cost of reading access.
South Korea
In 2017, over 70 university libraries confirmed a "contract boycott" movement involving three publishers including Elsevier. As of January 2018, whilst negotiations remain underway, a decision will be made as to whether or not continue the participating libraries will continue the boycott. It was subsequently confirmed that an agreement had been reached.
Sweden
In May 2018, the Bibsam Consortium, which negotiates license agreements on behalf of all Swedish universities and research institutes, decided not to renew their contract with Elsevier, alleging that the publisher does not meet the demands of transition towards a more open-access model, and referring to the rapidly increasing costs for publishing. Swedish universities will still have access to articles published before 30 June 2018. Astrid Söderbergh Widding, chairman of the Bibsam Consortium, said, "the current system for scholarly communication must change and our only option is to cancel deals when they don't meet our demands for a sustainable transition to open access". Sweden has a goal of open access by 2026. In November 2019 the negotiations concluded, with Sweden paying for reading access to Elsevier journals and open access publishing for all its researchers' articles.
Taiwan
In Taiwan, more than 75% of universities, including the country's top 11 institutions, have joined a collective boycott against Elsevier. On 7 December 2016, the Taiwanese consortium, CONCERT, which represents more than 140 institutions, announced it would not renew its contract with Elsevier.
United States
In March 2018, Florida State University's faculty elected to cancel its $2 million subscription to a bundle of several journals. Starting in 2019, it will instead buy access to titles à la carte.
In February 2019, the University of California said it would terminate subscriptions "in [a] push for open access to publicly funded research." After months of negotiations over open access to research by UC researchers and prices for subscriptions to Elsevier journals, a press release by the UC Office of the President issued Thursday, 28 February 2019 stated "Under Elsevier's proposed terms, the publisher would have charged UC authors large publishing fees on top of the university's multimillion dollar subscription, resulting in much greater cost to the university and much higher profits for Elsevier." On 10 July 2019, Elsevier began restricting access to all new paywalled articles and approximately 5% of paywalled articles published before 2019.
In April 2020, the University of North Carolina elected not to renew its bundled Elsevier package, citing a failure "to provide an affordable path". Rather than extend the license, which was stated to cost $2.6 million annually, the university decided to continue subscribing to a smaller set of individual journals. The State University of New York Libraries Consortium also announced similar outcome, with the help of estimates from Unpaywall Journals. Similarly, MIT announced in June 2020 that it would no longer pay for access to new Elsevier articles.
In 2022 Elsevier and the University of Michigan established an agreement to support authors who wish to publish open access.
Ukraine
In June 2020 the Ukrainian government cancelled subscriptions for all universities in the country after failed negotiations. The Ministry of Education stated that Elsevier indexes journals in its register which call themselves Russian but are from occupied territories.
Dissemination of research
Lobbying efforts against open access
Elsevier have been known to be involved in lobbying against open access. These have included the likes of:
The Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPPA)
The Research Works Act
PRISM. In the case of PRISM, the Association of American Publishers hired Eric Dezenhall, the so-called "Pit Bull Of Public Relations".
Horizon 2020
Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP)
The European Union's Open Science Monitor was criticised after Elsevier were confirmed as a subcontractor.
UK Research and Innovation
Selling open-access articles
In 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017, Elsevier was found to be selling some articles that should have been open access, but had been put behind a paywall. A related case occurred in 2015, when Elsevier charged for downloading an open-access article from a journal published by John Wiley & Sons. However, whether Elsevier was in violation of the license under which the article was made available on their website was not clear.
Action against academics posting their own articles online
In 2013, Digimarc, a company representing Elsevier, told the University of Calgary to remove articles published by faculty authors on university web pages; although such self-archiving of academic articles may be legal under the fair dealing provisions in Canadian copyright law, the university complied. Harvard University and the University of California, Irvine also received takedown notices for self-archived academic articles, a first for Harvard, according to Peter Suber.
Months after its acquisition of Academia.edu rival Mendeley, Elsevier sent thousands of takedown notices to Academia.edu, a practice that has since ceased following widespread complaint by academics, according to Academia.edu founder and chief executive Richard Price.
After Elsevier acquired the repository SSRN in May 2016, academics started complaining that some of their work has been removed without notice. The action was explained as a technical error.
Sci-Hub and LibGen lawsuit
In 2015, Elsevier filed a lawsuit against the sites Sci-Hub and LibGen, which make copyright-protected articles available for free. Elsevier also claimed illegal access to institutional accounts.
Initial rejection of the Initiative for Open Citations
Among the major academic publishers, Elsevier alone declined to join the Initiative for Open Citations. In the context of the resignation of the Journal of Informetrics' editorial board, the firm stated: "Elsevier invests significantly in citation extraction technology. While these are made available to those who wish to license this data, Elsevier cannot make such a large corpus of data, to which it has added significant value, available for free."
Elsevier finally joined the initiative in January 2021 after the data was already available with an Open Data Commons license in Microsoft Academic.
ResearchGate take down
A chamber of the Munich Regional Court has ruled that the research networking site ResearchGate has to take down articles uploaded without consent from their original publishers and ResearchGate must take down Elsevier articles. A case was brought forward in 2017 by the Coalition for Responsible Sharing, a group of publishers that includes Elsevier and the American Chemical Society.
Imprints
Elsevier uses its imprints (that is, brand names used in publishing) to market to different consumer segments. Many of the imprints have previously been the names of publishing companies that were purchased by Reed Elsevier.
Academic Press
Baillière Tindall
BC Decker
Butterworth–Heinemann
CMP
Cell Press
Churchill Livingstone
Digital Press
Elsevier
Gulf Professional Publishing
GW Medical Publishing
Hanley & Belfus
Masson
Medicine Publishing
Morgan Kaufmann Publishers
Mosby
Newnes
North-Holland Publishing Company
Pergamon Press
Pergamon Flexible Learning
Saunders
Syngress
Urban & Fischer
William Andrew
Woodhead Publishing (including Chandos and Horwood)
See also
List of Elsevier periodicals
2collab, a free researcher collaboration tool launched by Elsevier in 2007 and discontinued in 2011
Sci-Hub, a website providing free access to otherwise paywalled academic papers that is involved in a legal case with Elsevier
Bertelsmann
Holtzbrinck Publishing Group
Lagardère Publishing
McGraw Hill Education
News Corp
Pearson plc
Scholastic Corporation
Thomson Reuters
Wiley (publisher)
References
Citations
Sources
External links
Campaign success: Reed Elsevier sells international arms fairs
Elsevier
Academic publishing companies
Bibliographic database providers
Companies based in Amsterdam
Multinational companies headquartered in the Netherlands
Publishing companies established in 1880
Publishing companies of the Netherlands
Dutch companies established in 1880 |
420576 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RELX | RELX | RELX plc (pronounced "Rel-ex") is a British multinational information and analytics company headquartered in London, England. Its businesses provide scientific, technical and medical information and analytics; legal information and analytics; decision-making tools; and organise exhibitions. It operates in 40 countries and serves customers in over 180 nations. It was previously known as Reed Elsevier, and came into being in 1993 as a result of the merger of Reed International, a British trade book and magazine publisher, and Elsevier, a Netherlands-based scientific publisher.
The company is publicly listed, with shares traded on the London Stock Exchange, Amsterdam Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange (ticker symbols: London: REL, Amsterdam: REN, New York: RELX). The company is one of the constituents of the FTSE 100 Index, AEX Index, Financial Times Global 500 and Euronext 100 Index.
History
The company, which was previously known as Reed Elsevier, came into being in 1993, as a result of the merger of Reed International, a British trade book and magazine publisher, and Elsevier, a Netherlands-based scientific publisher. The company re-branded itself as RELX in February 2015.
Reed International
In 1895, Albert E. Reed established a newsprint manufacturing operation at Tovil Mill near Maidstone, Kent. The Reed family were Methodists and encouraged good working conditions for their staff in the then-dangerous print trade.
In 1965, Reed Group, as it was then known, became a conglomerate, creating its Decorative Products Division with the purchase of Crown Paints, Polycell and Sanderson's wallpaper and DIY decorating interests.
In 1970, Reed Group merged with the International Publishing Corporation and the company name was changed to Reed International Limited. The company continued to grow by merging with other publishers and produced high quality trade journals as IPC Business Press Ltd and women's and other consumer magazines as IPC magazines Ltd. Reed entered the United States in 1977 by acquiring Cahners Publications, founded by Norman Cahners.
In 1985 the company decided to rationalise its operations, focusing on publishing and selling off its other interests. Sanderson was sold to WestPoint Pepperell, Inc. of Georgia, United States, that year, while Crown Paint and Polycell were sold to Williams Holdings in 1987. The company's paper and packaging production operations were bundled together to form Reedpack and sold to private equity firm Cinven in 1988. Reed expanded its publishing by acquiring Technical Publishing from Dun & Bradstreet.
Elsevier NV
In 1880, Jacobus George Robbers started a publishing company called NV Uitgeversmaatschappij Elsevier (Elsevier Publishing Company NV) to publish literary classics and the encyclopedia Winkler Prins. Robbers named the company after the old Dutch printers family Elzevir, which, for example, published the works of Erasmus in 1587. Elsevier NV originally was based in Rotterdam but moved to Amsterdam in the late 1880s.
Up to the 1930s, Elsevier remained a small family-owned publisher, with no more than ten employees. After the war it launched the weekly Elsevier magazine, which turned out to be very profitable. A rapid expansion followed. Elsevier Press Inc. started in 1951 in Houston, Texas, USA, and in 1962 publishing offices were opened in London and New York. Multiple mergers in the 1970s led to name changes, settling at "Elsevier Scientific Publishers" in 1979. In 1991, two years before the merger with Reed, Elsevier acquired Pergamon Press in the UK.
Cahners Publishing
Cahners Publishing, founded by Norman Cahners, was the largest U.S. publisher of trade or business magazines as of his death in 1986. Reed Elsevier acquired the company in 1977.
Reed Elsevier and RELX
Significant acquisitions
Significant divestments
In February 1997, Reed Elsevier divested its trade publishing group (including Heinemann, Methuen, Secker & Warburg, Sinclair-Stevenson, Mandarin, Minerva and Cedar) to Random House. In 1998, Reed Elsevier sold the children's divisions of Heinemann, Methuen, Hamlyn and Mammoth to the Egmont Group.
In February 2007, the company announced its intention to sell Harcourt, its educational publishing division. On 4 May 2007 Pearson, the international education and information company, announced that it had agreed to acquire Harcourt Assessment and Harcourt Education International from Reed Elsevier for $950m in cash. In July 2007, Reed Elsevier announced its agreement to sell the remaining Harcourt Education business, including international imprint Heinemann, to Houghton Mifflin for $4 billion in cash and stock.
Between 2006 and 2019, in 65 separate deals, the company systematically sold its 300 print, business to business magazine titles, reducing the proportion of print revenues from 51% to 9%. Advertising, which had been the largest source of revenues when RELX was founded, represented just 1% of sales in 2018.
In July 2009, Reed Elsevier announced its intention to sell most of its North American trade publications, including Publishers Weekly, Broadcasting & Cable, and Multichannel News, although it planned to retain Variety.
In April 2010, Reed Elsevier announced that it had sold 21 US magazines to other owners in recent months, and that an additional 23 US trade magazines, including Restaurants & Institutions, Hotels, and Trade Show Week would cease publication. The closures were mostly due to the weak economy including an advertising slump.
Variety, the company's last remaining North American title, was sold in October 2012.
In 2014, Reed Business Information sold BuyerZone, an online marketplace; emedia, an American provider of research for IT buyers and vendors; and a majority stake in Reed Construction Data, a provider of construction data.
In 2016, RELX sold Elsevier Weekly and BeleggersBelangen in the Netherlands.
In 2017 the company sold New Scientist magazine.
In January 2019, RBI sold its Dutch agricultural media and selected international agricultural media portfolio (including Poultry World) to Doorakkeren BV.
In August 2019, Flight International and FlightGlobal were sold to DVV Media Group.
In December 2019, RBI announced plans to sell the Farmers Weekly magazine title, website and related platforms, events and awards to MA Agriculture Limited, part of the Mark Allen Group.
Operations and market segments
Scientific, Technical & Medical
RELX's Scientific, Technical & Medical business provides information, analytics and tools that help investors make decisions that improve scientific and healthcare outcomes. It operates under the name of Elsevier:
ScienceDirect, an online database of primary research, contains 18 million documents.
Scopus is a bibliographic database containing abstracts and citations for academic journal articles. It contains more than 50 million items in more 20,000 titles from 5,000 publishers worldwide.
Mendeley is a desktop and web program for managing and sharing research papers, discovering research data and collaborating online.
Elsevier is the world's largest publisher of academic articles. It published 600,000 articles in 2021. Its best-known titles are The Lancet and Cell. In 1995, Forbes magazine (wrongly) predicted Elsevier would be "the first victim of the internet" as it was disrupted and disintermediated by the World Wide Web.
Risk
LexisNexis Risk Solutions provide decision-making tools which help banks spot money launderers and insurance companies weed out fraudulent claims.
The business claims to have saved the state of Florida more than $60 million a year by preventing benefit fraud.
Accuity Inc.
Accuity provides financial crime compliance software which allows institutions to comply with sanctions and anti-money laundering compliance programmes. It offers Know Your Customer, KYC, online subscription-based data and software for the financial services industry. The company's services include helping banks and financial institutions screen for high risk customers and transactions, and providing databases such as Bankers Almanac which allows clients to find and validate bank payment routing data. Accuity serves financial services clients worldwide.
Cirium
Cirium (previously known as FlightGlobal) provides data and aviation analytics products to the aviation, finance and travel industries.
Legal
RELX's legal business operates under the LexisNexis brand. Many of LexisNexis' brands date back to the nineteenth century or earlier. These include Butterworths and Tolley in the UK and JurisClasseur in France. In 2019, 85% of its revenues were electronic. The LexisNexis legal and news database contains 119bn documents and records.
Exhibitions
RELX's exhibitions business is called RX, formerly Reed Exhibitions until 2021. It is the world's largest exhibitions company, running 500 shows for 140,000 exhibitors and 7m visitors.
ReedPop, part of RX, organises popular culture events including New York Comic Con and PAX. In February 2018, ReedPop acquired Gamer Network, a British Mass Media company that owns a number of video game journalism sites including Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun and VG247.
Governance
the board of directors consisted of:
Chief Executive: Erik Engström
Chair: Paul Walker
Chief Financial Officer: Nick Luff
Non-executive directors:
Wolfhart Hauser
Robert MacLeod
Charlotte Hogg
June Felix
Marike van Lier Lels
Linda Sanford
Andrew Sukawaty
Suzanne Wood
In 2019, Harvard Business Review ranked Erik Engström the world's 11th best performing CEO.
In August 2020, RELX announced Sir Anthony Habgood would retire as Chair, to be replaced by Paul Walker in the first half of 2021.
Corporate affairs
Corporate strategy
From 2011 to 2014, the average annual value of disposals was about $300m. The predictability of the company's results in recent years has led to a re-rating of the shares.
Financial performance
Social responsibility
The RELX Environmental Challenge awards grants to projects advancing access to safe water and sanitation.
In 2019, Mike Walsh, CEO of LexisNexis, was honoured by the UN Foundation with a Global Leadership award for the company's work in advancing the Rule of Law - recognizing the company's commitment to strengthening equality under law, transparency of law, independent judiciaries and accessible legal remedy.
The Elsevier Foundation supports libraries in developing countries, women scientists and nursing facilities. In 2016 it committed $1m a year, for 3 years, to programmes encouraging diversity in science, technology and medicine and promoting science research in developing countries.
Programmes operated by LexisNexis Legal & Professional include:
With the Atlantic Council, launching the first draft of the Global Rule of Law Business Principles which will help businesses, law firms and NGOs promote and uphold the rule of law.
With the International Bar Association, launching an application called eyeWitness to Atrocities, designed to capture GPS coordinates, date and time stamps, sensory and movement data, and the location of nearby objects such as Wi-Fi networks. The technology also creates a secure chain of custody to help verify that the images and video has not been edited or digitally manipulated. The goal is to create content that can be used in a court of law to prosecute perpetrators of atrocities and human rights abuses.
Programmes operated by LexisNexis Risk Solutions include:
The ADAM (Automated Delivery of Alerts on Missing Children) programme in the US, developed by employees in 2000, which assists in the recovery of missing children through a system of targeted alerts. the programme has helped trace 177 missing children.
Social Media Monitor, which assists law enforcement officials in investigating serious crimes such as drug dealing and human trafficking.
Controversy
Mercury contamination in Grassy Narrows
The mercury contamination of the Wabigoon River in Ontario Canada by a corporate subsidiary between 1962 and 1970 was "one of the worst cases of environmental poisoning in Canadian history." Reed sold the Dryden Mill to Great Lakes Forest Products in 1980. As of 2017 Grassy Narrows First Nation chief Simon Fobister stated that the river remained highly contaminated.
Boycott
Reed Elsevier has been criticised for the high prices of its journals and services, especially those published by Elsevier. It has also supported SOPA, PIPA and the Research Works Act, although it no longer supports the last. Because of this, members of the scientific community have boycotted Elsevier journals. In January 2012, the boycott gained an online pledge and petition (The Cost of Knowledge) initiated by mathematician and Fields medalist Sir Timothy Gowers. The movement has received support from noted science bloggers, such as biologist Jonathan Eisen. Between 2012 and February 2023, about 20,500 scientists signed The Cost of Knowledge boycott.
2019 UC system negotiations
On 28 February 2019, following long negotiations, the University of California announced it would be terminating all subscriptions with Elsevier. On 16 March 2021, following further negotiations and significant changes including (i) universal open access to University of California research and (ii) containing the "excessively high costs" being charged by publishers, the university renewed its subscription.
Privacy
As a data broker Reed Elsevier collected, used, and sold data on millions of consumers. In 2005, a security breach occurred through a recently purchased subsidiary, Seisint, which allowed identity thieves to steal the records of at least 316,000 people. The database contained names, current and prior addresses, dates of birth, drivers license numbers and Social Security numbers, among other data obtained from credit reporting agencies and other sources. In 2008 the company settled an action taken against it by the Federal Trade Commission for multiple failures of security practice in how the data was stored and protected. The settlement required Reed Elsevier and Seisint to establish and maintain a comprehensive security program to protect nonpublic personal information.
Defence exhibitions
Between 2005 and 2007, members of the medical and scientific communities, which purchase and use many journals published by Reed Elsevier, agitated for the company to cut its links to the arms trade. Two UK academics, Tom Stafford of Sheffield University and Nick Gill, launched petitions calling for it to stop organising arms fairs. A subsidiary, Spearhead, organised defence shows, including an event where it was reported that cluster bombs and extremely powerful riot control equipment were offered for sale. In February 2007 Richard Smith, former editor of the British Medical Journal, published an editorial in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine arguing that Reed Elsevier's involvement in both the arms trade and medical publishing constituted a conflict of interest. Subsequently, in June the company announced that they would be exiting the defence exhibition business during the second half of the year.
Collaboration with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)
In November 2019, legal scholars and human rights activists called on RELX to cease work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement because their product LexisNexis directly contributes to the deportation of illegal immigrants.
Support for fossil fuel expansion
An article in The Guardian in February 2022 revealed that Elsevier products and services support expanding the production aims of the fossil fuel industry. The company disclosed that it is "not prepared to draw a line between the transition away from fossil fuels and the expansion of oil and gas extraction." In response, the Union of Concerned Scientists and Scientists for Global Responsibility launched a petition in 2022, and issued a response to the company's reply in 2023. UCS noted in a blog post that "Elsevier and RELX claimed to be focused on a transition to clean energy. Given the services Elsevier and RELX continue to provide, these claims are demonstrably false." Scientists for Global Responsibility also noted on their website that the company's "actions fall short of meeting the standards set in their own pledges" and pointed campaigners to the website of Climate Rights Coalition, which revealed such concerns had been raised by employees years prior.
See also
References
Citations
Sources
General references
Guardian Unlimited, "Bad Science" by Ben Goldacre about Open Access and DSEI arms trade
ketupa.net media profile: Reed Elsevier historical overview
"Double Dutch No Longer"—in-depth article about the company from 2002 (Forbes.com)
"Duncan Palmer Becomes Reed Elsevier CFO"—Online article about the new CFO of Reed Elsevier, accessed 09/17/2012
External links
Bibliographic database providers
Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom
Companies listed on the London Stock Exchange
Companies listed on Euronext Amsterdam
Companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Data brokers
Multinational companies based in the City of London
Multinational companies headquartered in England
Multinational publishing companies
Publishing companies established in 1993 |
420579 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS%20Centaur%20%28R06%29 | HMS Centaur (R06) | HMS Centaur was the first of the four light fleet carriers of the Royal Navy. She was the only ship of her class to be completed with the original design configuration of a straight axial flight deck, rather than the newly invented angled flight decks of her three later sister ships. She was laid down in 1944 in Belfast, with the contract being awarded to Harland and Wolff, but not launched until 22 April 1947 due to delays relating to the end of the war. She was commissioned on 1 September 1953, almost nine years from when she was laid down in 1944.
Centaur saw service throughout the 1950s and early 1960s. Due to budgetary issues Centaur was not converted to a commando carrier like two of her sister ships. Centaur was withdrawn from service in August 1965 and sold for scrapping in 1972.
Completion
Centaur was completed with an axial flight deck, marked by a broken white line running down the middle of the entire length of the flight deck. She began her contractor's sea trials in March 1953 and commissioned on 17 September 1953. Her aviation facilities as completed included 2 x BH5 hydraulic catapults at the bow, six arrestor wires, two capacity aircraft lifts, measuring forward and aft. Her single hangar measured , and she had stowage for of AVCAT and Avgas aviation fuel.
Following the completion of her sea and machinery trials in October 1953, she was taken in hand at Portsmouth Dockyard, to be fitted with an interim 5.5-degree angled deck, which was already being added to her as yet uncompleted sister ships, and . This required cutting down the port sheerstrake, re-siting the walkways and removing three twin Bofors guns and their directors. Upon completion of this work in April 1954, she was finally able to join the fleet as the first angled-deck carrier in the Royal Navy and undertook her initial flying trials in the English Channel from May to July 1954.
Operational history
First commission
Centaurs first captain, appointed on 13 August 1953, was Captain H.P.Sears, RN, who remained with her until replaced in October 1954, by Captain H.C.F Rolfe, RN, who was to stay with her until the end of her first commission.
Centaurs initial air group of 25 aircraft, as embarked in July 1954, consisted of nine Hawker Sea Hawk FGA6 of 806 Squadron, nine Hawker Sea Fury FB11 of 810 Squadron, six Grumman Avenger AS anti-submarine aircraft of 820 Squadron and one Westland Dragonfly HR5 of the ship's flight. Centaur was initially intended to join the Mediterranean Fleet for a period of four months, before heading east of Suez to relieve as the duty carrier in the Far East. As events transpired however, she was to remain in the Mediterranean until June 1955. Her activities during this period included exercises in company with her sister ship Albion and NATO allies, embarking British troops during the withdrawal from Trieste in October 1954, escorting the royal yacht during a Royal Tour and numerous visits to friendly ports. Whilst at Malta in February 1955, the Sea Furys of 810 Squadron were disembarked and the squadron later flew back to the UK to be disbanded; they were replaced by nine Sea Hawks of 803 Squadron which were transferred from Albion in March 1955. The Avenger AS4s of 820 Squadron were similarly replaced by six Avenger AS5s of 814 Squadron.
From June 1955 until January 1956, Centaur was based in home waters and undertook a range of visits and exercises with other carriers of the fleet. After two months spent in Portsmouth from November 1955, she left for the Far East on 10 January 1956, in company with Albion. Further changes to her air-group saw the Avengers of 814 Squadron replaced by the re-formed 820 Squadron, with six Fairey Gannet AS4s. After passing through the Suez Canal, she visited Aden in February to undertake flying exercises with RAF Venoms based at RAF Khormaksar. This was followed by a visit to India, where the two carriers provided flying demonstrations for the Indian government, who were at that time interested in acquiring an aircraft carrier for the Indian Navy. This eventually resulted in the purchase, the following year, of the incomplete , completed in 1961 to an updated design as . Further exercises were carried out in the Indian Ocean, before heading east to visit Hong Kong and Singapore. She crossed the line for the first time on 26 April en route back from Singapore to Devonport via Suez and Malta, arriving on 15 May 1956.
Modernisation
In the mid-1950s Government Defence Policy was to maintain a fleet of four active aircraft carriers to meet both NATO and Imperial commitments. In practice this meant a total fleet of five to six ships, allowing for refits, modernisation and training. The rapid advances in naval aviation technology during this period, such as the angled deck, steam catapults and mirror landing sight, coupled with the planned introduction of the new, heavier second-generation jet fighters such as the Supermarine Scimitar and De Havilland Sea Vixen, rendered the existing Carrier fleet obsolescent. Only (completed in 1955), the rebuilt , and under-construction , due to join the fleet in 1958 and 1959 respectively, had the capability to operate the new aircraft. Thus it was decided to rebuild from 1959 to 1964 to the same standard as Victorious and Hermes, followed by a similar upgrade to Ark Royal. This left a potential period of five years between 1959 and 1964 when a maximum of three carriers would be available. The Admiralty therefore searched for an interim solution to bridge this feared gap.
The design limitations of the three Centaur-class carriers completed in 1953-4 meant that a rebuild to the standard adopted for the other carriers would be difficult, if not impossible. A particular problem was the lack of hangar deck strength, which when the ships were ordered in 1943, was specified to handle aircraft. A fully loaded Sea Vixen FAW1 could weigh up to and the Scimitar up to . This would mean that in operation these aircraft would have to be armed and fuelled on the flight deck. Nonetheless, no other hulls were available, and given the potential "gap", a quick solution was needed. It was therefore decided that one Centaur-class would be given a limited modernisation, to give her the minimum capability to operate these aircraft. Centaur herself was selected for this purpose in May 1956.
Between June 1956 and August 1958, Centaur underwent her partial modernisation at Devonport Dockyard. This involved the installation of two BS4 steam catapults forward, the removal of the Bofors guns on the flight deck, improved air operations facilities and the addition of a Type 963 blind-landing radome at the rear of the island. Some work was also done on a further slight extension on the port-side, to enable a six-degree angled flight deck to be used. Her arrestor cables were not upgraded at this stage, however. This was rectified in her 1960–1961 refit, when five arrestor wires were fitted.
Second commission
Centaur recommissioned at Devonport on 3 September 1958, under the command of Captain Horace Law. Following the completion of post-refit ship trials in the Channel and South-West Approaches in November, she embarked her air group in preparation for her flying trials, which included visits from both Sea Vixens and Scimitars as well as two Gannet AEW3s. In January 1959 she embarked her full air-group, consisting of fourteen Hawker Sea Hawk FGA6s of 801 Squadron, eight Sea Venom FAW22s of 891 Squadron, eight Westland Whirlwind HS7s of 845 Squadron and four Douglas Skyraider AEW1s of D Flight 849 Squadron.
From January to March she operated with the Mediterranean Fleet based in Malta, before proceeding to the North Atlantic to take part in Exercise Dawn Breeze IV, in company with Eagle and the recently rebuilt and re-commissioned Victorious. During March the Whirlwind helicopters of 845 Squadron were landed due to technical problems with their engines and she re-embarked Dragonflies to carry out search And rescue duties. Six Gannet AS4s of 810 NAS were also embarked from June 1959, to provide anti-submarine capability.
In April 1959, Centaur was used during the making of the film Sink the Bismarck! to depict flight operations from both Royal Navy aircraft carriers Victorious and ; (her post-war pennant number R06 is clear in both scenes). Three surviving Fairey Swordfish biplanes were restored and flown from her decks, and scenes were also shot on the bridge of the carrier, and in the aircrew briefing room. One of the Swordfish was piloted by the test pilot Peter Twiss.
After her brief spell in the limelight, Centaur spent a few weeks in home waters, carrying out flying operations, and paid visits to Copenhagen, Denmark and Brest, France, before departing for the Mediterranean via Lisbon and Gibraltar. Whilst at Gibraltar further changes to her air-group were made as the Skyraiders of 849D Squadron were disembarked, whilst the Gannets of 810 Squadron rejoined the ship. Following a transit through the Suez Canal in late June, she operated in the Indian Ocean with visits to Kuwait, Aden and Trincomalee, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), where she was visited by the prime minister, Solomon Bandaranaike, shortly before his assassination in September 1959. After a month-long maintenance period in Singapore, she operated in Pacific waters for the next three and a half months, including joint exercises with off the Philippines and a visit to Australia, before returning to Singapore. Further operations in the Indian Ocean, including a visit to East Africa, followed before she left to return home, being replaced as the east of Suez carrier by Albion. She arrived back at Devonport on 26 April, having steamed and carried out 7,805 catapult launches, for the loss of one Sea Hawk, two Sea Venoms and a Dragonfly helicopter of the ship's flight.
Third commission
Centaur was refitted at Portsmouth from September 1960 until March 1961, during which the upgraded arrestor wires were fitted and additional air-conditioning units installed. Her new commanding officer, Captain J.A.C.Henley, RN, had already joined the ship on 18 August 1960. Following sea-trials off Portland in March, she embarked her new air group during April, consisting of between six and eight Scimitar F1 of 807 Squadron, between six and nine Sea Vixen FAW1 of 893 Squadron, four Fairey Gannet AEW3 of 849 Squadron, A Flight, and eight Whirlwind HAS7 of 824 Squadron.
During April she sailed for the Mediterranean to continue flying exercises with her new air-group and met Hermes for the first time at Gibraltar. Although she was originally scheduled to cross the North Atlantic for a visit to the US and Canada, events in the Middle East were to lead to a rapid change of plans.
In June 1961, President Abd al-Karim Qasim of Iraq announced that Kuwait would be annexed by Iraq; the Emir of Kuwait requested assistance from the United Kingdom and Saudi Arabia. The UK activated Operation Vantage and immediately sent Victorious and accompanying vessels. landed a company of 42 Commando, Royal Marines at Kuwait airport. Centaur arrived from Malta in July to relieve Victorious on patrol in the Gulf. Iraq recognised Kuwaiti sovereignty in 1963, after Kassim had been killed in a coup.
With a reduction in tension following the decisive action of the Royal Navy to deter the would-be aggressor, Centaur was ordered to return to station off Aden, and subsequently returned home to Devonport in September, for a six-week maintenance period. During October she re-embarked her air-group and headed back through the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean, to once again relieve Victorious as the duty carrier East of Suez in December. This duty saw visits to Mombasa (Kenya), Aden, Singapore and Hong Kong. In early December she was engaged in flood relief work in Kenya, where the Tana River had burst its banks. Her Whirlwinds helped to ferry essential supplies to the cut-off areas and temporary camps. There was also a brief return to the Gulf in December 1961 when President Kassim of Iraq resumed threats against Kuwait, before backing down again. Centaur was relieved as the duty carrier by Ark Royal at the end of March and began her journey home.
During May 1962, her air group was disembarked as she entered a short maintenance period in Portsmouth Dockyard. 807 squadron was disbanded at this time, following a decision to phase out the Scimitar in favour of the Blackburn Buccaneer. Centaur lacked the capacity to operate the Buccaneer; however, the removal of the Scimitar Squadron did enable her to operate an enlarged squadron of twelve Sea Vixens instead.
On 18 June 1962, a new commanding officer, Captain Philip G Sharp, took over the ship, before she sailed to take part in exercises in the North Sea, following which she departed for Gibraltar. The rest of the summer was spent in the Mediterranean, including a three-week refit in Gibraltar, before she returned to home waters in October. On 19 November, whilst exercising in the Irish Sea, there was a sudden loss of pressure in "A" Boiler Room, which in turn led to a loss of power on the port engine and tripped lighting and radar circuits. This was caused by the burst of a main steam-pipe in the boiler room and superheated steam at and at a pressure of up to escaping and killing, instantly, the five crew members on duty at the time in the boiler room. Engineering staff isolated the affected boiler, and later that morning a rescue team wearing asbestos suits were able to recover the bodies of their ship-mates. Later that day their coffins, wrapped in Union Jacks, were flown off to RAF Valley, and a memorial service was held. Centaur returned to Portsmouth 27 November for repairs that lasted until 22 January.
After working up with her air-group in the Channel, during which a Sea Vixen of 893 Squadron was lost with her crew, Centaur took part in further emergency relief work, this time at home, carrying supplies for isolated communities in Wales and Northern Ireland, cut off by the severe blizzards of the Winter of 1963. On 13 February 1963 she was ordered to proceed east of Suez to provide cover for , which had been detailed to provide support for forces loyal to the Sultan of Brunei, following the Indonesian backed revolt, thus starting what became known as the Indonesian confrontation. She passed through the Suez Canal on 1 March and spent the next two months in the Indian Ocean, during a period of high tension following the February coup in Iraq, which had resulted in the removal of President Kassim. Centaur was finally ordered to return home, arriving in Portsmouth on 22 May.
There had been speculation during this period that Centaur would be converted to a Commando Carrier, similar to her sister-ships, as the MacMillan government had originally only planned to keep her in service until Eagle rejoined the fleet in 1963/64. However, the decision to keep 2 carriers available for service east of Suez meant that she would serve longer than originally intended in the fixed-wing role.
Fourth commission
Centaur was refitted in Portsmouth Dockyard between June and November 1963, during which she was fitted with a large Mirror Landing Sight on a sponson on the port-side of the flight deck and a Type 965 air search radar was installed on a lattice foremast (taken from the Air Direction Destroyer Battleaxe, which had been earmarked for disposal, after being badly damaged in a collision the previous year) at the front of her island. More air-conditioning units were also installed and further improvements were made to her Operations Room. Whilst alongside in Portsmouth in October she sustained slight damage to her bow, when the submarine HMS Porpoise collided with her after being caught by the ebb tide.
She re-commissioned on 15 November 1963, under the command of Captain O.H.M. St John Steiner. Her final, twenty-two strong, air-group was embarked shortly afterwards, consisting of twelve Sea Vixen FAW1 of 892 Squadron, four Gannet AEW3 of 849 Squadron, A Flight, and the ships flight of one Whirlwind. She also occasionally embarked small detachments of Scimitars seconded from other squadrons. She was destined to be sent to the Far East, however before departing she undertook an emergency mission from 23 to 24 December, to assist the Greek Cruise Liner TSMS Lakonia, which had caught fire near Madeira. Centaur's helicopter helped to recover the victims of the tragedy, which claimed the lives of 128 passengers and crew; their bodies were disembarked on the ships lighter at Gibraltar on Christmas Day 1963 .
After a quick passage through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, she arrived off Aden in January to continue her work-up, during which time she embarked the six Wessex helicopters of 815 Squadron from RAF Khormaksar to complete her air-group. She was also engaged in providing air support for Operations Damon and Nutcracker, an attempt to put down a rebellion in the Radfan region of Aden.
In January 1964, a mutiny occurred in Tanganyika. The 1st Tanganyika Rifles, who were based near the capital Dar-es-Salaam, had mutinied against their British officers, as well as seizing the British High Commissioner and taking over the airport. Britain decided, after urgent appeals for help from President Julius Nyerere, to deploy Centaur accompanied by 815 Naval Air Squadron along with 45 Commando of the Royal Marines. When Centaur arrived at Dar-es-Salaam, a company of Royal Marines was landed by helicopter on a football field next to the barracks of the mutineers. The company assaulted the barracks with full force in a chaotic but swift attack. After a call for the mutinous soldiers to surrender failed, the company demolished the front of the guardroom with a shot from an anti-tank rocket launcher, which resulted in a large number of distressed soldiers pouring out into the open. Later, four Sea Vixens from Centaur provided cover for more Royal Marines, who were landed on an air strip. The operation was a success and the rest of the mutineers surrendered, with the main culprits being arrested. Many Tanganyikans were jubilant when the country was restored to a stable and peaceful condition. The Royal Marine Band displayed the British forces appreciation of the friendly welcome they had received from the Tanganyikans while restoring the country to stability, by taking part in a heavy schedule of parades through the streets of Tanganyika. Centaur left on 29 January, nine days after originally sailing for what was then a country in crisis.
Centaur completed her work-up during February in the South China Sea. and spent the next three months in the region, which included a high-profile visit to Singapore to deter threatened Indonesian aggression against Singapore and the newly formed Malaysian Federation. During May Centaur was ordered to return to the Indian Ocean to provide further support in Aden, where the Radfan rebellion was escalating into a major conflict. Her Wessex helicopters were used to replace RAF Belvedere's suffering from engine failures.
During the summer her Sea Vixens undertook air strikes against the rebel forces in Radfan, helping to bring the campaign to a successful conclusion. Whilst exercising off Penang on 11 July, one of her Sea Vixen's and its crew were lost. A Gannet sent to search for the missing fighter was also lost although its crew were rescued. From 26 July she participated in exercise FOTEX 64 with other units of the fleet in the South China Seas, later joining with the Royal Australian Navy Aircraft Carrier, Melbourne in Exercise Stopwatch during August. During September she became directly involved in what became known as the Indonesian Confrontation, when Indonesian troops were parachuted near the town of Labis, and sea-landings were made on the west coast of the Malayan peninsula. The invaders were quickly captured, however Centaur took station to prevent any further incursions in that area. She remained in the far-east until 25 November when she began the journey home for Christmas.
During a refit that lasted until March 1965, it was announced that Centaur would be withdrawn from service later that year, the first of the Royal Navy's modern carrier fleet to be withdrawn. A deployment to the Mediterranean during April, May and June included a number of high-profile port visits and exercises with the fleet, as well as close encounters with the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. She returned to the UK during July and undertook a series of farewell visits to various ports and participated in a Royal Review of the Home Fleet in the Clyde during August. She returned to Portsmouth on 24 August 1965, and was open for visits by the public during Navy Days, before paying off for the last time on 27 September 1965.
Final years
Pressures on the Defence Budget meant that there was no money available to further modernise Centaur nor convert her to a Commando Carrier; such funds and resources as might have been available, were already committed to converting the Tiger Class Cruisers to become rudimentary Helicopter Carriers. Her use to the Navy was not quite over however, as she was consigned to the role of an accommodation ship for the crew of Victorious while the latter ship undertook a refit. In 1966, Centaur was towed to Devonport and was again used as an accommodation ship, this time for the aircraft carrier , while that ship was also refitted. In 1967 she was used as a tender for the RN Barracks, HMS Drake at Devonport, and was towed back to Portsmouth later that year, to act as an accommodation ship for Hermes during the latter ships' refit. In 1970, she was towed to Devonport, where after another spell as an accommodation ship, and with her condition now deteriorating significantly, she was put on the disposal list. She was sold on 11 August 1972 to Queenborough Shipbreaking Company, and shortly afterwards she was towed to Cairnryan and broken up.
See also
Fleet Air Arm
References
Publications
("Hobbs BAC")
("Hobbs BCS")
External links
Maritimequest HMS Centaur photo gallery
More photos
FAA Archive article on HMS Centaur
HMS Bulwark Albion Centaur Photo Gallery
Centaur-class aircraft carriers
Ships built in Belfast
1947 ships
World War II aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom
Cold War aircraft carriers of the United Kingdom
Ships built by Harland and Wolff |
420598 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochemical%20oxygen%20demand | Biochemical oxygen demand | Biochemical oxygen demand (also known as BOD or biological oxygen demand) is an analytical parameter representing the amount of dissolved oxygen (DO) consumed by aerobic bacteria growing on the organic material present in a water sample at a specific temperature over a specific time period. The BOD value is most commonly expressed in milligrams of oxygen consumed per liter of sample during 5 days of incubation at 20 °C and is often used as a surrogate of the degree of organic water pollution.
Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) reduction is used as a gauge of the effectiveness of wastewater treatment plants. BOD of wastewater effluents is used to indicate the short-term impact on the oxygen levels of the receiving water.
BOD analysis is similar in function to chemical oxygen demand (COD) analysis, in that both measure the amount of organic compounds in water. However, COD analysis is less specific, since it measures everything that can be chemically oxidized, rather than just levels of biologically oxidized organic matter.
Background
Most natural waters contain small quantities of organic compounds. Aquatic microorganisms have evolved to use some of these compounds as food. Microorganisms living in oxygenated waters use dissolved oxygen to oxidatively degrade the organic compounds, releasing energy which is used for growth and reproduction. Populations of these microorganisms tend to increase in proportion to the amount of food available. This microbial metabolism creates an oxygen demand proportional to the amount of organic compounds useful as food. Under some circumstances, microbial metabolism can consume dissolved oxygen faster than atmospheric oxygen can dissolve into the water or the autotrophic community (algae, cyanobacteria and macrophytes) can produce. Fish and aquatic insects may die when oxygen is depleted by microbial metabolism.
Biochemical oxygen demand is the amount of oxygen required for microbial metabolism of organic compounds in water. This demand occurs over some variable period of time depending on temperature, nutrient concentrations, and the enzymes available to indigenous microbial populations. The amount of oxygen required to completely oxidize the organic compounds to carbon dioxide and water through generations of microbial growth, death, decay, and cannibalism is total biochemical oxygen demand (total BOD). Total BOD is of more significance to food webs than to water quality. Dissolved oxygen depletion is most likely to become evident during the initial aquatic microbial population explosion in response to a large amount of organic material. If the microbial population deoxygenates the water, however, that lack of oxygen imposes a limit on population growth of aerobic aquatic microbial organisms resulting in a longer term food surplus and oxygen deficit.
A standard temperature at which BOD testing should be carried out was first proposed by the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal in its eighth report in 1912:
(c) An effluent in order to comply with the general standard must not contain as discharged more than 3 parts per 100,000 of suspended matter, and with its suspended matters included must not take up at 65°F more than 2.0 parts per 100,000 of dissolved oxygen in 5 days. This general standard should be prescribed either by Statute or by order of the Central Authority, and should be subject to modifications by that Authority after an interval of not less than ten years.
This was later standardised at 68 °F and then 20 °C. This temperature may be significantly different from the temperature of the natural environment of the water being tested.
Although the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal proposed 5 days as an adequate test period for rivers of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, longer periods were investigated for North American rivers. Incubation periods of 1, 2, 5, 10 and 20 days were being used into the mid-20th century. Keeping dissolved oxygen available at their chosen temperature, investigators found up to 99 percent of total BOD was exerted within 20 days, 90 percent within 10 days, and approximately 68 percent within 5 days. Variable microbial population shifts to nitrifying bacteria limit test reproducibility for periods greater than 5 days. The 5-day test protocol with acceptably reproducible results emphasizing carbonaceous BOD has been endorsed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). This 5-day BOD test result may be described as the amount of oxygen required for aquatic microorganisms to stabilize decomposable organic matter under aerobic conditions. Stabilization, in this context, may be perceived in general terms as the conversion of food to living aquatic fauna. Although these fauna will continue to exert biochemical oxygen demand as they die, that tends to occur within a more stable evolved ecosystem including higher trophic levels.
History
The Royal Commission on River Pollution, established in 1865, and the formation of the Royal Commission on Sewage Disposal in 1898 led to the selection in 1908 of BOD5 as the definitive test for organic pollution of rivers. Five days was chosen as an appropriate test period because this is supposedly the longest time that river water takes to travel from source to estuary in the U.K. In its sixth report the Royal Commission recommended that the standard set should be 15 parts by weight per million of water. However, in the Ninth report the commission had revised the recommended standard: An effluent taking up 2–0 parts dissolved oxygen per 100,000 would be found by a simple calculation to require dilution with at least 8 volumes of river water taking up 0.2 part if the resulting mixture was not to take up more than 0.4 part. Our experience indicated that in a large majority of cases the volume of river water would exceed 8 times the volume of effluent, and that the figure of 2–0 parts dissolved oxygen per 100,000, which had been shown to be practicable, would be a safe figure to adopt for the purposes of a general standard, taken in conjunction with the condition that the effluent should not contain more than 3–0 parts per 100,000 of suspended solids. This was the cornerstone 20:30 (BOD:Suspended Solids) + full nitrification standard which was used as a yardstick in the U.K. up to the 1970s for sewage works effluent quality.
The United States includes BOD effluent limitations in its secondary treatment regulations. Secondary sewage treatment is generally expected to remove 85 percent of the BOD measured in sewage and produce effluent BOD concentrations with a 30-day average of less than 30 mg/L and a 7-day average of less than 45 mg/L. The regulations also describe "treatment equivalent to secondary treatment" as removing 65 percent of the BOD and producing effluent BOD concentrations with a 30-day average less than 45 mg/L and a 7-day average less than 65 mg/L.
Typical values
Most pristine rivers will have a 5-day carbonaceous BOD below 1 mg/L. Moderately polluted rivers may have a BOD value in the range of 2 to 8 mg/L. Rivers may be considered severely polluted when BOD values exceed 8 mg/L. Municipal sewage that is efficiently treated by a three-stage process would have a value of about 20 mg/L or less. Untreated sewage varies, but averages around 600 mg/L in Europe and as low as 200 mg/L in the U.S., or where there is severe groundwater or surface water infiltration/inflow. The generally lower values in the U.S. derive from the much greater water use per capita than in other parts of the world.
Use in sewage treatment
The BOD is used in measuring waste loadings to treatment plants and in evaluating the BOD-removal efficiency of such treatment systems.
Methods
Winkler published the methodology of a simple, accurate and direct dissolved oxygen analytical procedure in 1888,. Since that time, the analysis of dissolved oxygen levels for water has been key to the determination of surface water. The Winkler method is still one of only two analytical techniques used to calibrate oxygen electrode meters; the other procedure is based on oxygen solubility at saturation as per Henry's law.
There are two recognized methods for the measurement of dissolved oxygen for BOD and a number of other methods not currently internationally recognised as standard methods
Dilution method
This standard method is recognized by EPA, which is labeled Method 5210B in the Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater. In order to obtain BOD5, dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations in a sample must be measured before and after the incubation period, and appropriately adjusted by the sample corresponding dilution factor. This analysis is performed using 300 mL incubation bottles in which buffered dilution water is dosed with seed microorganisms and stored for 5 days in the dark room at 20 °C to prevent DO production via photosynthesis. The bottles have traditionally been made of glass, which required cleaning and rinsing between samples. A SM 5210B approved, disposable, plastic BOD bottle is available which eliminates this step. In addition to the various dilutions of BOD samples, this procedure requires dilution water blanks, glucose glutamic acid (GGA) controls, and seed controls. The dilution water blank is used to confirm the quality of the dilution water that is used to dilute the other samples. This is necessary because impurities in the dilution water may cause significant alterations in the results. The GGA control is a standardized solution to determine the quality of the seed, where its recommended BOD5 concentration is 198 mg/L ± 30.5 mg/L. For measurement of carbonaceous BOD (cBOD), a nitrification inhibitor is added after the dilution water has been added to the sample. The inhibitor hinders the oxidation of ammonia nitrogen, which supplies the nitrogenous BOD (nBOD). When performing the BOD5 test, it is conventional practice to measure only cBOD because nitrogenous demand does not reflect the oxygen demand from organic matter. This is because nBOD is generated by the breakdown of proteins, whereas cBOD is produced by the breakdown of organic molecules.
BOD5 is calculated by:
Unseeded :
Seeded:
where:
is the dissolved oxygen (DO) of the diluted solution after preparation (mg/L)
is the DO of the diluted solution after 5 day incubation (mg/L)
is the decimal dilution factor
is the DO of diluted seed sample after preparation (mg/L)
is the DO of diluted seed sample after 5 day incubation (mg/L)
is the ratio of seed volume in dilution solution to seed volume in BOD test on seed
Manometric method
This method is limited to the measurement of the oxygen consumption due only to carbonaceous oxidation. Ammonia oxidation is inhibited.
The sample is kept in a sealed container fitted with a pressure sensor. A substance that absorbs carbon dioxide (typically lithium hydroxide) is added in the container above the sample level. The sample is stored in conditions identical to the dilution method. Oxygen is consumed and, as ammonia oxidation is inhibited, carbon dioxide is released. The total amount of gas, and thus the pressure, decreases because carbon dioxide is absorbed. From the drop of pressure, the sensor electronics computes and displays the consumed quantity of oxygen.
The main advantages of this method compared to the dilution method are:
simplicity: no dilution of sample required, no seeding, no blank sample.
direct reading of BOD value.
continuous display of BOD value at the current incubation time.
Alternative methods
Biosensor
An alternative to measure BOD is the development of biosensors, which are devices for the detection of an analyte that combines a biological component with a physicochemical detector component. Enzymes are the most widely used biological sensing elements in the fabrication of biosensors. Their application in biosensor construction is limited by the tedious, time-consuming and costly enzyme purification methods. Microorganisms provide an ideal alternative to these bottlenecks.
Many micro organisms useful for BOD assessment are relatively easy to maintain in pure cultures, grow and harvest at low cost. Moreover, the use of microbes in the field of biosensors has opened up new possibilities and advantages such as ease of handling, preparation and low cost of device. A number of pure cultures, e.g. Trichosporon cutaneum, Bacillus cereus, Klebsiella oxytoca, Pseudomonas sp. etc. individually, have been used by many workers for the construction of BOD biosensor. On the other hand, many workers have immobilized activated sludge, or a mixture of two or three bacterial species and on various membranes for the construction of BOD biosensor. The most commonly used membranes were polyvinyl alcohol, porous hydrophilic membranes etc.
A defined microbial consortium can be formed by conducting a systematic study, i.e. pre-testing of selected micro-organisms for use as a seeding material in BOD analysis of a wide variety of industrial effluents. Such a formulated consortium can be immobilized on suitable membrane, i.e. charged nylon membrane. Charged nylon membrane is suitable for microbial immobilization, due to the specific binding between negatively charged bacterial cell and positively charged nylon membrane. So the advantages of the nylon membrane over the other membranes are : The dual binding, i.e. Adsorption as well as entrapment, thus resulting in a more stable immobilized membrane. Such specific Microbial consortium based BOD analytical devices, may find great application in monitoring of the degree of pollutant strength, in a wide variety of industrial waste water within a very short time.
Biosensors can be used to indirectly measure BOD via a fast (usually <30 min) to be determined BOD substitute and a corresponding calibration curve method (pioneered by Karube et al., 1977). Consequently, biosensors are now commercially available, but they do have several limitations such as their high maintenance costs, limited run lengths due to the need for reactivation, and the inability to respond to changing quality characteristics as would normally occur in wastewater treatment streams; e.g. diffusion processes of the biodegradable organic matter into the membrane and different responses by different microbial species which lead to problems with the reproducibility of result (Praet et al., 1995). Another important limitation is the uncertainty associated with the calibration function for translating the BOD substitute into the real BOD (Rustum et al., 2008).
Fluorescent
A surrogate to BOD5 has been developed using a resazurin derivative which reveals the extent of oxygen uptake by micro-organisms for organic matter mineralization. A cross-validation performed on 109 samples in Europe and the United-States showed a strict statistical equivalence between results from both methods.
An electrode has been developed based on the luminescence emission of a photo-active chemical compound and the quenching of that emission by oxygen. This quenching photophysics mechanism is described by the Stern–Volmer equation for dissolved oxygen in a solution:
: Luminescence in the presence of oxygen
: Luminescence in the absence of oxygen
: Stern-Volmer constant for oxygen quenching
[O2]: Dissolved oxygen concentration
The determination of oxygen concentration by luminescence quenching has a linear response over a broad range of oxygen concentrations and has excellent accuracy and reproducibility.
Polargraphic method
The development of an analytical instrument that utilizes the reduction-oxidation (redox) chemistry of oxygen in the presence of dissimilar metal electrodes was introduced during the 1950s. This redox electrode utilized an oxygen-permeable membrane to allow the diffusion of the gas into an electrochemical cell and its concentration determined by polarographic or galvanic electrodes. This analytical method is sensitive and accurate down to levels of ± 0.1 mg/L dissolved oxygen. Calibration of the redox electrode of this membrane electrode still requires the use of the Henry's law table or the Winkler test for dissolved oxygen.
Software sensor
There have been proposals for automation to make rapid prediction of BOD so it could be used for on-line process monitoring and control. For example, the use of a computerised machine learning method to make rapid inferences about BOD using easy to measure water quality parameters. Ones such as flow rate, chemical oxygen demand, ammonia, nitrogen, pH and suspended solids can be obtained directly and reliably using on-line hardware sensors. In a test of this idea, measurements of these values along with BOD which had been made over three years was used to train and test a model for prediction. The technique could allow for some missing data. It indicated that this approach was possible but needed sufficient historic data to be available.
Real-time BOD monitoring
Until recently, real-time monitoring of BOD was unattainable owing to its complex nature. Recent research by a leading UK university has discovered the link between multiple water quality parameters including electrical conductivity, turbidity, TLF and CDOM. These parameters are all capable of being monitored in real-time through a combination of traditional methods (electrical conductivity via electrodes) and newer methods such as fluorescence. The monitoring of tryptophan-like fluorescence (TLF) has been successfully utilised as a proxy for biological activity and enumeration, particularly with a focus on Escherichia coli (E. Coli). TLF based monitoring is applicable across a wide range of environments, including but by no means limited to sewage treatment works and freshwaters. Therefore, there has been a significant movement towards combined sensor systems that can monitor parameters and use them, in real-time, to provide a reading of BOD that is of laboratory quality.
Dissolved oxygen probes: Membrane and luminescence
The development of an analytical instrument that utilizes the reduction-oxidation (redox) chemistry of oxygen in the presence of dissimilar metal electrodes was introduced during the 1950s. This redox electrode (also known as dissolved oxygen sensor) utilized an oxygen-permeable membrane to allow the diffusion of the gas into an electrochemical cell and its concentration determined by polarographic or galvanic electrodes. This analytical method is sensitive and accurate to down to levels of ± 0.1 mg/L dissolved oxygen. Calibration of the redox electrode of this membrane electrode still requires the use of the Henry's law table or the Winkler test for dissolved oxygen.
Test limitations
The test method involves variables limiting reproducibility. Tests normally show observations varying plus or minus ten to twenty percent around the mean.
Toxicity
Some wastes contain chemicals capable of suppressing microbiological growth or activity. Potential sources include industrial wastes, antibiotics in pharmaceutical or medical wastes, sanitizers in food processing or commercial cleaning facilities, chlorination disinfection used following conventional sewage treatment, and odor-control formulations used in sanitary waste holding tanks in passenger vehicles or portable toilets. Suppression of the microbial community oxidizing the waste will lower the test result.
Appropriate microbial population
The test relies upon a microbial ecosystem with enzymes capable of oxidizing the available organic material. Some waste waters, such as those from biological secondary sewage treatment, will already contain a large population of microorganisms acclimated to the water being tested. An appreciable portion of the waste may be utilized during the holding period prior to commencement of the test procedure. On the other hand, organic wastes from industrial sources may require specialized enzymes. Microbial populations from standard seed sources may take some time to produce those enzymes. A specialized seed culture may be appropriate to reflect conditions of an evolved ecosystem in the receiving waters.
See also
Carbonaceous biochemical oxygen demand
Theoretical oxygen demand
Wastewater quality indicators discusses both BOD and COD as indicators of wastewater quality.
References
Further reading
Rustum R., A. J. Adeloye, and M. Scholz (2008). "Applying Kohonen Self-organizing Map as a Software Sensor to Predict the Biochemical Oxygen Demand." Water Environment Research, 80 (1), 32–40.
Rustum, R., Adeloye, A. and Simala, A., 2007. Kohonen self-organising map (KSOM) extracted features for enhancing MLP-ANN prediction models of BOD5. In International Symposium: Quantification and Reduction of Predictive Uncertainty for Sustainable Water Resources Management-24th General Assembly of the International Union of Geodesy and Geophysics (IUGG) (pp. 181–187).
External links
BOD Doctor - a troubleshooting wiki for this problematic test
Anaerobic digestion
Environmental science
Water quality indicators |
420602 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham%20Young | Graham Young | Graham Frederick Young (7 September 1947 – 1 August 1990), also known as the Teacup Poisoner and the St Albans Poisoner, was an English serial killer who killed his victims via poison.
Obsessed with poisons from an early age, Young started poisoning the food and drink of relatives and school friends. He was caught when his teacher became suspicious and contacted the police. Young pleaded guilty to three non-fatal poisonings and, at age 14, was detained at Broadmoor Hospital. Young later took responsibility for the death of his stepmother, though this has not been proven.
After being released in 1971, Young got a job in a factory in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, where he began poisoning his colleagues, resulting in two fatalities and several critical illnesses. Young was convicted on two counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder in 1972. He served most of his life sentence at HM Prison Parkhurst, where he died of a heart attack in 1990.
The Young case made headlines in the United Kingdom and led to a public debate over the release of mentally ill offenders. Within hours of his conviction, the British government announced two inquiries into the issues it raised. The Butler Committee led to widespread reforms in mental health services, while the passage of the 1972 Poisons Act put severe restrictions on the purchase of deadly poisons. Young's life story inspired the 1995 film The Young Poisoner's Handbook.
Early life and crimes
Graham Young was born on Sunday, 7 September 1947 to Frederick and Bessie Young in Neasden, Middlesex; he had an older sister, Winifred Young. Young's mother died of tuberculous when he was fourteen weeks old and was subsequently sent to live with an uncle and aunt, while his sister went to live with their grandparents. Several years later, Young's father remarried to another woman named Molly, and the family were re-united.
Young was fascinated from an early age by poisons and their effects, and considered Victorian poisoner William Palmer to be a personal hero. Young also read extensively about black magic, Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany. In 1959, as he passed his eleven-plus and went to grammar school, he started to read books on advanced toxicology.
In 1961, Young acquired antimony from a local chemist, signing the poisons register in the name "M.E. Evans"; his knowledge of poisons and chemistry convinced the chemist that he was older than he appeared. Beginning in February he began poisoning members of his family. First his stepmother suffered vomiting, diarrhoea and excruciating stomach pain, which she initially dismissed as bilious attacks. Before long his father suffered similar stomach cramps, debilitating him for days at a time. Soon after, his sister became sick on a couple of occasions over the summer. Shortly afterwards, Young himself fell violently ill. It even seemed as if the mystery bug had spread beyond their household: a couple of Young's school friends had similarly been repeatedly absent from school, both suffering from similar symptoms.
In November 1961, Young's sister was served a cup of tea by her brother one morning but found its taste so sour she took only one mouthful before she threw it away. While on the train to work an hour later, she began to hallucinate, had to be helped out of the station and was eventually taken to hospital, where doctors came to the conclusion that she had somehow been exposed to the poisonous Atropa belladonna. Young was confronted by his father, but he claimed that Winifred had been using the family's teacups to mix shampoo. Unconvinced, Young's father searched his room but found nothing incriminating. Nevertheless, he warned his son to be more careful in future when "messing about with those bloody chemicals".
On Easter Saturday, 21 April 1962, Young's stepmother died. Her death was attributed to a prolapsed cervical disc, which was believed to have resulted from a road accident. Much later, Young told police that he poisoned her with a lethal dose of thallium. At her wake, Young poisoned a male relative after lacing a jar of mustard pickle with antimony. Shortly afterwards his father became seriously ill and was taken to hospital, where he was told that he was suffering from antimony poisoning and one more dose would have killed him. Young's aunt, who knew of his fascination with poisons, became suspicious, as did a science teacher who discovered several bottles of poison in his school desk. The teacher and the headmaster arranged for Young to be interviewed by a psychiatrist posing as a careers advisor, who contacted police after Young revealed his extensive knowledge of poisons and toxicology.
Young was arrested on 23 May 1962 after returning home from school. Vials of thallium and antimony were found in his possession. When questioned by police, he confessed to poisoning his father, stepmother, sister and a school friend. Psychiatrist Dr Christopher Fysh testified that Young had a psychopathic disorder rather than a mental illness and had failed "to develop a normal moral sense." He felt it was "extremely likely" that Young would re-offend and recounted a conversation in which Young said: "I am missing my antimony. I miss the power it gives me." Fysh recommended that Young be detained at Broadmoor Hospital, an institution for patients with mental disorders who have committed criminal offences. Dr Donald Blair, another psychiatrist, concurred with Fysh's viewpoint.
Young pleaded guilty to three charges of poisoning his father, sister and school friend and was convicted of "malicious administration of a noxious thing to inflict grievous bodily harm". He was not charged for murdering his stepmother, as her autopsy report did not list poison as the cause of death. The judge, Justice Melford Stevenson, ruled that Young was to be detained under Section 60 of the Mental Health Act at Broadmoor. Furthermore, he was not to be released for fifteen years without the approval of the Home Secretary.
Broadmoor
At age 14, Young was among the youngest-ever inmates in Broadmoor's history. Soon after his arrival, John Berridge, a fellow inmate, died of cyanide poisoning. Young was suspected by some staff and inmates, not least because he enjoyed explaining in detail how cyanide could be extracted from laurel leaves; the grounds around Broadmoor were covered with laurel bushes. However, his involvement was never proven and the death was officially ruled a suicide. Later, Harpic was found in a nurse's coffee and the contents of a missing packet of sugar soap were discovered in a tea urn.
Young continued to read medical and toxicology textbooks, obtained from Broadmoor's library. He also continued his interest in Nazism, reading William Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and Lord Russell's The Scourge of the Swastika. At one point, Young grew a toothbrush moustache and took to mimicking the speeches of Hitler and listening to musical compositions by Richard Wagner, who had been one of Hitler's idols.
In 1965, Young first applied for release from Broadmoor. His father and sister attended the tribunal and stated that if Young was released, none of his relatives would be willing to house him; his father also insisted that his son should "never be released". Young's application was rejected. Five years later, in June 1970, Broadmoor psychiatrist Edgar Udwin wrote to the Home Secretary to recommend Young's release, announcing that he was "no longer obsessed with poisons, violence and mischief. And he is no longer a danger to others." However, Young remarked to a Broadmoor nurse: "When I get out, I'm going to kill one person for every year I've spent in this place."
Later crimes
Young was released from Broadmoor in 1971, after eight years' detention. He initially stayed with his sister and her husband in Hemel Hempstead. Within weeks he had resumed his interest in poisons, but an attempt to acquire poison from John Bell & Croyden in Wigmore Street was unsuccessful, as the chemist refused to sell them without written authorization. Young duly returned with the required authorization on Bedford College headed notepaper and was sold 25 g of antimony potassium tartrate. He told the chemist that he needed it for a qualitative and quantitative analysis. Young later returned to the same chemist to purchase 25 g of thallium.
Poisoning of Trevor Sparkes
Young attended a storekeeping training course in Slough and stayed at a hostel in nearby Cippenham. He befriended 34-year-old Trevor Sparkes, another resident of the hostel, and the two occasionally visited a pub together or shared a bottle of wine in Sparkes' room. Young would later confess to poisoning Sparkes with antimony sodium tartrate. On the night of February 10, Sparkes fell violently ill, exhibiting diarrhoea, pins and needles in his legs and pains in his testicles; earlier in the evening he had accepted a glass of water from Young. Sparkes' symptoms returned periodically over the following months. He felt so ill during a football match that he had to leave the pitch after a few minutes. Specialists were unable to pinpoint the cause, variously diagnosing it as a kidney infection, bowel infection, urinary tract infection or stomach infection. Sparkes left Slough in April 1971 and gradually recovered, though he never played football again.
Bovingdon
Young secured a job as assistant storekeeper at John Hadland Laboratories in Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, near his sister's home in Hemel Hempstead. The company manufactured thallium bromide-iodide infrared lenses, which were used in military equipment. However, no thallium was stored on site, necessitating Young obtaining his supplies of the poison from a London chemist. On his application, Young falsely claimed that his lack of employment history was because he had suffered a nervous breakdown following the death of his mother in a car accident. His employers received references as part of his rehabilitation from Broadmoor, but were not informed that he was a convicted poisoner and a former Broadmoor patient. Young left Slough and rented a room in Maynard Road, Hemel Hempstead, at £4 per week.
Young's new colleagues found him unpredictable; he could be surly and kept to himself, but on other days he was more cheerful. During breaks he usually sat alone reading, invariably a book on one of his favourite subjects: war, chemistry, the Nazis or famous murderers. He was not talkative unless one of his favourite topics was being discussed. Young's duties at Hadland included collecting drinks from the tea trolley in the corridor and bringing them to the storeroom. Each employee had their own mug, which made it easier for him to target specific individuals for poisoning.
Soon after Young's arrival at Hadland, he started poisoning his co-workers, focusing on his immediate colleagues in the storerooms. His modus operandi was to slip poison, usually antimony or thallium, into their tea or coffee. Victims would fall ill with symptoms that included vomiting, stomach pains, nausea and diarrhoea. Initially the mysterious illness was assumed to be a virus and was nicknamed the "Bovingdon Bug". Other explanations put forward were contamination of the local water supply and radioactivity from a disused airfield nearby.
Murder of Bob Egle
Young's first victim in Bovingdon was 59-year-old Bob Egle, a storeroom manager at Hadland and Young's immediate superior. Egle, a veteran of the Dunkirk evacuation, was often asked by Young about his wartime experiences. Egle began to fall ill in June 1971, weeks after Young's arrival at the company, taking several days off work with diarrhea and severe stomach pains. Egle's health improved after a week-long holiday, but on his return Young put a lethal dose of thallium in his afternoon tea. His condition deteriorated rapidly from this point, consisting of intense back pain and numbness in his fingers and feet. Egle was transferred to the intensive care unit at St Albans City Hospital, where paralysis set in. Young seemingly showed a strong concern for Egle, repeatedly contacting the hospital for updates on his progress. Egle finally died on 7 July 1971. A post-mortem attributed Egle's death to a rare form of polyneuritis known as Guillain–Barré syndrome.
Young was chosen to accompany managing director Godfrey Foster to Egle's funeral as a representative of the department Egle had managed. Foster recalled Young remarking how sad it was that "Bob should come through the terrors of Dunkirk only to fall victim to some strange virus."
Poisoning of Ron Hewitt and Diana Smart
During Egle's absences, Young targeted his assistant Ron Hewitt, poisoning his tea with antimony. Hewitt had already accepted a job at another company and was working his notice (Young was specifically hired as his replacement). After leaving the company, he suffered no further symptoms. As a result of Egle's death and Hewitt's departure, Young was promoted to head storeman for a probationary period. For the next few months, his poisonings were limited to small doses of antimony in his co-worker Diana Smart's tea, usually when she annoyed him. Young wrote in his diary: "Di [Diana Smart] irritated me yesterday so I packed her off home with an attack of sickness. I only gave her something to shake her up. I now regret that I didn't give her a larger dose, capable of laying her up for a few days."
Poisoning of David Tilson and Jethro Batt
On 8 October 1971, Young put thallium acetate in David Tilson's tea. Tilson found the tea too sweet for his liking (Young had added sugar to disguise any unusual taste from the thallium) and therefore did not drink it all. Young administered a second dose of thallium a week later. Tilson was admitted to hospital with numb legs, breathing difficulties and chest pains. His skin was so tender he could not endure the weight of the bedsheets, and all his hair fell out. Young had a back-up plan to visit Tilson in hospital and offer him a bottle of brandy laced with more thallium. Subsequently, Tilson recovered, though he was left permanently impotent by the poisoning.
At the same time he was poisoning Tilson, Young also began poisoning another Hadland employee, Jethro Batt. Batt had become friendly with Young and would give him a ride home to Hemel Hempstead. Young admitted to administering 4 g of thallium to Batt in two doses, enough to kill him. However, Batt found the coffee Young had made for him too strong and did not drink it all. Nevertheless, Batt was admitted to hospital with stomach and chest pains, and his hair fell out. The poisoning made him suicidal. Batt ultimately recovered, but like Tilson he was also left impotent. Young apparently felt some remorse for poisoning Batt, writing in his diary: "I feel rather ashamed in my action in harming J [Batt]."
Murder of Fred Biggs
Fred Biggs, a 56-year-old local councillor and part-time employee at Hadland, was poisoned by Young with antimony, prompting the typical "Bovingdon bug" symptoms. Then, on 30 October 1971, Young put three doses of thallium acetate in Biggs' tea. By the following day, Biggs had developed chest pains and had trouble walking. Within days, he was admitted to Hemel Hempstead General Hospital, then transferred to the Whittington Hospital in North London, followed by the London National Hospital for Nervous Diseases (now part of the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery). His central nervous system deteriorated to the point that he could not speak and had trouble breathing, and his skin began to peel off. Young expressed concern for Biggs' condition, continually telephoning Biggs' wife and the hospital directly to make enquiries. Biggs finally died on 19 November 1971.
Investigation and arrest
The management at Hadland became so concerned about the mysterious sickness that they initiated an investigation. Meanwhile, some of Young's co-workers began to have suspicions about him. Smart noticed that Young was never affected by the bug and suggested he might be a carrier of the "virus". Philip Doggett informed the management of Young's unhealthy interest in poisons. The firm's medical officer, Dr Iain Anderson, told staff that he had ruled out heavy metal poisoning as a possible cause, which led to an argument with Young, who insisted that the symptoms displayed by victims pointed to this diagnosis. Intrigued by the young storeman who seemed knowledgeable about medicine, Anderson sought out Young after the meeting and quizzed him further. He quickly discovered that Young had a deep knowledge of poisons and toxicology, which prompted John Hadland, the firm's owner, to contact the police. The investigating officers noticed that the onset of the "Bovingdon bug" coincided with Young's arrival at the company. A background check revealed his earlier poisoning convictions.
Young was arrested at the home of his aunt and uncle in Sheerness, Kent, on 20 November 1971. Nothing incriminating was found on his person. He denied any wrongdoing, but as he was being led away his aunt overheard him ask the officers "which one is it you're doing me for?" When police searched his bedsit, they discovered a large stash of bottles containing poisons, including 434 milligrams of thallium and 32.33 grams of antimony, the latter 200 times a lethal dose. Other poisons in his possession included atropine, aconitine and digitalis. His lodgings were also covered in Nazi paraphernalia, including swastikas and photos of Nazi figures. Police also discovered a detailed diary that Young had kept, noting the doses he had administered, their effects, and whether he was going to allow each person to live or die. Upon further questioning by police, Young admitted that the initials in the diary referred to his co-workers ('F' was Fred Biggs, 'D' was David Tilson and so on).
Young confessed to poisoning Egle, Biggs, Batt, Tilson and Trevor Sparkes, and said that he deliberately used different poisons in order to confuse doctors. He also boasted of having committed the "perfect murder" by killing his stepmother, Molly Young. He spent twenty minutes explaining to the officers the effects that thallium has on the human body. When asked why he had poisoned people who were his friends and colleagues, Young responded: "I suppose I had ceased to see them as a people - at least, a part of me had. They were simply guinea pigs."
Trial and prison
Young was charged with two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder, four counts of administering poison with intent to injure and four alternative counts of administering poison with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. He pleaded not guilty, which made it difficult to find a barrister willing to represent him; the trial date had to be postponed several times. Eventually, Sir Arthur Irvine QC agreed to defend Young. John Leonard QC led the prosecution for the Crown. The judge was Mr Justice Eveleigh. The trial was held at St Albans Crown Court and started on 19 June 1972.
Due to safeguards protecting defendants, the jury could not be told of Young's previous convictions for poisoning. Young retracted his earlier confession to the police, claiming he had only made it in order to get some rest. Nevertheless, the evidence against him was strong. The prosecution called 75 witnesses to give testimony; Young himself was the only witness in his defence. Excerpts from Young's diary were read out in court. Young claimed the diary was a fantasy for a novel. Examination of Fred Biggs' internal organs found thallium in his intestines, kidneys, muscles, bones and brain tissue. The cremated remains of Bob Egle, which had not yet been scattered, were also analysed and found to contain 9 mg of thallium. The latter was the first instance of cremated ashes being used as evidence in a murder conviction.
On 29 June 1972, after one hour and 38 minutes of deliberation, the jury found Young guilty of two counts of murder (Bob Egle and Fred Biggs), two counts of attempted murder (Jethro Batt and David Tilson) and two counts of administering poison with intent to injure (Diana Smart and Ronald Hewitt). He was found not guilty of administering poison to Trevor Sparkes and Peter Buck, and was acquitted on all four counts of administering poison with intent to cause grievous bodily harm. Through his counsel, Young requested that he be sent to a conventional prison rather than return to Broadmoor. His request was granted and he was sentenced to life imprisonment, to be served at Park Lane Hospital, later changing to Ashworth Hospital, in Maghull.
While at Ashworth, Young befriended Moors murderer Ian Brady, with whom he shared a fascination for Nazi Germany. Brady's 2001 book, The Gates of Janus, in which he discusses various serial killers, includes a chapter on Young. Brady wrote that Young "was genuinely asexual, finding even discussion of sexual matters not only uninteresting but also distinctly distasteful... Power and death were his aphrodisiacs and raisons d’être." Elsewhere Brady stated that "it was difficult not to empathise with Graham Young."
Young died in his cell at HM Prison Parkhurst on the evening of 1 August 1990, one month before his 43rd birthday. The cause of death was listed as myocardial infarction. As Young had no history of heart disease, it has been speculated that he either committed suicide or was murdered by prisoners or prison staff who did not feel safe around him.
Aftermath
On 29 June 1972, the day Young's trial ended, Home Secretary Reginald Maudling gave a statement in the House of Commons about the issues raised by the case. He confirmed that more safeguards were to be introduced governing the release of mentally ill offenders. Henceforth, no patient at a special hospital was to be discharged without two concurring recommendations from psychiatrists. Supervision of released patients was also to be improved.
Maudling ordered a review of current procedures for releasing offenders from psychiatric hospitals. The review was to be carried out by a three-man committee headed by Sir Carl Aarvold, Recorder of London. Their findings were published in January 1973. Maudling also announced an inquiry to review the management of mentally ill offenders in the criminal justice system, to be chaired by Lord Butler. This led to the Butler Committee's recommendations in 1975, which resulted in the expansion in forensic mental health services with the development of regional (now referred to as medium) secure units in most of the health regions in England and Wales. Prior to that there had been only the high security hospitals of Broadmoor, Ashworth and Rampton.
Following Young's conviction, reports of copycat poisonings appeared in the British press. In April 1973, Howard Grodnow of Ealing committed suicide, having become convinced that he had been poisoned by Young after reading about the case. For the previous eighteen months he had suffered from severe chest pains, which he traced back to an encounter, in a Hemel Hempstead pub, with a young man obsessed with poisons and chemicals. In November 2005, a 16-year-old Japanese schoolgirl was arrested for poisoning her mother with thallium. She claimed to be fascinated by Young and kept an online blog, similar to Young's diary, recording dosage and reactions.
The Poisons Act 1972 was created to restrict and control the sale of poisons after Young's court case concluded.
In popular culture
A 1995 film called The Young Poisoner's Handbook is loosely based on Young's life.
Young was the subject of an episode of the ITV series Crime Story, entitled "Terrible Coldness". It was broadcast on 6 October 1993. Young was portrayed by Mark Womack.
During his trial, Young expressed his hope that his waxwork would appear in Madame Tussauds' Chamber of Horrors. He later got his wish and his likeness appeared in the exhibit near those of Hawley Harvey Crippen and John Haigh.
In 2009, a painting of the Kray twins by Young was sold at an auction in Andover for £2,700.
Young's sister wrote a book published by Robert Hale on the 18th January 1973 called Obsessive Poisoner: The Strange Story of Graham Young by his sister Winifred Young.
In 2021, Carol Ann Lee released a true crime book titled A Passion for Poison: Serial Killer. Poisoner. Schoolboy. published by John Blake (English journalist).
See also
List of serial killers in the United Kingdom
References
Further reading
Michael H. Stone, M.D. & Gary Brucato, Ph.D., The New Evil: Understanding the Emergence of Modern Violent Crime (Amherst, N.Y.: Prometheus Books), pp. 479–480. .
External links
Crimelibrary entry for Graham Young
Debate in Parliament about the case (Hansard, HC Deb 29 June 1972 vol 839 cc1673-85).
(Documentary of Young's life presented by Fred Dinenage)
1947 births
1971 murders in the United Kingdom
1990 deaths
English people convicted of murder
English people who died in prison custody
English prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment
English serial killers
People convicted of murder by England and Wales
People detained at Broadmoor Hospital
People from Neasden
People with antisocial personality disorder
Poisoners
Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by England and Wales
Prisoners who died in England and Wales detention
Serial killers who died in prison custody
Thallium poisoning |
420659 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upward%20Bound | Upward Bound | Upward Bound is a federally funded educational program within the United States. The program is one of a cluster of programs now referred to as TRiO, all of which owe their existence to the federal Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (the War on Poverty Program) and the Higher Education Act of 1965. Upward Bound programs are implemented and monitored by the United States Department of Education. The goal of Upward Bound is to provide certain categories of high school students better opportunities for attending college. The categories of greatest concern are those with low income, those with parents who did not attend college, and those living in rural areas. The program works through individual grants, each of which covers a restricted geographic area and provides services to approximately 59,000 students annually. The program focuses on academic and nonacademic resources and activities like visits to museums or tutoring for school work. Students are encouraged to be involved in Upward Bound for the entire academic year and a 6-week long summer program. Many students who are also granted access into the Upward Bound program are labeled as first generation college students, who are students that are the first in their family to attend college. This program is set in place for students who come from low income families as well as underrepresented schools and gives them an opportunity to excel in college.
History
The program was launched in the summer of 1965 after the passage of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 (The Federal War on Poverty) during President Lyndon B. Johnson's administration, and was transferred to the Department of Education after the enactment of the Higher Education Act of 1965. The idea of Upward Bound came from Stan Salett, a civil rights organizer, national education policy advisor and one of the creators of the Head Start Program. The experimental program was established as the country’s first federal program to prepare low income students for college with the goal of helping high school students go from poverty to the middle class through higher education. In 1965, 17 Regular Upward Bound programs enrolled 2,601 participants. Since 1964 more than 2 million students have participated in Regular Upward Bound and 964 programs are funded with more than 80,000 students participating. Then in 1990, Upward Bound added an additional program called the Upward Bound Math-Science Program. It specializes in math and science skills for TRiO eligible students to improve their performance and motivation to pursue postsecondary enrollment. The 2017-18 annual data collected by the Department of Education on the Upward Bound Program reveals that currently, 84,934 participants were in the program and being served, this number includes the 13,392 who are in the Upward Bound Math-Science Program.
Funding
Grants are usually made to institutes of higher education (universities), but some awards have been made to other non-profit organizations such as tribal organizations. The Upward Bound Program selects those universities and organizations who receive grant funding based on their competitive criteria: Those applicants who demonstrate a Rationale; Applicants who meet student’s social, emotional, and academic needs; and strengthens cross-agency coordination and community engagement to advance systematic change. Upward Bound grants are results-based, with the level of success determined largely from highly structured annual reports compared to grant objectives. As of Fiscal Year 2020, Upward Bound had an annual budget around $352,000,000.
Each award made averages $4,691 per participant, with the most common award providing $220,000 per grantee in 2004 and $250,000 in 2007. Awards are for four or five years and are competitive. The law providing for Upward Bound is 34 CFR Ch. VI Pt. 645. As federal education grants, Upward Bound awards fall under EDGAR and OMB Circular A-21 financial guidelines.
The program is available to students after their eighth grade of school. Two-thirds of selected applicants must be low-income and "potential first-generation college students," with the remaining third of students meeting one of the aforementioned criteria.
Approach
Upward Bound programs may utilize two approaches to student preparation:
1. A summer program where high school students take college preparatory classes and earn work experience at a college campus for four to six weeks.
Methodologies vary among summer programs, such as one based on Lancelot Hogben's social usefulness method as applied in the 1980s by an Upward Bound Astronomy program for Los Angeles County high school students, that subsequently evolved into a low-tech and low-cost method by Dr Daniel Barth at Mount San Jacinto College.
2. Weekly academic instruction and possibly tutoring with students throughout the school year.
In the latter case, Upward Bound Programs are primarily located at various universities across the United States according to the demographic makeup of the localities served. However, when it comes to the activities and workshops offered many universities share them with community colleges. For example at East Tennessee State University, located in Johnson City, Tennessee, they offer students the ability to enter into individual counseling sessions, ACT preparation courses; as well as participate in cultural events, field trips and classes in typical academic subjects. Likewise, at Washington State University, located in Pullman, Washington, they offer similar workshops and activities such as: basic academic subjects, SAT & ACT preparation courses, academic advising and tutoring; as well as cultural enrichment activities and individualized support. Furthermore, at the University of Central Florida, they break down their Upward Bound Program into three sub-programs; yet they still offer many similar programs as the latter two across all three. These activities and workshops include: tutoring, basic academic classes, study skills, college readiness, cultural events, career exploration assistance, and college admission application help to just name a few. Whatever the location or demographic makeup, the goal across them all is the same: to help better prepare those in high school for academic success at the college level, as well as better results on Advanced Placement tests taken while still in high school.
Upward Bound Math-Science Program
In 1990, Upward Bound added an additional program called the Upward Bound Math-Science Program. It specializes in math and science skills for TRiO eligible students to improve their performance and motivation to pursue postsecondary enrollment. The Upward Bound Math-Science program (UBMS) was created for students to have the opportunity to excel in the areas of math and science. Upward Bound Math-Science helps strengthen students' math and science skills, particularly those who come from areas that are underdeveloped. UBMS is a program that was put in place by the federal government and was there to provide not so fortunate children with the opportunity to gain knowledge from mathematicians as well as scientists who have experience in these fields. Students are in this program for 6 weeks and have coursework in mathematics and laboratory science, as well as literature. This program provides students with hands-on experience in labs and with fieldwork. The application process for UBMS is identical to that for Upward Bound, however the programs differ in that UBMS is more geared towards students who are interested in the fields of science and technology. UBMS increased the odds of a student taking a science course by raising the percentage from 78-88% in chemistry and from 43-58% in physics. UMBS has increased the likelihood that children will achieve more in math and science and increase that drive to further their interests in college. UBMS has also raised GPAs in math classes for African-Americans as well as Hispanics.
Effectiveness
Several studies have shown that TRIO Upward Bound is tremendously successful. A study released by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in 2004, provides a detailed analysis of program demographics. Notable alumni of Upward Bound programs include John Quiñones, Angela Bassett, José M. Hernández, Troy Polamalu, Emmy-winning Journalist Rick Blalock, Kenny Leon, Donna Brazile, Patrick Ewing, Henry Bonilla, Cardi B, LALA Castillo, Raphael Warnock, Oprah Winfrey and Viola Davis. Effectiveness varies from program
to program, as local program directors determine the strategy most optimal vis-a-vis the student base, from being very strict and hands-on with students, to being more lenient in terms of student life and academic management. Students enrolled in Upward Bound were shown to be more likely to enroll in a four-year institution than students participating in comparable programs, and were also less likely to enroll in remedial courses. Unique aspects of the Upward Bound program include a summer immersion program conducted on college campuses. The program exposes students to college-level rigor, while also allowing students to enter university courses before high school completion bypassing the need for remedial classes upon beginning postsecondary education.
College Readiness
According to a study done by Policy and Program Studies Service of the United States Department of Education, in students with lower educational expectations, Upward Bound was shown to increase both enrollment and credits earned at four-year institutions. Repeated participation in Upward Bound until high school graduation was shown to improve educational results such as the rate of four-year college attendance and credits earned at four-year institutions. Students who were enrolled in the Upward Bound program were categorized into distinct groups based on the length of time they participated. The groups were low-duration (1 to 12 months of participation), medium-duration (13 to 24 months of participation) or high-duration (25 or more months of participation), and also as program completers (through graduation) or noncompleters. The results of the observational study showed that an additional year participating in Upward Bound can significantly improve students’ motivation and persistence to pursue higher education, apply for financial aid, apply for highly selective 4 year college programs, and complete higher education. Different effects were measured by looking at the data for noncompleters and the impact of completing the program. The rate at which the students would pursue postsecondary enrollment would increase from 74% to 91%. There are confounding variables in this study, mostly due to the characteristic of students who decide to stay involved in the program and therefore have higher educational expectations for themselves. The true effects of an additional year of participation may be lower than the actual findings. The researchers attempted to control for the variable by matching participants with similar characteristics and different duration of participation in the program. The general effect of Upward Bound is only significantly seen in 4-year colleges.
Higher Educational Pursuit
In an examination of the Educational Longitudinal Study of 2002, collected by the National Center for Education Statistics, researchers found that only 7% of students eligible for federally funded precollege programs enrolled in such programs. They found that participating students were .576 times as likely not to enroll in a four-year institution and .555 times as likely not to enroll in a postsecondary institution of any kind compared to all eligible students. However, Upward Bound students were 31% more likely to drop out of the postsecondary institution in which they enrolled. Though some of the statistics reporting participants' outcome are not optimal, the students participating in Upward Bound are an academically vulnerable population. Therefore, these results do not necessitate that Upward Bound is a deficient program, but that the students may require more support than they receive.
Additionally, research at the Journal of Hispanic Higher Education suggests that Upward Bound programs can specifically help more (otherwise discouraged) Latino students pursue dreams of college. There are low rates of enrollment of Latino students due to discouraging factors like “policies that encourage quick job placement over career development, lack of understanding of the benefits of a college degree, lower expectations for Latino students, poor financial planning, and lack of guidance”, but Upward Bound programs should help combat them and support students. The key to these programs’ intervention is education and providing students the opportunities that come with a college education. As a result, it would motivate more students to go to college and encourage them that college is attainable. They would also offer more college preparation, guidance in college and help students plan to ensure they not only enroll at an institution but also graduate and find a career. A main drawback of these programs is that many students are unaware that they are available to them. Another one is that these programs should not just aim to get underprivileged students into college but facilitate them finishing. Furthermore, with the Latino population in this country growing, having more educated Latino students could help bring more revenue and benefit society as a whole.
Research Complications
Another research study done by the University of Wisconsin explains that many studies may have falsely suggested that Upward Bound programs are not meeting their mission of increasing the rate of college enrollment of underprivileged students. The researcher suggests there are actual methodical and analysis errors in other researchers' work and that these programs can close the success attainment gaps between students from different socio-economic statuses.
In response to misleading data being published on the efficacy of Upward Bound and Upward Bound Math and Science programs in 2009, the Pell Institute performed a re-analysis of positive impacts achieved by the programs. Data reported by the Pell Institute shows positive effects found in legislatively mandated programs. Upward Bound students were more likely to receive a bachelor's degree than students receiving no or less thorough supplemental educational services. Of students participating in an Upward Bound program, three-quarters enrolled at a post-secondary educational institution within one year of their projected high school completion, as opposed to less than half of students without access to supplemental college services. One-fifth of Upward Bound students enrolled in post-secondary education completed a degree within six years of their high school graduation date, in contrast with less than one-tenth of students without supplemental services.
Perceptions & Annual Performance Reports
Much like the different approaches to the Upward Bound Programs across the United States, the perceptions of these programs differ as well. When it comes to the perception of how the Upward Bound Program is doing, the most valuable feedback comes from the participants in the program as well as the Parents of those children in the program. While few data exists documenting a collective set of feedback from students and parents about the Upward Bound Program, there is annual individual data from Universities documenting feedback.According to a quantitative and qualitative study of 20 participants of an Upward Bound program at a Midwestern community college, some students mentioned that they did not plan to attend college before they attended the Upward Bound program. Studied students received social and academic preparation and felt they received more social than academic preparation in the program.
Pima Community College- Desert Vista Campus
Pima Community Colleges Upward Bound Program gathered qualitative data about their program from students, teachers, as well as parents. The students and parents who were in the program, had been though the program, or interacted with the program were positive in their evaluations about the work the program was doing. This group also reported having difficulty when asked to identify ways in which Upward Bound could improve their programming. Amongst the strengths listed by the group were; the program is well-designed and well-organized, the program has unlocked a sense of motivation not only in students but parents as well, and the program was great at keeping parents aware of Upward Bound’s expectations.
Stark State College
At Stark State College they found that students, following COVID Stay at Home Restrictions, voiced their preferences for in-person and hands-on training in STEM activities. Furthermore, they found 77% of students conducting an exit interview from the program rated College Connection tutorial/advising sessions as good or excellent. Several comments from students also stated some sessions felt repetitive and would have liked more fun/games in academic settings. Stark State College concluded that most reviews by students were rated good or excellent with comments mainly suggesting that there were too many learning activities and that they enjoyed field trips taken. When it comes to seniors exiting the program, they mainly rated their experience high and would be willing to come back to mentor high school students currently in the program. When it comes to the Parent Association created for their Upward Bound Program, many parents were involved in the activities and each year serve as chaperones for the student leadership conference(s). Furthermore, parents expressed their gratitude about the Programs success and the positive effects it is having on their youth.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
In a study of parents of students of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Upward Bound program, the vast majority of parents reported that their children took more challenging classes and received better grades after attending the program. Parents reported that after the program, their children seemed to have better attitudes regarding their own educational attainment. Parents believed the program helped their children to foster personal integrity, self-assuredness, and ambition. Parents also believed that their children exhibited more mature behaviors, such as budgeting money and reliable communication.
Annual Performance Reports
Annual Performance Reports are an incredible way to gain an insight into how Upward Bound Programs are performing across the country. Many break down the expenses they’ve used as well as the awards and budget they are working with. Not only that, but most have informative feedback from different levels within the program that helps understand how to improve and what strengths programs like these above have. Many annual performance reports also contain the number of their students who graduate and obtain higher educational degrees. Many of these annual reports can also serve as a great way for those who are wanting to get involved with the Upward Bound Program, whether that be as a Parent looking to get their child involved or as a worker looking to find a job in the program.
See also
A Space to Grow, a 1968 documentary film about the program
Upward Bound High School, alternative education program in New York
References
External links
The Upward Bound home page
Upward Bound Math and Science Program federalgrants.com
Great Society programs
United States educational programs |
420675 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty%20of%20Rapallo%20%281920%29 | Treaty of Rapallo (1920) | The Treaty of Rapallo was an agreement between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes in the aftermath of the First World War. It was intended to settle the Adriatic question, i.e. Italian claims over territories promised to the country, in return for its entry into the war, against Austria-Hungary; claims that were made on the basis of the 1915 Treaty of London. The wartime pact promised Italy large areas of the eastern Adriatic. The treaty, signed on 12 November 1920 in Rapallo, Italy, generally redeemed the promises of territorial gains in the former Austrian Littoral by awarding Italy territories generally corresponding to the peninsula of Istria and the former Princely County of Gorizia and Gradisca, with the addition of the Snežnik Plateau, in addition to what was promised by the London treaty. The articles regarding Dalmatia were largely ignored. There Italy received the city of Zadar and several islands. Other provisions of the treaty contained safeguards for the rights of Italian nationals remaining in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and provisions for commissions to demarcate the new border, and facilitate economic and educational cooperation. The treaty also established the Free State of Fiume, the city-state consisting of the former Austro-Hungarian Corpus Separatum that consisted of Rijeka and a strip of coast giving the new state a land border with Italy at Istria.
The treaty was met with a degree of popular disapproval in both countries. In the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes it was unpopular with Slovenes and Croats, as it represented a loss of national territory where about a half million Slovenes and Croats lived. Zadar lost significance when it became an Italian semi-enclave, which allowed Split to overtake it in significance in Dalmatia. The Port of Rijeka suffered from the loss of trade with the hinterland, causing an economic decline. In Italy, the claim to Dalmatia relinquished in the Treaty of Rapallo contributed to fueling the myth of the mutilated victory. The myth was created during the Paris Peace Conference, where the Italian delegation was unable to enforce the Treaty of London, and perpetuated the view that Italy had won the war but its victory was compromised by an unjust peace.
The Treaty of Rapallo was also condemned by the Italian general Gabriele d'Annunzio, who previously had seized Rijeka with his troops, establishing there a state known as the Italian Regency of Carnaro. He resisted efforts to remove him from the city until the Italian Navy drove him out in the clash known as Bloody Christmas, so that the Free State of Fiume could be established. The city-state was abolished when Italy annexed the city four years later under the Treaty of Rome.
Background
Treaty of London
In 1915, the Kingdom of Italy entered World War I on the side of the Entente, following the signing of the Treaty of London, which promised Italy territorial gains at the expense of Austria-Hungary. The treaty was opposed by representatives of the South Slavs living in Austria-Hungary, who were organised as the Yugoslav Committee.
Following the 3 November 1918 Armistice of Villa Giusti, the Austro-Hungarian surrender, Italian troops moved to occupy parts of the Eastern Adriatic shore promised to Italy under the Treaty of London, ahead of the Paris Peace Conference. The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, carved from areas of Austria-Hungary populated by the South Slavs, authorised the Yugoslav Committee to represent it abroad, and the short-lived state, shortly before it sought union with the Kingdom of Serbia to establish the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, laid a competing claim to the Eastern Adriatic to counter the Italian demands. This claim was supported by deployment of the Royal Serbian Army to the area. The United States Navy also deployed an occupying force to the coast.
Occupation of the Eastern Adriatic
The Entente powers arranged zones-of-occupation of the Eastern Adriatic shores as follows: the United Kingdom was to control the Kvarner Gulf, while the northern parts of Dalmatia were the Italian zone. The southern Dalmatian coast was to be occupied by the United States, while the shores of the Kingdom of Montenegro and the Principality of Albania, further to the south, were the responsibility of the French. The occupation forces were to be coordinated by the Naval Committee for the Adriatic, which consisted of admirals delegated by the four powers. The committee initially met in the city of Rijeka (), but it subsequently moved to Venice and Rome. The occupation plan was never fully enforced, as only Italy deployed a large force to the area. The local Croatian population often expressed dissatisfaction with the Italian military presence, and several minor clashes occurred in 1919. There were frequent cases of deportations of the non-Italian population by the Italian forces.
By the end of 1918, the Italian troops occupied Istria and Rijeka, as well as a part of the Dalmatian coast extending between, and including, the cities of Zadar and Šibenik, with the hinterland extending to Knin and Drniš. Additionally, they captured the islands of Hvar, Vis, Korčula, Mljet, Lastovo, and Pag. The US presence was largely confined to Split, while the Serbian army controlled the rest of the coast. In 1919, a group of Italian veterans led by Gabriele d'Annunzio seized Rijeka, establishing a short-lived state there known as the Italian Regency of Carnaro.
Paris Peace Conference
The problem of establishing the border between Italy and the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes – known as the Adriatic question – and the future status of Rijeka became major points of dispute at the Paris Peace Conference. Since 1917, Italy used the issue of the annexation of Montenegro by Serbia, or the unification of the countries, known as the Montenegrin question, to pressure Serbia into making concessions regarding Italian demands. Similarly, in 1920 and 1921, negotiations were conducted and agreements made—between the Croatian Committee of emigrés opposing establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and D'Annunzio's representatives—offering territory to Italy in exchange for support for the Croatian Committee's work.
While the Italian representatives at the peace conference were demanding enforcement of the Treaty of London and the additional award of Rijeka, the President Woodrow Wilson opposed their demands and put forward his Fourteen Points, which favoured a solution that relied on local self-determination, arguing that the Treaty of London was invalid. Instead, Wilson proposed a division of the Istrian peninsula along the Wilson Line that largely corresponded to the ethnic makeup of the population, and a free-city status for Rijeka based on the city's legal position of a Corpus Separatum within Austria-Hungary. The British and French did not support enforcement of the treaty, as they thought Italy deserved relatively little, due to its neutrality early in the war. Specifically, they were dismissive of Italian claims in Dalmatia. The British prime minister David Lloyd George only supported a free-city status for Zadar and Šibenik, while the French prime minister Georges Clemenceau only supported such a status for Zadar.
By late 1919, representatives of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, led by former Prime Minister Nikola Pašić and foreign minister Ante Trumbić, could not agree with Italian diplomats on the border question. In response, they were instructed to settle the issue through direct negotiations after the Paris Peace Conference. A particular obstacle to any agreement was D'Annunzio's occupation of Rijeka, which caused the Italian government to reject a draft agreement submitted by the UK, the US, and France. Pašić's and Trumbić's refusal to agree to the plan provoked the French and British to threaten that the Treaty of London would be enforced unless they supported the allied proposal. In turn, Wilson blocked the Franco-British move by threatening to stop ratification of the Treaty of Versailles by the U.S.
Rapallo Conference
Negotiations
From spring 1920, the United Kingdom and France applied pressure on the prime minister of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Milenko Radomar Vesnić, and foreign minister Trumbić to resolve the Adriatic question, claiming that it represented a threat to peace in Europe. At the same time, the Italian foreign minister, Carlo Sforza, indicated he was ready to trade Italian claims in Dalmatia for British and French backing of Italian territorial demands further north, in Istria. In September 1920, Sforza told the President of France, Alexandre Millerand, that he only wanted to enforce the Treaty of London regarding Istria and that he wanted none of Dalmatia except the city of Zadar. Furthermore, following the 1920 presidential election, US support for Wilson's ideas appeared to have ended, compelling Vesnić and Trumbić into bilateral negotiations with Sforza. Moreover, Prince Regent Alexander I, of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, wanted an agreement with Italy at any cost, wanting to achieve political stability in the country. According to Sforza, Vesnić later told him he was advised not to resist Italian demands for fear that Italy might impose a solution unilaterally.
A delegation from the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was dispatched to Santa Margherita Ligure, in Italy, for bilateral negotiations. It was led by Vesnić, but the designated chief negotiatior was Trumbić. According to Svetozar Pribićević, this arrangement was made in Belgrade, in order to avoid the appearance that the Serbs were ceding to Italy territories inhabited by Croats and Slovenes. Therefore, Trumbić, as a Croat, would negotiate the treaty involving inevitable territorial concessions to Italy. Sforza's most recent proposal was supported by the British and French, while the US remained silent on the matter, leaving Belgrade isolated. In addition to Prime Minister Vesnić and Foreign Minister Trumbić, the Serbian ambassador to Rome was also among the principal members of that delegation. The principal members of the Italian negotiating team included Sforza, as well as Minister of War Ivanoe Bonomi and Giuseppe Volpi. Other members of the delegation included Marcello Roddolo, Francesco Salata, , and General Pietro Badoglio. During the negotiations, Sforza demanded Istria and the Snežnik (), claiming their symbolic significance to Italy and stating that they would not be relinquished by the Italian army in any case. In return, he offered Italian friendship. Negotiations took place on 9–11 November 1920, resulting in the treaty being signed on 12 November, in the Villa Spinola. The treaty is named after the comune of Rapallo where the villa is located. Italian Prime Minister Giovanni Giolitti came from Rome for the signing.
Terms
Article 1 of the treaty dealt with national borders in the northern Adriatic basin, giving Italy Istria and the territory to the north of the peninsula, demarcated by a line indicated by reference to prominent peaks in the area, running from the area of Tarvisio via Triglav to the East of Idrija and Postojna, to Snežnik, and then to the Kvarner Gulf just to the West of Rijeka. Thus, the major cities of Trieste, Pula, and Gorizia were acquired by Italy. Article 2 gave to Italy the city of Zadar (as the Province of Zara), in northern Dalmatia, and defined the semi-enclave's land boundaries by reference to surrounding peaks, villages, and tax-commune territories. Article 3 gave to Italy the islands of Cres, Lošinj, Lastovo, and Palagruža (referred to as Cherso, Lussin, Lagosta, and Pelagosta) with surrounding islets.
Article 4 of the treaty established the independent Free State of Fiume, defining its boundaries as those of the former Austro-Hungarian Corpus Separatum, with the addition of a strip of land connecting it to the Italian territory in Istria between the Kvarner Gulf and the town of Kastav. This arrangement left the suburb of Sušak to the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes since it was situated across the Rječina River, just outside the Corpus Separatum. Article 5 determined that the marking of the border on the ground would be carried out by a bilateral commission and that any disputes would be referred to the President of the Swiss Confederation. Article 6 required the parties to the treaty to convene, within two months, a conference of experts to draw up proposals for economic and financial cooperation between the parties to the treaty.
Article 7 of the treaty determined that Italian entities established in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, as well as Italians residing in that country, would retain all existing economic authorisations issued to them by the kingdom or any of its predecessor-state governments. Furthermore, the same article allowed ethnic Italians to opt for Italian citizenship within a year. Those choosing Italian citizenship were guaranteed the right to remain residents of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, property rights, and freedom of religion. Finally, the same article provided that the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes would recognise any academic degrees obtained by Italian citizens as if they were obtained from institutions in that country. Article 8 called for enhanced educational cooperation between the parties to the treaty. Article 9 stated that the treaty was drawn up in Italian and Serbo-Croatian, but provided that the Italian version would be definitive in cases of dispute. The treaty was signed by Giolitti, Sforza, and Bonomi on behalf of Italy, and by Vesnić, Trumbić, and finance minister on behalf of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes.
Aftermath
A significant portion of the Treaty of Rapallo consisted of provisions regulating the status of Italians in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, but their number was low, estimated to be several hundred. On the other hand, the addition of the new Italian territory meant the addition of about a half a million South Slavs (mostly Slovenes and Croats) to the country's population. Even though the extent of the Italian territorial expansion was reduced in comparison to that promised by the Treaty of London, the Italian military was satisfied with the defensible land border and the naval facilities in Pula. It thought of Dalmatia as problematic to defend and primarily wanted to deny it to the Russian Empire, but the Russian threat was no longer a realistic prospect since the 1917 October Revolution. Politically, an agreement similar to the Treaty of Rapallo was likely possible at the Paris Peace Conference. However, the inability of the Italian delegation at that conference to enforce the Treaty of London, and annex Rijeka, fueled the nationalistic myth of the mutilated victory. Following the Treaty of Rapallo, the myth persisted and the perception of political failure weakened liberal politicians.
On 6 December 1920, less than a month after resigning from the post of foreign minister, Trumbić gave a speech in Split where he remarked that grief over the loss of national territory was expected, adding that it was an inevitable outcome of the peace conference and the subsequent bilateral negotiations (however, most of the Italian territorial gains were reversed in the aftermath of World War II). The Treaty of Rapallo (along with the death of Nicholas I of Montenegro a few months later) marked the end of Italian support for Montenegrin resistance against the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. According to historian Srđa Pavlović, the signing of the treaty and the conclusion of the 1920 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes Constitutional Assembly election prompted the Entente powers to break off relations with the Montenegrin government in exile. Likewise, all Italian support for the Croatian Committee ended after the treaty was concluded. D'Annunzio condemned the treaty in a declaration of 17 November. The Italian Regency of Carnaro proclaimed a state of war four days later. The Italian Navy drove D'Annunzio from Rijeka in an intervention known as Bloody Christmas. The town became the city-state envisaged by the Treaty of Rapallo. Nonetheless, the Free State of Fiume was short-lived, and Italy annexed it under the 1924 Treaty of Rome. The loss of the hinterland served by the Port of Rijeka led to the decline of importance of both the port and the city, despite the introduction of free economic zone privileges. The same privileges were granted to Zadar, but its status of a semi-enclave limited its development too. Its population grew between 1921 and 1936 from 15,800 to 20,000, but a quarter of the residents were military personnel. At the same time, other cities in Dalmatia enjoyed much faster growth. This was especially true of Split, which became the regional capital instead of Zadar.
References
Sources
External links
Treaty between the Kingdom of Italy and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes signed at Rapallo, 12 November 1920
Map of modern Slovenia with superimposed Rapallo border
1920 in Yugoslavia
Modern history of Italy
Political history of Slovenia
1920 in Italy
Interwar-period treaties
Treaties concluded in 1920
Rapallo (1920)
Treaties of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia
Italy–Yugoslavia relations
Italians of Croatia
Rapallo
Adriatic question |
420676 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education%20in%20Greece | Education in Greece | Education in Greece is centralized and governed by the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs (Greek: , Υ.ΠΑΙ.Θ.) at all grade levels in elementary and middle school. The Ministry exercises control over public schools, formulates and implements legislation, administers the budget, coordinates national level university entrance examinations, sets up the national curriculum, appoints public school teaching staff, and coordinates other services.
The Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs is also in charge of which classes are necessary for general education. They have implemented mandatory courses such as religion in required grade levels (1st-9th grades). Students can only be exempt if their guardians fill out a declaration excluding them from religious lessons.
The national supervisory role of the Ministry is exercised through Regional Unit Public Education Offices, which are named Regional Directorates of Primary and Secondary School Education. Public schools and their supply of textbooks are funded by the government. Public schools in Greece are tuition-free and students on a state approved list are provided textbooks at no cost.
About 25% of postgraduate programmes are tuition-fee, while about 30% of students are eligible to attend programmes tuition-free based on individual criteria.
Formal education in Greece comprises three educational stages. The first stage of formal education is the primary stage, which lasts for six years starting aged six and ending at the age of 12, followed by the secondary stage, which is separated into two sub-stages: the compulsory middle school, which lasts three years starting at age 12, and non-compulsory Lyceum, which lasts three years starting at 15. The third stage involves higher education.
School holidays in Greece include Christmas, Greek Independence Day, Easter, National Anniversary Day, a three-month summer holiday, National Public Holidays, and local holidays, which vary by region such as the local patron saint's day.
In addition to schooling, the majority of students attend extracurricular private classes at private tutoring centres called "frontistiria" (, frontistirio), or one-to-one tuition. These centres prepare students for higher education admissions, like the Pan-Hellenic Examinations, and/or provide foreign language education.
It is forbidden by law for students to use mobile phones while on the school premises. Taking or making phone calls, texting, or the use of other camera, video or other recording devices or medium that have image and audio processing ability like smartwatches is forbidden. Students must switch off their mobile phones or set them to silent mode and keep them in their bags while on the school premises. However, especially at high schools, the use of mobile phones is widespread, especially at breaks and sometimes in the class.
Diagram
Preschool
Most preschools, also known as pre-primary, are attached to and share buildings with a primary school. Preschool is compulsory and lasts 2 years, split into 1 year of Pre-kindergarten (Προνηπιαγωγείο) and 1 year of Kindergarten (Νηπιαγωγείο; Nipiagogeio). Since the school year 2018–2019, children who would be four years of age by December 31 are required to begin attending preschool on September 11 of the same year. Applications for registration and enrolment are usually carried out annually during fifteen consecutive days in May. After this period expires, students are neither allowed to register nor enroll.
1st Year / Pre-Kindergarten (), age 4 to 5 years old (with some 3 year olds, about to turn 4, attending)
2nd Year / Kindergarten (), age 5 to 6 (with some 4 year olds, about to turn 5, attending)
There are also the public Special Preschools and public Experimental Preschools ()
In these school years, students are given descriptive assessments instead of number/letter grades.
Foreign Language
Students begin taking English as part of their core curriculum in kindergarten. It has been scientifically proven that until the age of 11 it is more likely to successfully become proficient in a foreign language than any older age. This may be the reason many countries in the European Union begin learning a foreign language, specifically English, at the age of 5.
Primary education
Primary school (, Dimotiko scholeio) is compulsory for 6 years. There is also the public Special Primary and public Experimental Primary ().
The school year starts on September 11 and ends on June 15. The standard school day starts at 08:15 and finishes at 13:15. It comprises six academic years of schooling named τάξεις (grades), numbered 1 through to 6. Enrollment to the next tier of compulsory education, the Gymnasium, is automatic. The classes for a subject vary with the teacher who teaches. Students are awarded an "" (Apolytirio Dimotikou, primary school leaving certificate) which gives automatic admission to the lower secondary education (gymnasium).
In Year 1 and Year 2, students are not officially graded. Beginning with years 3 and 4, grades are ranked alphabetically from A to D. From year 5, when written exams are introduced, to year 6 it changes to numbers, going from 4, the lowest, to 10 the highest (best).
Αges are typical and can vary with the most common ages approximately:
Grades of Primary School
Grade 1–6
1st Year / First grade (), age 6 to 7-year-olds
2nd Year / Second grade (), age 7 to 8
3rd Year / Third grade (), age 8 to 9
4th Year / Fourth grade (), age 9 to 10
5th Year / Fifth grade (), age 10 to 11
6th Year / Sixth grade (), age 11 to 12
Grading System
1st Year: no grade points
2nd Year: no grade points
3rd Year: Α–Δ (A–D)
4th Year: Α–Δ (A–D)
5th Year: 1–10
6th Year: 1–10
Primary School National Curriculum
Secondary education
Lower Secondary Education
Gymnasium (, Gymnasio, Lower Secondary Education School, middle school) is compulsory until the age of 15.
Article 16, Paragraph 3 of the Constitution of 1975 mandates that compulsory education must be at least nine years in length.
This constitutional provision, which applies to all Greek children, was established in Law 309/1976, which also replaced classical Greek (katharevousa) with modern Greek (dimotiki) as the official language for teaching at all levels of education, and ceased to be a one-tier non-compulsory six years lower and upper secondary school, middle schools (pupils aged 12–18), and was converted to compulsory three-year lower secondary school for students aged 12–15 (middle school) and three-year non-compulsory upper secondary schools for students aged 15–18 (high school).
Admitted students can be up to 16-years-old, and they must have Primary Education School Certificate or its international equivalent. No entry exams are required. Schooling starts on September 11 and ends on early June before the first day of the Pan-Hellenic Examinations. The lessons end on May 31 so that the students will be able to study for their examinations in early June. The gymnasium school-awarded qualification "" (Apolytirio Gymnasium, gymnasium school leaving certificate, referred to simply as gymnasium certificate) at HQF (NQF) level 3, gives admission to the upper secondary education (lyceum). Gymnasium has three academic years of schooling known as "" (grade), numbered 1 through to 3. Ages are typical and can vary with the most common being between:
1st Year / First grade (), age 12 to 13-year-olds
2nd Year / Second grade (), age 13 to 14
3rd Year / Third grade (), age 14 to 15
The types of gymnasium in Greece are:
Middle school
Special Middle school
Evening Middle school
Ecclesiastical Middle school
Middle school of Cross-Cultural Education
Model Middle school (public; to enter, students must pass certain written examinations)
Experimental Middle school (public; students are selected randomly)
Integrated Special Vocational Middle school-High school (; 4 years for the Middle school)
Music Middle school (to enter this type of school students must pass certain musical exams)
Art Middle school (to enter this type of school students must pass certain exams on either arts, dance, or theater; 2004–Present)
Gymnasium National Curriculum 2022‒2023
In junior high school English is mandatory all three years, while students can choose between French or German as the second foreign language that's required.
Second Chance Adult School
Second Chance Adult School (SDE; ) is a Gymnasium level equivalent evening school administered by the Ministry of Education, for adults who did not complete their lower secondary education (gymnasium) lasts two years with 25 hours per week.
Upper Secondary Education
Upper secondary school (, Lykeio, Upper Secondary Education School, Lyceum, High School: the US term for upper secondary school) is non-compulsory education lasting 3 years.
High schools starts on September 11 and ends on June 15. Lessons end in late May so that the students will be able to study for their examinations in June. Admitted students can be up to 20-year-old, while they must have Gymnasium Certificate or Lower Secondary Education School Certificate or its international equivalent. The Evening Lyceum () is for both adult students and underage working students lasts 3 years. After having completed the 3rd grade, the graduates of the Lyceum are awarded the "" qualification (Apolytirio Lykeiou, Lyceum Apolytirio, upper secondary leaving certificate, high school diploma, referred to simply as lyceum certificate) at HQF(NQF) / EQF level 4, at ISCED level 3. The marking scale on the Apolytirio Lykeiou (GPA) is set to a 20-point grading system, law 4610/2019. The Lyceum Apolytirio is required for admission to Higher Education and to continue studies, and is an equivalent in level to the GCE Advanced Level.
Students wishing to access study programmes in Higher Education must be both secondary education school graduates (lyceum or its equivalent) holding Apolytirio Lykeiou (lyceum certificate or its equivalent) and must take nationally set examinations officially entitled "Πανελλαδικές Εξετάσεις" (Pan-Hellenic Examinations, Panelladikes Eksetaseis) which is an externally assessed national standardized test (university matriculation examinations) given one time in any given school year, which also accept all adult ages for candidates. Apolytirio certificate grants the right to pursue entry to higher education at a later date by participating at the Pan-Hellenic Examinations. Ministry of Education bears the responsibility for the central organization of these matriculation examinations. Candidates exam in 4 subjects that have selected from the 3rd grade of lyceum, while different numerical value titled "συντελεστής βαρύτητας" (coefficient weight) has assigned to each of those subjects contributes differently towards the overall score.
Successful admission is determined through the combination of a) "", literally "the access score", that is the candidate's weighted average of the grades achieved in examinations, b) the candidate's "" Β.Π.Α. represents the student's sum of all three Grade Point Average (GPA) earned in 1st, 2nd, 3rd Grade of lyceum each of these is multiplied by a given coefficient weight where the result is divided by two, Β.Π.Α. = (1st Grade GPA × 0.4 + 2nd Grade GPA × 0.7 + 3rd Grade GPA × 0.9) / 2, c) the candidate's "" (michanografiko deltio, application form) in which it states its preferences for the higher education institutions by priority order, d) the available number of places allocated in each academic department. The number of students that are admitted for each programme is determined annually by the Ministry of Education. As there are usually more applicants than places available in certain fields of study, students with the highest average exam results are selected, e) For admission to programmes requiring specialized knowledge or skills, special admission examinations are require in one or more certain subjects (such as fine arts, architecture, music studies, foreign languages, and others) or compulsory preparatory tests (such as medical assessment, fitness, sports, psychometric). "" (Vevaiosi Prosvasis, Access to Higher Education Certificate) is a document given to students soon after Pan-Hellenic Examinations results are released.
High schools in Greece designate school class levels based on the years of schooling of the student cohort, using 3 academic year levels, known as "" (grade), numbered 1 through to 3. Ages are typical and can vary with the most common being are between:
1st Year / First grade (), age 15 to 16-year-olds
2nd Year / Second grade (), age 16 to 17
3rd Year / Third grade (), age 17 to 18
In high school English is also required all three years as part of general education courses, whereas secondary foreign languages like French or German are optional.
The grading system in upper secondary schools is extended from 1 to 20 as opposed to 10 in middle school. The score of 20 is the equivalent to an A or 100 in the U.S.
The types of high schools (Λύκειο) in Greece are:
(Eidiko Lykeio; Special Lyceum)
(Mousiko Lykeio; Music Lyceum; 1988–Present)(to enter, students must pass certain exams on a musical instrument)
(Protipo Lykeio; Model Lyceum [public]; 2015–Present)(to enter, students must pass certain written examinations)
(Kalitexniko Lykeio; Art Lyceum; 2006–Present)(to enter, students must pass certain exams on either arts, dance, or theater)
(ΓΕΛ; Geniko Lykeio; General Lyceum; 1976–1996, 2006–Present)
(Peiramatiko Lykeio; Experimental Lyceum [public]; 2015–Present)(to enter, students must pass certain written examinations)
i.e. comprehensive lyceum type; Diapolitismiko Lykeio; General Lyceum of Cross-Cultural Education; 2018–Present)
Epagelmatiko Lykeio; Vocational Lyceum; EPAL; 2006–Present)
(Esperino Epagelmatiko Lykeio; Evening Vocational Lyceum)
(Esperino Geniko Lykeio; Evening General Lyceum; 1976–Present)
Ekklisiastiko Lykeio; Ecclesiastical General Lyceum; 2006–Present)
Integrated Special Vocational Gymnasium-Lyceum; 4 years for the lyceum)
General High Schools
General High Schools ( Geniko Lykeio).
General High Schools Award the "" (Apolytirio Genikou Lykeiou, General High School Apolytirio, General High School Certificate, Upper Secondary Leaving Certificate, General High School Diploma). It can be awarded in Orientation Groups requiring three different subjects. The second-grade students must choose one out of the two academic tracks named "" (Orientation Groups), and the third-grade students one out of the three Orientation Groups. An Orientation Group is also known as a "Stream". Once a student has selected a Stream, they need to follow a sequence of subjects to complete their studies at the High School. If they wish, graduating students are eligible to exam in Pan-Hellenic Examinations on the three subjects of their chosen third-grade Orientation Group and Modern Greek Language and Literature.
Vocational High Schools (EPAL)
Vocational High School (EPAL; Epagelmatiko Lykeio).
EPAL programme of study is designed in relation to the European Credit System for Vocational Education and Training (ECVET) and International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO).
The EPAL has dual-diploma (also known as double-diploma) studies comprises two separate programmes taken in parallel earning, both, two separate qualifications in their own right, a "" (Apolytirio Epagelmatikou Lykeiou; Vocational High School Apolytirio; Vocational High School Diploma; i.e. High School Diploma; Upper Secondary Leaving Certificate) and a (Ptychio of Vocational Education and Training at HQF (NQF) level 4; i.e. Diploma of Vocational Education and Training at HQF (NQF) level 4; also is called Specialization Diploma or Specialized Diploma). EPAL High School Diploma can be awarded in Orientation Groups (specializations or streams) requiring an advanced level in a number of four different subjects (advanced level subjects, or also known as high level subjects), depending on the group.
The Grade 2 students must choose one of nine Orientation Groups, also known as "" sectors (penultimate year). The Grade 3 students must choose one of varying specializations (or specialties) titled "" (final year, specialties corresponding those orientation groups offered in Grade 2). The chosen orientation group at the Grade 2 it is cannot switch at Grade 3. The Grade 2 subjects contributes only to the half of a full Grade 3 Specialty, and do not constitute a separate qualification. Until a maximum age up to 20-year-old lyceum graduates are exempted from all core subjects from Grades 2 and 3 of the EPAL High School and they can be directly admitted to EPAL Grade 2, meaning these students when will graduate, it will only be awarded EPAL Specialization Diploma.
EPAL High School Diploma is required for admission to Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and to continue studies, and is an equivalent in level to the GCE Advanced Level. Students normally select their chosen Specialty in fields relevant to intended study at the higher education, and in Pan-Hellenic Examinations, if they wish, exam in 4 advanced level subjects of the Grade 3.
is transliterated to "Ptychio" (Greek: ; Ptychio in dhimotiki from 1976–present; or defunct ; Ptychion in polytonic, katharevousa up until 1976). The Greek word "" has translation into English as "Degree", it is a qualification term has common meaning in Greece. It signifies that it is a direct translation from the terminology in Greek as it appears in the Greek legislation. In Greece, the word "" is commonly used for titles of study from different education levels (secondary, higher etc.). It must not confuse with its usage in the English language, whereby the word Degree refers to Higher Education qualification title only. Greece Universities' Degree is titled "", transliterated to "Ptychio", signifies that it is a University Ptychio, Higher Education Ptychio, Level 6 Ptychio. EPAL Diploma of Vocational Education and Training at HQF level 4 standalone parchment is an Upper Secondary Education Ptychio, Level 4 Ptychio.
EPAL graduates have the option to choose Post-High School Year Apprenticeship Class ("Mathitia") by which it can upgrade the EPAL Diploma of Vocational Education and Training at HQF level 4 (Level 4 Ptychio) to Level 5. During the year, the students are working for 4 days in a workplace receiving stipend and attend 1 day at school classes. Since 2021–2022 academic year, the Post-High School Year Apprenticeship Class graduates having Diploma of Vocational Education and Training at level 5, after successful specific entrance examinations (), allows to them admission into the Higher Education (level 6) to an undergraduate programme relevant to their Post-High School Year Apprenticeship Class specialty.
Vocational School (EPAS) of DYPA
The Vocational School (EPAS) ( 1952–Present) of Public Employment Service (DYPA) is 2 years' duration. Also known as Apprenticeship Vocational School (, Epaggelmatiki Sxoli Mathitias), shortened to EPAS Apprenticeship. Since 2021, EPAS Apprenticeship is a lower secondary two-track education system, Dual VET (), having alternating periods in a school with theory classroom and at the workplace with work-(traineeship) practice experience (), with terms are contractually regulated by law and labour agreement. Balance between school-and work-based training: in-company (ca. 70%) + school (ca. 30%). Student insurance and two-part agreement () between the student and apprenticeship company are applied. Generally, the maximum number of students that can register in a given education programme is up to 20. Apprenticeship () is based on the German dual learning system which combines classroom education with paid practical work in a business. EPAS Apprenticeship is operated by Public Employment Service (DYPA). The EPAS Apprenticeship provides its students in having an apprenticeship term work placement by finding and coordinating it. Students are entitled to receive at least the national minimum wage for their age. The majority of these students are classed as unskilled workers (entry-level). Admitted students are aged from 15 to 23-year-old maximum who must have completed the gymnasium school. The EPAS Apprenticeship awarded "" (Ptychio of Vocational Education and Training, Level 3; i.e. Diploma of Vocational Education and Training at Level 3) after qualifying examinations of the National Accreditation Examinations () will be held at EOPPEP examination centers.
Experimental Vocational School (PEPAS) of DYPA
The Experimental Vocational School (PEPAS; Greek: 2021–Present), is also known as Experimental Vocational Apprenticeship School, founded in 2021 by Public Employment Service (DYPA) in collaboration with German-Hellenic Chamber of Industry and Commerce and Institute of the Greek Tourism Confederation (INSETE). Eligible to apply are those aged 18 years old and over, holders of at least a lower secondary school leaving certificate (gymnasium) and have a verified knowledge of a foreign language (English or French or German) at level B2 in both written and spoken by holding a valid formal certificate. As of 2021–2022 school year, there are provide the specialities Culinary Art Technician (cook), Food & Beverage Service, Customer Service in the Tourism Business.
The grading system in upper secondary schools is extended from 1 to 20 as opposed to 10 in middle school. The score of 20 is the equivalent to an A or 100 in the U.S. (see grading systems by country).
Post-lyceum Year Apprenticeship Class of EPAL
Post-lyceum Year Apprenticeship Class ( 2016–Present) is provided by Vocational Lyceum (ΕPΑL). Only EPAL graduates and Lyceum graduates hold EPAL Diploma of Vocational Education and Training at HQF level 4 are admitted to Post-lyceum Year Apprenticeship Class being regarded as a separate and distinctive stage of post-secondary education (i.e. ). It includes 1 year post-secondary apprenticeship dual programme (non-tertiary; Dual VET two-track education system) having alternating periods in an EPAL school unit with classroom instruction (theory 1 day/week, 7 hrs per day) and at the workplace with work practice training (4 days/week, 7 hrs per day). All apprenticeships schemes should include a contract (i.e. ), wage and social security rights/benefits to student which is a trainee referred to simply as "apprentice". EPAL Apprenticeship Class programmes are based on Public Employment Service (DYPA) at its dual learning principle and follow the same quality framework for apprenticeships. Graduates of the apprenticeship class will receive "" (Certificate of Post-High School Year Apprenticeship Class).
If they wish the Apprenticeship Class graduates are therefore eligible to take the National Accreditation Examinations (i.e. ) will be held at EOPPEP examination centers. Once, they have been passed all examinations then are awarded "" (Ptychio of Vocational Education and Training, Level 5; i.e. Diploma of Vocational Education and Training at Level 5). With the law 4763/2020 the Post-High School Year Apprenticeship Class graduates having Diploma of Vocational Education and Training at Level 5, after successful specific entrance examinations (), allows to them admission into the Higher Education (level 6) to an undergraduate programme relevant to their Post-High School Year Apprenticeship Class specialty.
Vocational Lyceum (EPAL)
Vocational Lyceum 3 years (EPAL; 2006–Present)
Model Vocational Lyceum (PEPAL) of TEENS
The Model Vocational Lyceum (PEPAL) of TSAKOS Enhanced Education Nautical School (TEENS) ( 2023–Present) is the first in Greece non-profit, free of charge (without tuition), private Model Vocational Lyceum (PEPAL) located in the island of Chios with specialties of Maritime Professionals, Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Automation, owned and operated by company Tsakos Group of Companies founded by shipowner Nikolas Tsakos.
Laboratory of Special Vocational Education (ΕΕΕΕΚ)
Laboratory of Special Vocational Education (), 6 years special education at HQF Level 2
Public Schools of Tourism Education
Public Schools of Tourism Education () are operated by Ministry of Tourism. Types are the 1.) Schools of Tourist Guides, 2.) Further-training Programmes of Employees in Tourism Sector (non-formal education), 3.) Institutes of Vocational Training (IEKs). The IEKs comprise the specialties of: Culinary Art (cookery); Bakery and Pastry (baker and pâtissier); Tourism Units and Hospitality Businesses (front office / reception, floor service / housekeeping, commodity education); Specialist of Business Administration and Economics in the Tourism Field.
School of Meat Professions (SEK)
Α School of Meat Professions (SEK; 1977–Present) is accredited by the Ministry of Rural Development and Food. There are public and private schools of meat professions. The 300 hours programme has 85 hours theory classes at school and 100 hours laboratory classes (ca. 61.6%), 15 hours educational visits (ca. 5%), 100 hours in-company work-based training (internship, ca. 33.3%). The term is 5 hours per day, 5 days per week, for 12 consecutive weeks. The specialties of the School of Meat Professions are, Meat Processing Technician (meat cutter, butcher, Greek: κρεοπώλης), Animal Slaughter (Greek: εκδοροσφαγέας).
Vocational Training Schools (ESK)
Vocational Training Schools (ESK; Greek: ) is 2-year post-gymnasium vocational education and training school at HQF level 3. Admitted students must have completed the gymnasium school. It can be public, private, day or evening school. It awarded "" (Ptychio of Vocational Education and Training, Level 3; i.e. Diploma of Vocational Education and Training at HQF level 3) after qualifying examinations of the National Accreditation Examinations will be held at EOPPEP examination centers.
Laboratory Centre (ΕΚ)
Laboratory Centre ( 2013–Present), 3 years secondary education. Admitted students must have completed at least the lower secondary education school (gymnasium or its equivalent). Awarded "" (literally "Certificate of Vocational Training"). Awarded "" (Ptychio of Vocational Education and Training, Level 3; i.e. Diploma of Vocational Education and Training at HQF level 3) after qualifying examinations of the National Accreditation Examinations will be held at EOPPEP examination centers.
Institute of Vocational Training (IEK)
Institute of Vocational Training (I.E.K.; 1992–Present), is 2 years adult post-secondary vocational education and training and 960 hours at a work placement (experiential learning, practicum). Admitted students must have completed at least the upper secondary education (lyceum). EOPPEP organization is the statutory body for the IEKs. The IEK awarded "" (Diploma of Vocational Education and Training, Level 5) after qualifying examinations of the National Accreditation Examinations () will be held at EOPPEP examination centers. See a list of IEK study programmes which is set out below, click on the "[show]":
Tertiary education in Greece
Higher education, also called tertiary, third stage, provided by Higher Educational Institutes (HEIs; Greek: ) and consist of Universities and specialist Academies, which primarily cater to the military. They are mostly autonomous, but the government is responsible for their funding and the distribution of students to undergraduate programmes. Higher Education Institutions in Greece are public universities and can be attended without charge of a tuition fee, textbooks, and for the majority of students meals are also provided for free. About 25% of postgraduate programmes have free tuition, while about 30% of students are eligible to attend programmes tuition-free based on individual criteria. Each academic year is 32 weeks study programme, divided into two semesters of 16 weeks each.
Among the Greek universities offer English-taught full-time programmes with tuition are: National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) 4-year undergraduate programme in Archaeology, History, and Literature of Ancient Greece, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTh) School of Medicine 6-year undergraduate programme for foreign citizens, University of Piraeus, School of Economics, Business and International Studies, Department of International and European Studies, postgraduate programme titled Master of Science (MSc) American Studies: Politics, Strategy and Economics, also the University Center of International Programmes of Studies (UCIPS) of the public International Hellenic University (IHU) offers English-taught postgraduate programmes.
According to the article 16 of the Greek constitution, private tertiary education is not allowed in Greece, and the government only recognizes the degree programmes offered by the public universities. In Greece, private colleges are Post-secondary Education Centres (Greek: ) at non-formal education level operate under the proper registration accredited by the Ministry of Education.
Usually, most private colleges have been authorised to offer foreign undergraduate and postgraduate programmes following franchise or validation agreements with collaborating universities established in other countries, primarily in the UK, leading to degrees awarded directly by those foreign universities.
Non-formal education
The formal education system includes the primary, secondary and higher education. The formal private education schools in Greece are (dimotiko; primary), (gymnasio; gymnasium), (lykeio; lyceum), (Institute of Vocational Training - IEK). The bodies of "non-typical education" term (φορείς μη τυπικής εκπαίδευσης) are outside the formal education system, referred to as non-formal education, the well-known include:
The Citizens' Digital Academy (Greek: ) from Ministry of Digital Governance, which has been set in English as National Digital Academy, has launched in May 2020, provides freely online training seminars (webinars) to the public for registered online participants, in the categories of Communication and Cooperation, Internet, Tools for Daily Use, Digital Entrepreneurship, Computer Science, Cutting-edge Technologies. The website includes also the Digital Competence Self-Assessment Tool on the current digital competence level based on the three fundamental elements (knowledge, skills and attitudes) to get a reliable self-testing if and where it needs improving, based on the 2020 Digital Skills Index (DSI) and on the European DigComp Framework, version 2.1.
The Institute of the Greek Tourism Confederation (INSETE) provides freely online webinar series and freely online educational seminars to the public for registered online participants where there are specialty sectors and each sector comprises a number of seminars. A Certificate of Attendance in a sector will be given to those registered participants who attended 70% of the total hours of a sector. Sectors include: Hospitality Operations, Hospitality Sales & Marketing, Food & Beverage, Culinary Arts, Personal Development, Leadership and Management, Human Recourses Management.
Biomedical Research and Education Special Unit (BRESU), School of Medicine of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, provides freely online courses to the public for registered online participants via an online platform of a type MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses). A Certificate of Attendance will be given to those registered participants who attended a course.
Centre of Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning (KEDIVIM; Greek: ).
Post-secondary Education Centre (Greek: ) to which the Private Colleges belong.
Other education
National Centre for Public Administration and Local Government (EKDDA) (1983) which is the strategic agency of Greece for the training and education of public servants and Local Government employees. It is supervised by the Minister of Interior.
HQF levels
The National Qualification Framework (NQF) of Greece is officially named Hellenic Qualification Framework (HQF; Greek: ) has an 8-level framework that unites non-formal and formal qualifications aligned to the appropriate levels from the National Organization for the Certification of Qualifications and Vocational Guidance (EOPPEP; Greek: ) and for qualifications granted by Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in according to the Hellenic (National) Authority for Higher Education (HAHE; Greek: ). The HQF is linked to the European Qualifications Framework (EQF) and to the Qualifications Framework in the European Higher Education Area (QF-EHEA). The HQF is the Greek Register of Regulated Qualifications () provides information for the accredited awarding bodies and the regulated qualifications of study (officially recognized) in Greece. The learning-outcomes-based qualification frameworks level systems of HQF, EQF, ISCED have reference levels classify the learning outcomes into reflection of study load (the number of credit points), knowledge, skills, grant equal professional rights of level, attainment covering formal and non-formal education recognized programmes which are designed within a national context and to make grades more comparable in an international context. See a list of HQF levels which is set out below, click on the "[show]":
Former education schools
Education schools are defunct after either closure or replacement, for example:
Secondary Vocational Schools of Ministry of Education (Υ.ΠΑΙ.Θ.):
(ΕΠΑΣ; Vocational School; 2 years; Law 3475/2006; 2006–2013) 25 hours/week. Only subjects of specialization. Admitted students must have completed at least the first grade of the upper secondary education school (lyceum). Awarded Specialization Diploma.
(ΣΕΚ; Schooled Vocational Training Centre; SEK; 3 years, 1986–2013)
(ΤΕΣ; Technical Vocational School; 2 years; Law 576/1977; 1977–1998) 70% subjects of specialization and 30% subjects of general education. Admitted students must have completed at least the final year of the lower secondary education school (gymnasium graduates or its equivalent). Awarded Specialization Diploma.
Higher Education Institutes of Ministry of Education:
(ΤΕΙ; Technological Educational Institute; years 1983–1995, 4 years 1995–2019, 1983–2019)
Varied Schools:
(ΣΤΕ; Schools of Tourism Education; Law 2387/2000; 2000–2003)
(ΣΤΕ; Schools of Tourism Professions; Law 567/1937; 1937–2000)
(ΛΕΝ; Merchant Navy Lyceum; 3 years; by Ministry of Mercantile Marine; –1998)
(ΚΕΚ; Vocational Training Centres; replaced by KEDIVIM of type 2, 1990–2012)
(ΚΑΤΕ; Centers for Higher Technical Education; Law 652/1970; 1970–1977)
(; Public Technical Schools of Assistant Engineers; 4 years, 1959–1966)
, του ΟΤΕΚ (ΙΕΚ; Institute of Vocational Training; by ΟΤΕΚ; Law 3105/2003; 2003–2013)
(ΚΕΤΕ; Centres of Vocational and Technical Education; 2 years secondary education)
(ΕΕΣ; Centres of Liberal Studies; Legislative Decree 9/9-10-1935; replaced by KEDIVIM of type 1; 1935–2012)
(ΚΑΤΕΕ; Centers for Higher Technical-Vocational Education; Law 576/1977; 1977–1983)
, του ΟΤΕΚ (; Vocational School; by Organization of Tourism Education and Training [ΟΤΕΚ]; Law 3105/2003; 2003–2013)
(KEDIVIM of type 1, KEDIVIM of type 2; replaced by KEDIVIM; 2012–2020)
Lyceums of Ministry of Education:
(Athletic Lyceum; 3 years)
(Integrated Lyceum; 3 years, 1997–2006)
(Classic Lyceum; 3 years; Law 1566/1985; 1985 –1997)
(Technical Lyceum; 3 years; Law 576/1977; 1977–1985)
(Vocational Lyceum; 3 years; Law 576/1977; 1977–1985)
(Nautical Lyceum; 3 years; Law 309/1976; 1976–1985)
(; Integrated Multifarious Lyceum; 3 years; Law 1566/1985; 1985–1997)
(Six-Grade Gymnasium; integrated 3 years lower and 3 years upper secondary school)
(ΤΕΕ; Technical Vocational Training Centre; 3 years; Law 2640/1998; 1998–2006)
(; Technical Vocational Lyceum; 3 years; Law 1566/1985, Government Gazette 167/A/30-9-1985, 1985–1998) awarded upper secondary leaving certificate titled "", Technical Vocational Lyceum Ptychio (Level 4), i.e. Technical Vocational Lyceum Diploma was one (double) qualification has both an Apolytirio and a Specialization Diploma, 34 hours/week, i.e. High School Diploma comprising core curriculum and tech-vocational curriculum subjects awarded one parchment with both curricula listed.
Criticism and controversies
Corruption in Greece in the public sector was believed to hold the first place in of all EU countries, Greece being the most corrupt country in the European Union, a survey revealed in 2012. The Greek public schools lack a human resource development, having huge corruption at all education levels according to the Global Corruption Barometer. According to the 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index reported by Transparency International, Greece is the 59th least corrupt country out of the 180 countries worldwide, scored 50% corruption out of 100%, of the perceived level of public level corruption on a scale of 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (clear).
Accounts of reports of the Greece National Transparency Authority (EAD; formerly Inspectors-Controllers Body for Public Administration; SEEDD) show criminal offences, complaints, lawsuits and criminal prosecutions against public school educators and directors who were found to commit violations; using profane, obscene, or ethnically offensive language; organized crime activities; fraud; personal data theft; use of handphone and other unauthorised electronic and mobile devices during curriculum time; sexual abuse assault from students and educators; corruption; forgery; extortion; illegal fees; embezzlement of school funds; bullying.
Greece was controversial for its legal disciplinary measure of school corporal punishment because was widely used and allowed in public schools, performed by school educators under the Principal's express authority, until it was banned in 1998 at primary schools and in 2005 at secondary schools. The physical punishment took place in front of all students consisted in the form of caning the buttocks of a student with a paddle or strap, caning on the palm of the hand with a wood stick, hitting a student's face, expulsion set in the school outdoor courtyard in the cold winter.
The former government agency of ΟΕΕΚ (; English: Organization for Vocational Education and Training; which replaced by ; English: National Organization for the Certification of Qualifications and Vocational Guidance; EOPPEP) had embezzled €6,000,000 of European Commission funds. Since 30 July 2010, an official investigation on the criminal conspiracy theft began from the EU Council of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights and European Convention on Human Rights.
One out of the three public school students in Greece have received physical violation and abuse include verbal at 56.5 percent, followed by physical abuse at a rate of 30.5 percent and the threat of social exclusion at 27.8 percent. Greece ranks 4th place of student bullying amongst Europe countries according to the 1st European Anti-Bullying Network Conference, "Bullying and Cyberbullying Across Europe", Conference Proceedings, Athens, 2015 EAN ().
Offences and corruption committed by highly rank or wealth persons holding public education school positions are rarely properly and transparently prosecuted.
The tuition fee requirement from the most Greek Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) postgraduate programmes is contrary and entirely violating the Constitution of Greece, that all Greek citizens (and certain foreigners who live and work in the country) are entitled to free education on all levels at state educational institutions. The same violation act was done from the founding (law 2009/1992) of the Institutes of Vocational Training (IEKs) where all public IEK students were required to pay up to €367 statute fee for every semester up until the 2012–2013 academic year, that has been repealed since 2013–2014 academic year (article 22, law 4186/2013).
Statistically, at public education schools and public universities, mostly at vocational lyceums, are taking place accidents, illegal and criminal acts, violation incidents against, and from, students, although at private schools have occurred too.
See also
Latin honors
Educational stage
Academic grading in Greece
Education in ancient Greece
Open access to scholarly communication in Greece
References
Further reading
External links
Greek School Network
via eTranslation Digital Europe Programme
Education in Greece
Education in Europe by country
Education by continent |
420739 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Book%20of%20Mozilla | The Book of Mozilla | The Book of Mozilla is a computer Easter egg found in the Netscape, Mozilla, SeaMonkey, Waterfox and Firefox series of web browsers.
It is viewed by directing the browser to .
There is no real book titled The Book of Mozilla. However, apparent quotations hidden in Netscape and Mozilla give this impression by revealing passages in the style of apocalyptic literature, such as the Book of Revelation in the Bible. When is typed into the location bar, various versions of these browsers display a cryptic message in white text on a maroon background in the browser window.
There are eight official verses of The Book of Mozilla which have been included in shipping releases, although various unofficial verses can be found on the Internet. All eight official verses have scriptural chapter and verse references, although these are actually references to important dates in the history of Netscape and Mozilla.
The eight verses all refer to the activities of a fearsome-sounding "beast". In its early days, Netscape Communications had a green fire-breathing dragon-like lizard mascot, known as Mozilla (after the code name for Netscape Navigator 1.0). From this, it can be conjectured that the "beast" referred to in The Book of Mozilla is a type of fire-breathing lizard, which can be viewed as a metaphor for, or personification of Netscape.
While part of the appeal of The Book of Mozilla comes from the mysterious nature, a knowledge of the history of Netscape and Mozilla can be used to extract some meaning from the verses. Furthermore, the Book of Mozilla page has annotations for each of the first, second, third and fifth verses hidden as comments in its HTML source code. These comments were written by Valerio Capello in May 2004 and were added to the Mozilla Foundation site by Nicholas Bebout in October that year. Neither Capello nor Bebout are 'core' Mozilla decision-makers; and there is no evidence that Capello's interpretations received any high-level approval from the senior management of the Mozilla Foundation.
The Book of Mozilla, 12:10
The Book of Mozilla first appeared in Netscape 1.1 (released in 1995) and can be found in every subsequent 1.x, 2.x, 3.x and 4.x version. The following "prophecy" was displayed:
The chapter and verse number 12:10 refers to December 10, 1994, the date that Netscape Navigator 1.0 was released.
The Book of Mozilla page, which includes seven verses from The Book of Mozilla, contains the following explanation in its HTML source code:
<!-- 10th December 1994: Netscape Navigator 1.0 was released -->
<!-- This verse announces the birth of the beast (Netscape) and warns bad coders (up to Netscape 3, when you watched the HTML source code with the internal viewer, bad tags blinked). -->
The "beast" is a metaphor for Netscape. The punishments threatened towards the "unbelievers" (most likely users who didn't conform to standards) are traditionally biblical but with the strange threat that their "tags shall blink until the end of days". This is a reference to a feature in early versions of Netscape that would make bad tags blink, as seen in the source code comments from the Book of Mozilla.
The Book of Mozilla, 3:31
On May 10, 1998, Jamie "JWZ" Zawinski changed The Book of Mozilla verse to reference the fact that Netscape had released its code as open source and started the Mozilla project. This verse was included in all Mozilla builds until October 1998, when a rewrite of much of the Mozilla code meant that the Easter egg was lost. On February 5, 2000, Ben Goodger, then working for Netscape, copied The Book of Mozilla verse across to the new code base. It was included in all subsequent Mozilla builds (until the introduction of the 7:15 verse), Netscape versions 6 to 7.1 and Beonex Communicator; it still appears in Classilla due to that browser's unusual history.
The verse states:
The chapter and verse number 3:31 refers to March 31, 1998, when Netscape released its source code.
The Book of Mozilla page has the following comment in its HTML source about this passage:
<!-- 31st March 1998: the Netscape Navigator source code was released -->
<!-- The source code is made available to the legion of thousands of coders of the open source community, that will fight against the followers of Mammon (Microsoft Internet Explorer). -->
Again, the "beast" is Netscape. The text probably refers to Netscape's hope that, by opening its source, they could attract a "legion" of developers all across the world, who would help improve the software (with the "din of a million keyboards"). The "legion" is actually a reference to the biblical quote Mark 5:9 in the King James Version (KJV) bible ("And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many."), since The Book of Mozilla is presented as a sort of "computer bible" with prophecies. "Mammon" refers to Microsoft, whose Internet Explorer browser was Netscape's chief competition. The word "mammon," in various Semitic languages, is related to money and riches; it appears in English translations of the Bible, and is sometimes used as the name of a demon of avarice. It may therefore imply not only that Microsoft has vastly greater funds to draw on, but that it has greedily abused that fact to further its own position in the marketplace; it also highlights the difference between the purely commercial development of Internet Explorer, and the new community-driven development of Netscape/Mozilla. "Red Letter Edition" may be a reference to so-called Red Letter Editions of the Bible, which print quotations by Jesus in red ink. It could also be a reference to a fact that March 31, 1998 was a red-letter day for the Mozilla project.
The Book of Mozilla, 7:15
The next installment of The Book of Mozilla was written by Neil Deakin. It is included in all versions of Mozilla released from September 2003 to July 2008 (Mozilla 1.5 – Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Beta 2), all versions of Camino, all versions of the Mozilla Thunderbird email client until 2.0.0.24, all versions of the SeaMonkey application suite until 1.1.19, the Epiphany web browser (version 1.8.0), the Minimo Pocket PC web browser, and all Netscape versions from 7.2 to 8.1.3 (except some Netscape Browser prototype releases):
The 7:15 chapter and verse notation refers to July 15, 2003, the day when America Online shut down its Netscape browser division and the Mozilla Foundation was launched.
In the HTML source of Book of Mozilla page, this verse is accompanied by the following annotation:
<!-- 15th July 2003: AOL closed its Netscape division and the Mozilla foundation was created -->
<!-- The beast died (AOL closed its Netscape division) but immediately rose from its ashes (the creation of the Mozilla foundation and the Firebird browser, although the name was later changed to Firefox). -->
The "beast" falling refers to Netscape being closed down by its now parent company AOL. The "great bird" that rises from the ash is the Mozilla Foundation, which was established to continue Mozilla development. The bird rises from the ash like a phoenix – a reference to the original name of the Mozilla Firefox browser (known as Firebird at the time this verse was written). The bird casts down "fire" and "thunder" on the "unbelievers", which is a direct reference to the Mozilla Firebird (now Firefox) and Mozilla Thunderbird products, which became the main focus of Mozilla development a few months before the events of July 15. The fact that the beast has been "reborn" indicates that the spirit of Netscape will live on through the Foundation (which is made up mostly of ex-Netscape employees) and its strength has been "renewed" as the foundation is less reliant on AOL (who many feel neglected Netscape). Again, "Mammon" is Microsoft, Mozilla's main commercial competitor.
The Book of Mozilla, 8:20
Netscape's lead browser engineer Christopher Finke contributed the next verse of The Book of Mozilla. It was first made public in the June 5, 2007 release of Netscape Navigator 9.0b1.
The verse was included in all subsequent versions of Netscape, until the final discontinuation of the browser (Netscape Navigator 9.0b1 - 9.0.0.6).
The 8:20 chapter and verse notation refers to August 20, 2006, when the first internal email was sent mentioning the possibility of developing the next Netscape Navigator in house.
Unlike previous verses, the HTML source for the Book of Mozilla page does not feature any verse-related annotations.
The "Creator" refers to Netscape the company. There are two interpretations of the verse: the phrase "beast reborn" appears in the previous verse referring to the Mozilla Foundation and "it was good" could be a tribute to everyone who contributed to the Mozilla project. "Beast reborn" could also be a reference to Netscape reopening their browser division instead of outsourcing development; Netscape Browser 8 was produced by Mercurial Communications.
This verse is a parody of God's creation of Earth described in Genesis 1:4, 1:10, 1:12, 1:18, 1:21, 1:25, 1:31 of the Bible. It also may be referencing Luke 3:22 of the Bible.
The Book of Mozilla, 11:9
This verse landed in the Mozilla trunk codebase on January 9, 2008.
It was included in Firefox 3.0 Beta 3 – Firefox 20.0.1, SeaMonkey 2.0 Alpha 1 – 2.17.1, Thunderbird 3.0 Alpha 1 – 20 Beta 1, Alpha 1 version of Mobile Firefox, Flock Browser Version 2.0.6, Waterfox and Songbird.
In the HTML source of the Book of Mozilla page, this verse is accompanied by the following annotation:
<!-- 9th November 2004: Firefox 1.0 is officially released -->
<!-- The worldwide support of Firefox fans leads to its success, illustrating the power of community-based open source projects. -->
"Mammon" is again Internet Explorer, which "slept" for the 5 years between releases (between Internet Explorer 6 and 7). The "beast reborn" refers to Firefox, which gained supporters who self-organized through Spread Firefox, and undertook publicity for the browser, taking out an advertisement in The New York Times and making a crop circle shaped like the Firefox logo. The "cunning of foxes" is a direct reference to Firefox's name. The "new world" refers to modern, standards-based dynamic websites and open source applications. The latter half of the passage links to the Mozilla Manifesto and the about:Mozilla newsletter. The last part, starting with "Mammon awoke" speaks of the release of Internet Explorer 7 and with "it was naught but a follower" describes it as a follower, copying several of the functions in Firefox that Internet Explorer previously lacked. Additionally, this quote from the "10th edition", is an allusion to the Mozilla Foundation's 10th anniversary during the Firefox 3 development cycle.
The Book of Mozilla, 15:1
This verse landed in the Mozilla trunk codebase on January 23, 2013. It first appeared in the nightly builds of Firefox 21 (Specifically, Firefox 21.0 Alpha 1 build 2013-01-23). Instead of a plain background, it now features a subtle radial gradient.
It is included in all Firefox versions since Firefox 21.0, all SeaMonkey versions since 2.18 Beta 1, and all Thunderbird versions since 21 Beta 1.
The "twins of Mammon" refers to Apple and Google, whose mobile operating systems, respectively iOS and Android, have taken a duopoly of the mobile OS market. The "new darkness" refers to the closed nature of traditional app stores. The beast moving "swiftly" refers to the new rapid release cycle of Firefox. The phrase "went forth and multiplied" refers to "Firefox becoming multiple things" through Firefox for Android and Firefox OS. The verse number 15:1 refers to the code freeze of Firefox OS 1.0 (January 15, 2013).
The Book of Mozilla, 11:14
This verse first appeared in Firefox Nightly 58, landing in the Mozilla trunk codebase on September 22, 2017, and was later uplifted to show up in Firefox 57 Beta.
It refers to the major changes that culminated in the Firefox 57 release with the Quantum project. "Time and Space" refer to Quantum itself, while "Flow" refers to the Quantum Flow project, "new raiment" and "Light" refer to the UI refresh known as the Photon project. The Quantum Project contained the first major piece of code taken from Servo, the layout engine written in Rust, to which "oxidised metal" is a reference. The 11:14 chapter and verse notation refers to November 14, 2017, the day Firefox 57 was released.
The Book of Mozilla, 6:27
This verse first appeared in Firefox Nightly 80, landing in the Mozilla trunk codebase on July 22, 2020. According to the comment, it was supposed to be added in 27 June 2020, with the availability of Firefox Preview.
In the HTML source of the Book of Mozilla page, this verse is accompanied by the following annotation:
<!-- 27th June 2019: Firefox Preview is made available for testing by early adopters -->
<!-- Firefox Focus, Reference Browser, and Firefox Reality all use the new GeckoView as does Firefox for Android which was rebuilt lighter and faster under the code name Fenix prior to release. -->
The emphasized text refers to Firefox Focus, Reference Browser, and Firefox Reality, all of which has switched to a Quantum-based GeckoView for higher performance.
Behavior in different browsers
Flock
The Book of Mozilla, 11:1
Though not an official verse by Mozilla, a new verse of the Book of Mozilla, 11:1, became available in Flock Browser 1.0+, a "Social Web Browser" based on Firefox. This verse is shown on blue/white vertical gradient when is entered into the location bar. The verse is as follows.
"And when the beast had taken the quarter of the earth under its rule..." is probably a reference to the 25% market share Firefox had gained over the more popular Internet Explorer. "Birds of Sulfur" references the developmental codename of Flock, which is Sulfur. The "mountain views" references the city of Mountain View, California where the company that produces Flock (as well as Mozilla) was based at the time of writing. The "24 wise men" refer to the 24 staff employees of Flock at that time. The "stars" refer to the star used in the branding ("Flockstar"). Though this verse was released 5 November 2007, much of the meaning is still unclear. "They took their pens and dared to create" is most likely a reference to the blogging and social networking integration in Flock. The section "Finally, they dared to share their deed with the whole of mankind." could possibly be making a reference to the fact that it is open source, and that they shared their good deed (their creation of the browser) with the world.
Internet Explorer
In some versions of Internet Explorer, produces a blank blue page referencing the Blue Screen of Death.
The source markup of the page defines the text color as white. The page still can be seen (even in Edge for Windows 10) when using the URL: (however, without using this URL in IE10, it will cancel the webpage navigation). The about page was defined in a registry entry .
Iceweasel
Due to a dispute with the Mozilla Corporation, the Debian project was forced to change the name and branding of Mozilla Firefox in its distribution. In response, it changed the name to Iceweasel and the icon to a white weasel-like variant of the Firefox logo. Iceweasel includes the Easter-egg and showed the standard page from the Firefox version it was built from. However, when users navigate to they see a thematically similar message from the Book of Ice that describes the dispute with Mozilla and the creation of Iceweasel.
The "Corpse" in this edition represents the Mozilla Corporation and the references to the prohibition on "flying in my name" is a reference to the trademark prohibition.
Netscape
Starting with Netscape 0.93beta (and up to version 1.0), produced the text "Mozilla Rules!".
Viewing the page with a Unix version of Netscape would change the throbber to an animation of Mozilla rising up from behind the "planet" logo and breathing fire.
Pale Moon
Prior to Pale Moon version 26, typing would show the 15:1 verse. However, in Pale Moon 26 and above it displays the following:
Similarly to Iceweasel, Pale Moon has its own take on The Book of Mozilla, this time dubbed "The Chronicles of the Pale Moon", which can be viewed by navigating to , however, instead of the chapter and verse number referring to a date of significance in the browser's history, it refers to the version number the verse first appeared in, and instead of the subtle radial gradient being in the middle of the page, it is near the top right. In Pale Moon 24.2 to 27.0, the page title read "The Child of the Moon", and it showed the following text:
"the form of metal" is a reference to Google's Chrome browser.
Since version 27.1 (when Pale Moon became a true fork), the page title reads "The Dragon's Roots", and the text reads:
The "ancestor" is believed to refer to Firefox, while the "bed of withered roots" is believed to refer to the Firefox ESR 24 codebase.
With the release of Pale Moon 28, the version number references were abandoned. The page title does not contain a title for the verse, and the text reads:
In this verse, the "old nest" is believed to refer to the old Mozilla XUL Platform used by prior versions, which had been abandoned in favour of a fork named UXP under the hood, while retaining the older but customisable interface from Firefox versions 4 through 28.
With version 28.5.0, the page's text was once updated:
In this verse, landscape seems to refer to the current browser scene, tainted metal might be a reference to Chromium (referencing the migration of browsers like Opera and Vivaldi to Chromium), and the sanctuary being talked about here could be UXP, providing a common platform for XUL-based applications to build on.
SeaMonkey
In versions of SeaMonkey browser later than 2.0, displays the same Book of Mozilla verse from the Firefox trunk build that it was built off of.
See also
about: URI scheme
Mozilla (mascot)
References
External links
The Book of Mozilla
New Chapter in 'The Book of Mozilla' (MozillaZine)
Some Clarifications Regarding about:mozilla (Gervase Markham)
Mozilla
Netscape
Computer humor
In-jokes
Easter egg (media) |
420746 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederic%20Remington | Frederic Remington | Frederic Sackrider Remington (October 4, 1861 – December 26, 1909) was an American painter, illustrator, sculptor, and writer who specialized in the genre of Western American Art. His works are known for depicting the Western United States in the last quarter of the 19th century and featuring such images as cowboys, American Indians, and the US Cavalry.
Early life
Remington was born in Canton, New York, in 1861 to Seth Pierrepont Remington (1830–1880) and Clarissa (Clara) Bascom Sackrider (1836–1912).
His paternal family owned hardware stores and emigrated from Alsace-Lorraine in the early 18th century. His maternal family, of French Basque ancestry, came to America in the early 1600s and founded Windsor, Connecticut. Remington's father was a Union army colonel in the American Civil War, whose family had arrived in America from England in 1637. He was a newspaper editor and postmaster, and the staunchly Republican family was active in local politics. The Remingtons were horsemen. One of Remington's great-grandfathers, Samuel Bascom, was a saddle maker by trade. Remington's ancestors also fought in the French and Indian War, the American Revolution, and the War of 1812.
Remington was a cousin of Eliphalet Remington, founder of the Remington Arms Company, which is considered America's oldest gunmaker. He was also related to three famous mountain men: Jedediah Smith, Jonathan T. Warner, and Robert "Doc" Newell. Through the Warner side of his family, Remington was related to George Washington, the first US president.
Colonel Remington was away at war during most of the first four years of his son's life. After the war, he moved his family to Bloomington, Illinois for a brief time and was appointed editor of the Bloomington Republican, but the family returned to Canton in 1867. Remington was the only child of the marriage, and received constant attention and approval. He was an active child, large and strong for his age, who loved to hunt, swim, ride, and go camping. He was a poor student though, particularly in math, which did not bode well for his father's ambitions for his son to attend West Point. He began to make drawings and sketches of soldiers and cowboys at an early age.
The family moved to Ogdensburg, New York when Remington was eleven and he attended Vermont Episcopal Institute, a church-run military school, where his father hoped discipline would rein in his son's lack of focus and perhaps lead to a military career. Remington took his first drawing lessons at the Institute. He then transferred to another military school where his classmates found the young Remington to be a pleasant fellow, a bit careless and lazy, good-humored, and generous of spirit but definitely not soldier material. He enjoyed making caricatures and silhouettes of his classmates. At 17, he wrote to his uncle of his modest ambitions, "I never intend to do any great amount of labor. I have but one short life and do not aspire to wealth or fame in a degree which could only be obtained by an extraordinary effort on my part." He imagined a career for himself as a journalist, with art as a sideline.
Remington attended the art school at Yale University and studied under John Henry Niemeyer. Remington was the only male student in his first year. He found that football and boxing were more interesting than the formal art training, particularly drawing from casts and still life objects. He preferred action drawing and his first published illustration was a cartoon of a "bandaged football player" for the student newspaper, Yale Courant. Though he was not a star player, his participation on the strong Yale football team was a great source of pride for Remington and his family. He left Yale in 1879 to tend to his ailing father, who had tuberculosis. His father died a year later, at 50, receiving respectful recognition from the citizens of Ogdensburg. Remington's Uncle Mart secured a good-paying clerical job for his nephew in Albany, New York, and Remington would return home on weekends to see his girlfriend Eva Caten. After the rejection of his engagement proposal to Eva by her father, Remington became a reporter for his uncle's newspaper and went on to other short-lived jobs.
Living off his inheritance and modest work income, Remington refused to go back to art school and instead spent time camping and enjoying himself. At 19, he made his first trip west, going to Montana, at first to buy a cattle operation and then a mining interest, but realized that he did not have sufficient capital for either. In the American West of 1881, he saw the vast prairies, the quickly shrinking bison herds, the still unfenced cattle, and the last major confrontations of US Cavalry and Native American tribes, scenes he had imagined since his childhood. He also hunted grizzly bears with Montague Stevens in New Mexico in 1895. Though the trip was undertaken as a lark, it gave Remington a more authentic view of the West than some of the later artists and writers who followed in his footsteps, such as N. C. Wyeth and Zane Grey, who arrived twenty-five years later when much of the mythic West had already slipped into history. From that first trip, Harper's Weekly printed Remington's first published commercial effort, a re-drawing of a quick sketch on wrapping paper that he had mailed back east. In 1883, Remington went to rural Kansas, south of the city of Peabody near the tiny community of Plum Grove, to try his hand at the booming sheep ranching and wool trade, as one of the "holiday stockmen", rich young easterners out to make a quick killing as ranch owners. He invested his entire inheritance but found ranching to be a rough, boring, isolated occupation which deprived him of the finer things he was used to from East Coast life, and the real ranchers thought of him as lazy. In 1884, he sold his land.
Remington continued sketching, but at this point his results were still cartoonish and amateur. After less than a year, after he sold his ranch, he went home. After acquiring more capital from his mother, he returned to Kansas City to start a hardware business, but due to an alleged swindle, it failed, and he reinvested his remaining money as a silent, half-owner of a saloon. He went home to marry Eva Caten in 1884, and they returned to Kansas City immediately. She was unhappy with his saloon life and was unimpressed by the sketches of saloon inhabitants that Remington regularly showed her. When his real occupation became known, she left him and returned to Ogdensburg. With his wife gone and with business doing badly, Remington started to sketch and paint in earnest, and bartered his sketches for essentials.
He soon had enough success selling his paintings to locals to see art as a real profession. Remington returned home again, his inheritance gone but his faith in his new career secured, reunited with his wife, and moved to Brooklyn. He began studies at the Art Students League of New York and significantly bolstered his fresh though still rough technique. His timing was excellent, as newspaper interest in the dying West was escalating. He submitted illustrations, sketches, and other works for publication with Western themes to Collier's and Harper's Weekly, as his recent Western experiences (highly exaggerated) and his hearty, breezy "cowboy" demeanor gained him credibility with the eastern publishers looking for authenticity. His first full-page cover under his own name appeared in Harper's Weekly on January 9, 1886, when he was twenty-five. With financial backing from his Uncle Bill, Remington was able to pursue his art career and support his wife.
Several of his relatives were also artists, including Indian portrait artist George Catlin, cowboy sculptor Earl W. Bascom, and (also on the Bascom side) Frank Tenney Johnson, the "father of western moonlight painting".
Early career
In 1886, Remington was sent to Arizona by Harper's Weekly on a commission as an artist-correspondent to cover the government's war against Geronimo. Although he never caught up with Geronimo, Remington did acquire many authentic artifacts to be used later as props, and made many photos and sketches valuable for later paintings. He also made notes on the true colors of the West, such as "shadows of horses should be a cool carmine & Blue", to supplement the black-and-white photos. Ironically, art critics later criticized his palette as "primitive and unnatural" even though it was based on actual observation.
After returning East, Remington was sent by Harper's Weekly to cover the 1886 Charleston earthquake. To expand his commission work, he also began doing drawings for Outing magazine. His first year as a commercial artist had been successful, earning Remington $1,200, almost triple that of a typical teacher. He had found his life's work and bragged to a friend, "That's a pretty good break for an ex cow-puncher to come to New York with $30 and catch on it 'art'."
For commercial reproduction in black-and-white, he produced ink and wash drawings. As he added watercolor, he began to sell his work in art exhibitions. His works were selling well but garnered no prizes, as the competition was strong and masters like Winslow Homer and Eastman Johnson were considered his superiors. A trip to Canada in 1887 produced illustrations of the Blackfoot, the Crow Nation, and the Canadian Mounties, which were eagerly enjoyed by the reading public.
Later that year, Remington received a commission to do eighty-three illustrations for a book by Theodore Roosevelt, Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail to be serialized in The Century Magazine before publication. The 29-year-old Roosevelt had a similar Western adventure to Remington, losing money on a ranch in North Dakota the previous year but gaining experience which made him an "expert" on the West. The assignment gave Remington's career a big boost and forged a lifelong connection with Roosevelt.
His full-color oil painting Return of the Blackfoot War Party was exhibited at the National Academy of Design and the New York Herald commented that Remington would "one day be listed among our great American painters". Though not admired by all critics, Remington's work was deemed "distinctive" and "modern". By now, he was demonstrating the ability to handle complex compositions with ease, as in Mule Train Crossing the Sierras (1888), and to show action from all points of view. His status as the new trendsetter in Western art was solidified in 1889 when he won a second-class medal at the Paris Exposition. He had been selected by the American committee to represent American painting, over Albert Bierstadt whose majestic, large-scale landscapes peopled with tiny figures of pioneers and Indians were now considered passé.
Around this time, Remington made a gentleman's agreement with Harper's Weekly, giving the magazine an informal first option on his output but maintaining Remington's independence to sell elsewhere if desired. As a bonus, the magazine launched a massive promotional campaign for Remington, stating that "He draws what he knows, and he knows what he draws." Though laced with blatant puffery (common for the time) claiming that Remington was a bona fide cowboy and Indian scout, the effect of the campaign was to raise Remington to the equal of the era's top illustrators, Howard Pyle and Charles Dana Gibson.
His first one-man show, in 1890, presented twenty-one paintings at the American Art Galleries and was very well received. With success all but assured, Remington became established in society. His personality, his "pseudo-cowboy" speaking manner, and his "Wild West" reputation were strong social attractions. His biography falsely promoted some of the myths he encouraged about his Western experiences.
Remington's regular attendance at celebrity banquets and stag dinners, however, though helpful to his career, fostered prodigious eating and drinking which caused his girth to expand alarmingly. Obesity became a constant problem for him from then on. Among his urban friends and fellow artists, he was "a man among men, a deuce of a good fellow" but notable because he (facetiously) "never drew but two women in his life, and they were failures" (this estimation failed to account for his female Native American subjects).
In 1890, Remington and his wife moved to New Rochelle, New York to have both more living space and extensive studio facilities, and also with the hope of gaining more exercise. The community was close to New York City affording easy access to the publishing houses and galleries necessary for the artist, and also rural enough to provide him with the space he needed for horseback riding, and other physical activities that relieved the long hours of concentration required by his work. Moreover, an artists' colony had developed in the town, so that the Remingtons counted among their neighbors writers, actors, and artists such as Francis Wilson, Julian Hawthorne, Edward Kemble, and Augustus Thomas.
The Remingtons' substantial Gothic revival house was situated at 301 Webster Avenue, on a prestigious promontory known as Lathers Hill. A sweeping lawn rolled south toward Long Island Sound, providing views on three sides of the beautiful Westchester County countryside. Remington called it Endion, an Ojibwa word meaning "the place where I live." In the early years, no real studio existed at Endion and Remington did most of his work in a large attic under the home's front gable where he stored materials collected on his many western excursions. Later he used his library on the main floor, a larger, more comfortable room that soon took on the cluttered appearance of an atelier. However, neither situation was completely satisfactory: the space was limited, the light was less than adequate, and the surroundings were generally uninspiring. In the spring of 1896 Remington retained the New Rochelle architect O. William Degen to plan a studio addition to the house. An article in the New Rochelle Pioneer of April 26 touted the "fine architectural design" of the studio. Remington himself wrote to his friend the novelist Owen Wister:
Have concluded to build a butler's pantry and a studio (Czar size) on my house—we will be torn [up] for a month and then will ask you to come over—throw your eye on the march of improvement and say this is a great thing for American art. The fireplace is going to be like this.—Old Norman house—Big—big.
Later career
Further travels
Remington's fame made him a favorite of the Western Army officers fighting the last Native American battles. He was invited out West to make their portraits in the field and to gain them national publicity through Remington's articles and illustrations for Harper's Weekly, particularly General Nelson Miles, an Indian fighter who aspired to the presidency of the United States. In turn, Remington got exclusive access to the soldiers and their stories and boosted his reputation with the reading public as "The Soldier Artist". One of his 1889 paintings depicts eight cavalrymen shooting at Apaches in the rear as they attempt to outrun the Indians. Another painting that year depicts cavalrymen in an Arizona sandstorm. Remington wrote that the "heat was awful and the dust rose in clouds. Men get sulky and go into a comatose state – the fine alkali dust penetrates everything but the canteens."
Remington arrived on the scene just after the 1890 massacre at Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, in which 150 Sioux, mostly women and children, were killed. He reported the event as "The Sioux Outbreak in South Dakota", having hailed the Army's "heroic" actions toward the Indians. Some of the Miles paintings are monochromatic and have an almost "you-are-there" photographic quality, heightening the realism, as in The Parley (1898).
Remington's Self-Portrait on a Horse (1890) shows the artist as he had wished, not the pot-bellied Easterner weighing heavily on a horse, but a tough, lean cowboy heading for adventure with his trusty steed. It was the image his publishers worked hard to maintain as well.
In His Last Stand (1890), a cornered bear in the middle of a prairie is brought down by dogs and riflemen, which may have been a symbolized treatment of the dying Indians he had witnessed. Remington's attitude toward Native Americans was typical for the time. He thought them unfathomable, fearless, superstitious, ignorant and pitiless, and generally portrayed them as such. White men under attack were brave and noble.
Through the 1890s, Remington took frequent trips around the US, Mexico, and abroad to gather ideas for articles and illustrations, but his military and cowboy subjects always sold the best, even as the Old West was playing out. In 1892, he painted A Cavalryman's Breakfast on the Plains. In 1895 Remington headed south and his illustrations and article on the "Florida crackers" (cowboys) were published by Harper's magazine. Gradually, he transitioned from the premiere chronicler-artist of the Old West to its most important historian-artist. He formed an effective partnership with Owen Wister, who became the leading writer of Western stories at the time. Having more confidence of his craft, Remington wrote, "My drawing is done entirely from memory. I never use a camera now. The interesting never occurs in nature as a whole, but in pieces. It's more what I leave out than what I add." Remington's focus continued on outdoor action and he rarely depicted scenes in gambling and dance halls typically seen in Western movies. He avoided frontier women as well. His painting A Misdeal (1897) is a rare instance of indoor cowboy violence.
Remington had developed a sculptor's 360-degree sense of vision but until a chance remark by playwright Augustus Thomas in 1895, Remington had not yet conceived of himself as a sculptor and thought of it as a separate art for which he had no training or aptitude. With help from friend and sculptor Frederick Ruckstull, Remington constructed his first armature and clay model, a "broncho buster" on a horse that was rearing on its hind legs—technically a very challenging subject. After several months, the novice sculptor overcame the difficulties and had a plaster cast made, then bronze copies, which were sold at Tiffany's. Remington was ecstatic about his new line of work, and though critical response was mixed, some labelling it negatively as "illustrated sculpture," it was a successful first effort earning him $6,000 over three years.
During that busy year, Remington became further immersed in military matters, inventing a new type of ammunition carrier; but his patented invention was not accepted for use by the War Department. His favorite subject for magazine illustration was now military scenes, though he admitted, "Cowboys are cash with me". Sensing the political mood of that time, he was looking forward to a military conflict which would provide the opportunity to be a heroic war correspondent, giving him both new subject matter and the excitement of battle. He was growing bored with routine illustration, and he wrote to Howard Pyle, the dean of American illustrators, that he had "done nothing but potboil of late". (Earlier, he and Pyle, in a gesture of mutual respect, had exchanged paintings: Pyle's painting of a dead pirate for Remington's of a rough and ready cowpuncher). He was still working very hard and spending seven days a week in his studio.
Remington was further irritated by the lack of his acceptance to regular membership by the Academy, likely because of his image as a popular, cocky, and ostentatious artist. Remington kept up his contact with celebrities and politicos, and continued to woo Theodore Roosevelt, now the New York City Police Commissioner, by sending him complimentary editions of new works. Despite Roosevelt's great admiration for Remington, he never purchased a Remington painting or drawing.
In Cuba
Remington's association with Roosevelt paid off, however, when the artist was hired as a war correspondent and illustrator for William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal in January 1897. Remington was sent down to Cuba in company with celebrity journalist Richard Harding Davis, another friend and supporter of Roosevelt. Cuba's apparent peacefulness left them nothing to report on. That led to this famous but probably apocryphal exchange of telegrams between Remington and Hearst:
"Everything is quiet. There is no trouble. There will be no war. I wish to return."
"Please remain. You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war."
Remington did return to New Rochelle while Davis remained until February, when he booked return passage on the P&O steamer Olivette. Aboard the ship, he met Clemencia Arango, who said her brother was a colonel in the insurgence, that she had been deported for her revolutionary activities, and that she had been stripsearched by the Spanish officials before boarding. Shocked by her story, Davis dispatched this news from Tampa to Hearst on the 10th. The front page of the Journal for the 12th was dominated by Remington's sensationalist illustration, run across five columns of newsprint, of Arango stripped naked on the ship's deck, in public, surrounded by four male Spanish officials. Hearst deemed it the "Olivette Incident." The issue sold a record number of copies, almost a million, partly on the strength of Remington's image of a naked humiliated female resistance fighter. The next day Arango called Remington's version largely a fabrication.
Two days later, on the 15th, the USS Maine exploded. As the Spanish–American War took shape into April, the artist returned to Cuba to see military action for the first time. It was the "most wrenching, disillusioning experience of Remington's life." As he witnessed the assault on San Juan Hill by American forces, including those led by Roosevelt, his heroic conception of war was shattered by the actual horror of jungle fighting and the deprivations he faced in camp. His reports and illustrations upon his return focused not on heroic generals but also on the troops, as in his Scream of the Shrapnel (1899), which depicts a deadly ambush on American troops by an unseen enemy.
When the Rough Riders returned to the US, they presented their courageous leader Roosevelt with Remington's bronze statuette, The Bronco Buster, which the artist proclaimed, "the greatest compliment I ever had.... After this everything will be mere fuss." Roosevelt responded, "There could have been no more appropriate gift from such a regiment."
After 1900
In 1898, he achieved the public honor of having two paintings used for reproduction on US Postal stamps. In 1900, as an economy move, Harper's dropped Remington as their star artist. To compensate for the loss of work, Remington wrote and illustrated a full-length novel, The Way of an Indian, which was intended for serialization by a Hearst publication but was not published until five years later in Cosmopolitan. Remington's protagonist, a Cheyenne named Fire Eater, is a prototype Native American as viewed by Remington and many of his time.
Remington then returned to sculpture and produced his first works produced by the lost wax method, a higher-quality process than the earlier sand casting method, which he had employed. By 1901, Collier's was buying Remington's illustrations on a steady basis. As his style matured, Remington portrayed his subjects in every light of day. His nocturnal paintings, very popular in his late life, such as A Taint on the Wind, Scare in the Pack Train and Fired On, are more impressionistic and loosely painted and focus on an unseen threat.
Remington completed another novel in 1902, John Ermine of the Yellowstone, a modest success but a definite disappointment as it was completely overshadowed by the bestseller The Virginian, written by his sometime collaborator Owen Wister, which became a classic Western novel. A stage play based on John Ermine failed in 1904. After John Ermine, Remington decided he would soon quit writing and illustrating (he had drawn over 2700 illustrations) to focus on sculpture and painting.
In 1903, Remington painted His First Lesson, set on an American-owned ranch in Chihuahua, Mexico. The hands wear heavy chaps, starched white shirts, and slouch-brimmed hats. In his paintings, Remington sought to let his audience "take away something to think about – to imagine." In 1905, Remington had a major publicity coup when Collier's devoted an entire issue to the artist, showcasing his latest works. It was that same year that the president of the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art) commissioned Remington to create a large sculpture of a cowboy for Philadelphia's Fairmount Park, which was erected in 1908 on a jutting rock along Kelly Drive, a site that Remington had specifically chosen for the piece after he had a horseman pose for him in the exact location. Philadelphia's Cowboy (1908) was Remington's first and only large-scale bronze, and the sculpture is one of the earliest examples of site-specific art in the United States.
Remington's Explorers series, depicting older historical events in Western US history, did not fare well with the public or the critics. The financial panic of 1907 caused a slow down in his sales and in 1908, fantasy artists, such as Maxfield Parrish, became popular with the public and with commercial sponsors. Remington tried to sell his home in New Rochelle to get further away from urbanization. One night, he made a bonfire in his yard and burned dozens of his oil paintings that had been used for magazine illustration (worth millions of dollars today) to make an emphatic statement that he was done with illustration forever. He wrote that "there is nothing left but my landscape studies."
Near the end of his life, he moved to Ridgefield, Connecticut. In his final two years, under the influence of The Ten, he was veering more heavily to Impressionism, and he regretted that he was studio bound (by virtue of his declining health) and could not follow his peers, who painted "plein air."
Remington died after an emergency appendectomy led to peritonitis on December 26, 1909. His extreme obesity (of nearly 300 lbs = 136,1 kgs) had complicated the anesthesia and the surgery, and chronic appendicitis was cited in the postmortem examination as an underlying factor in his death.
The Frederic Remington House was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1965. He was the great-uncle of the artist Deborah Remington. In 2009, the United States Congress enacted legislation renaming the historic Post Office in Ogdensburg, New York the Frederic Remington Post Office Building.
Style and influence
Remington was the most successful Western illustrator in the "Golden Age" of illustration at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, so much so that the other Western artists such as Charles Russell and Charles Schreyvogel were known during Remington's life as members of the "School of Remington". His style was naturalistic, sometimes impressionistic, and usually veered away from the ethnographic realism of earlier Western artists such as George Catlin. His focus was firmly on the people and animals of the West, portraying men almost exclusively, and the landscape was usually of secondary importance, unlike the members and descendants of the contemporary Hudson River School, such as Frederic Edwin Church, Albert Bierstadt, and Thomas Moran, who glorified the vastness of the West and the dominance of nature over man. He took artistic liberties in his depictions of human action, also for the sake of his readers' and publishers' interest. Though always confident in his subject matter, Remington was less sure about his colors, and critics often harped on his palette, but his lack of confidence drove him to experiment and produce a great variety of effects, some very true to nature and some imagined.
His collaboration with Owen Wister on The Evolution of the Cowpuncher, published by Harper's Monthly in September 1893, was the first statement of the mythical cowboy in American literature, spawning the entire genre of Western fiction, films, and theater that followed. Remington provided the concept of the project, its factual content, and its illustrations and Wister supplied the stories, sometimes altering Remington's ideas. (Remington's prototype cowboys were Mexican rancheros but Wister made the American cowboys descendants of Saxons. In truth, they were both partially right, as the first American cowboys were both the ranchers who tended the cattle and horses of the American Revolutionary Army on Long Island and the Mexicans who ranched in the Arizona and California territories.)
Remington was one of the first American artists to illustrate the true gait of the horse in motion (along with Thomas Eakins), as validated by the famous sequential photographs of Eadweard Muybridge. Previously, horses in full gallop were usually depicted with all four legs pointing out, like "hobby horses." The galloping horse became Remington's signature subject, which was copied and interpreted by many Western artists who followed him to adopt the correct anatomical motion. Though criticized by some for his use of photography, Remington often created depictions that slightly exaggerated natural motion to satisfy the eye. He wrote that "the artist must know more than the camera... (the horse must be) incorrectly drawn from the photographic standpoint (to achieve the desired effect)."
Also, noteworthy was Remington's invention of "cowboy" sculpture. From his inaugural piece, The Broncho Buster (1895), he created an art form which is still very popular among collectors of Western art. He has been called the "Father of Cowboy Sculpture."
An early advocate of the photoengraving process over wood engraving for magazine reproduction of illustrative art, Remington became an accepted expert in reproduction methods, which helped gain him strong working relationships with editors and printers. Furthermore, Remington's skill as a businessman was equal to his artistry, unlike many other artists who relied on their spouses or business agents or no one at all to run their financial affairs. He was an effective publicist and promoter of his art. He insisted for his originals to be handled carefully and returned to him in pristine condition (without editor's marks) so that he could sell them. He carefully regulated his output to maximize his income and kept detailed notes about his works and his sales. In 1991, the PBS series American Masters filmed a documentary of Remington's life, Frederic Remington: The Truth of Other Days, which was produced and directed by Tom Neff.
Remington was portrayed by Nick Chinlund in the TNT miniseries Rough Riders (1997), which depicts the Spanish–American War and shows Remington's time as a war correspondent and his partnership with William Randolph Hearst (portrayed by George Hamilton).
Selected works
The Song of Hiawatha illustrations
Collections
American museums with significant collections of his paintings, illustrations, and sculptures include:
Frederic Remington Art Museum, Ogdensburg, New York;
Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Sid Richardson Museum, Fort Worth, Texas
Buffalo Bill Historical Center, Cody, Wyoming
Gilcrease Museum, Tulsa, Oklahoma
Metropolitan Museum, New York City
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and others
In the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA)
Bronco Buster (1895) – Bronze Figurine
The Sergeant (1904) – Bronze Bust
Navajo Shepherd and Goats – Paper Engraving/Illustration
The Mountain Man (1903) – Bronze/Marble Figurine
Rattle Snake (surmoulage) – Bronze/Marble Figurine
Legacy
Frederic Remington Art Museum in Ogdensburg, New York
Frederic Remington High School in Brainerd, Kansas
Frederic Remington House in Ridgefield, Connecticut, a National Historic Landmark
Frederic Remington Post Office Building in Ogdensburg, New York
Liberty Ship named Frederic Remington and used in World War II
New Rochelle Walk of Fame, inductee
Texas Trail of Fame, inductee
Stockmen's Memorial, 1980
R. W. Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, Louisiana, museum has paintings and sculptures by Remington
Remington Arts Festival, Canton, New York, held the first weekend in October
Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, inductee 1978
Hall of Great Westerners of the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum inductee 1978
Mentioned in poem "Legacy of a Rodeo Man" composed and performed by cowboy poet Baxter Black
Mentioned in the lyrics of "The Last Cowboy Song" by The Highwaymen. 'Remington showed us how he looked on canvas, and Louis L'Amour has told us his tale'
See also
Cold Morning on the Range, a Remington painting
Frederic Remington: The Truth of Other Days, 1991 American Masters documentary
Earl W. Bascom, cowboy sculptor and cousin to Remington
J. K. Ralston, western artist
Charles M. Russell, western artist
References
Sources
Allen, Douglas, Frederic Remington and the Spanish–American War, New York : Crown, 1971.
Buscombe, Edward. "Painting the Legend: Frederic Remington and the Western." Cinema Journal (1984) 23#4: 12–27.
Dippie, Brian W. Remington & Russell, University of Texas, Austin, 1994, .
Dippie, Brian W. The Frederic Remington Art Museum Collection, Frederic Remington Art Museum, Ogdensburg, NY, 2001, .
Greenbaum, Michael D. Icons of the West: Frederic Remington's Sculpture, Frederic Remington Art Museum, Ogdensburg, NY, 1996, .
Logan, Linda. "The geographical imagination of Frederic Remington: the invention of the cowboy West." Journal of Historical Geography 18.1 (1992): 75–90.
Samuels, Peggy & Harold. Frederic Remington: A Biography, Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY, 1982, .
Vorpahl, Ben Merchant. Frederic Remington and the West: With the Eye of the Mind (U of Texas Press, 2014).
Vorpahl, Ben Merchant, ed. My dear Wister: The Frederic Remington–Owen Wister Letters (Palo Alto, Calif.: American West, 1972).
White, G. Edward. The Eastern Establishment and the Western Experience: The West of Frederic Remington, Theodore Roosevelt, and Owen Wister (U of Texas Press, 2012).
External links
Sid Richardson Museum; includes biography
Works from the Permanent Collection of the Utah Museum of Fine Arts
Frederic Remington The Online Art Museum
Frederic Remington Art Museum in Ogdensburg, New York
frederic-remington.org, 108 works by Frederic Remington
PBS on Remington
National Gallery web feature on the artist highlighting nocturnal paintings in the exhibition Frederic Remington: The Color of Night
Remington Gallery at Museum Syndicate
Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute 2008 exhibition, Remington Looking West
Frederic Remington exhibition catalogs
Coming Through the Rye record price at Christie's
Frederic Remington
1861 births
1909 deaths
19th-century players of American football
19th-century American sculptors
19th-century American painters
19th-century American male artists
19th-century war artists
American frontier painters
American male writers
American war artists
American male painters
American male sculptors
American people of Basque descent
Artists of the American West
Art Students League of New York alumni
Culture of New Rochelle, New York
Deaths from peritonitis
Artists from New Rochelle, New York
People from Ridgefield, Connecticut
Orientalist painters
Yale University alumni
Yale Bulldogs football players
American history painters
Sculptors from New York (state) |
420752 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social%20Credit%20Party%20%28New%20Zealand%29 | Social Credit Party (New Zealand) | The New Zealand Social Credit Party (sometimes called "Socred") was a political party that was New Zealand's third party from the 1950s to the 1980s. It was elected to the New Zealand House of Representatives, holding one seat at times between 1966 and 1981, and two seats from 1981 to 1987. It was named the New Zealand Democratic Party from 1985 to 2018, and was part of the Alliance party from 1991 to 2002. It returned to the Social Credit name in 2018.
The party deregistered itself in early 2023.
The party was based on the ideas of social credit, an economic theory established by Major C. H. Douglas. Social credit movements also existed in Australia (see: Douglas Credit Party and Australian League of Rights), Canada (see: Social Credit Party of Canada), and the United Kingdom (see: UK Social Credit Party) although the relationship between those movements and the New Zealand movement was not always amicable.
The registration of the New Zealand Democratic Party for Social Credit and its logo was cancelled at the party’s request on 28 February 2023, following the death of its leader Chris Leitch earlier in 2023.
History
The Social Credit Association
The Social Credit Political League was formed in 1953 out of the membership of the Social Credit Association, an educational organisation. The association focused much of its efforts on the Country Party and New Zealand Labour Party, where it attempted to influence economic policy.
The social credit movement decided to set up a "separate political organisation" the Real Democracy Movement in 1942. RDM got about 4,400 votes in the . Roly Marks had stood as a monetary reform candidate on behalf of the Real Democracy Movement in the Wanganui electorate in 1943, and was later made a life member of the League.
Maurice Hayes stood for the electorate on behalf of the Social Credit Association in the , receiving 374 votes and coming third.
Social Credit claimed that the first Labour government, which was elected at the 1935 election, pulled New Zealand out of the Great Depression by adopting certain Social Credit policies. Several followers of Social Credit policies eventually left the Labour Party, where their proposals (for example, those of John A. Lee for housing) were strongly opposed by the "orthodox" Minister of Finance, Walter Nash and other prominent Labour Party members.
In 1940 Lee, who had by then been expelled from the Labour Party, and Bill Barnard formed the Democratic Labour Party. The new party got 4.3% of the vote in the 1943 general election, with both Lee and Barnard losing their seats.
Foundation
The Social Credit Party was established as the Social Credit Political League. It was founded on 10 January 1953, and grew out of the earlier Social Credit Association.
The party's first leader was Wilfrid Owen, a businessman. Much of the early activity in the party involved formulating policy and promoting social credit theories to the public.
Early history (1953–1972)
Social Credit gained support quickly, and in the 1954 elections, the party won 11.13% of the vote. The party failed to win seats in parliament under the first past the post electoral system. The party's quick rise did, however, prompt discussion of the party's policies. National saw Social Credit as a threat in the 1957 election and established a caucus committee to challenge their theories. Gustafson comments that the successes in some seats (Hobson, Rangitikei, East Coast Bays and Pakuranga) came from a "peculiar and infrequent combination of factors", with votes in those seats coming from "a handful of committed monetary reformers plus alienated National voters and the tactical voting of Labour supporters in a seat where Labour could not win".
In 1960 P. H. Matthews replaced Owen as leader. It was not until the 1966 election, however, that the party won its first representation in parliament. Vernon Cracknell, an accountant, won the Hobson electorate in Northland, a region that had been a stronghold of the Country Party. Cracknell narrowly defeated the National Party's Logan Sloane, the incumbent, after having placed second in the previous two elections.
Cracknell did not prove to be a good performer in parliament itself, however, and did not succeed in advancing the Social Credit manifesto. Partly due to this, and partly due to an exceptionally poor campaign, Cracknell was not re-elected in the 1969 election, returning Sloane to parliament and depriving Social Credit of its only seat.
The following year, a leadership contest between Cracknell and another prominent Social Credit member, John O'Brien, ended in disaster, with brawling between supporters of each candidate. The damage done to the party's image was considerable. O'Brien was eventually victorious, but his blunt and confrontational style caused him to lose his position after only a short time in office. He split from Social Credit to found his own New Democratic Party.
Popularity zenith (1972–1985)
O'Brien's replacement was Bruce Beetham, who would become the most well known Social Credit leader. Beetham took over in time for the 1972 election. Despite a relatively strong showing, Social Credit failed to win any seats, a fact that some blamed on the rise of the new Values Party. While the Values Party did not win any seats, many supporters of Social Credit believed that it drew voters away from the older party.
In the 1978 by-election in Rangitikei, caused by the death of National Party MP Roy Jack, Beetham managed to defeat National's replacement candidate and win the seat. Beetham was more successful in parliament than Cracknell had been, and gained Social Credit considerable attention. He also put forward a New Zealand Credit and Currency Bill, intended to implement many Social Credit policies. The Bill was criticised by some of the more extreme Social Credit supporters, who claimed that it was too weak, but was nevertheless strongly promoted in parliament by Beetham. The Bill quickly failed, although this was not particularly unexpected – it had been put forward primarily for the purpose of drawing attention, not because Beetham believed it would succeed.
Beetham retained his seat in the 1978 general election. He was later joined by Gary Knapp, who defeated free-market National Party candidate Don Brash in the 1980 by-election in East Coast Bays (caused by the resignation of the sitting National MP). Knapp, like Beetham, was highly active in parliament.
Led by Beetham and Knapp, Social Credit became a popular alternative to the two major parties. Political scientists debate how much of this was due to Social Credit policies and how much was merely a "protest vote" against the established parties, but one poll recorded Social Credit with as much as 30% of the vote.
By the 1981 election, the party's support had subsided somewhat, and Social Credit gained 20.55% of the vote. As expected, the electoral system did not translate this into seats in parliament, but Social Credit did retain the two seats it already held. A year later, it officially dropped "Political League" from its official name, becoming merely the Social Credit Party.
During that parliamentary term, Social Credit's support was damaged by a deal between Beetham and National Party Prime Minister Robert Muldoon. In exchange for Social Credit support for the Clyde Dam, a controversial construction project and part of Think Big, Muldoon undertook to back certain Social Credit proposals. This did considerable harm to Social Credit's popularity, as Muldoon's government (and the project itself) were opposed by most Social Credit members. To make matters worse, Muldoon did not deliver on many of his pledges, depriving Social Credit of any significant victories with which to mitigate its earlier setback.
In 1983, Beetham suffered a minor heart attack, causing him to lose some of his earlier energy. He also became, according to many Social Credit supporters, more demanding and intolerant. This reduced Social Credit's appeal to voters.
In the 1984 election, Beetham lost his Rangitikei seat to a National Party challenger, Denis Marshall. Knapp retained his East Coast Bays seat, and another Social Credit candidate, Neil Morrison, won Pakuranga. Despite still holding the same number of seats, Social Credit won 7.6% of the total vote in 1984, a substantial drop. Some commentators attributed this to the New Zealand Party, an economically right-wing liberal party that opposed Muldoon's government. The New Zealand Party may have taken some of the protest votes that Social Credit once received. It was from this election that the term "Crimplene Suit and Skoda Brigade" was coined for Social Credit (by defeated National Party Pakuranga MP Pat Hunt).
Democrats (1985–1991)
At the party's 1985 conference, the Social Credit name was dropped, and group became the New Zealand Democratic Party (Beetham had earlier argued for a simpler name in 1982). At the 1987 election, the party held two seats in parliament (one was East Coast Bays, held by Garry Knapp; and the other was Pakuranga, held by Neil Morrison). The Democratic Party lost both those seats, removing them from parliament. In 1988, Knapp and a group of other Democrats were involved in a protest at parliament to highlight the Labour government's abandonment on its election promise to hold a referendum on the first-past-the-post electoral system.
The Social Credit name did not vanish immediately, however. In 1986, the year after the party was renamed, Bruce Beetham was removed from the leadership of the Democrats and replaced by Neil Morrison. The Democrats saw their vote slump in 1987 and both its MPs were defeated. By 1990 the party's vote collapsed altogether by which time they had been eclipsed by other third party choices such as the Greens and NewLabour. It is believed that changing the name of the party was a historic mistake and a major cause in the subsequent decline of support.
Beetham was extremely bitter about the Democrats' change of direction, and led a short-lived splinter group called Social Credit-NZ, using the Social Credit label. It failed to win any seats in 1990 and quickly vanished.
Alliance years (1991–2002)
The Democrats, finding themselves increasingly pressured by the growth of NewLabour (founded by rebel Labour Party MP Jim Anderton) and the Greens, decided to increase cooperation with compatible parties. This resulted in the Democrats joining NewLabour, the Greens and Māori-based party Mana Motuhake in forming the Alliance, a broad left-wing coalition group.
In the 1996 election, which was conducted under the new mixed-member proportional representation electoral system, the Alliance won thirteen seats. Among the MPs elected were John Wright and Grant Gillon, both members of the Democratic Party. However, there was considerable dissatisfaction in the Democratic Party over the Alliance's course. Many Democrats believed that their views were not being incorporated into Alliance party policy, particularly as regards the core economic doctrine of social credit. The Alliance tended towards orthodox taxation based left-wing economics and was not prepared to implement the Democratic Party's somewhat unusual economic theories.
By the 1999 election, the Democrats were one of two remaining component parties in the Alliance as the Greens had left the grouping and the Liberals and NewLabour components dissolved, their members becoming members of the Alliance as a whole rather than of any specific constituent party.
Progressive Coalition and independent again (2002–present)
In 2002, when tensions between the "moderate left" and the "hard left" caused a split in the Alliance, the Democrats followed Jim Anderton's moderate faction and became a part of the Progressive Coalition. In the 2002 election, Grant Gillon and John Wright were placed third and fourth on the party's list. However, the Progressives won only enough votes for two seats, thus leaving the two Democrats outside parliament.
Shortly after the election, the Democrats split from the Progressives, re-establishing themselves as an independent party. However, Gillon and Wright, both of whom opposed the split, chose not to follow the Democrats, instead remaining with the Progressives. The Progressive Coalition became the Progressive Party after the Democrats left. The Democrats chose Stephnie de Ruyter, who had been fifth on the Progressive list, as their new leader.
In 2005, the party re-added "for Social Credit" to its name to supplement its party name. The Democrats contested that year's general election as an independent party and received 0.05% of the party vote. In the 2008 general election, the party again won 0.05% of the party vote.
The party did not apply for broadcasting funding for the 2011 election. During the election, it won 1,432 votes and was the only party to not attract a party vote in an electorate (Mangere). The party fielded thirty electorate candidates and four list only candidates in the 2014 general election but continued to fail to gain any seats in the 51st New Zealand Parliament.
During the 2017 general election, the Democrats for Social Credit ran 26 candidates, namely 13 electorate candidates and 13 list only candidates. The party gained 806 votes on the party vote (0.0%) and failed to win any seats in Parliament.
In June 2018, the party voted to change its name back to Social Credit after Chris Leitch was elected leader.
During the 2020 general election, Social Credit won no seats, obtaining 1,520 votes (0.05%)- Official results. In 2021 the party opposed COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
The party's registration was cancelled at its own request on 28 February 2023. Leitch died in January 2023 which left "a really big hole" in the party organisation according to party president Gloria Bruni. The party requested deregistration due to membership having dipped below 500 but will still remain active despite being deregistered and being unable to submit a party list at the 2023 general election. Bruni stated that the party intends to rebrand to avoid comparison with the controversial social credit system used by the Chinese Communist Party.
Accusations of antisemitism (1934–1984)
During the 20th century, the social credit movement in New Zealand was accused of indulging in antisemitic conspiracy theories. C. H. Douglas, the founder of the social credit movement, toured New Zealand in 1934 and expounded his view that Jews were involved in a global conspiracy to control finance. His ideas were discussed in the New Zealand Social Credit publication Plain Talk. Social Credit, along with the Department of Internal Affairs, published From Europe to New Zealand: An Account of Our Continental European Settlers by Eric Butler and R.A Lochore, which repeated Jewish financial conspiracy claims. In the 1980 East Coast Bays by-election, the Labour Party attempted to discredit Social Credit with a pamphlet that set out Major Douglas’s antisemitic views.
The encyclopedia Te Ara states that the antisemitism of Social Credit ended in the 1970s with the election of leader Bruce Beetham who was more liberal. Professor Paul Spooney stated that antisemitic sentiment was "largely irrelevant" by the 1970s, but remained present until 1984 when Beetham ejected party members who believed in an international financial Jewish conspiracy.
Social Credit continues to receive accusation of conspiracy theory and anti-semitism in spite of C. H. Douglas making distinctions between the ethnic-individual "Jew", who he specifically remarked as not "on trial", and the actual behaviour of banking cartels he sought to oppose. In contrast to accusations of anti-semitism, Mr Douglas also praised the "success in many walks of life" of Jewish people. More-recent analysis of fascist movements during post-war New Zealand suggests that although such conceptions are notable within the Social Credit movement, anti-Semitism was not a predominant feature of monetary reform groups and was unlikely to provide the basis of a right-wing movement.
Electoral results
Office holders
Presidents
Party leader
Deputy party leader
Members of parliament
Sources
The 1966 Encyclopaedia of New Zealand
References
External links
Official website
Social credit parties
Political parties established in 1953
1953 establishments in New Zealand |
420764 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated%20pest%20management | Integrated pest management | Integrated pest management (IPM), also known as integrated pest control (IPC) is a broad-based approach that integrates both chemical and non-chemical practices for economic control of pests. IPM aims to suppress pest populations below the economic injury level (EIL). The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization defines IPM as "the careful consideration of all available pest control techniques and subsequent integration of appropriate measures that discourage the development of pest populations and keep pesticides and other interventions to levels that are economically justified and reduce or minimize risks to human health and the environment. IPM emphasizes the growth of a healthy crop with the least possible disruption to agro-ecosystems and encourages natural pest control mechanisms." Entomologists and ecologists have urged the adoption of IPM pest control since the 1970s. IPM allows for safer pest control.
The introduction and spread of invasive species can also be managed with IPM by reducing risks while maximizing benefits and reducing costs.
History
Shortly after World War II, when synthetic insecticides became widely available, entomologists in California developed the concept of "supervised insect control". Around the same time, entomologists in the US Cotton Belt were advocating a similar approach. Under this scheme, insect control was "supervised" by qualified entomologists and insecticide applications were based on conclusions reached from periodic monitoring of pest and natural-enemy populations. This was viewed as an alternative to calendar-based programs. Supervised control was based on knowledge of the ecology and analysis of projected trends in pest and natural-enemy populations.
Supervised control formed much of the conceptual basis for the "integrated control" that University of California entomologists articulated in the 1950s. Integrated control sought to identify the best mix of chemical and biological controls for a given insect pest. Chemical insecticides were to be used in the manner least disruptive to biological control. The term "integrated" was thus synonymous with "compatible." Chemical controls were to be applied only after regular monitoring indicated that a pest population had reached a level that required treatment (the economic threshold) to prevent the population from reaching a level at which economic losses would exceed the cost of the control measures (the economic injury level).
IPM extended the concept of integrated control to all classes of pests and was expanded to include all tactics. Controls such as pesticides were to be applied as in integrated control, but these now had to be compatible with tactics for all classes of pests. Other tactics, such as host-plant resistance and cultural manipulations, became part of the IPM framework. IPM combined entomologists, plant pathologists, nematologists and weed scientists.
In the United States, IPM was formulated into national policy in February 1972 when President Richard Nixon directed federal agencies to take steps to advance the application of IPM in all relevant sectors. In 1979, President Jimmy Carter established an interagency IPM Coordinating Committee to ensure development and implementation of IPM practices.
Perry Adkisson and Ray F. Smith received the 1997 World Food Prize for encouraging the use of IPM.
Applications
IPM is used in agriculture, horticulture, forestry, human habitations, preventive conservation of cultural property and general pest control, including structural pest management, turf pest management and ornamental pest management. IPM practices help to prevent and slow the development of resistance, known as resistance management.
Principles
An American IPM system is designed around six basic components:
Acceptable pest levels—The emphasis is on control, not eradication. IPM holds that wiping out an entire pest population is often impossible, and the attempt can be expensive and unsafe. IPM programmes first work to establish acceptable pest levels, called action thresholds, and apply controls if those thresholds are crossed. These thresholds are pest and site specific, meaning that it may be acceptable at one site to have a weed such as white clover, but not at another site. Allowing a pest population to survive at a reasonable threshold reduces selection pressure. This lowers the rate at which a pest develops resistance to a control, because if almost all pests are killed then those that have resistance will provide the genetic basis of the future population. Retaining a significant number of unresistant specimens dilutes the prevalence of any resistant genes that appear. Similarly, the repeated use of a single class of controls will create pest populations that are more resistant to that class, whereas alternating among classes helps prevent this.
Preventive cultural practices—Selecting varieties best for local growing conditions and maintaining healthy crops is the first line of defense. Plant quarantine and 'cultural techniques' such as crop sanitation are next, e.g., removal of diseased plants, and cleaning pruning shears to prevent spread of infections. Beneficial fungi and bacteria are added to the potting media of horticultural crops vulnerable to root diseases, greatly reducing the need for fungicides.
Monitoring—Regular observation is critically important. Observation is broken into inspection and identification. Visual inspection, insect and spore traps, and other methods are used to monitor pest levels. Record-keeping is essential, as is a thorough knowledge of target pest behavior and reproductive cycles. Since insects are cold-blooded, their physical development is dependent on area temperatures. Many insects have had their development cycles modeled in terms of degree-days. The degree days of an environment determines the optimal time for a specific insect outbreak. Plant pathogens follow similar patterns of response to weather and season. Recently, automated systems based on AI have been developed to identify and monitor flies using e-trapping devices.
Mechanical controls—Should a pest reach an unacceptable level, mechanical methods are the first options. They include simple hand-picking, barriers, traps, vacuuming and tillage to disrupt breeding.
Biological controls—Natural biological processes and materials can provide control, with acceptable environmental impact, and often at lower cost. The main approach is to promote beneficial insects that eat or parasitize target pests. Biological insecticides, derived from naturally occurring microorganisms (e.g.—Bt, entomopathogenic fungi and entomopathogenic nematodes), also fall in this category. Further 'biology-based' or 'ecological' techniques are under evaluation.
Responsible use—Synthetic pesticides are used as required and often only at specific times in a pest's life cycle. Many newer pesticides are derived from plants or naturally occurring substances (e.g.—nicotine, pyrethrum and insect juvenile hormone analogues), but the toxophore or active component may be altered to provide increased biological activity or stability. Applications of pesticides must reach their intended targets. Matching the application technique to the crop, the pest, and the pesticide is critical. The use of low-volume spray equipment reduces overall pesticide use and labor cost.
An IPM regime can be simple or sophisticated. Historically, the main focus of IPM programmes was on agricultural insect pests. Although originally developed for agricultural pest management, IPM programmes are now developed to encompass diseases, weeds and other pests that interfere with management objectives for sites such as residential and commercial structures, lawn and turf areas, and home and community gardens. Predictive models have proved to be suitable tools supporting the implementation of IPM programmes.
Process
IPM is the selection and use of pest control actions that will ensure favourable economic condition, ecological and social consequences and is applicable to most agricultural, public health and amenity pest management situations. The IPM process starts with monitoring, which includes inspection and identification, followed by the establishment of economic injury levels. The economic injury levels set the economic threshold level. That is the point when pest damage (and the benefits of treating the pest) exceed the cost of treatment. This can also be an action threshold level for determining an unacceptable level that is not tied to economic injury. Action thresholds are more common in structural pest management and economic injury levels in classic agricultural pest management. An example of an action threshold is one fly in a hospital operating room is not acceptable, but one fly in a pet kennel would be acceptable. Once a threshold has been crossed by the pest population action steps need to be taken to reduce and control the pest. Integrated pest management employs a variety of actions including cultural controls such as physical barriers, biological controls such as adding and conserving natural predators and enemies of the pest, and finally chemical controls or pesticides. Reliance on knowledge, experience, observation and integration of multiple techniques makes IPM appropriate for organic farming (excluding synthetic pesticides). These may or may not include materials listed on the Organic Materials Review Institute (OMRI) Although the pesticides and particularly insecticides used in organic farming and organic gardening are generally safer than synthetic pesticides, they are not always more safe or environmentally friendly than synthetic pesticides and can cause harm. For conventional farms IPM can reduce human and environmental exposure to hazardous chemicals, and potentially lower overall costs.
Risk assessment usually includes four issues: 1) characterization of biological control agents, 2) health risks, 3) environmental risks and 4) efficacy.
Mistaken identification of a pest may result in ineffective actions. E.g., plant damage due to over-watering could be mistaken for fungal infection, since many fungal and viral infections arise under moist conditions.
Monitoring begins immediately, before the pest's activity becomes significant. Monitoring of agricultural pests includes tracking soil/planting media fertility and water quality. Overall plant health and resistance to pests is greatly influenced by pH, alkalinity, of dissolved mineral and oxygen reduction potential. Many diseases are waterborne, spread directly by irrigation water and indirectly by splashing.
Once the pest is known, knowledge of its lifecycle provides the optimal intervention points. For example, weeds reproducing from last year's seed can be prevented with mulches and pre-emergent herbicide.
Pest-tolerant crops such as soybeans may not warrant interventions unless the pests are numerous or rapidly increasing. Intervention is warranted if the expected cost of damage by the pest is more than the cost of control. Health hazards may require intervention that is not warranted by economic considerations.
Specific sites may also have varying requirements. E.g., white clover may be acceptable on the sides of a tee box on a golf course, but unacceptable in the fairway where it could confuse the field of play.
Possible interventions include mechanical/physical, cultural, biological and chemical. Mechanical/physical controls include picking pests off plants, or using netting or other material to exclude pests such as birds from grapes or rodents from structures. Cultural controls include keeping an area free of conducive conditions by removing waste or diseased plants, flooding, sanding, and the use of disease-resistant crop varieties. Biological controls are numerous. They include: conservation of natural predators or augmentation of natural predators, sterile insect technique (SIT).
Augmentation, inoculative release and inundative release are different methods of biological control that affect the target pest in different ways. Augmentative control includes the periodic introduction of predators. With inundative release, predators are collected, mass-reared and periodically released in large numbers into the pest area. This is used for an immediate reduction in host populations, generally for annual crops, but is not suitable for long run use. With inoculative release a limited number of beneficial organisms are introduced at the start of the growing season. This strategy offers long term control as the organism's progeny affect pest populations throughout the season and is common in orchards. With seasonal inoculative release the beneficials are collected, mass-reared and released seasonally to maintain the beneficial population. This is commonly used in greenhouses. In America and other western countries, inundative releases are predominant, while Asia and the eastern Europe more commonly use inoculation and occasional introductions.
The sterile insect technique (SIT) is an area-wide IPM program that introduces sterile male pests into the pest population to trick females into (unsuccessful) breeding encounters, providing a form of birth control and reducing reproduction rates. The biological controls mentioned above only appropriate in extreme cases, because in the introduction of new species, or supplementation of naturally occurring species can have detrimental ecosystem effects. Biological controls can be used to stop invasive species or pests, but they can become an introduction path for new pests.
Chemical controls include horticultural oils or the application of insecticides and herbicides. A green pest management IPM program uses pesticides derived from plants, such as botanicals, or other naturally occurring materials.
Pesticides can be classified by their modes of action. Rotating among materials with different modes of action minimizes pest resistance.
Evaluation is the process of assessing whether the intervention was effective, whether it produced unacceptable side effects, whether to continue, revise or abandon the program.
Southeast Asia
The Green Revolution of the 1960s and '70s introduced sturdier plants that could support the heavier grain loads resulting from intensive fertilizer use. Pesticide imports by 11 Southeast Asian countries grew nearly sevenfold in value between 1990 and 2010, according to FAO statistics, with disastrous results. Rice farmers become accustomed to spraying soon after planting, triggered by signs of the leaf folder moth, which appears early in the growing season. It causes only superficial damage and doesn't reduce yields. In 1986, Indonesia banned 57 pesticides and completely stopped subsidizing their use. Progress was reversed in the 2000s, when growing production capacity, particularly in China, reduced prices. Rice production in Asia more than doubled. But it left farmers believing more is better—whether it's seed, fertilizer, or pesticides.
The brown planthopper, Nilaparvata lugens, the farmers' main target, has become increasingly resistant. Since 2008, outbreaks have devastated rice harvests throughout Asia, but not in the Mekong Delta. Reduced spraying allowed natural predators to neutralize planthoppers in Vietnam. In 2010 and 2011, massive planthopper outbreaks hit 400,000 hectares of Thai rice fields, causing losses of about $64 million. The Thai government is now pushing the "no spray in the first 40 days" approach.
By contrast early spraying kills frogs, spiders, wasps and dragonflies that prey on the later-arriving and dangerous planthopper and produced resistant strains. Planthoppers now require pesticide doses 500 times greater than originally. Overuse indiscriminately kills beneficial insects and decimates bird and amphibian populations. Pesticides are suspected of harming human health and became a common means for rural Asians to commit suicide.
In 2001, scientists challenged 950 Vietnamese farmers to try IPM. In one plot, each farmer grew rice using their usual amounts of seed and fertilizer, applying pesticide as they chose. In a nearby plot, less seed and fertilizer were used and no pesticides were applied for 40 days after planting. Yields from the experimental plots was as good or better and costs were lower, generating 8% to 10% more net income. The experiment led to the "three reductions, three gains" campaign, claiming that cutting the use of seed, fertilizer and pesticide would boost yield, quality and income. Posters, leaflets, TV commercials and a 2004 radio soap opera that featured a rice farmer who gradually accepted the changes. It didn't hurt that a 2006 planthopper outbreak hit farmers using insecticides harder than those who didn't. Mekong Delta farmers cut insecticide spraying from five times per crop cycle to zero to one.
The Plant Protection Center and the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) have been encouraging farmers to grow flowers, okra and beans on rice paddy banks, instead of stripping vegetation, as was typical. The plants attract bees and a tiny wasp that eats planthopper eggs, while the vegetables diversify farm incomes.
Agriculture companies offer bundles of pesticides with seeds and fertilizer, with incentives for volume purchases. A proposed law in Vietnam requires licensing pesticide dealers and government approval of advertisements to prevent exaggerated claims. Insecticides that target other pests, such as Scirpophaga incertulas (stem borer), the larvae of moth species that feed on rice plants allegedly yield gains of 21% with proper use.
See also
References
Further reading
photos, reference tables, diagrams.
Jahn, GC, PG Cox., E Rubia-Sanchez, and M Cohen 2001. The quest for connections: developing a research agenda for integrated pest and nutrient management. pp. 413–430, In S. Peng and B. Hardy [eds.] "Rice Research for Food Security and Poverty Alleviation." Proceedings of the International Rice Research Conference, 31 March – 3 April 2000, Los Baños, Philippines. Los Baños (Philippines): International Rice Research Institute. 692 p.
Jahn, GC, B. Khiev, C Pol, N. Chhorn and V Preap 2001. Sustainable pest management for rice in Cambodia. In P. Cox and R Chhay [eds.] "The Impact of Agricultural Research for Development in Southeast Asia" Proceedings of an International Conference held at the Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 24-26 Oct. 2000, Phnom Penh (Cambodia): CARDI.
Nonveiller, Guido 1984. Catalogue commenté et illustré des insectes du Cameroun d'intérêt agricole : (apparitions, répartition, importance) / University of Belgrade/Institut pour la protection des plantes
Regnault-Roger, Catherine; Philogene, Bernard JR (2008) Past and Current Prospects for the use of Botanicals and Plant allelochemicals in Integrated Pest Management. Pharm. Bio. 46(1-2): 41-52
Acosta, EW (2006) The History of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). Biocontrol Reference Center.
Surendra K Dara, The New Integrated Pest Management Paradigm for the Modern Age, Journal of Integrated Pest Management, Volume 1, Issue 1, 2019, 12, The New Integrated Pest Management Paradigm for the Modern Age
External links
Introducing to Integrated Pest Management via EPA
Agronomy
Biological pest control
Pest control techniques
Phytopathology
Soil chemistry |
420766 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmadou%20Ahidjo | Ahmadou Ahidjo | Ahmadou Babatoura Ahidjo (24 August 192430 November 1989) was a Cameroonian politician who was the first President of Cameroon, holding the office from 1960 until 1982. Ahidjo played a major role in Cameroon's independence from France as well as reuniting the French and English-speaking parts of the country. During Ahidjo's time in office, he established a centralized political system. Ahidjo established a single-party state under the Cameroon National Union (CNU) in 1966. In 1972, Ahidjo abolished the federation in favor of a unitary state.
Ahidjo resigned from the presidency in 1982, and Paul Biya assumed the presidency. This was an action that was surprising to Cameroonians. Accused of being behind a coup plot against Biya in 1984, Ahidjo was sentenced to death in absentia, but he died of natural causes in 1989.
Early life
Ahidjo was born in Garoua, a major river port along the Benue River in northern Cameroun, which was at the time a French mandate territory. His mother was a Fulani of slave descent, while his father was a Fulani village chief.
Ahidjo's mother raised him as a Muslim and sent him to Quranic kuttab school as a child. In 1932, he began attending local government primary school. After failing his first school certification examination in 1938, Ahidjo worked for a few months in the veterinary service. He returned to school and obtained his school certification a year later. Ahidjo spent the next three years attending secondary school at the Ecole Primaire Supérieur in Yaoundé, the capital of the mandate, studying for a career in the civil service. His classmates are, among others, Félix Sabbal-Lecco, Minister under his government, Abel Moumé Etia, first Cameroonian meteorological engineer and writer, as well as Jean-Faustin Betayéné, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Federal Cameroon. At school, Ahidjo also played soccer and competed as a cyclist.
In 1942, Ahidjo joined the civil service as a radio operator for a postal service. As part of his job, he worked on assignments in several major cities throughout the country, such as Douala, Ngaoundéré, Bertoua, and Mokolo. According to his official biographer, Ahidjo was the first civil servant from northern Cameroun to work in the southern areas of the territory. His experiences throughout the country were, according to Harvey Glickman, professor emeritus of political science at Haverford College and scholar of African politics, responsible for fostering his sense of national identity and provided him the sagacity to handle the problems of governing a multiethnic state.
Political career
In 1946, Ahidjo entered territorial politics. From 1953 to 1957, Ahidjo was a member of the Assembly of the French Union. From 28 January 1957, to 10 May 1957, Ahidjo served as President of the Legislative Assembly of Cameroon. In the same year he became Deputy Prime Minister in de facto head of state André-Marie Mbida's government. In February 1958, Ahidjo became Prime Minister at the age of thirty-four after Mbida resigned. He was reassuring towards the Church and the Muslim aristocracies in the north of the country and succeeded in embodying the union of conservative currents concerned about the growing number of protest movements in the 1950s. While serving as Prime Minister, Ahidjo had administrative goals to move toward independence for Cameroon while reuniting the separated factions of the country and cooperating with French colonial powers. On 12 June, with a motion from the National Assembly, Ahidjo became involved in negotiations with France in Paris. These negotiations continued through October, resulting in formal recognition of Cameroonian plans for independence. The date for the simultaneous termination of French trusteeship and Cameroonian independence was set by Cameroon's National Assembly for 1 January 1960. During and immediately after Cameroon was decolonized, Ahidjo recruited follow northern, Muslim Fulani and Peuhl into the army and an elite guard.
Ahidjo's support and collaboration in allowing for continued French influence economically and politically was faced with opposition from radicals who rejected French influence. These radicals were sympathetic to a more revolutionary, procommunist approach to decolonization. They formed their own political party, Union des Populations du Cameroun. In March 1959, Ahidjo addressed the United Nations General Assembly in order to gather support for France's independence plan. Influenced by Cold War tensions, the United Nations expressed concern about the UPC due to the party's pro-communist disposition. The United Nations moved to end French trusteeship in Cameroon without organizing new elections or lifting the ban that France had imposed on the UPC. Ahidjo experienced a rebellion in the 1960s from the UPC, but defeated it by 1970 with the aid of French military force. Ahidjo proposed and was granted four bills to gather power and declare a state of emergency in order to end the rebellion.
Following the independence of the French-controlled area of Cameroon, Ahidjo's focus turned on reuniting the British-controlled area of Cameroon with its newly independent counterpart. In addressing the United Nations, Ahidjo and his supporters favored integration and reunification whereas more radical players such as the UPC preferred immediate reunification. However, both sides were seeking a plebiscite for reunification of the separated Cameroons. The UN decided on the integration and reunification plebiscite. The plebiscite resulted in northern area of the British Cameroons voting to join Nigeria and the southern area voting to reunite with the rest of Cameroon. Ahidjo worked with Premier John Foncha of the Anglophone Cameroon throughout the process of integrating the two parts of Cameroon. In July 1961, Ahidjo attended a conference at which the plans and conditions for merging the Cameroons were made and later adopted by both the National Assemblies of the Francophone and Anglophone Cameroons. Ahidjo and Foncha met in Bamenda in order to create a constitution for the united territories. In their meetings, Ahidjo and Foncha agreed not to join the French community or the Commonwealth. In the summer of 1961, Ahidjo and Foncha resolved any issues between them and agreed upon the final draft for the constitution, which was drawn in Foumban, a city in West Cameroon. Despite the fact that the plans to establish a federalist state were made public in Foumban, Ahidjo and Foncha had private discussions before the official Foumban conference. On 1 October 1961, the two separate Cameroons were merged, establishing the Federal Republic of Cameroon with Ahidjo as the president and Foncha as the Vice President.
The issue of territorial administration was a topic of disagreement between Foncha and Ahidjo. In December 1961, Ahidjo issued a decree that split the federation into administrative regions under the Federal Inspectors of Administration. The inspectors were responsible to Ahidjo and for representing the federation, with access to police force and federal services. The power given to these inspectors led to conflict between them and Prime Ministers.
During the first years of the regime, the French ambassador Jean-Pierre Bénard is sometimes considered as the true "president" of Cameroon. This independence is indeed largely theoretical since French "advisers" are responsible for assisting each minister and have the reality of power. The Gaullist government preserves its influence over the country through the signing of "cooperation agreements" covering all sectors of Cameroon's sovereignty. Thus, in the monetary field, Cameroon retains the CFA franc and entrusts its monetary policy to its former guardian power. All strategic resources are exploited by France, French troops are maintained in the country, and a large proportion of Cameroonian army officers are French, including the Chief of Staff.
In 1961, Ahidjo began calling for a single-party state. On 12 March 1962, Ahidjo issued a decree that prevented criticism against his regime, giving the government the authority to imprison anyone found guilty of subversion against government authorities or laws. In July 1962, a group of opposition party leaders who had served in the government with Ahidjo, André-Marie Mbida, Charles Okala, Marcel Bey Bey Eyidi, and Theodore Mayi Martip, challenged Ahidjo's call for a single-party state, saying that it was dictatorial. These leaders were arrested, tried, and imprisoned on the grounds of subversion against the government. The arrest of these leaders resulted in many other opposition leaders joining Ahidjo's Party, the Union Camerounaise. On 1 September 1966, Ahidjo achieved his goal of creating a single-party state. The CNU was established, with Ahidjo maintaining that it was essential to the unity of Cameroon. In order to be elected to the National Assembly, membership in the CNU was required. Therefore, Ahidjo approved all nominations for the National Assembly as head of the party, and they approved all his legislation.
The authorities are multiplying the legal provisions enabling them to free themselves from the rule of law: arbitrary extension of police custody, prohibition of meetings and rallies, submission of publications to prior censorship, restriction of freedom of movement through the establishment of passes or curfews, prohibition for trade unions to issue subscriptions, etc. Anyone accused of "compromising public safety" is deprived of a lawyer and cannot appeal the judgment. Sentences of life imprisonment at hard labour or death penalty – executions can be public – are thus numerous. A one-party system was introduced in 1966.
Ahidjo placed the blame for Cameroon's underdevelopment and poorly implemented town and public planning policies on Cameroon's federal structure, as well as charging federalism with maintaining cleavages and issues between the Anglophone and Francophone parts of Cameroon. Ahidjo's government also argued that managing separate governments in a poor country was too expensive. Ahidjo announced on 6 May 1972, that he wanted to abolish the federation and put a unitary state into place if the electorate supported the idea in a referendum set for 20 May 1972. This event became known as "The Glorious Revolution of May Twentieth." Because Ahidjo held control over the CNU, he was ensured the party's support in this initiative. Ahidjo issued Presidential Decree No. 72–720 on 2 June 1972, which established the United Republic of Cameroon and abolished the federation. A new constitution was adopted by Ahidjo's government in the same year, abolishing the position of Vice President, which served to further centralize power in Cameroon. Ahidjo's power presided over not only the state and government, but also as commander of the military. In 1975, however, Ahidjo instituted the position of Prime Minister, which was filled by Paul Biya. In 1979, Ahidjo initiated a change in the constitution designating the Prime Minister as successor. Until 1972, Cameroon's federation consisted of two relatively autonomous parts: the francophone and anglophone. After the federation was abolished, many anglophones were displeased with the changes.
In 1972, when Cameroon hosted the Africa Cup of Nations, Ahidjo ordered the construction of two new stadiums, the Ahmadou Ahidjo stadium and the Unification Stadium. The Unification Stadium was named in celebration of the country being renamed as the United Republic of Cameroon.
Cameroon became an oil-producing country in 1977. Claiming to want to make reserves for difficult times, the authorities manage "off-budget" oil revenues in total opacity (the funds are placed in Paris, Switzerland and New York accounts). Several billion dollars are thus diverted to the benefit of oil companies and regime officials. The influence of France and its 9,000 nationals in Cameroon remains considerable. African Affairs magazine noted in the early 1980s that they "continue to dominate almost all key sectors of the economy, much as they did before independence. French nationals control 55% of the modern sector of the Cameroonian economy and their control over the banking system is total.
Though many of his actions were dictatorial, Cameroon became one of the most stable in Africa. He was considered to be more conservative and less charismatic than most post-colonial African leaders, but his policies allowed Cameroon to attain comparative prosperity. Courtiers surrounding Ahidjo promoted the myth that he was "father of the nation."
Ahidjo's presidential style was cultivated around the image of himself as the father of the nation. He carried many titles, and after he visited Mecca, Ahidjo gained the title of "El Hadj." Ahidjo used radio to regularly lecture the nation and to announce the regular reassignment of government positions. Ahidjo built up a clientelistic network in which he redistributed state resources to maintain control over a diverse Cameroon. When Cameroon began seeing oil revenue, the president was in control of the funds. People received jobs, licenses, contracts, and projects through Ahidjo in exchange for loyalty.
During Ahidjo's presidency, music served a role in maintaining for national unity and development. Musicians wrote songs with themes of independence, unity, and Ahidjo as the father of the nation. On official holidays, schools would compete by writing patriotic songs in Ahidjo's honor. Songs that were critical of politicians were rare. Musicians such as Medzo Me Nsom encouraged the people of Cameroon to turn out at the pols and vote for Ahidjo.
Post-presidency, later life and death
Ahidjo resigned, ostensibly for health reasons, on 4 November 1982 and was succeeded by Prime Minister Paul Biya two days later. That he stepped down in favor of Biya, a Christian from the south and not a Muslim from the north like himself, was considered surprising. Ahidjo's ultimate intentions were unclear; it is possible that he intended to return to the presidency at a later point when his health improved, and another possibility is that he intended for Maigari Bello Bouba, a fellow Muslim from the north who succeeded Biya as Prime Minister, to be his eventual successor as president, with Biya in effectively a caretaker role. Although the Central Committee of the ruling Cameroon National Union (CNU) urged Ahidjo to remain President, he declined to do so, but he did agree to remain as the President of the CNU. However, he also arranged for Biya to become the CNU Vice-President and handle party affairs in his absence. During the first few months of Biya's administration, there was cooperation between Biya and Ahidjo. In January 1982, Ahidjo dismissed four CNU members who opposed Biya's presidency. Additionally that month, Ahidjo and Biya both went on separate speaking tours to different parts of Cameroon in order to address the public's concerns.
Later that year, however, a major feud developed between Ahidjo and Biya. On 19 July 1983, Ahidjo went into exile in France, and Biya began removing Ahidjo's supporters from positions of power and eliminating symbols of his authority, removing official photographs of Ahidjo from the public as well as removing Ahidjo's name from the anthem of the CNU. On 22 August, Biya announced that a plot allegedly involving Ahidjo had been uncovered. For his part, Ahidjo severely criticized Biya, alleging that Biya was abusing his power, that he lived in fear of plots against him, and that he was a threat to national unity. The two were unable to reconcile despite the efforts of several foreign leaders, and Ahidjo announced on 27 August that he was resigning as head of the CNU. In exile, Ahidjo was sentenced to death in absentia in February 1984, along with two others, for participation in the June 1983 coup plot, although Biya commuted the sentence to life in prison. Ahidjo denied involvement in the plot. A violent but unsuccessful coup attempt in April 1984 was also widely believed to have been orchestrated by Ahidjo.
In his remaining years, Ahidjo divided his time between France and Senegal. He died of a heart attack in Dakar on 30 November 1989 and was buried there. He was officially rehabilitated by a law in December 1991. Biya said on 30 October 2007 that the matter of returning Ahidjo's remains to Cameroon was "a family affair". An agreement on returning Ahidjo's remains was reached in June 2009, and it was expected that they would be returned in 2010. However, as of 2021, Ahidjo remains in Dakar, buried alongside his wife, who died in April of that year.
Notes
References
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External links
1924 births
1989 deaths
People from Garoua
Cameroonian Muslims
Fula people
People of French Equatorial Africa
Presidents of Cameroon
Prime Ministers of Cameroon
Presidents of the National Assembly (Cameroon)
Cameroonian exiles
Member of the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco
People sentenced to death in absentia
Cameroonian independence activists
Cameroonian politicians
Collars of the Order of Isabella the Catholic |
420787 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pro%20Tools | Pro Tools | Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation (DAW) developed and released by Avid Technology (formerly Digidesign) for Microsoft Windows and macOS. It is used for music creation and production, sound for picture (sound design, audio post-production and mixing) and, more generally, sound recording, editing, and mastering processes.
Pro Tools operates both as standalone software and in conjunction with a range of external analog-to-digital converters and PCIe cards with on-board digital signal processors (DSP). The DSP is used to provide additional processing power to the host computer for processing real-time effects, such as reverb, equalization, and compression and to obtain lower latency audio performance. Like all digital audio workstation software, Pro Tools can perform the functions of a multitrack tape recorder and a mixing console along with additional features that can only be performed in the digital domain, such as non-linear and non-destructive editing (most of audio handling is done without overwriting the source files), track compositing with multiple playlists, time compression and expansion, pitch shifting, and faster-than-real-time mixdown.
Audio, MIDI, and video tracks are graphically represented on a timeline. Audio effects, virtual instruments, and hardware emulators—such as microphone preamps or guitar amplifiers—can be added, adjusted, and processed in real-time in a virtual mixer. 16-bit, 24-bit, and 32-bit float audio bit depths at sample rates up to 192 kHz are supported. Pro Tools supports mixed bit depths and audio formats in a session: BWF/WAV (including WAVE Extensible, RF64 and BW64) and AIFF. It imports and exports MOV video files and ADM BWF files (audio files with Dolby Atmos metadata); it also imports MXF, ACID and REX files and the lossy formats MP3, AAC, M4A, and audio from video files (MOV, MP4, M4V). The legacy SDII format was dropped with Pro Tools 10, although SDII conversion is still possible on macOS.
Pro Tools has incorporated video editing capabilities, so users can import and manipulate high-definition video file formats such as XDCAM, MJPG-A, PhotoJPG, DV25, QuickTime, and more. It features time code, tempo maps, elastic audio, and automation; supports mixing in surround sound, Dolby Atmos and VR sound using Ambisonics.
The Pro Tools TDM mix engine, supported until 2011 with version 10, employed 24-bit fixed-point arithmetic for plug-in processing and 48-bit for mixing. Current HDX hardware systems, HD Native and native systems use 32-bit floating-point resolution for plug-ins and 64-bit floating-point summing. The software and the audio engine were adapted to 64-bit architecture from version 11.
In 2022, Avid switched Pro Tools from a perpetual license to a subscription model. New users have to choose between three new plans: Pro Tools Artist, which costs $9.99 per month or $99 per year; Pro Tools Studio, which costs $39.99 per month or $299 per year; and Pro Tools Flex, which costs $99.99 per month or $999 per year. Later in 2022, Avid launched a free version: Pro Tools Intro.
History
The beginnings: Digidrums (1983–1985)
Pro Tools was developed by UC Berkeley graduates Evan Brooks, who majored in electrical engineering and computer science, and Peter Gotcher.
In 1983, the two friends, sharing an interest in music and electronic and software engineering, decided to study the memory mapping of the newly released E-mu Drumulator drum machine to create EPROM sound replacement chips. The Drumulator was quite popular at that time, although it was limited to its built-in samples.
They started selling the upgrade chips one year later under their new Digidrums label. Five different upgrade chips were available, offering different alternate drum styles. The chips, easily switchable with the original ones, enjoyed remarkable success between the Drumulator users, selling 60,000 units overall.
Digidesign Sound Designer (1985–1989)
When Apple released its first Macintosh computer in 1984, the pair thought to design a more functional and flexible solution which could take advantage of a graphical interface. In collaboration with E-Mu, they developed a Mac-based visual sample editing system for the Emulator II keyboard, called Sound Designer, released under the Digidesign brand and inspired by the interface of the Fairlight CMI. This system, the first ancestor of Pro Tools, was released in 1985 at the price of US$995.
Brooks and Gotcher rapidly ported Sound Designer to many other sampling keyboards, such as E-mu Emax, Akai S900, Sequential Prophet 2000, Korg DSS-1, and Ensoniq Mirage. Thanks to the universal file specification subsequently developed by Brooks with version 1.5, Sound Designer files could be transferred via MIDI between sampling keyboards of different manufacturers. This universal file specification, along with the printed source code to a 68000 assembly language interrupt-driven MIDI driver, was distributed through Macintosh MIDI interface manufacturer Assimilation, which manufactured the first MIDI interface for the Mac in 1985.
Starting from the same year, a dial-up service provided by Beaverton Digital Systems, called MacMusic, allowed Sound Designer users to download and install the entire Emulator II sound library to other less expensive samplers: sample libraries could be shared across different manufacturers platforms without copyright infringement. MacMusic contributed to Sound Designer's success by leveraging both the universal file format and developing the first online sample file download site globally, many years before the World Wide Web use soared. The service used 2400-baud modems and 100 MB of disk space with Red Ryder host on a 1 MB Macintosh Plus.
With the release of Apple Macintosh II in 1987, which provided card slots, a hard disk, and more capable memory, Brooks and Gotcher saw the possibility to evolve Sound Designer into a featured digital audio workstation. They discussed with E-mu the opportunity of using the Emulator III as a platform for their updated software, but E-mu rejected this offer. Therefore, they decided to design both the software and the hardware autonomously. Motorola, which was working on its 56K series of digital signal processors, invited the two to participate in its development. Brooks designed a circuit board for the processor, then developed the software to make it work with Sound Designer. A beta version of the DSP was ready by December 1988.
Digidesign Sound Tools and Sound Designer II software (1989–1990)
The combination of the hardware and the software was called Sound Tools. Advertised as the "first tapeless studio", it was presented on January 20, 1989, at the NAMM annual convention. The system relied on a NuBus card called Sound Accelerator, equipped with one Motorola 56001 processor. The card provided 16-bit playback and 44.1/48 kHz recording through a two-channel A/D converter (AD In), while the DSP handled signal processing, which included a ten-band graphic equalizer, a parametric equalizer, time stretching with pitch preservation, fade-in/fade-out envelopes, and crossfades ("merging") between two sound files.
Sound Tools was bundled with Sound Designer II software, which was, at this time, a simple mono or stereo audio editor running on Mac SE or Mac II; digital audio acquisition from DAT was also possible. A two-channel digital interface (DAT-I/O) with AES/EBU and S/PDIF connections was made available later in 1989, while the Pro I/O interface came out in 1990 with 18-bit converters.
The file format used by Sound Designer II (SDII) became eventually a standard for digital audio file exchange until the WAV file format took over a decade later. Since audio streaming and non-destructive editing were performed on hard drives, the software was still limited by their performance; densely edited tracks could cause glitches. However, the rapidly evolving computer technology allowed developments towards a multi-track sequencer.
Deck, Pro Tools, Sound Tools II and Pro Tools II (1990–1994)
The core engine and much of the user interface of the first iteration of Pro Tools was based on Deck. The software, published in 1990, was the first multi-track digital recorder based on a personal computer. It was developed by OSC, a small San Francisco company founded the same year, in conjunction with Digidesign and ran on Digidesign's hardware. Deck could run four audio tracks with automation; MIDI sequencing was possible during playback and record, and one effect combination could be assigned to each audio track (2-band parametric equalizer, 1-band EQ with delay, 1-band EQ with chorus, delay with chorus).
The first Pro Tools system was launched on June 5, 1991. It was based on an adapted version of Deck (ProDeck) along with Digidesign's new editing software, ProEdit, created by Mark Jeffery; Sound Designer II was still supplied for two-channel editing. Pro Tools relied on Digidesign's Audiomedia card, mounting one Motorola 56001 processor with a clock rate of 22.58 MHz and offering two analog and two digital channels of I/O, and on the Sound Accelerator card. External synchronization with audio and video tape machines was possible with SMPTE timecode and the Video Slave drivers. The complete system was selling for US$6,000.
Sound Tools II was launched in 1992 with a new DSP card. Two interfaces were also released: Pro Master 20, providing 20-bit A/D conversion, and Audiomedia II, with improved digital converters and one Motorola 56001 processor running at 33.86 MHz.
In 1993, Josh Rosen, Mats Myrberg and John Dalton, the OSC's engineers who developed Deck, split from Digidesign to focus on releasing lower-cost multi-track software that would run on computers with no additional hardware. This software was known as Session (for stereo-only audio cards) and Session 8 (for multichannel audio interfaces) and was selling for US$399.
Peter Gotcher felt that the software needed a significant rewrite. Pro Tools II, the first software release fully developed by Digidesign, followed in the same year and addressed its predecessor's weaknesses. The editor and the mixer were merged into a single Pro Tools application that utilized the Digidesign Audio Engine (DAE) created by Peter Richert. DAE was also provided as a separate application to favor hardware support from third-party developers, enabling the use of Pro Tools hardware and plug-ins on other DAWs.
Selling more than 8,000 systems worldwide, Pro Tools II became the best-selling digital audio workstation.
Pro Tools II TDM: 16 tracks and real-time plug-ins (1994)
In 1994, Pro Tools 2.5 implemented Digidesign's newly developed time-division multiplexing technology, which allowed routing of multiple digital audio streams between DSP cards. With TDM, up to four NuBus cards could be linked, obtaining a 16-track system, while multiple DSP-based plug-ins could be run simultaneously and in real-time. The wider bandwidth required to run the larger number of tracks was achieved with a SCSI expansion card developed by Grey Matter Response, called System Accelerator.
In the same year, Digidesign announced that it merged into the American multimedia company Avid, developer of the digital video editing platform Media Composer and one of Digidesign's major customers (25% of Sound Accelerator and Audiomedia cards produced was being bought by Avid). The operation was finalized in 1995.
Pro Tools III: 48 tracks, DSP Farm cards and switch to PCI cards (1995–1997)
With a redesigned Disk I/O card, Pro Tools III was able to provide 16 tracks with a single NuBus card; the system could be expanded using TDM to up to three Disk I/O cards, achieving 48 tracks. DSP Farm cards were introduced to increase the processing power needed for a more extensive real-time audio processing; each card was equipped with three Motorola 56001 chips running at 40 MHz. Multiple DSP cards could be added for additional processing power; each card could handle the playback of 16 tracks. A dedicated SCSI card was still required to provide the required bandwidth to support multiple-card systems.
Along with Pro Tools III, Digidesign launched the 888 interface, with eight channels of analog and digital I/O, and the cheaper 882 interface. The Session 8 system included a control surface with eight faders. A series of TDM plug-ins were bundled with the software, including dynamics processing, EQ, delay, modulation, and reverb.
In 1996, following Apple's decision to drop NuBus in favor of PCI bus, Digidesign added PCI support with Pro Tools 3.21. The PCI version of the Disk I/O card incorporated a high-speed SCSI along with DSP chips, while the upgraded DSP Farm PCI card included four Motorola 56002 chips running at 66 MHz.
This change of architecture allowed the convergence of Macintosh computers with Intel-based PCs, for which PCI had become the standard internal communication bus. With the PCI version of Digidesign's Audiomedia card in 1997 (Audiomedia III), Sound Tools and Pro Tools could be run on Windows platforms for the first time.
24-bit audio and surround mixing: Pro Tools | 24 and Pro Tools | 24 MIX (1997–2002)
With the release of Pro Tools | 24 in 1997, Digidesign introduced a new 24-bit interface (the 888|24) and a new PCI card (the d24). The d24 relied on Motorola 56301 processors, offering increased processing power and 24 tracks of 24-bit audio (later increased to 32 tracks with a DAE software update). A SCSI accelerator was required to keep up with the increased data throughput. Digidesign dropped its proprietary SCSI controller in favor of commercially available ones.
64 tracks with dual d24 support were introduced with Pro Tools 4.1.1 in 1998, while the updated Pro Tools | 24 MIX system provided three times more DSP power with the MIX Core DSP cards. MIXplus systems combined a MIX Core with a MIX Farm, obtaining a performance increase of 700% compared to a Pro Tools | 24 system.
Pro Tools 5 saw two substantial software developments: extended MIDI functionality and integration in 1999 (an editable piano-roll view in the editor; MIDI automation, quantize and transpose) and the introduction of surround sound mixing and multichannel plug-ins—up to the 7.1 format—with Pro Tools TDM 5.1 in 2001.
The migration from traditional, tape-based analog studio technology to the Pro Tools platform took place within the industry: Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca" (1999) was the first Billboard Hot 100 number-one single to be recorded, edited, and mixed entirely within the Pro Tools environment, allowing a more meticulous and effortless editing workflow (especially on vocals).
While consolidating its presence in professional studios, Digidesign began to target the mid-range consumer market in 1999 by introducing the Digi001 bundle, consisting of a rack-mount audio interface with eight inputs and outputs with 24-bit, 44.1/48 kHz capability and MIDI connections. The package was distributed with Pro Tools LE, a specific version of the software without DSP support, limited to 24 mixing tracks.
High-resolution audio and consolidation of digital recording and mixing: Pro Tools | HD (2002–2011)
Following the launch of Mac OS X operating system in 2001, Digidesign made a substantial redesign of Pro Tools hardware and software. Pro Tools | HD was launched in 2002, replacing the Pro Tools | 24 system and relying on a new range of DSP cards (HD Core and HD Process, replacing MIX Core and MIX Farm), new interfaces running at up to 192 kHz or 96 kHz sample rates (HD 192 and 96, replacing 888 and 882), along with an updated version of the software (Pro Tools 6) with new features and a redesigned GUI, developed for OS X and Windows XP. Two HD interfaces could be linked together for increased I/O through a proprietary connection. The base system was selling for US$12,000, while the full system was selling for US$20,000.
Both HD Core and Process cards mounted nine Motorola 56361 chips running at 100 MHz, each providing 25% more processing power than the Motorola 56301 chips mounted on MIX cards; this translated to about twice the power for a single card. A system could combine one HD Core card with up to two HD Process cards, supporting playback for 96/48/12 tracks at 48/96/192 kHz sample rates (with a single HD Core card installed) and 128/64/24 tracks at 48/96/192 kHz sample rates (with one or two HD Process cards).
When Apple changed the expansion slot architecture of the Mac G5 to PCI Express, Digidesign launched a line of PCIe DSP cards that both adopted the new card slot format and slightly changed the combination of chips. HD Process cards were replaced with HD Accel, each mounting nine Motorola 56321 chips running at 200 MHz and each providing twice the power than an HD Process card; track count for systems mounting an HD Accel was extended to 192/96/36 tracks at 48/96/192 kHz sample rates. The use of PCI Express connection reduced round-trip delay time, while DSP audio processing allowed the use of smaller hardware buffer sizes during recording, assuring stable performance with extremely low latency.
Pro Tools, offering a solid and reliable alternative to analog recording and mixing, eventually became a standard in professional studios throughout the decade, while editing features such as Beat Detective (introduced with Pro Tools 5.1 in 2001) and Elastic Audio (introduced with Pro Tools 7.4 in 2007) redefined the workflow adopted in contemporary music production.
Other software milestones were background tasks processing (such as fade rendering, file conversion or relinking), real-time insertion of TDM plug-ins during playback, and a browser/database environment introduced with Pro Tools 6 in 2003; Automatic plug-in Delay Compensation (ADC), introduced with Pro Tools 6.4 in 2004 and only available with TDM systems with HD Accel; a new implementation of RTAS with multi-threading support and improved performance, Region groups, Instrument tracks, and real-time MIDI processing, introduced with Pro Tools 7 in 2006; VCA and volume trim, introduced with Pro Tools 7.2 in 2006; support for ten track inserts, MIDI Editor, and MIDI Score, introduced with Pro Tools 8 in 2009.
Pro Tools | MIX hardware support was dropped with version 6.4.1.
Native systems: Pro Tools LE and Pro Tools
Pro Tools LE, first introduced and distributed in 1999 with the Digi 001 interface, was a specific Pro Tools version in which the signal processing entirely relied on the host CPU. The software required a Digidesign interface to run, which acted as a copy-protection mechanism for the software. Mbox was the entry-level range of the available interface; Digi 001 and Digi 002/003, which also provided a control surface, were the upper range. The Eleven Rack also ran on Pro Tools LE, included in-box DSP processing via an FPGA chip, offloading guitar amp/speaker emulation, and guitar effects plug-in processing to the interface, allowing them to run without taxing the host system.
Pro Tools LE shared the same interface of Pro Tools HD but had a smaller track count (24 tracks with Pro Tools 5, extended to 32 tracks with Pro Tools 6 and 48 tracks with Pro Tools 8) and supported a maximum sample rate of 96 kHz (depending on the interface used). Some advanced software features, such as Automatic Delay Compensation, surround mixing, multi-track Beat Detective, OMF/AAF support, and SMPTE Timecode, were omitted. Some of them, as well as support for 48 tracks/96 voices (extended to 64 tracks/128 voices with Pro Tools 8) and additional plug-ins, were made available through an expansion package called "Music Production Toolkit". The "Complete Production Toolkit", introduced with Pro Tools 8, added support for surround mixing and 128 tracks (while the system was still limited to 128 voices).
With the acquisition of M-Audio in 2004–2005, Digidesign released a specific variant of Pro Tools, called , which was equivalent to Pro Tools LE and could be run with M-Audio interfaces.
The Pro Tools LE/ line was discontinued with the release of Pro Tools 9.
Hardware-independent native systems: Pro Tools 9
Pro Tools 9, released in November 2010, dropped the requirement of proprietary hardware to run the software. Any audio device could be used through Core Audio on macOS or the ASIO driver on a Windows. Core Audio allowed device aggregation, enabling using of more than one interface simultaneously. Some Pro Tools HD software features, such as automatic plug-in delay compensation, OMF/AAF file import, Timecode ruler, and multi-track Beat Detective, were included in the standard version of Pro Tools 9.
When operating on a machine containing one or more HD Core, Accel, or Native cards, the software ran as Pro Tools HD with the complete HD feature set. In all other cases, it ran as Pro Tools 9 standard, with a smaller track count and some advanced features turned off.
Advanced Instrument Research (AIR): built-in virtual instruments and plug-ins
In response to Apple's decision to include Emagic's complete line of virtual instruments in Logic Pro in 2004 and following Avid's acquisition of German virtual instruments developer Wizoo in 2005, Pro Tools 8 was supplied with its first built-in virtual instruments library, the AIR Creative Collection, as well as with some new plug-ins, to make it more appealing for music production. An expansion was also available, called AIR Complete Collection.
Pro Tools | HDX (2011–present)
In October 2011, Avid introduced Pro Tools 10 and a new series of DSP PCIe cards named HDX. Each card mounted 18 DSP processors, manufactured by Texas Instruments, allowing an increased computational precision (32-bit floating-point resolution for audio processing and 64-bit floating-point summing, versus the previous 24-bit and 48-bit fixed-point resolution of the TDM engine), thus improving dynamic range performance. Signal processing could be run on the embedded DSP, providing additional computational power and enabling near zero-latency for DSP-reliant plug-ins. Two FPGA chips handled track playback, monitoring, and internal routing, providing a lower round trip latency.
A second line of PCIe cards, called HD Native, provided low latency with a single FPGA chip but did not mount DSP (audio processing relied on the host system's CPU). Round trip latency at 96 kHz was 0.7 ms for HDX and 1.7 ms for HD Native (with a 64-sample buffer).
To maintain performance consistency, HDX products were specified with a fixed maximum number of voices (each voice representing a monophonic channel). Each HDX card enabled 256 simultaneous voices at 44.1/48 kHz; voice count halved when the sample rate doubled (128 voices at 88.2/96 kHz, 64 voices at 176.4/192 kHz). Up to three HDX cards could be installed on a single system for a maximum of 768/384/192 total voices and for increased processing power. On Native systems, voice count was limited to 96/48/24 voices with the standard version of Pro Tools and 256/128/64 voices with Pro Tools HD software.
With Pro Tools 10, Avid deployed a new plug-in format for both Native and HDX systems called AAX (an acronym for Avid Audio eXtension). AAX Native replaced RTAS plug-ins and AAX DSP, a specific format running on HDX systems, replaced TDM plug-ins. AAX was developed to provide the future implementation of 64-bit plug-ins, although 32-bit versions of AAX were still used in Pro Tools 10. TDM support was dropped with HDX, while Pro Tools 10 would be the final release for Pro Tools | HD Process and Accel systems.
Notable software features introduced with Pro Tools 10 were editable clip-based gain automation (Clip gain), the ability to load the session's audio data into RAM to improve transport responsiveness (Disk caching), quadrupled Automatic Delay Compensation length, audio fades processed in real-time, timeline length extended to 24 hours, support for 32-bit float audio and mixed audio formats within the session, and the addition of Avid Channel Strip plug-in (based on Euphonix System 5 console's channel strip, following Avid's acquisition of Euphonix in 2010).
Switch to 64-bit architecture (2013)
Pro Tools 11, released in June 2013, switched from 32-bit to 64-bit software architecture with new audio and video engines, enabling the application and plug-ins to fully take advantage of system memory. The new audio engine (AAE) introduced support of offline bouncing and simultaneous mixdowns multiple sources; dynamic plug-in processing allowed to reduce CPU usage when active native plug-ins do not receive any input. Two separate buffers were used for playback and for monitoring of record-enabled or input-monitored tracks. The new video engine (AVE) improved performance and handling of multiple CPU cores.
Support for HD Accel systems, legacy HD interfaces, TDM and 32-bit AAX plug-ins was dropped due to their incompatibility with 64-bit architecture. A free starter edition providing the essential features of Pro Tools, called "First", was launched in 2015 and discontinued in December 2021 for being "unviable to continue on a technical level".
Features
Pro Tools workflow is organized into two main windows: the timeline is shown in the Edit window, while the mixer is shown in the Mix window. MIDI and Score Editor windows provide a dedicated environment to edit MIDI. Different window layouts, along with shown and hidden tracks and their width settings, can be stored and recalled from the Window configuration list.
Timeline
The timeline provides a graphical representation of all types of tracks: the audio envelope or waveform (when zoomed in) for audio tracks, a piano roll showing MIDI notes and controller values for MIDI and Instrument tracks, a sequence of frame thumbnails for video tracks, audio levels for auxiliary, master and VCA master tracks. Alternate audio and MIDI content can be recorded, shown, and edited in multiple layers for each track (called playlists), which can be used for track compositing. All the mixer parameters (such as track and sends volume, pan, and mute status) and plug-in parameters can be changed over time through automation. Any automation type can be shown and edited in multiple lanes for each track. Track-based volume automation can be converted to clip-based automation and vice versa; automation of any type can also be copied and pasted to any other automation type.
Time can be measured and displayed on the timeline in different scales: bars and beats, time or SMPTE timecode (with selectable frame rates), audio samples, or film stock feet for audio-for-film referencing (based on the 35 mm film format). Tempo and meter changes can also be programmed; both MIDI and audio clips can move or time-stretch to follow tempo changes ("tick-based" tracks) or maintain their absolute position ("sample-based" tracks). Elastic Audio must be enabled to allow time stretching of audio clips.
Editing
Audio and MIDI clips can be moved, cut, and duplicated non-destructively on the timeline (edits change the clip organization on the timeline, but source files are not overwritten). Time stretching (TCE), pitch shifting, equalization, and dynamics processing can be applied to audio clips non-destructively and in real-time with Elastic Audio and Clip Effects; gain can be adjusted statically or dynamically on individual clips with Clip Gain; fade and crossfades can be applied, adjusted and are processed in real-time. All other types of audio processing can be rendered on the timeline with the AudioSuite (non-real-time) version of AAX plug-ins. Audio clips can be converted to MIDI data using the Celemony Melodyne engine; pitches with timing and velocities are extracted through melodic, polyphonic, or rhythmic analysis algorithms. Pitch and rhythm of audio tracks can also be viewed and manipulated with the bundled Melodyne Essential.
MIDI notes, velocities, and controllers can be edited directly on the timeline, each MIDI track showing an individual piano roll, or in a specific window, where several MIDI and Instrument tracks can be shown together in a single piano roll with color-coding. Multiple MIDI controllers for each track can be viewed and edited on different lanes. MIDI tracks can also be shown in musical notation within a score editor. MIDI data such as note quantization, duration, transposition, delay, and velocity can also be altered non-destructively and in real-time on a track-per-track basis.
Video files can be imported to one or more video tracks and organized in multiple playlists. Multiple video files can be edited together and played back in real-time. Video processing is GPU-accelerated and managed by the Avid Video Engine (AVE). Video output from one video track is provided in a separate window or can be viewed full screen.
Mixing
The virtual mixer shows controls and components of all tracks, including inserts, sends, input and output assignments, automation read/write controls, panning, solo/mute buttons, arm record buttons, the volume fader, the level meter, and the track name. It also can show additional controls for the inserted virtual instrument, mic preamp gain, HEAT settings, and the EQ curve of supported plug-ins. Each track inputs and outputs can have different channel depths: mono, stereo, multichannel (LCR, LCRS, Quad, 5.0/5.1, 6.0/6.1, 7.0/7.1); Dolby Atmos and Ambisonics formats are also available for mixing.
Audio can be routed to and from different outputs and inputs, both physical and internal. Internal routing is achieved using busses and auxiliary tracks; each track can have multiple output assignments. Virtual instruments are loaded on Instrument tracks—a specific type of track that receives MIDI data in input and returns audio in output.
Plug-ins are processed in real-time with dedicated DSP chips (AAX DSP format) or using the host computer's CPU (AAX Native format).
Track rendering
Audio, auxiliary, and Instrument tracks (or MIDI tracks routed to a virtual instrument plug-in) can be committed to new tracks containing their rendered output. Virtual instruments can be committed to audio to prepare an arrangement project for mixing; track commit is also used to free up system resources during mixing or when the session is shared with systems not having some plug-ins installed. Multiple tracks can be rendered at a time; it is also possible to render a specific timeline selection and define which range of inserts to render.
Similarly, tracks can be frozen with their output rendered at the end of the plug-in chain or at a specific insert of their chain. Editing is suspended on frozen tracks, but they can subsequently be unfrozen if further adjustments are needed. For example, virtual instruments can be frozen to free up system memory and improve performance while keeping the possibility to unfreeze them to make arrangement changes.
Mixdown
The main mix of the session—or any internal mix bus or output path—can be bounced to disk in real-time (if hardware inserts from analog hardware are used, or if any audio or MIDI source is monitored live into the session) or offline (faster-than-real-time). The selected source can be mixed to mono, stereo, or any other multichannel format. Multichannel mixdowns can be written as an interleaved audio file or in multiple mono files. Up to 24 sources of up to 10 channels each can be mixed down simultaneously—for example, to deliver audio stems.
Audio and video can be bounced together to a MOV file; video is transcoded with the DNxHD, DNxHR, Apple ProRes, and H.264 video codecs.
Session data exchange
Session data can be partially or entirely exchanged with other DAWs or video editing software that support AAF, OMF, or MXF. AAF and OMF sequences embed audio and video files with their metadata; when opened by the destination application, session structure is rebuilt with the original clip placement, edits, and basic track and clip automation.
Track contents and any of its properties can be selectively exchanged between Pro Tools sessions with Import Session Data (for example, importing audio clips from an external session to a designated track while keeping track settings or importing track inserts while keeping audio clips). Similarly, the same track data for any track set—a given processing chain, a collection of clips, or a group of tracks with their assignments—can be stored and recalled as Track Presets.
Cloud collaboration
Pro Tools projects can be synchronized to the Avid Cloud and shared with other users on a track-by-track basis. Different users can simultaneously work on the project and upload new tracks or any changes to existing tracks (such as audio and MIDI clips, automation, inserted plug-ins, and mixer status) or alterations to the project structure (such as tempo, meter, or key).
Field recorder workflows
Pro Tools reads embedded metadata in media files to manage multichannel recordings made by field recorders in production sound. All stored metadata (such as scene and take numbers, tape or sound roll name, or production comments) can be accessed in the Workspace browser.
Analogous audio clips are identified by overlapping longitudinal timecode (LTC) and by one or more user-defined criteria (such as matching file length, file name, or scene and take numbers). An audio segment can be replaced from matching channels (for example, to replace audio from a boom microphone with the audio from a lavalier microphone) while maintaining edits and fades in the timeline, or any matching channels can be added to new tracks.
Multi-system linking and device synchronization
Up to twelve Pro Tools Ultimate systems with dedicated hardware can be linked together over an Ethernet network—for example, in multi-user mixing environments where different mix components (such as dialog, ADR, effects, and music) reside on different systems, or if a larger track count or processing power is needed. Transport, solo, and mute are controlled by a single system and with a single control surface. One system can also be designated for video playback to optimize performance. Pro Tools can synchronize to external devices using SMPTE/EBU timecode or MIDI timecode.
Editions
Pro Tools software is available in three subscription-based paid versions (Artist, Studio and Ultimate) and one free version (Intro).
Before 2022, two different perpetual licenses could be purchased: a standard edition for US$599 (informally called "Vanilla"), which provided all the key features for audio mixing and post-production, and a complete edition for US$2599 (officially called "Ultimate" and known as "HD" between 2002 and 2018), which unlocked functionality for advanced workflows and a higher track count.
Control surfaces
In the mid-1990s, Digidesign started working on a studio device that could replace classic analog consoles and provide integration with Pro Tools. ProControl (1998) was the first Digidesign control surface, providing motorized, touch-sensitive faders, an analog control room communication section, and connecting to the host computer via Ethernet. ProControl could be later expanded by adding up to five fader packs, each providing eight additional fader strips and controls.
Control 24 (2001) added 5.1 monitoring support and included 16 class A preamps designed by Focusrite. Icon D-Control (2004) incorporated an HD Accel system and was developed for larger TV and film productions in mind. Command|8 (2004) and D-Command (2005) were the smaller counterparts of Control 24 and D-Control, connected with the host computer via USB; Venue (2005) was a similar system specifically designed for live sound applications.
C|24 (2007) was a revision of Control 24 with improved preamps, while Icon D-Control ES (2008) and Icon D-Command ES (2009) were redesigns of Icon D-Control and D-Command.
In 2010 Avid acquired Euphonix, manufacturer of the Artist Series, and System 5 control surfaces. They were integrated with Pro Tools along with the EuCon protocols. Avid S6 (2013) and Avid S3 (2014) control surfaces followed by merging the Icon and System 5 series. Pro Tools Dock (2015) was an iPad-based control surface running Pro Tools Control software.
Timeline of Pro Tools hardware and software
See also
Comparison of multitrack recording software
List of music software
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
External links
Avid Pro Tools
Digital audio workstation software
Audio recording software
Music production software
Electronic music software
Music software
Soundtrack creation software
Sound recording
Audio engineering
MacOS multimedia software
Windows multimedia software
1989 software |
420806 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernie%20Fletcher | Ernie Fletcher | Ernest Lee Fletcher (born November 12, 1952) is an American physician and politician who was the 60th governor of Kentucky from 2003 to 2007. He previously served three consecutive terms in the United States House of Representatives before resigning after elected governor. A member of the Republican Party, Fletcher was a family practice physician and a Baptist lay minister and is the second physician to be elected Governor of Kentucky; the first was Luke P. Blackburn in 1879. He was also the first Republican governor of Kentucky since Louie Nunn left office in 1971.
Fletcher graduated from the University of Kentucky and joined the United States Air Force to pursue his dream of becoming an astronaut. He left the Air Force after budget cuts reduced his squadron's flying time and earned a degree in medicine, hoping to earn a spot as a civilian on a space mission. Deteriorating eyesight eventually ended those hopes, and he entered private practice as a physician and conducted services as a Baptist lay minister. He became active in politics and was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1994. Two years later he ran for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, but lost to incumbent Scotty Baesler. When Baesler retired to run for a seat in the U.S. Senate, Fletcher again ran for the congressional seat and defeated Democratic state senator Ernesto Scorsone. He soon became one of the House Republican caucus' top advisors regarding health care legislation, particularly the Patients' Bill of Rights.
Fletcher was elected governor in 2003 over state Attorney General Ben Chandler. Early in his term, Fletcher achieved some savings to the state by reorganizing the executive branch. He proposed an overhaul to the state tax code in 2004, but was unable to get it passed through the General Assembly. When Republicans in the state senate insisted on tying the reforms to the state budget, the legislature adjourned without passing either and the state operated under an executive spending plan drafted by Fletcher until 2005, when both the budget and the reforms were passed.
Later in 2005, Attorney General Greg Stumbo, the state's highest-ranking Democrat, launched an investigation into whether the Fletcher administration's hiring practices violated the state's merit system. A grand jury returned several indictments against members of Fletcher's staff, and eventually against Fletcher himself. Fletcher issued pardons for anyone on his staff implicated in the investigation, but did not pardon himself. Though the investigation was ended by an agreement between Fletcher and Stumbo in late 2006, it continued to overshadow Fletcher's re-election bid in 2007. After turning back a challenge in the Republican primary by former Congresswoman Anne Northup, Fletcher lost the general election to Democrat Steve Beshear. After his term as governor, he returned to the medical field as founder and CEO of Alton Healthcare. He is married and has two adult children.
Early life
Ernest Lee Fletcher was born in Mount Sterling, Kentucky, on November 12, 1952. He was the third of four children born to Harold Fletcher Sr. and his wife, Marie. The family owned a farm and operated a general store near the community of Means. Harold Fletcher also worked for Columbia Gas. When Ernie was three weeks old, Harold was transferred to Huntington, West Virginia. Two years later, the Fletchers returned to Robertson County, Kentucky, where they lived until Ernie Fletcher began the first grade. The family moved once more and finally settled in Lexington.
Fletcher attended Lafayette High School in Lexington, where he was a member of the National Beta Club. During his senior year, he was an all-state saxophone player and was elected prom king. After graduating in 1970, he enrolled at the University of Kentucky. He pledged and became a member of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity. After his freshman year, he married his high school sweetheart, Glenna Foster. The couple had two children, Rachel and Ben, and four grandchildren.
Fletcher aspired to become an astronaut, and joined the Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps. In 1974, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering, graduating with top honors. After graduation, he joined the U.S. Air Force. After flight training in Oklahoma, he was stationed in Alaska where he served as a F-4E Aircraft commander and NORAD Alert Force commander. During the Cold War, his duties included commanding squadrons to intercept Soviet military aircraft. In 1980, as budget cutbacks were reducing his squadron's flying time, Fletcher turned down a regular commission in the Air Force. He left the Air Force with the rank of captain, having received the Air Force Commendation Medal and the Outstanding Unit Award.
Fletcher enrolled in the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, hoping that a medical degree, along with a military background, would earn him a civilian spot on a space mission. In 1984, he graduated medical school with a Doctor of Medicine degree, but his deteriorating eyesight forced him to abandon his dreams of becoming an astronaut.
In 1983, the Lexington Primitive Baptist church that Fletcher attended ordained him as a lay minister. In 1984, he opened a family medical practice in Lexington. Along with former classmate Dr. James D. B. George, he co-founded the South Lexington Family Physicians in 1987. For two years, he concurrently held the title of chief executive officer of the Saint Joseph Medical Foundation, an organization that solicits private gifts to Saint Joseph Regional Medical Center in Lexington. In 1989, Fletcher's church called him to become its unpaid pastor, but over the years, he grew to question some of the church's doctrines, desiring it to become more evangelistic. Consequently, he left the Primitive Baptist denomination in 1994 and joined the Porter Memorial Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation.
Legislative career
Through his church ministry, Fletcher became acquainted with a group of social conservatives that gained control of the Fayette County Republican Party in 1990. (Fayette County and the city of Lexington operate under the merged Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government). Fletcher accepted an invitation to become a member of the county Republican committee. In 1994, he was elected to the Kentucky House of Representatives, defeating incumbent Democrat Leslie Trapp. He represented Kentucky's 78th District and served on the Kentucky Commission on Poverty and the Task Force on Higher Education. He was also chosen by Governor Paul E. Patton to assist with reforming the state's health-care system.
As a result of legislative redistricting in 1996, Fletcher's district was consolidated with the one represented by fellow Republican Stan Cave. Rather than challenge a member of his own party, Fletcher decided to run for a seat representing Kentucky's 6th District in the U.S. House of Representatives later that year. After winning a three-way Republican primary by 4 votes over his closest opponent, he was defeated by incumbent Democrat Scotty Baesler by just over 25,000 votes. In 1998, Baesler resigned his seat to run for the U.S. Senate seat vacated due to the retirement of Senator Wendell H. Ford. Fletcher won the Republican primary for Baesler's seat by a wide margin. In the general election, Fletcher faced Democrat Ernesto Scorsone. The Lexington Herald-Leader billed the race as "a classic joust between the left and the right". Fletcher was strongly opposed to abortion, advocated a "flatter, fairer, simpler" tax system, and called for returning most federal education funding to local communities. Scorsone supported abortion rights, called a flat tax "too regressive", and favored national educational testing and standards. Fletcher defeated Scorsone by a vote of 104,046 to 90,033, with third-party candidate W. S. Krogdahl garnering 1,839 votes.
Within months of arriving in Washington, D.C., Fletcher was selected as the leadership liaison for the 17-member freshman class of Republican legislators. He was appointed to the Committee on Education and Workforce, and John Boehner, chair of the committee's employer/employee relations subcommittee, chose Fletcher as his vice-chair. The committee's purpose is to oversee the rules for employer-paid health plans, among other issues, and although it is rare for a freshman legislator to attain a committee leadership post, Boehner cited Fletcher's experience in the medical field and work on reforming the Kentucky health care system as reasons for the appointment. Fletcher also served as a member of the House Committees on the Budget and Agriculture. In June 1999, he sponsored an amendment to a youth violence bill that allowed school districts to use federal funds to develop curricula which included elements designed to promote and enhance students' moral character; the amendment passed 422–1. Later, Fletcher was assigned to the Committee on Energy and Commerce and was selected as chairman of the Policy Subcommittee on Health.
During the debate over the proposed Patients' Bill of Rights legislation, Fletcher opposed a Democratic proposal that would have allowed individuals to sue their health maintenance organizations (HMOs), favoring instead a more limited bill drafted by Republican leadership that expanded the patient's ability to appeal HMO decisions. Many doctors in the Republican legislative caucus felt their party's bill did not go far enough; Fletcher and Tennessee Senator Bill Frist were notable exceptions. Fletcher's position cost him the support of the Kentucky Medical Association (KMA). After contributing to his campaign against Scorsone in 1998, KMA backed Scotty Baesler's bid to regain his old seat from Fletcher in 2000. However, Baesler only captured 35 percent of the vote to Fletcher's 53 percent. The remaining 12 percent went to third-party candidate Gatewood Galbraith.
After the 2000 election, Fletcher crafted a compromise bill that allowed patients to sue their HMOs in federal court, capped pain and suffering awards at $500,000, and eliminated punitive damage awards. Despite an eventual compromise allowing patient lawsuits to go to state courts under certain circumstances and heavy lobbying in favor of Fletcher's bill by President George W. Bush, the House refused to pass it, favoring an alternative proposal by Georgia's Charlie Norwood that was less restrictive on patient lawsuits.
Fletcher faced no major-party opposition in his re-election bid in 2002 after the only Democrat in the race, 24-year-old Roy Miller Cornett Jr., withdrew his candidacy. Independent Gatewood Galbraith again made the race; Libertarian Mark Gailey also mounted a challenge. In the final vote tally, Fletcher received 115,522 votes to Galbraith's 41,853 and Gailey's 3,313.
2003 gubernatorial election
In 2002, Fletcher was encouraged by Senator Mitch McConnell, the leader of Kentucky's Republican Party, to run for governor and formed an exploratory committee the same year. On December 2, 2002, he announced that he would run on a ticket with McConnell aide Hunter Bates. Early in 2003, a Republican college student named Curtis Shain challenged Bates' candidacy on grounds that he did not meet the residency requirements set forth for the lieutenant governor in the state constitution. Under the constitution, candidates for both governor and lieutenant governor must be citizens of the state for at least six years prior to the election. From August 1995 to February 2002, Bates and his wife rented an apartment in Alexandria, Virginia while Bates was working for a law firm in Washington, D.C., and later, as McConnell's chief of staff. Bob Heleringer, a former state representative from suburban Louisville and the running mate of Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Nunn, joined the suit as a plaintiff. In March 2003, an Oldham County judge ruled that Bates had not established residency in Kentucky. He cited the fact that from 1995 to 2002, Bates held a Virginia driver's license, paid Virginia income taxes, and "regularly" slept in his apartment in Virginia. Bates did not appeal the ruling because by allowing the judge to declare a vacancy on the ballot, Fletcher was able to name a replacement running mate, an option that would not have been afforded him had Bates withdrawn.
Fletcher chose Steve Pence, United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky, as his new running mate. Heleringer continued his legal challenge, first claiming that Bates' ineligibility should have invalidated the entire Fletcher/Bates ticket and then that Fletcher should not have been allowed to name a replacement for an unqualified candidate. The Kentucky Supreme Court rejected that argument on May 7, 2003, though the justices' reasons for doing so varied and the final opinion conceded that "[t]his is a close case on the law, and Heleringer has presented legal issues worthy of this court's time and attention". The state Board of Elections instructed all county clerks to count absentee ballots cast for Fletcher and Bates as votes for Fletcher and Pence.
In the Republican primary, Fletcher received 53 percent of the vote, besting Nunn, Jefferson County judge/executive Rebecca Jackson, and state senator Virgil Moore. In the Democratic primary, Attorney General Ben Chandler defeated Speaker of the House Jody Richards. Chandler, the grandson of former governor A. B. "Happy" Chandler, was hurt in the closing days of the campaign when a third challenger, businessman Bruce Lunsford dropped out of the race and endorsed Richards. Chandler won the Democratic primary by just 3.7 percentage points and was forced to reorganize his campaign. Consequently, Fletcher entered the general election as the favorite.
Due to the funding from the Republican Governors Association, Fletcher held a two-to-one fundraising advantage over Chandler. A sex-for-favors scandal that ensnared sitting Democratic governor Paul Patton, as well as a predicted $710 million shortfall in the upcoming budget, damaged the entire Democratic slate of candidates' chances for election. Fletcher capitalized on these issues, promising to "clean up the mess" in Frankfort, and won the election by a vote of 596,284 to 487,159. In all, Republicans captured four of the seven statewide constitutional offices in 2003; Trey Grayson was elected Secretary of State and Richie Farmer was elected Commissioner of Agriculture. Fletcher resigned his seat in the House on December 8, 2003, and assumed the governorship the following day. Fletcher's victory made him the first Republican elected governor of Kentucky since 1971, and his margin of victory was the largest ever for a Republican in a Kentucky gubernatorial election.
Governor of Kentucky
Fletcher made economic development a priority, and Kentucky ranked fourth among all U.S. states in number of jobs created during his administration. One of his first actions as governor was to reorganize the executive branch, condensing the number of cabinet positions from fourteen to nine. He dissolved the former Kentucky Horse Racing Commission and instead created the Kentucky Horse Racing Authority to promote and regulate the state's horse racing industry. To improve the state's management of Medicaid, he rolled back some of the program's requirements and unveiled a plan to focus on improvements in care, benefit management, and technology. Fletcher also launched "Get Healthy Kentucky!," an initiative to promote healthier lifestyles for Kentuckians.
2004 state budget dispute
Throughout Fletcher's term, the Kentucky Senate was controlled by Republicans, while Democrats held a majority in the state House of Representatives. Consequently, Fletcher had difficulty getting legislation enacted in the General Assembly. Early in the 2004 legislative session, he presented a plan for tax reform that he claimed was "revenue neutral" and would "modernize" the state tax code. The plan was drafted with input from seven Democratic legislators in the House, none of them in leadership roles, leading to claims that Fletcher was trying to circumvent House leadership. As the session wore on, Republicans insisted on tying the tax reform package to the proposed state budget, while Democrats wanted to vote on the measures separately. Despite last minute attempts at a compromise as the session drew to a close, the Assembly passed neither the tax reform package nor a state budget. The contentious session ended with only a few accomplishments, including passage of a fetal homicide law, an anti-price gouging measure, and a law barring the state public service commission from regulating broadband Internet providers beyond what restrictions were put in place by the Federal Communications Commission.
The 2004 session marked the second consecutive session in which the General Assembly had failed to pass a biennial budget; the first occurred in 2002 under Governor Patton. When the fiscal year ended without a budget in place, responsibility for state expenditures fell to Fletcher. As it had been in 2002, spending was governed by an executive spending plan created by the governor. Democratic Attorney General Greg Stumbo filed suit asking for a determination on the extent of Fletcher's ability to spend without legislative approval. A similar suit, filed after the 2002 session ended in deadlock, was rendered moot when the legislature passed a budget in a special session prior to the conclusion of the lawsuit. A judicial review by a Franklin County circuit court judge approved Fletcher's spending plan but forbade spending on new capital projects and programs. In late December 2004, a judge ruled that Fletcher's plan could continue to govern spending until the end of the fiscal year on June 30, 2005, but "thereafter" executive spending was to be limited to "funds demonstrated to be for limited and specific essential services."
On May 19, 2005, the Kentucky Supreme Court issued a 4–3 decision stating that the General Assembly had acted unconstitutionally by not passing a budget and that Fletcher had acted outside his constitutional authority by spending money not specifically appropriated by the legislature. The majority opinion rejected the lower court's exception for "specific essential services", saying "If the legislative department fails to appropriate funds deemed sufficient to operate the executive department at a desired level of services, the executive department must serve the citizenry as best it can with what it is given. If the citizenry deems those services insufficient, it will exercise its own constitutional power – the ballot." Chief Justice Joseph Lambert dissented, claiming the executive spending plan was necessary. Two other justices, in a separate opinion, disagreed with the majority that federal and state constitutional mandates should still be funded in the absence of a budget. In their dissent, they argued that the threat of a government shutdown would act as an impetus for the General Assembly to engage in timely budget-making. The decision took no retroactive steps to change the actions it ruled unconstitutional, but it served as a precedent for any future cases of budgetary gridlock.
Legislative interim and 2005 legislative session
In June 2004, Fletcher's aircraft caused a security scare that triggered a brief evacuation of the U.S. Capitol and Supreme Court building. Shortly after takeoff en route to memorial services for former president Ronald Reagan, the transponder on Fletcher's plane malfunctioned, leading officials at Reagan National Airport to report an unauthorized aircraft entering restricted airspace. Two F-15 fighters were dispatched to investigate, and Fletcher's plane was escorted to its destination by two Blackhawk helicopters. The plane, a 33-year-old Beechcraft King Air, was the oldest of its model still in operation. An investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) found that the crew of Fletcher's plane maintained radio contact with air traffic officials and received clearance to enter the restricted air space. The investigation determined that miscommunication by air traffic controllers sparked the panic, and in the aftermath of the incident, the FAA adopted policies to prevent future errors of a similar nature.
In July 2004, Fletcher announced a plan to unify the state's branding to improve its public perception. Shortly after the announcement, late-night comedians Craig Kilborn and Jay Leno made some tongue-in-cheek suggestions for the new slogan on The Late Late Show and The Tonight Show, respectively. In response, Fletcher wrote a letter to both comedians taking exception to the jokes and was invited to appear on both programs. Citing Leno's larger audience and earlier time slot, Fletcher agreed to appear on The Tonight Show, where he presented Leno with a Louisville Slugger baseball bat and traded jocular barbs about the relative advantages of Kentucky and Los Angeles where The Tonight Show is taped. Eventually, four slogans were chosen to be voted on online as well as at interstate travel centers. In December 2004, "Kentucky: Unbridled Spirit" was chosen as the winning slogan and was printed on road signs, state documents, and souvenirs. A 2007 study determined that 88.9% of Kentuckians could correctly identify the slogan and its logo. Further, 64% of those surveyed across a ten-state region recognized the slogan and logo, higher than any other brand tested in the study.
In the second half of 2004, Fletcher proposed changes to the health benefits of state workers and retirees. Fletcher's plan provided discounts for members who engaged in healthier behavior, which he called a transition from a sickness initiative to a wellness initiative. Acknowledging that out-of-pocket expenses would rise, Fletcher proposed a 1% salary increase to offset the additional costs. State employees, particularly public school teachers, broadly opposed Fletcher's plan, and the Kentucky Educators Association called for an indefinite strike, to begin October 27, 2004. To address the opposition, Fletcher called a special session of the legislature to begin October 5, 2004. Although the state was still operating under an executive spending plan, Fletcher did not include the budget or his tax reform proposal in the session's agenda, a move praised by both parties, allowing them to focus only on concerns over the health plan. In a fifteen-day session, the General Assembly passed a plan that allocated $190 million more to health insurance for state workers and restored many of the most popular benefits in the previous insurance plan. Immediately after the session adjourned, the Kentucky Educators Association voted to cancel their proposed strike.
On November 8, 2004, Fletcher signed a death warrant for Thomas Clyde Bowling, who was convicted of a double murder in 1990 and sentenced to death by lethal injection. A group of doctors requested an investigation by the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure to determine whether Fletcher's medical license should be revoked for that action. Kentucky requires doctors to follow the guidelines of the American Medical Association, which forbid doctors from participating in an execution. On January 13, 2005, the Board of Medical Licensure found that Fletcher was acting in his capacity as governor, not as a doctor, when he signed the warrant and ruled that his license was not subject to forfeiture by that action.
During the General Assembly's 2005 session, Fletcher again proposed his tax reform plan, and late in the session, both houses passed it. The plan raised sin taxes on cigarettes and alcohol, as well as upping taxes on satellite television service and motel rooms. Businesses were also subjected to a gross receipts tax. In exchange, corporate taxes were lowered, as were income taxes for individuals who earned less than $75,000 annually; 300,000 low-wage earners were dropped from the income tax rolls altogether. The Assembly also passed a budget for the remainder of the biennium, abolished the state's public campaign finance laws, and passed new school nutrition guidelines.
Merit system investigation
In May 2005, Attorney General Stumbo began an investigation of allegations that the Fletcher administration circumvented the state merit system for hiring, promoting, demoting and firing state employees by basing decisions on employees' political loyalties. The investigation was prompted by a 276-page complaint filed by Douglas W. Doerting, the assistant personnel director for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. Fletcher, who was on a trade mission in Japan when news of the investigation broke, conceded via telephone news conference that his office may have made "mistakes" with regard to hiring that stemmed from not having a formal process for handling employment recommendations. Upon his return from Japan, Fletcher denied that the "mistakes" by his administration were illegal and called the investigation by Stumbo "the beginning of the 2007 governor's race", an allusion to Stumbo's potential candidacy in 2007. Stumbo denied any plans to run for governor in 2007, although he eventually became gubernatorial candidate Bruce Lunsford's running mate in the election, losing in the Democratic primary.
A grand jury was empaneled in June 2005 to investigate the charges against Fletcher's administration. By August, the jury had returned indictments against nine administration officials, including state Republican Party chairman Darrell Brock Jr. and acting Transportation Secretary Bill Nighbert. All of the indictments were for misdemeanors such as conspiracy except those against Administrative Services Commissioner Dan Druen, who was charged with 22 felonies (20 counts of physical evidence tampering and 2 counts of witness tampering) in addition to 13 misdemeanors. On August 29, Fletcher granted pardons to the nine indicted administration officials and issued a blanket pardon for "any and all persons who have committed, or may be accused of committing, any offense" with regard to the investigation. Fletcher exempted himself from the blanket pardon. The next day, Fletcher was called to testify before the grand jury, but refused to answer any questions, invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
In mid-September, after Fletcher issued the pardons, a Courier-Journal poll found Fletcher's approval rating at 38 percent, tying the lowest rating reached by his predecessor, Paul E. Patton, during the sex scandal that tarnished his administration. On September 14, 2005, Fletcher fired nine employees, including four of the nine he pardoned two weeks earlier. The firings were praised by Fletcher critic Charles Wells of the Kentucky Association of State Employees, who said: "When all else fails, the governor did the right thing." However, Democratic state senator and former governor Julian Carroll criticized Fletcher for not firing the indicted officials when he issued the pardons. Fletcher also called for the firing of state Republican Party chair Darrell Brock Jr. due to Brock's role in the merit scandal. The state Republican executive committee met on September 17, but did not act on Fletcher's call to fire Brock.
The grand jury continued its investigation, issuing five more indictments after Fletcher issued his blanket pardon. Two were returned against members of Fletcher's staff, and two were against unpaid advisors to Fletcher. The fifth was issued against Acting Secretary Nighbert for retaliation against a whistleblower. Only the additional charge against Nighbert was alleged to have occurred after Fletcher issued the pardon. On October 24, 2005, Fletcher filed a motion asking Franklin Circuit Court Judge William Graham to order the grand jury to stop issuing indictments for offenses that occurred prior to the blanket pardon; only the names of indicted officials could be included in the jury's final report. On November 16, Graham ruled that the grand jury could continue issuing indictments, but in a separate ruling, dismissed the indictments against Fletcher's staff and volunteer advisors on grounds that they were covered by the pardon. Graham did not rule on the latest indictment against Nighbert. The Kentucky Court of Appeals affirmed Graham's ruling on December 16. Immediately after the Court of Appeals' ruling, Fletcher announced his intent to appeal the ruling to the Kentucky Supreme Court.
2006 legislative session
On February 12, 2006, shortly after the beginning of the General Assembly's legislative session, Fletcher was hospitalized with abdominal pain. Doctors at St. Joseph East hospital in Lexington found a gallstone in his common bile duct and also diagnosed him with an inflamed pancreas and gallbladder disease. After surgery to remove the gallbladder, Fletcher developed a blood infection that slowed his recovery, but was discharged from the hospital on March 1. Days later, he returned to St. Joseph's with a blood clot which had to be dissolved, resulting in another five-day stay in the hospital. Fletcher staffers insisted that his absence did not have a negative impact on his ability to get legislation passed during the session. A right-to-work law and a repeal of the state's prevailing wage law – both advocated by Fletcher – failed early in the session, but both had been considered unlikely to pass before the session started. Among the bills that did pass the session were a mandatory seat belt law, a law requiring children under 16 years old to wear a helmet when operating an all-terrain vehicle, and legislation allowing the Ten Commandments to be posted on Capitol grounds in a historical context.
The Assembly passed a biennial budget, but did not allow enough time in the session to reconvene and potentially override any of Fletcher's vetoes. In an attempt to avoid "excessive debt", Fletcher used his line-item veto to trim $370 million in projects from the budget passed by the Assembly. Although falling far short of his initial prediction of vetoing $938 million, Fletcher used the line-item veto more than any other governor in state history. One project not vetoed by Fletcher was $11 million for the University of the Cumberlands to build a pharmacy school. LGBT rights groups had asked Fletcher to veto the funds because the university, a private Baptist school, had expelled a student for being openly gay.
One of Fletcher's priorities that was not resolved during the session was the correction of unintended tax increases on businesses that resulted from the tax reform plan passed in 2005. Fletcher called a special legislative session for mid-June so that the legislature could amend the plan and also authorize tax breaks designed to lure a proposed FutureGen power plant to Henderson. Republican Senate President David L. Williams asked Fletcher to include tax breaks for other businesses as well, but Fletcher insisted on a sparse legislative agenda. The session convened for five days and passed the tax breaks and amended tax reform plan unanimously in both houses. Fletcher applauded the legislature's efficiency.
Investigation concludes
As the Kentucky Supreme Court prepared to hear Fletcher's appeal on whether the grand jury could continue to indict people covered by his blanket pardon, two of the court's seven justices recused themselves from the case, citing conflicts of interest. Kentucky's constitution provides that, in the case of more than one recusal on the court, the governor is to appoint special justices to replace them. Accordingly, Fletcher named two replacements, but one of those – Circuit Judge Jeffrey Burdette – declined to serve on grounds that he had contributed to Fletcher's 2003 gubernatorial campaign. Fletcher then named another special justice to replace Burdette, consistent with a precedent set by former Democratic Governor Brereton Jones. Stumbo challenged this third appointment, claiming that Burdette's refusal to serve created only one vacancy on the court, and that the case could be tried with six justices. The Kentucky Supreme Court sustained Stumbo's complaint. In a 4–2 ruling issued May 18, 2006, the Kentucky Supreme Court barred the grand jury from issuing further indictments against individuals covered by Fletcher's blanket pardon, reversing the Court of Appeals. The ruling did not affect indictments for crimes allegedly committed after the pardon was issued. The Supreme Court also held that the grand jury could issue a general report of its findings at the conclusion of its investigation, but left open the question of whether the names of unindicted individuals could appear in the report. A later decision by the Court of Appeals found that unindicted individuals could not be named in the report.
Just prior to the Supreme Court's ruling, the grand jury handed down indictments against Fletcher for three misdemeanors – conspiracy, official misconduct, and political discrimination. Fletcher did not appear at his arraignment on June 9 because he was on vacation in Florida; his attorney entered "not guilty" pleas to all three charges on his behalf. On August 11, 2006, Special Judge David E. Melcher ruled that because the personnel violations were allegedly committed while Fletcher was acting in his official capacity as governor, he was protected by executive immunity and could not be prosecuted until he left office. Melcher asked that the two sides work together to reach a settlement in the case. On August 24, Fletcher and Stumbo announced such an agreement. Under the settlement, Fletcher acknowledged that evidence "strongly indicate[d] wrongdoing by his administration" but did not admit any wrongdoing personally. Fletcher also acknowledged that Stumbo's prosecution of the case "[was a] necessary and proper [exercise] of his constitutional duty" and ensured that abuses of the merit system would be ended. In addition to dropping the charges against Fletcher, Stumbo conceded that any violations by Fletcher's administration were "without malice". Four members of the state Personnel Board who were appointed by Fletcher were required to step down. Their replacements would be chosen by Fletcher from a list provided by Stumbo.
The grand jury issued its report on the investigation in October 2006, and a judge ordered it released to the public on November 16. The report categorized the Fletcher administration's actions as "a widespread and coordinated plan to violate merit hiring laws." It charged that "This investigation was not about a few people here and there who made some mistakes as Governor Ernie Fletcher had claimed," and lamented that the blanket pardon issued by Fletcher, coupled with Fletcher taking the Fifth, made it "difficult to get to the bottom of the facts of this case....As a result, [the grand jury was] in part forced to rely on documentary evidence to piece together the facts of the case." Fletcher opined that the allegations in the report were inconsistent with his settlement with Stumbo, which acknowledged that Fletcher's administration acted "without malice."
2007 gubernatorial election
In early 2005, Fletcher announced his intent to run for re-election. Shortly after Fletcher was indicted by the grand jury in 2006, Lieutenant Governor Pence announced that he would not be Fletcher's running mate during his re-election bid. Fletcher asked for Pence's immediate resignation as lieutenant governor. Pence declined, but did tender his resignation as head of the Justice Cabinet. Fletcher named his executive secretary, Robbie Rudolph, as his new running mate.
Although Fletcher's agreement with Stumbo to end the investigation was announced in late 2006, the scandal continued to plague his re-election bid, and he drew two challengers in the Republican primary – former Third District Congresswoman Anne Northup and multi-millionaire Paducah businessman Billy Harper. Senator Mitch McConnell, the consensus leader of the Kentucky Republican Party, declined to make an endorsement in the primary, but conceded that Northup was "a formidable opponent". Northup campaigned on the idea that Fletcher's involvement in the hiring scandal had made him "unelectable". Northup secured the endorsements of Jim Bunning, Kentucky's other Republican senator, and Lieutenant Governor Pence. In the primary, Fletcher garnered over 50% of the vote and secured the party's nomination. His rival Northup struggled with name recognition and found few areas of support outside the Louisville district she represented in Congress. She garnered 36.5% of the vote, with the remaining 13.4% going to Billy Harper. Democrats nominated former Lieutenant Governor Steve Beshear to challenge Fletcher.
In the midst of the primary campaign, the 2007 General Assembly convened. Among the accomplishments of the session were raising the state's minimum wage to $7.25 per hour, increasing the speed limit on major state highways to , and implementing new safety requirements for social workers and coal miners. Additional legislation stalled after negotiations over how to make the state's retirement system solvent reached an impasse. Fletcher indicated that he would consider calling the Assembly into special session later in the year. In July, Fletcher called the session and included 67 items on its agenda. Democrats in the state House of Representatives maintained that none of the items were urgent enough to warrant a special session. They claimed the call was an attempt by Fletcher to boost his sagging poll numbers against Beshear, and the House adjourned after only 90 minutes without acting on any of Fletcher's agenda. Fletcher denied the claims and insisted that a tax incentive program was needed immediately to keep the state in the running for a proposed coal gasification plant to be built by Peabody Energy. After negotiating with legislators, Fletcher called another session for August; the session included only the tax incentive program, which the Assembly passed.
In the general election campaign, Fletcher attempted to make the expansion of casino gambling, rather than the merit system investigation, the central issue. Beshear favored holding a referendum on a constitutional amendment to allow expanded casino gambling in the state, while Fletcher maintained that expanded gambling would bring an increase in crime and societal ills. The gambling issue failed to gain as much traction as the hiring scandal, however, and Beshear defeated Fletcher by a vote of 619,686 to 435,895.
After the election, Fletcher founded Alton Healthcare, a consulting firm that helps healthcare providers make efficient use of technology in their practice. He has served as CEO of the company, which is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, since 2008.
See also
List of Delta Tau Delta members
List of University of Kentucky alumni
List of new members of the 106th United States Congress
List of members of the United States House of Representatives in the 106th Congress by seniority
List of members of the United States House of Representatives in the 107th Congress by seniority
List of members of the United States House of Representatives in the 108th Congress by seniority
List of United States representatives from Kentucky
List of former members of the United States House of Representatives (F)
List of Republican nominees for Governor of Kentucky
List of governors of Kentucky
List of Christian preachers § Preachers with secular professions
List of Christian clergy in politics § Baptist
References
Citations
Works cited
Further reading
External links
Follow the MoneyErnie Fletcher & Stephen B Pence 2006 campaign contributions
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1952 births
Living people
Baptist ministers from the United States
Baptists from Kentucky
Republican Party governors of Kentucky
Intelligent design advocates
Military personnel from Kentucky
Republican Party members of the Kentucky House of Representatives
Politicians from Lexington, Kentucky
People from Mount Sterling, Kentucky
Republican Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Kentucky
United States Air Force officers
University of Kentucky College of Medicine alumni
Physicians from Kentucky
20th-century American politicians
21st-century American politicians
20th-century American physicians
21st-century American physicians |
420835 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation%20Biting | Operation Biting | Operation Biting, also known as the Bruneval Raid, was a British Combined Operations raid on a German coastal radar installation at Bruneval in northern France, during the Second World War, on the night .
Several of these installations were identified from Royal Air Force (RAF) aerial reconnaissance photographs during 1941, but the purpose and the nature of the equipment was not known. Some British scientists believed that these stations were connected with successful German attacks on RAF bombers conducting bombing raids against targets in Occupied Europe, resulting in severe losses of pilots and bombers. The scientists requested that one of these installations be raided and the technology it possessed be studied and, if possible, extracted and brought back to Britain for further examination.
Due to the extensive coastal defences erected by the Germans to protect the installation from a seaborne raid, the British believed that a commando raid from the sea would suffer heavy losses and give sufficient time for the enemy to destroy the installation. Officials decided that an airborne assault followed by seaborne evacuation would be the most practicable way to surprise the garrison of the installation, seize the technology intact, and minimise casualties to the raiding force.
On the night of 27 February, after a period of intense training and several delays due to poor weather, a company of airborne troops under the command of Major John Frost parachuted into France a few miles from the installation. The main force assaulted the villa in which the radar equipment was kept, killing several members of the German garrison and capturing the installation after a brief firefight.
An RAF technician with the force dismantled a Würzburg radar array and removed several key pieces, after which the force withdrew to the evacuation beach. The detachment assigned to clear the beach had initially failed to do so, but the German force guarding it was soon eliminated with the help of the main force. The raiding troops were picked up by landing craft, and transferred to several motor gunboats, which returned them to Britain.
The raid was entirely successful. The airborne troops suffered relatively few casualties, and the pieces of the radar they brought back, along with a captured German radar technician, allowed British scientists to understand enemy advances in radar and to create countermeasures to neutralize them.
Background
After the end of the Battle of France and the evacuation of British troops from Dunkirk during Operation Dynamo, much of Britain's war production and effort was channelled into RAF Bomber Command and the strategic bombing offensive against Germany. However, bomber losses on each raid began to increase during 1941, which British intelligence concluded was due to German use of advanced radar equipment.
The British and Germans had been competing in radar technology for nearly a decade at this point, with the German technology often at the same level as the British or surpassing them due to heavy investment in the fledgling technology. By the beginning of the Second World War, Britain had devised effective radar systems, primarily through the work of Robert Watson-Watt, although much of the technology was still rudimentary in nature and Watson-Watt and other scientists had failed to devise an effective night-defence system in time for the German night-time bombing of Britain during 1940.
Another British scientist working on radar systems and techniques was R. V. Jones, who had been appointed in 1939 as Britain's first scientific intelligence officer, and had spent the first years of the conflict researching how advanced German radar was in comparison to Britain, convincing doubters that the Germans actually had radar.
By examining leaked German documents, crashed bombers and Enigma decryptions, and through German prisoner of war interrogations, Jones discovered that high-frequency radio signals were being transmitted across Britain from somewhere on the Continent, and he believed they came from a directional radar system. Within a few months of this discovery, Jones had identified several such radar systems, one of which was being used to detect British bombers; this was known as the "Freya-Meldung-Freya" array, named after the ancient Norse goddess. Jones was finally able to see concrete proof of the presence of the Freya system after being shown several mysterious objects visible in reconnaissance pictures taken by the RAF near Cap d'Antifer in Normandy – two circular emplacements in each of which was a rotating "mattress" antenna approximately wide. Having found proof of these Freya installations, Jones and the other scientists under his command could begin devising countermeasures against the system, and the RAF could begin to locate and destroy the installations themselves.
Jones also found evidence of a second part of the Freya set-up, referred to in Enigma decrypts as "Würzburg", but it was not until he was shown another set of RAF reconnaissance photographs in November 1941 that he learned the nature of Würzburg. The Würzburg radar device consisted of a parabolic antenna about in diameter, which worked in conjunction with Freya to locate British bombers and then direct night fighters to attack them. The two systems complemented each other: Freya was a long-range early-warning radar system but lacked precision, Würzburg had a much shorter range but was far more precise. Würzburg FuSE 62 D, also had the advantage of being much smaller than the Freya system and easier to manufacture in the quantities needed by the to defend German territory.
Prelude
In order to neutralise the Würzburg system by developing countermeasures against it, Jones and his team needed to study one of the systems, or at least the more vital pieces of technology of which the system was composed. One site had recently been sighted by an RAF reconnaissance Spitfire from the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit during a flight over part of the French English Channel coast near Le Havre.
The site was found on a clifftop immediately north of the village of Bruneval, north of Le Havre, and was the most accessible German radar site that had been found so far by the British; several other installations were further inland and others were as far away as Romania and Bulgaria. A request for a raid on the Bruneval site to capture a Würzburg system was passed on to Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the commander of Combined Operations. Mountbatten, in turn, took the proposal to the Chiefs of Staff Committee, who approved the raid after a brief debate.
Having received permission to conduct the raid, Mountbatten and his staff studied the Bruneval installation and its defences, rapidly coming to the conclusion that due to the extensive coastal defences in the area around the installation it was too well-guarded to permit a seaborne commando raid. They considered that such a raid would result in high casualties among the attacking troops and would not be fast enough to capture the Würzburg radar before it was destroyed by the Germans. Believing that surprise and speed were to be the essential requirements of any raid against the installation to ensure the radar was captured, Mountbatten saw an airborne assault as the only viable method. On 8 January 1942, he therefore contacted the headquarters of 1st Airborne Division and 38 Wing RAF, asking if they were able to conduct the raid. The division's commander, Major-General Frederick Browning, was particularly enthusiastic, as a successful operation would be an excellent morale boost to the airborne troops under his command, as well as a good demonstration of their value.
The two commanders believed that training by airborne troops and aircrews could be completed by the end of February when there would be suitable meteorological conditions for the operation. Training for the raid was begun immediately but encountered several problems. 38 Wing was a new unit still in the process of formation, so No. 51 Squadron RAF under Wing Commander Percy Charles Pickard was selected to provide the aircraft and aircrew needed for the operation, although Group Captain Nigel Norman of 38 Wing would remain in overall command. Another problem encountered was the state of training of the unit of airborne troops chosen to raid the installation.
During this period, the 1st Airborne Division was composed of only two parachute battalions, of which only one (1st Parachute Battalion), was fully trained. Browning, wishing to keep 1st Parachute Battalion intact for any larger operation the division might be selected for, ordered the 2nd Parachute Battalion to provide a company for the operation. 'C' Company commanded by Frost was selected but the company had been so recently formed that Frost and many of his men had not yet completed their parachute jumping course.
The level of security imposed on the planning for the raid was so high that when Major Frost was first briefed by a liaison officer from the headquarters of the 1st Airborne Division, he was informed that his company was to take part in an airborne warfare demonstration for the War Cabinet. He was also informed that C Company would be divided into four sections for the exercise, which was contrary to a plan Frost had devised for the exercise and confused him. It was only after Frost raised several objections with a more senior officer at headquarters that he was informed of the intended raid, after which the Major dropped his objections and turned his attention to training the company.
Training
The company spent time on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, and then travelled to Inveraray in Scotland where they underwent specialised training on Loch Fyne, practising night embarkations on landing craft to prepare the company for evacuation by sea after raiding the radar installation. After this, the unit returned to Wiltshire and began carrying out practice parachute drops with the aircraft and aircrews of 51 Squadron.
Despite the aircrews having no previous experience in dropping parachutists, these exercises proved to be successful. The company's working-up was aided by the creation of a scale-model of the radar installation and the surrounding buildings being built by the Photographic Interpretation Unit. During this period, Major Frost was introduced to Commander F. N. Cook of the Royal Australian Navy who would be commanding the naval force intended to evacuate the company at the completion of the raid, as well as to the detachment of thirty-two officers and men from No. 12 Commando who would arrive in the landing craft and cover the company as it withdrew from the beach.
Frost also met RAF Flight Sergeant C.W.H. Cox, who had volunteered to accompany C Company for the operation; as an expert radio mechanic, it would be his job to locate the Würzburg radar set, photograph it, and dismantle part of it for transportation back to Britain. Derek Garrard of Jones' team asked Jones to obtain an Army uniform and identification number for Cox, as he would be the object of special attention from the Germans if he was captured in Air Force uniform, but the War Office were obdurate.
Accompanying the strike force was a 10 man section of Royal Engineers of the 1st Air Troop led by Lt. Dennis Vernon. Six of the sappers would dismantle the radar device whilst four sappers would plant anti-tank mines to protect the force from counter attack.
Information about the Bruneval radar installation was also gathered during this period, often with the help of the French Resistance, without whom detailed knowledge of the disposition of the German forces guarding the installation would have been impossible. This information was gathered by Gilbert Renault, known to the British by the code-name 'Rémy', and several members of his resistance network.
The installation was composed of two distinct areas; a villa approximately from the edge of a cliff which contained the radar station itself, and an enclosure containing a number of smaller buildings which contained a small garrison. The Würzburg antenna was erected between the villa and the cliff. The radar station was permanently manned by radar technicians and was surrounded by guard posts and approximately 30 guards; the buildings in the small enclosure housed about 100 German troops, including another detachment of technicians. A platoon of German infantry was stationed to the south in Bruneval, and was responsible for manning the defences guarding the evacuation beach; these included a strongpoint near the beach as well as pillboxes and machine gun nests on the top of the cliff overlooking the beach. The beach was not land mined and had only sporadic barbed-wire defences, but it was patrolled regularly; a mobile reserve of infantry was believed to be available at one hour's notice and stationed some distance inland.
Based on this information, Frost decided to divide the company into five groups of forty men for the raid, each named after a famous Royal Navy admiral: 'Nelson', 'Jellicoe', 'Hardy', 'Drake' and 'Rodney'. 'Nelson' would clear and secure German positions defending the evacuation beach, whilst 'Jellicoe', 'Hardy' and 'Drake' would capture the radar site, villa and the enclosure. 'Rodney' was the reserve formation, placed between the radar site and the main likely enemy approach to block any counterattack.
It was considered that the combination of a full moon for visibility, and a rising tide to allow the landing craft to manoeuvre in shallow water, was vital for the success of the raid, which narrowed the possible dates to a four-day period between 24 and 27 February. On 23 February, a final rehearsal exercise took place, which proved to be a failure; despite ideal weather conditions, the evacuation landing craft grounded offshore and could not be shifted despite the efforts of the crews and troops.
The raid
The raid was postponed for several days after the 23 February rehearsal due to weather conditions, but on 27 February the weather proved to be ideal, with clear skies and good visibility for the aircraft of 51 Squadron, and a full moon which would provide illumination for the evacuation of the raiding force. The naval force under Commander Cook departed from Britain during the afternoon and the Whitley transport aircraft carrying C Company took off from RAF Thruxton in the evening.
The aircraft crossed the English Channel without incident, but as they reached the French coast they came under heavy anti-aircraft fire; however, none of them were hit, and they successfully delivered C Company to the designated drop zone near the installation. The drop was an almost total success, with the majority of the raiding force landing on the edge of the drop zone; however, half of the 'Nelson' detachment landed two miles short of the DZ. Once the other detachments had gathered their equipment and oriented themselves, they moved off to undertake their arranged tasks.
'Jellicoe', 'Hardy and 'Drake' encountered no enemy opposition as they moved towards the villa housing the radar installation, and after surrounding the villa Frost gave the order to open fire with grenades and automatic fire. One German guard was killed as he returned fire from an upstairs window, and two more were taken prisoner by the airborne troops; upon interrogation, the prisoners revealed that the majority of the garrison were stationed further inland. There still remained a substantial enemy force in the buildings in the small enclosure near the villa, and this now opened fire on the raiding force after being alerted by the initial firefight, killing one of the airborne troops.
The volume of fire rapidly increased, when enemy vehicles could be seen moving towards the villa from the nearby woods; this, in particular, worried Frost, as the radio sets the force had been issued failed to work, giving him no means of communication with his other detachments, including 'Nelson' who were tasked with clearing the evacuation beach. Flight Sergeant Cox and several sappers arrived at this time and proceeded to dismantle the radar equipment, placing the pieces on specially designed trolleys.
Having secured the radar equipment and under heavy enemy fire, Major Frost gave the order for the three detachments to withdraw to the evacuation beach; it became apparent, however, that the beach had not been secured by the under-strength 'Nelson' detachment when a German machine gun opened fire on the airborne troops, severely wounding the company sergeant major. Frost ordered 'Rodney' and the available men of 'Nelson' to clear the defences, whilst he led the other three detachments back to the villa, which had been reoccupied by enemy troops. (see also chapter in 'Fighting Back' by Martin Sugarman on the role of German Jewish refugee Commando and Paratrooper Peter Nagel aka Newman, on the raid, and reference to the Yorks TV 1977 documentary film on the raid which includes interviews with Frost, Cox, Nagel and other survivors, and another film held by the IWM, London made in 1982)
The villa was soon cleared of enemy troops once more, and when Frost returned to the beach, he found that the machine-gun nest had been destroyed by the mis-dropped troops of 'Nelson'; avoiding other enemy positions, they had reached the beach and attacked the machine-gun post from the flank. By this time it was 02:15 but there was no sign of the naval force that was to evacuate the airborne troops. Frost ordered 'Nelson' to guard the inland approaches to the beach and then fired off an emergency signal flare; soon after that, the naval force was seen approaching. The original plan for the operation had called for two landing craft at a time to land on the beach, but this had never been satisfactorily achieved during training; instead, all six landing craft landed at the same time, with the covering troops in the landing craft opening fire on German soldiers gathering at the top of the cliff.
This deviation from the original evacuation plan and the enemy fire caused considerable confusion on the beach; some of the landing craft left the beach over-crowded, whilst others left half-empty. However, the radar equipment, German prisoners and all but six of the raiding force were embarked and transferred to motor gunboats for transport back to Britain. On the return journey, Frost learned that the naval force had received no signals apart from the signal flare, and had spent much of the time hiding from a German naval patrol that had nearly discovered them. The journey back to Britain was uneventful, with the force being escorted by four destroyers and a flight of Spitfires.
The paratroopers lost two killed, eight wounded and six men who did not return to the boats. They were later taken prisoner by the Germans. German reports were found after the war, which made the German loss as follows: the army: two killed, one seriously wounded, two missing. : three killed, one wounded, three missing. A member of the French resistance movement who had participated in the previous reconnaissance in Bruneval was subsequently captured and executed by the Germans. A Frenchman and his fiancée were deported to concentration camps in Germany for providing help to surviving British paratroopers in their attempt to return to the UK.
Aftermath
The success of the raid against the Bruneval installation had two important effects. First, a successful raid against German-occupied territory was a welcome morale boost for the British public, and featured prominently in the British media for several weeks afterwards. The British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, took a personal interest in the operation, and on 3 March assembled the War Cabinet to hear from Major Frost and several other officers who had participated in it. Several medals were awarded as a result.
On 15 May 1942 a special supplement to the London Gazette carried the announcement of 19 decorations; Frost was awarded the Military Cross (MC), Cook the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) and Cox the Military Medal (MM); there were two other DSCs, two Distinguished Service Medals (DSM), one other MC, two further MMs and nine Mentions in Despatches (MiD). Wing Commander Pickard was also subsequently awarded a bar to his Distinguished Service Order, on 26 May. The success of the raid also prompted the War Office to expand the existing British airborne forces, setting up the Airborne Forces Depot and Battle School in Derbyshire in April 1942, and creating the Parachute Regiment as well as converting a number of infantry battalions to airborne battalions in August 1942.
The second and most important result of the raid was the technical knowledge that British scientists gained. Examination of the components of the radar array showed that it was of a modular design that aided maintenance and made fixing faults far simpler than on similar British radar models. This was confirmed during the interrogation of the captured German technician, who proved to be less well trained than his British counterparts.
Examination of the radar array also allowed British scientists to conclude that they would have to deploy a countermeasure that had recently been developed, code-named Window. Examination of the Würzburg array showed that it was impervious to being jammed by conventional means used by the British during the early years of the conflict; thus Window would have to be deployed against German radars. The effectiveness of Window against Würzburg radar arrays was confirmed by a raid conducted by RAF Bomber Command on 24 July 1943 against Hamburg (Operation Gomorrah); the bombers used Window, all of the radar arrays in Hamburg were blinded and their operators confused, unable to distinguish between the radar signature of a real bomber and several pieces of Window giving off a similar signature.
An unexpected bonus of the Bruneval raid was the Germans' efforts to improve defences at Würzburg stations and prevent similar attacks. The radars were surrounded by rings of barbed wire which increased their visibility from the air, making them easier to attack prior to Operation Overlord. The Telecommunications Research Establishment, where much of the Bruneval equipment was analysed and where British radar systems were designed and tested, was moved further inland from Swanage on the southern coast of England to Malvern, to ensure that it would not become the target of a reprisal raid by German airborne forces. The original model of the area around the radar station, used to brief troops taking part in the assault, is preserved in the Parachute Regiment and Airborne Forces Museum, at the Imperial War Museum Duxford.
See also
Radar in World War II
Notes
Bibliography
1942 in France
Airborne operations of World War II
Conflicts in 1942
February 1942 events
History of telecommunications in France
Radar
Technical intelligence during World War II
Telecommunications in World War II
World War II British Commando raids |
420853 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David%20IV%20of%20Georgia | David IV of Georgia | David IV, also known as David IV the Builder (, ) (1073–1125), of the Bagrationi dynasty, was the 5th king of United Georgia from 1089 until his death in 1125.
Popularly considered to be the greatest and most successful Georgian ruler in history and an original architect of the Georgian Golden Age, he succeeded in driving the Seljuk Turks out of the country, winning the Battle of Didgori in 1121. His reforms of the army and administration enabled him to reunite the country and bring most of the lands of the Caucasus under Georgia's control. A friend of the Church and a notable promoter of Christian culture, he was canonized by the Georgian Orthodox Church.
Sobriquet and regnal ordinal
The epithet aghmashenebeli (), which is translated as "the Builder" (in the sense of "built completely"), "the Rebuilder", or "the Restorer", first appears as the sobriquet of David in the charter issued in the name of "King of Kings Bagrat" in 1452 and becomes firmly affixed to him in the works of the 17th- and 18th-century historians such as Parsadan Gorgijanidze, Beri Egnatashvili and Prince Vakhushti. Epigraphic data also provide evidence for the early use of David's other epithet, "the Great" (დიდი, didi).
Retrospectively, David the Builder has been variously referred to as David II, III, and IV, reflecting substantial variation in the ordinals assigned to the Georgian Bagratids, especially in the early period of their history, owing to the fact that the numbering of successive rulers moves between the many branches of the family. Scholars in Georgia favor David IV, his namesake predecessors being: David I Curopalates (died 881), David II Magistros (died 937), and David III Curopalates (died 1001), all members of the principal line of the Bagratid dynasty.
Family background and early life
The year of David's birth can be calculated from the date of his accession to the throne recorded in the Life of King of Kings David (ცხორებაჲ მეფეთ-მეფისა დავითისი), written 1123–1126, as k'oronikon (Paschal cycle) 309, that is, 1089, when he was 16 years old. Thus, he would have been born in k'oronikon 293 or 294, that is, c. 1073. According to the same source, he died in k'oronikon 345, when he would have been in his 52nd or 53rd year. Professor Cyril Toumanoff gives 1070 and 24 January 1125 as the dates for David. The earliest known document that makes mention of David is the royal charter of his father, George II of Georgia (r. 1072–1089), granted to the Mghvime monastery and dated to 1073.
According to the Life of King of Kings David, David was the only son of George II. The contemporaneous Armenian chronicler Matthew of Edessa mentions David's brother Totorme, who, according to the modern historian Robert W. Thomson, was his sister. The name of David's mother, , is recorded in a margin note in the Gospel of Matthew from the Tskarostavi monastery; she is otherwise unknown. David bore the name of the biblical king-prophet, from whom the Georgian Bagratids claimed their descent and whose 78th descendant David was proclaimed to be.
David's father, George II, was confronted by a major threat to the kingdom of Georgia. The country was invaded by the Seljuq Turks, which were part of the same wave which had overrun Anatolia, defeating the Byzantine Empire and taking captive the emperor Romanos IV Diogenes at the battle of Manzikert in 1071. In what the medieval Georgian chronicle refers to as didi turkoba, "the Great Turkish Invasion", several provinces of Georgia became depopulated and George was forced to sue for peace, becoming a tributary of the sultan Malik-Shah I in 1083 when David was 10. The great noble houses of Georgia, capitalizing on the vacillating character of the king, sought to assert more autonomy for themselves; Tbilisi, the ancient capital of Kartli, remained in the hands of its Muslim rulers, and a local dynasty, for a time suppressed by George's energetic father Bagrat IV, maintained its precarious independence in the eastern region of Kakheti under the Seljuq suzerainty.
Accession to the throne
Watching his kingdom slip into chaos, George II ceded the crown to his 16-year-old son David in 1089. Although the historical tradition founded by Prince Vakhushti in the 18th century and followed by Marie-Félicité Brosset in the 19th states that David succeeded George upon his death, a number of surviving documents suggest that George died around 1112, and that although he retained the royal title until his death, he played no significant political role, real power having passed on to David. Moreover, David himself had been a co-ruler with his father sometime before his becoming a king-regnant in 1089; a document of 1085 mentions David as "king and sebastos", the latter being a Byzantine title, frequently held, like other imperial dignities, by the members of the Georgian royal family. David's formal cooption into government may have occurred even earlier, in 1083, when George II left Georgia for the negotiations at the court of the Seljuq sultan Malik-Shah I.
Revival of the Georgian State
Despite his young age, he was actively involved in Georgia's political life. Backed by his tutor and an influential churchman George of Chqondidi, David IV pursued a purposeful policy, taking no unconsidered step. He was determined to bring order to the land, bridle the unsubmissive secular and ecclesiastic feudal lords, centralize the state administration, form a new type of army that would stand up better to the Seljuk Turkish military organization, and then go over to a methodical offensive with the aim of expelling the Seljuks first from Georgia and then from the whole Caucasus. Between 1089 and 1100, King David organized small detachments of his loyal troops to restore order and destroy isolated enemy troops. He began the resettlement of devastated regions and helped to revive major cities. Encouraged by his success, but more importantly the beginning of the Crusades in Palestine, he ceased payment of the annual contribution to the Seljuks and put an end to their seasonal migration to Georgia. In 1101, King David captured the fortress of Zedazeni, a strategic point in his struggle for Kakheti and Hereti, and within the next three years he liberated most of eastern Georgia.
In 1093, he arrested the powerful feudal lord Liparit Baghvashi, a long-time enemy of the Georgian crown, and expelled him from Georgia (1094). After the death of Liparit's son Rati, David abolished their duchy of Kldekari in 1103.
He slowly pushed the Seljuk Turks out of the country, recovering more and more land from them as they were now forced to focus not only on the Georgians but the newly begun Crusades in the eastern Mediterranean. By 1099 David IV's power was considerable enough that he was able to refuse paying tribute to the Turks. By that time, he also rejected a Byzantine title of panhypersebastos thus indicating that Georgia would deal with the Byzantine Empire only on a parity basis.
In 1103 a major ecclesiastical congress known as the Ruis-Urbnisi Synod was held at the monasteries of Ruisi and Urbnisi. David succeeded in removing oppositionist bishops, and combined two offices: courtier's (Mtsignobartukhutsesi, i.e. Chief Secretary) and clerical (Bishop of Tchqondidi) into a single institution of Tchqondidel-Mtzignobartukhutsesi corresponding roughly to the post of prime minister.
Next year, David's supporters in the eastern Georgian province of Kakheti captured the local king Aghsartan II (1102–1104), a loyal tributary of the Seljuk Sultan, and reunited the area with the rest of Georgia.
Military campaigns
Following the annexation of Kingdom of Kakheti, in 1105, David routed a Seljuk punitive force at the Battle of Ertsukhi, leading to momentum that helped him to secure the key fortresses of Samshvilde, Rustavi, Gishi, and Lori between 1110 and 1118.
Problems began to crop up for David now. His population, having been at war for the better part of twenty years, needed to be allowed to become productive again. Also, his nobles were still making problems for him, along with the city of Tbilisi which still could not be liberated from Seljuk grasp. Again David was forced to solve these problems before he could continue the reclamation of his nation and people. For this purpose, David IV radically reformed his military. He resettled a Kipchak tribe of 40,000 families from the Northern Caucasus in Georgia in 1118–1120. Every Georgian and Kipchak family was obliged to provide one soldier with a horse and weapons. Kipchaks were settled in different regions of Georgia. Some were settled in Inner Kartli province, others were given lands along the border. They were Christianized and quickly assimilated into Georgian society.
In 1120, David IV moved to western Georgia and, when the Turks began pillaging Georgian lands, he suddenly attacked them in Botori. Only an insignificant Seljuk force escaped. King David then entered the neighbouring Shirvan and took the town of Qabala. During that time Shirvanshahs were in position of power shifting between emerging Georgia and Seljuqid states.
In the winter of 1120–1121, the Georgian troops successfully attacked the Seljuk settlements on the eastern and southwestern approaches to the Transcaucasus.
Muslim powers became increasingly concerned about the rapid rise of a Christian state in southern Caucasia. In 1121, Sultan Mahmud b. Muhammad (1118–1131) declared a holy war on Georgia and rallied a large coalition of Muslim states led by the Artuqid Ilghazi and Toğrul b. Muhammad. The size of the Muslim army is still a matter of debate with numbers ranging from a fantastic 600,000 men (Walter the Chancellor's Bella Antiochena, Matthew of Edessa) to 400,000 (Smbat Sparapet's Chronicle) to modern Georgian estimates of 250,000–400,000 men. All sources agree that the Muslim powers gathered an army that was much larger than the Georgian force of 56,000 men. However, on 12 August 1121, King David routed the enemy army on the field of Didgori, achieving what is often considered the greatest military success in Georgian history. The victory at Didgori signaled the emergence of Georgia as a great military power and shifted the regional balance in favor of Georgian cultural and political supremacy.
Following his success, David captured Tbilisi, the last Muslim enclave remaining from the Arab occupation, in 1122 and moved the Georgian capital there. A well-educated man, he preached tolerance and acceptance of other religions, abrogated taxes and services for the Muslims and Jews, and protected the Sufis and Muslim scholars. In 1123, David's army liberated Dmanisi, the last Seljuk stronghold in southern Georgia. In 1124, David finally conquered Shirvan and took the Armenian city of Ani from the Muslim emirs, thus expanding the borders of his kingdom to the Araxes basin. Armenians met him as a liberator providing some auxiliary force for his army. It was then that the important component of "Sword of the Messiah" appeared in the title of David the Builder. It is engraved on a copper coin of David's day:
Humane treatment of the Muslim population, as well as the representatives of other religions and cultures, set a standard for tolerance in his multiethnic kingdom. It was a hallmark not only for his enlightened reign, but for all of Georgian history and culture.
After Georgia's decisive victory at the battle of Didgori, Shirvanshah Manuchir, who was under the influence of his wife, Georgian princess Tamar, maintained a pro-Georgian orientation and rejected paying tribute to the Seljuqids. Deprived of the tribute, 40,000 dinars, the Seljuqid Sultan Mahmud directed to Shirvan at the beginning of 1123, captured Shamakhi and took Shah as hostage contrary to Manuchehr's betrayal. In the response to this, in June 1123 David IV attacked and defeated Sultan again and finally conquered Shirvan by capturing the cities and fortresses of Shamakhi, Bughurd, Gulustan, Shabran.
David the Builder died on 24 January 1125, and upon his death, as he had specified, was buried under the stone inside the main gatehouse of the Gelati Monastery so that anyone coming to his beloved Gelati Academy stepped on his tomb first. He was survived by three children, his eldest son Demetrius, who succeeded him and continued his father's victorious reign; and two daughters, Tamar, who was married to the Shirvan Shah Manuchihr III, and Kata (Katai), married to Isaac Comnenus, the son of the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I Comnenus. Beside his political and military skills, King David earned fame as a writer, composing Galobani sinanulisani (Hymns of Repentance, c. 1120), a powerful work of emotional free-verse psalms, which reveal the king's humility and religious zeal.
Cultural life
King David the Builder gave close attention to the education of his people. The king selected children who were sent to the Byzantine Empire "so that they be taught languages and bring home translations made by them there". Many of them later became well-known scholars.
At the time of David the Builder there were quite a few schools and academies in Georgia, among which Gelati occupies a special place. King David's historian calls Gelati Academy Besides Gelati there also were other cultural-enlightenment and scholarly centers in Georgia at that time, e.g. the academy of Ikalto.
David himself composed, c. 1120, "Hymns of Repentance" (გალობანი სინანულისანი, galobani sinanulisani), a sequence of eight free-verse psalms, with each hymn having its own intricate and subtle stanza form. For all their Christianity, cult of the Mother of God, and the king's emotional repentance of his sins, David sees himself to be similar to the Biblical David, with a similar relationship to God and to his people. His hymns also share the idealistic zeal of the contemporaneous European crusaders to whom David was a natural ally in his struggle against the Seljuks.
Family
Marriages
Rusudan, an Armenian princess (divorced in 1107)
Gurandukht, daughter of the Kipchak chief Otrok (c. 1107)
Issue
Demetrius I
Prince Vakhtang (1112–1138)
Prince George (1114–1129)
Princess Rusudan, who was married to Prince of Alania.
Zurab, son of David IV of Georgia
Princess Tamar, who married Shirvanshah Manuchehr III (died c. 1154), and became a nun in widowhood.
Princess Kata, who has been theorized to be the same person as Irene who married the Byzantine prince Isaakios Comnenus.
Burial
A tombstone at the entrance of Gelati monastery, bearing a Georgian inscription in the asomtavruli script, has traditionally been considered to be that of David IV. Although there are no clear and reliable indications that David was indeed buried in Gelati and that the present epitaph is his, this popular belief had already been established by the mid-19th century as evidenced by the French scholar Marie-Félicité Brosset who published his study of the Georgian history between 1848 and 1858. The epitaph, modeled on the Psalm 131 (132), 14, reads: "Christ! This is my resting place for eternity. It pleases me; here I shall dwell."
Legacy
Also known as David the Builder, he occupies a special place among the kings of the Georgian "Golden Age" in the period of the defense against the Seljuqs.
The "Order of David the Builder" is given to regular citizens, military and clerical personnel for outstanding contributions to the country, for fighting for the independence of Georgia and its revival, and for significantly contributing to social consolidation and the development of democracy.
After being elected President of Georgia, Georgia's former leader Mikheil Saakashvili took an oath at David the Builder's tomb at Gelati Monastery on the day of his inauguration on 25 January 2004.
The airport at Kutaisi is known as David the Builder Kutaisi International Airport. The National Defense Academy is named after him.
See also
List of the Kings of Georgia
Georgian monarchs family tree
Kipchaks in Georgia
References
Notes
General
Synod of Ruis-Urbnisi (1103), ed. E. Gabidzashvili, Tbilisi, 1978, on Georgian language.
Khuroshvili, Giorgi (2018), Conceptions of Political Thought in Medieval Georgia: David IV "the Builder", Arson of Ikalto. In: Veritas et subtilitas. Truth and Subtlety in the History of Philosophy. John Benjamins Publishing Company. Amsterdam/Philadelphia. pp. 149–156.
Further reading
Kings of Georgia
Bagrationi dynasty of the Kingdom of Georgia
Saints of Georgia (country)
People from Kutaisi
Eastern Orthodox monarchs
1073 births
1125 deaths
12th-century Christian saints
Sebastoi |
420881 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California%20Air%20Resources%20Board | California Air Resources Board | The California Air Resources Board (CARB or ARB) is an agency of the government of California that aims to reduce air pollution. Established in 1967 when then-governor Ronald Reagan signed the Mulford-Carrell Act, combining the Bureau of Air Sanitation and the Motor Vehicle Pollution Control Board, CARB is a department within the cabinet-level California Environmental Protection Agency.
The stated goals of CARB include attaining and maintaining healthy air quality; protecting the public from exposure to toxic air contaminants; and providing innovative approaches for complying with air pollution rules and regulations. CARB has also been instrumental in driving innovation throughout the global automotive industry through programs such as its ZEV mandate.
One of CARB's responsibilities is to define vehicle emissions standards. California is the only state permitted to issue emissions standards under the federal Clean Air Act, subject to a waiver from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Other states may choose to follow CARB or the federal vehicle emission standards but may not set their own.
Governance
CARB's governing board is made up of 16 members, with 2 non-voting members appointed for legislative oversight, one each by the California State Assembly and Senate. 12 of the 14 voting members are appointed by the governor and subject to confirmation by the Senate: five from local air districts, four air pollution subject-matter experts, two members of the public, and the Chair. The other two voting members are appointed from environmental justice committees by the Assembly and Senate.
Five of the governor-appointed board members are chosen from regional air pollution control or air quality management districts, including one each from:
Bay Area AQMD (San Francisco Bay Area), currently John Gioia
San Diego County APCD, currently Nathan Fletcher
San Joaquin Valley APCD, currently Alexander Sherriffs, M.D.
South Coast AQMD, currently Judy Mitchell
A Sacramento-area district: Sacramento Metropolitan AQMD, Yolo-Solano AQMD, Placer County APCD, Feather River AQMD, or El Dorado County AQMD, currently Phil Serna
Four governor-appointed board members are subject matter experts in specific fields: automotive engineering, currently Dan Sperling; science, agriculture, or law, currently John Eisenhut; medicine, currently John R. Balmes, M.D.; and air pollution control. The governor is also responsible for two appointees from members of the public, and the final governor appointee is the Board's Chair. The first Chair of CARB was Dr. Arie Jan Haagen-Smit, who was previously a professor at the California Institute of Technology and started research into air pollution in 1948. Dr. Haagen-Smit is credited with discovering the source of smog in California, which led to the development of air pollution controls and standards.
The two legislature-appointed board members work directly with communities affected by air pollution. They are currently Diane Takvorian and Dean Florez, appointed by the Assembly and Senate respectively.
Organizational structure
CARB is a part of the California Environmental Protection Agency, an organization which reports directly to the Governor's Office in the Executive Branch of California State Government.
CARB has 15 divisions and offices:
Office of the Chair
Executive Office
Office of Community Air Protection
Air Quality Planning and Science Division
Emission Certification and Compliance Division
Enforcement Division
Industrial Strategies Division
Mobile Source Control Division
Mobile Source Laboratory Division
Research Division
Sustainable Transportation and Communities Division
Transportation and Toxics Division
Office of Information Services
Administrative Services Division
Air Quality Planning and Science Division
The division assesses the extent of California's air quality problems and the progress being made to abate them, coordinates statewide development of clean air plans and maintains databases pertinent to air quality and emissions. The division's technical support work provides a basis for clean air plans and CARB's regulatory programs. This support includes management and interpretation of emission inventories, air quality data, meteorological data and of air quality modeling.
The Air Quality Planning and Science Division has five branches:
Special Assessment Branch
Emission Inventory and Economic Analysis Branch
Modeling & Meteorology Branch
Air Quality Planning Branch
Mobile Source Analysis Branch
Consumer Products and Air Quality Assessment Branch
Atmospheric Modeling & Support Section
The Atmospheric Modeling & Support Section is one of three sections within the Modeling & Meteorology Branch. The other two sections are the Regional Air Quality Modeling Section and the Meteorology Section.
The air quality and atmospheric pollution dispersion models routinely used by this Section include a number of the models recommended by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The section uses models which were either developed by CARB or whose development was funded by CARB, such as:
CALPUFFOriginally developed by the Sigma Research Company (SRC) under contract to CARB. Currently maintained by the TRC Solution Company under contract to the U.S. EPA.
CALGRIDDeveloped by CARB and currently maintained by CARB.
SARMAPDeveloped by CARB and currently maintained by CARB.
Role in reducing greenhouse gases
The California Air Resources Board is charged with implementing California's comprehensive suite of policies to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases. In part due to the efforts of CARB, California has successfully decoupled greenhouse gas emissions from economic growth, and achieved its goal of reducing emissions to 1990 levels four years earlier than the target date of 2020.
Alternative Fuel Vehicle Incentive Program
Alternative Fuel Vehicle Incentive Program (also known as Fueling Alternatives) is funded by the California Air Resources Board (CARB), offered throughout the State of California and administered by the California Center for Sustainable Energy (CCSE).
Low-Emission Vehicle Program
The CARB first adopted the Low-Emission Vehicle (LEV) Program standards in 1990 to address smog-forming pollutants, which covered automobiles sold in California from 1994 through 2003. An amendment to the LEV Program, known as LEV II, was adopted in 1999, and covered vehicles for the 2004 through 2014 model years. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emission regulations were adopted in 2004 starting for the 2009 model year, and are named the "Pavley" standards after Assemblymember Fran Pavley, who had written Assembly Bill 1493 in 2002 to establish them. A second amendment, LEV III, was adopted in 2012, and covers vehicles sold from 2015 onward for both smog (superseding LEV II) and GHG (superseding Pavley) emissions. The rules created under the LEV Program have been codified as specific sections in Title 13 of the California Code of Regulations; in general, LEV I is § 1960.1; LEV II is § 1961; Pavley is § 1961.1; LEV III is § 1961.2 (smog-forming pollutants) and 1961.3 (GHG). The ZEV regulations, which were initially part of LEV I, have been broken out separately into § 1962.
For comparison, the average new car sold in 1965 would produce approximately of hydrocarbons over of driving; under the LEV I standards, the average new car sold in 1998 was projected to produce hydrocarbon emissions of over the same distance, and under LEV II, the average new car in 2010 would further reduce hydrocarbon emissions to .
Required labeling
In 2005, the California State Assembly passed AB 1229, which required all new vehicles manufactured after January 1, 2009 to bear an Environmental Performance Label, which scored the emissions performance of the vehicle on two scales ranging between 1 (worst) and 10 (best): one for global warming (emissions of GHG such as , , air conditioning refrigerants, and ) and one for smog-forming compounds (non-methane organic gases (NMOG), , and ). The Federal Government followed suit and required a similar "smog score" on new vehicles sold starting in 2013; the standards were realigned for labels applied to 2018 model year vehicles.
Vehicle categories
The LEV program has established several categories of reduced emissions vehicles. LEV I defined LEV and ULEV vehicles, and added TLEV and Tier 1 temporary classifications that would not be sold after 2003. LEV II added SULEV and PZEV vehicles, and LEV III tightened emission standards. The actual emission levels depend on the standards in use.
LEV (Low Emission Vehicle): The least stringent emission standard for all new cars sold in California beyond 2004.
ULEV (Ultra Low Emission Vehicle): 50% cleaner than the average new 2003 model year vehicle.
SULEV (Super Ultra Low Emission Vehicle): These vehicles emit substantially lower levels of hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen and particulate matter than conventional vehicles. They are 90% cleaner than the average new 2003 model year vehicle.
LEV I defined emission limits for several different classes of vehicle, including passenger cars (PC), light-duty trucks (LDT), and medium-duty vehicles (MDV). Heavy-duty vehicles were specifically excluded from LEV I. LEV I also defined a loaded vehicle weight (LVW) as the vehicle's Curb weight plus an allowance of . In general, the most stringent standards were applied to passenger cars and light-duty trucks with a LVW up to (these "light" LDTs were later denoted LDT1 under LEV II). LEV II increased the scope of vehicles classed as light-duty trucks to encompass a higher GVWR up to , compared to the LEV I standard of . In addition, LEV I had defined less stringent limits for heavier LDTs (denoted LDT2 with a LVW ); LEV II closed that discrepancy and defined a single emissions standard for all PCs and LDTs. Under LEV III, medium-duty passenger vehicles (MDPV) were brought under the most stringent standards alongside PCs and LDTs.
Smog-forming compound emissions limits
Rather than providing a single standard for vehicles based on age, purpose, and weight, the LEV I standards introduced different tiers of limits for smog-forming compound emissions starting in the 1995 model year. After 2003, LEV was the minimum standard to be met.
Greenhouse gas emissions limits
CARB adopted regulations for limits on greenhouse gas emissions in 2004 starting with the 2009 model year to support the direction provided by AB 1493. In June 2005, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed Executive Order S-03-05, which required a reduction in California GHG emissions, targeting an 80% reduction compared to 1990 levels by 2050. Assembly Bill 32, better known as the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, codified these requirements.
CARB filed a waiver request with the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Section 209(b) of the Clean Air Act in December 2005 to permit it to establish limits on greenhouse gas emissions; although the waiver request was initially denied in March 2008, it was later approved on June 30, 2009 after President Barack Obama signed a Presidential Memorandum directing the EPA to reconsider the waiver. In the initial denial, EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson stated the Clean Air Act was not "intended to allow California to promulgate state standards for emissions from new motor vehicles designed to address global climate change problems" and further, that he did not believe "the effects of climate change in California are compelling and extraordinary compared to the effects in the rest of the country." Johnson's successor, Lisa P. Jackson, signed the waiver overturning Johnson's denial, writing that "EPA must grant California a waiver if California determines that its standards are, in the aggregate, at least as protective of the public health and welfare as applicable Federal standards." Jackson also noted that in the history of the waiver process, over 50 waivers had been granted and only one had been fully denied, namely the March 2008 denial of the GHG emissions regulation.
CARB decided to adopt regulation of GHG emissions under Executive Order G-05-061, which provided phase-in targets for fleet average GHG emissions in -equivalent grams per mile starting with the 2009 model year. The calculation of -equivalent emissions was based on contributions from four different chemicals: , , , and air conditioning refrigerants.
The emissions in g/mi -equivalent are calculated according to the formula , which has two terms for direct and indirect emissions allowances of air conditioning refrigerants, depending on the refrigerant used, such as HFC134a, and the system design. Vehicles powered by alternative fuels use a slightly modified formula, , where is a fuel adjustment factor depending on the alternative fuel used (1.03 for natural gas, 0.89 for LPG, and 0.74 for E85). ZEVs are also required to calculate GHG as the processes to generate the energy (or fuel) used also produce GHG. For ZEVs, , where is the upstream emissions factor (130 g/mi for battery electric vehicles, 210 for hydrogen/fuel cell, and 290 for hydrogen/internal combustion). Direct emissions could be calculated in a relatively straightforward fashion based on fuel consumption. Manufacturers that do not wish to measure emissions may assume a value of 0.006 g/mi. An update was issued in 2010 which allowed manufacturers to calculate GHG emissions using CAFE data; for conventionally powered vehicles, the contribution from the nitrous oxide and methane terms could be assumed to be 1.9 g/mi.
CARB voted unanimously in March 2017 to require automakers to average for new cars in 2025.
Section 177 states
Because California had emissions regulations prior to the 1977 Clean Air Act, under Section 177 of that bill, other states may adopt the more stringent California emissions regulations as an alternative to federal standards. Thirteen other states and the District of Columbia have chosen to do so, and ten of those have additionally adopted the California Zero-Emission Vehicle regulations. In December 2020, Minnesota announced its intention to adopt California LEV and ZEV rules; following a hearing before an administrative law judge in February 2021, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency adopted the California regulations. In August 2022, Virginia, citing to a 2021 law, announced it would follow California regulations for ZEV registrations.
Arizona and New Mexico had previously adopted California LEV regulations under Section 177, but later repealed those states' clean car standards in 2012 and 2013, respectively.
In Canada, the province of Quebec adopted CARB standards effective in 2010. CARB and the Government of Canada entered into a Memorandum of Understanding in June 2019 to cooperate on greenhouse gas emissions mitigation.
Zero-Emission Vehicle Program
The CARB Zero-Emission Vehicle (ZEV) program was enacted by the California government starting in 1990 to promote the use of zero emission vehicles. The program goal is to reduce the pervasive air pollution affecting the main metropolitan areas in the state, particularly in Los Angeles, where prolonged pollution episodes are frequent. The California ZEV rule was first adopted by CARB as part of the 1990 Low-Emission Vehicle (LEV I) Program. The focus of the 1990 rules (ZEV-90) was to meet air quality standards for ozone rather than the reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Under LEV II in 1999, the ZEV regulations were moved to a separate section (13 CCR § 1962) and the requirements for ZEVs as a percentage of fleet sales was made more formal. Executive Order S-03-05 (2005) and Assembly Bills 1493 (2002) and 32 (2006) prompted CARB to reevaluate the ZEV program as last amended in 1996, which had been primarily concerned with reducing emissions of smog-forming pollutants. By the time AB 32 passed in 2006, vehicles complying with PZEV and AT PZEV standards had become commercially successful, and the ZEV program could then shift towards reducing both smog-forming compounds and greenhouse gases.
The next set of ZEV regulations were adopted in 2012 with LEV III. CARB put both LEV and ZEV rules together as the Advanced Clean Cars Program (ACC), adopted in 2012, which included regulations for cars sold through the 2025 model year. The regulations include updates to regulations for LEV III (for smog-forming emissions), LEV III GHG (for greenhouse gas emissions), and ZEV. Since then, in September 2020 Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order directing that by 2035, all new cars and passenger trucks sold in California will be zero-emission vehicles. Executive Order N-79-20 directs CARB to develop regulations to require that ZEVs be an increasing share of new vehicles sold in the state, with light-duty cars and trucks and off-road vehicles and equipment meeting the 100% ZEV goal by 2035 and medium and heavy-duty trucks and buses meeting the same 100% ZEV goal by 2045. The order also directs Caltrans to develop near-term actions to encourage "an integrated, statewide rail and transit network" and infrastructure to support bicycles and pedestrians. In response, CARB began development of the Advanced Clean Cars II (ACC II) Program, focusing on emissions of vehicles sold after 2025. ACC II is scheduled for consideration before CARB in June 2022.
Vehicle definitions
LEV I defined a ZEV as one that produces "zero emissions of any criteria pollutants under any and all possible operational modes and conditions." A vehicle could still qualify as a ZEV with a fuel-fired heater, as long as the heater was unable to be operated at ambient temperatures above and did not have any evaporative emissions. Under LEV II (ZEV-99), the ZEV definition was updated to include precursor pollutants, but did not consider upstream emissions from power plants.
The ZEV regulation has evolved and been modified several times since 1990, and several new partial or low-emission categories were created and defined, including the introduction of PZEV and AT PZEV categories in ZEV-99.
PZEV (Partial Zero Emission Vehicle): Meets SULEV tailpipe standards, has a 15-year / 150,000 mile warranty, and zero evaporative emissions. These vehicles are 80% cleaner than the average 2002 model year car.
AT PZEV (Advanced Technology PZEV): These are advanced technology vehicles that meet PZEV standards and include ZEV enabling technology, typically hybrid electric vehicles (HEV). They are 80% cleaner than the average 2002 model year car.
ZEV (Zero Emission Vehicle): Zero tailpipe emissions, and 98% cleaner than the average new 2003 model year vehicle.
Manufacturer sales volume
Under ZEV-90, CARB classified manufacturers according to the average sales per year between 1989 and 1993; small volume manufacturers were those that sold 3,000 or fewer new vehicles per year; intermediate volume manufacturers sold between 3,001 and 35,000; and large volume manufacturers sold more than 35,000 per year. For large volume manufacturers, CARB required that 2% of 1998 to 2000 model year vehicles sold were ZEVs, ramping up to 5% ZEVs by 2001 and 10% ZEVs in 2003 and beyond. Intermediate volume manufacturers were not required to meet the goals until 2003, and small volume manufacturers were exempted. These percentages were calculated based on total production of passenger cars and light-duty trucks with a loaded vehicle weight (LVW) less than .
ZEV credit system
The LEV I rules also introduced the concept of emission credits. Under LEV I, the vehicle fleet average emissions rate of non-methane organic gases (NMOG) produced by a manufacturer was required to meet increasingly stringent requirements starting in 1994. The calculation of fleet average NMOG emissions was based on a weighted sum of vehicle NMOG emissions, based on the number sold and type of certification (i.e., TLEV, LEV, ULEV, etc.), divided by the total number of vehicles produced, including ZEVs. Manufacturers whose fleet average NMOG emissions met or exceeded the NMOG emissions goal would be subjected to civil penalties; those which fell below the goal would receive credits, which could then be marketed to other manufacturers.
The 1996 amendments to the ZEV regulations in LEV I (ZEV-96) introduced credits where a ZEV could be counted more than once based on vehicle range or battery specific energy to encourage deployment of ZEVs prior to 2003.
Under LEV II/ZEV-99, the PZEV and AT PZEV categories were introduced, and the percentage of ZEVs sold by a manufacturer could be partially met by the sales of PZEV and AT PZEVs. If a vehicle met PZEV criteria, it qualified for a credit equal to 0.2 of one ZEV for the purposes of calculating that manufacturer's ZEV production. AT PZEVs capable of traveling with zero emissions for a limited range were allowed additional credit if the urban all-electric range was at least ten miles. ZEVs that were introduced prior to 2003 received a multiplier, with a value ranging up to 10× a single ZEV depending on the all-electric range and fast-charging capability.
MOA demonstration fleet
In March 1996, ZEV-96 eliminated the ZEV ramp-up planned to start in 1998, but the goal of 10% ZEVs by 2003 was retained, with credits granted for sales of partial ZEVs (PZEVs). According to comment responses, CARB determined that advanced batteries would not be ready in time to meet the ZEV requirements until at least 2003.
In conjunction with relaxing the requirements in ZEV-96, CARB signed memoranda of agreement (MOAs) with the seven large scale manufacturers to begin rolling out demonstration fleets of ZEVs with limited public availability in the near term. The GM EV1 was the first battery electric vehicle (BEV) offered to the public, in partial fulfillment of the agreement with CARB. The EV1 was available only through a /month lease starting in December 1996; the initial markets were South Coast, San Diego, and Arizona, and expanded to Sacramento and the Bay Area. GM also offered an electric S-10 pickup truck to fleet operators.
In 1997, Honda (EV Plus, May 1997), Toyota (RAV4 EV, October 1997), and Chrysler (EPIC, 1997) followed suit. Ford also introduced the Ranger EV for the 1998 model year, and Nissan stated they planned to offer the Altra in the 1998 model year as well to fulfill the MOA. As an acceptable alternative, Mazda stated they would purchase ZEV credits from Ford.
Advanced Clean Cars
The Low-Emission Vehicle Program was revised to define modified ZEV regulations for 2015 models. CARB estimates that ACC will result in 10% of all sales to be ZEVs by 2025. The share remained at 3% between 2014 and 2016. Battery vehicles receive 3 or 4 credits, while fuel cell cars receive 9. , a credit has a market value of $3-4,000, and some automakers have more credits than required.
CARB held a public workshop in September 2020 where several new consumer-friendly regulations for ZEVs were proposed to improve adoption:
Standardization of a DC Fast Charge inlet (proposing to use CCS Combo 1, with adapters provided by the vehicle manufacturer if applicable)
Standardization of vehicle and battery data (to assist assessment of need for repairs/condition)
Implement a standardized battery state-of-health (SOH) indicator (using SAE J1634 dynamometer testing to define battery capacity) and define a value of battery SOH that qualifies for warranty repair
Make ZEV powertrain service and repair information available to independent technicians and repair shops (including standardization of communication protocols for vehicle data)
In May 2021, additional draft requirements were added:
Durability: BEVs to maintain 80% of certified range for 15 years/150,000 miles
Durability: FCEVs to maintain 90% of fuel cell system output power after 4,000 hours of operation
Battery Labelling: standardized content to improve the efficiency of recycling batteries to recover materials or potential repurposing
To improve access to ZEVs, CARB added proposed environmental justice (EJ) credits in August 2021 for manufacturers who improve options for clean transportation to underserved communities, such as by providing a discount on a ZEV that would be used in a community-based clean mobility program. The August workshop also included additional regulations for ZEVs:
Range: starting in 2026, minimum (2-cycle) range to be
On-board charger: minimum 5.76 kW for AC (Level 2) charging, sufficient for a BEV to charge overnight (8 hours) from a 30A source
The final workshop in October 2021 proposed that ZEVs would be taken out of fleet calculations for vehicle emissions and provided yearly targets for ZEV vehicle sales as a percent of total sales, including potential EJ credits. Additionally, the required warranty period and requirements to take credit for PHEV sales were defined:
Battery to retain ≥ 80% SoH for 8 years/100,000 miles
PHEVs to meet one of two requirements:
Transitional PHEVs (2026–28): minimum all-electric range with additional credit if vehicle exceeds on the US06 high speed/acceleration cycle; 8 year/100,000 80%SOH battery warranty, 5.76 kW on-board charger
Full credit PHEVs (2026+): minimum all-electric range, minimum on the US06 high speed/acceleration cycle; 8 year/100,000 80%SOH battery warranty, 5.76 kW on-board charger
"Small volume" manufacturers (defined as those selling fewer than 4,500 cars per year) are required to comply with the ZEV mandate starting with the 2035 model year
Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project
California Hybrid and Zero-Emission Truck and Bus Voucher Incentive Project (HVIP for short) offers up-front discounts on medium and heavy duty electric trucks. Additionally, discounts will be increased for public transit agencies, school buses for public school districts, and vehicles operating in disadvantaged communities. For example, a public school district could receive up to $198,000 off the price of a new electric bus; a public transit agency could receive $69,000 off the price of a new Class 4 electric shuttle. Launched by the California Air Resources Board in 2009, the project is part of California Climate Investments.
OHV Emission Standards
The California DMV implements the policy dictates of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) with respect to registration of off-highway motor vehicles (OHVs). Registration consists of ID plates or placards issued by the DMV. Operating a motorized vehicle off-highway in California requires either a Green Sticker or a Red Sticker ID. The Green Sticker indicates that the vehicle has passed emission requirements. The Red Sticker (issued through 2021) restricts OHV use due to not meeting emission standards established by the CARB. The red sticker program began in 1994 when CARB adopted standards for emissions from two-stroke engines used primarily on dirt bikes. Between 1998 and 2003 the red sticker program was refined allowing vehicles that did not meet peak ozone season standards to be operated only at specific times of the year. As of model year 2022 the CARB no longer authorizes issuing of red stickers.
Low-carbon fuel standard
The Low-Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) requires oil refineries and distributors to ensure that the mix of fuel they sell in the Californian market meets the established declining targets for greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2-equivalent grams per unit of fuel energy sold for transport purposes. The 2007 Governor's LCFS directive calls for a reduction of at least 10% in the carbon intensity of California's transportation fuels by 2020. These reductions include not only tailpipe emissions but also all other associated emissions from production, distribution and use of transport fuels within the state. Therefore, California LCFS considers the fuel's full life cycle, also known as the "well to wheels" or "seed to wheels" efficiency of transport fuels. The standard is aimed to reduce the state’s dependence on petroleum, create a market for clean transportation technology, and stimulate the production and use of alternative, low-carbon fuels in California.
On April 23, 2009, CARB approved the specific rules for the LCFS that will go into effect in January 2011. The rule proposal prepared by its technical staff was approved by a 9-1 vote, to set the 2020 maximum carbon intensity reference value to 86 grams of carbon dioxide released per megajoule of energy produced.
PHEV Research Center
The PHEV Research Center was launched with funding from the California Air Resources Board.
Innovative Clean Transit
Under the Innovative Clean Transit (formerly known as the Advanced Clean Transit) regulation adopted in December 2018, public transportation agencies in California will gradually transition to a zero-emission bus fleet by 2040. Large transit agencies (defined as those operating more than 65 buses in the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin or South Coast Air Quality Management District, or those operating more than 100 buses elsewhere with populations greater than 200,000) are required to have 25% of new bus purchases as zero-emission buses (ZEBs) starting in 2023, 50% of new purchases as ZEBs starting in 2026, and 100% of new purchases as ZEBs starting in 2029. Small transit agencies are required to make 25% of new purchases as ZEBs in 2026 and 100% of new purchases as ZEBs in 2029+. Per the regulation, ZEBs are defined to include battery electric buses and fuel cell buses, but do not include electric trolleybuses which draw power from overhead lines. The Antelope Valley Transit Authority has set a goal to be the first all-electric fleet by the end of 2018, ahead of the tightened regulations.
Regulation of ozone produced by air cleaners and ionizers
The California Air Resources Board has a page listing air cleaners (many with ionizers) meeting their indoor ozone limit of 0.050 parts per million. From that article:
Southern California headquarters, Mary D. Nichols Campus
On October 27, 2017 CARB broke ground on its new state-of-the-art Southern California headquarters. CARB chose the site near the University of California, Riverside, in March 2016 and completed environmental studies in June 2017. Construction costs of $419 million, which include $108 million for specialized laboratory and testing equipment, were approved by the Legislature in July. Of those costs, $154 million comes from fines paid by Volkswagen for air quality violations related to the diesel car cheating case. Additional funds will come from the Motor Vehicle Account, the Air Pollution Control Fund and the Vehicle Inspection Repair Fund.
Over a decade of planning has gone into the development of a replacement for CARB’s aging Haagen-Smit Laboratory. Opened in 1973 in El Monte, California, the Haagen-Smit Laboratory is the site of many of CARB’s groundbreaking efforts to reduce the emissions of cars and trucks, as well as efforts to introduce zero-emission and plug-in vehicles to California. In 2015, engineers and technicians based at the Haagen-Smit Laboratory were instrumental in discovering the infamous VW diesel “defeat device,” leading to the largest emissions control violation settlement in national and California history.
The new campus features an extended range of dedicated test cells, including heavy-duty testing. There is also workspace for accommodating new test methods for future generations of vehicles, and space for developing enhanced on-board diagnostics and portable emissions measurement systems. The facility also includes a separate advanced chemistry laboratory. The Southern California Headquarters’ office and administration space accommodates 460 employees and includes visitor reception and public areas, a press room, flexible conference and workshop space, and a 250-person public auditorium.
Sustainability drove the striking architecture and every detail of the campus. Designed by ZGF Architects and built by Hensel Phelps, the new headquarters is built for the future. At 402,000 square feet, it is designed to be the largest Zero Net Energy building in the United States, aided by solar arrays throughout the campus that generate 3.5 Megawatts of electricity, and a chilled beam temperature management system that provides increased energy efficiency and occupant comfort. As a result, the facility achieves Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification, and California Green Building Standards Code (CALGreen) Tier 2 standards and is designed to achieve Zero-Net Energy performance .
On November 18, 2021, CARB dedicated the new Southern California headquarters in honor of former Chair Mary D. Nichols whose career at CARB spanned four decades under three different California governors.
See also
California Air Resources Board
List of California Air Districts
2008 California Statewide Truck and Bus Rule
Carl Moyer Memorial Air Quality Standards Attainment Program
Other
Bioenergy Action Plan
California Center for Sustainable Energy
California Code of Regulations
California Energy Commission
California Environmental Protection Agency
California Public Utilities Commission
Carl Moyer Program
Ecology of California
Emission standards
Emissions trading
Greenhouse gas emissions by the United States
Million Solar Roofs (SB 1)
Plug-in hybrids in California
Pollution in California
Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative
Spare the Air program
Texas Low Emission Diesel standards
Timeline of major US environmental and occupational health regulation
Upstream emission factor
US Emission standard
Vehicle acronyms and abbreviations
Who Killed the Electric Car?
Zero-emissions vehicle
References
External links
Title 13 Motor Vehicles, Division 3 regulations in the California Code of Regulations (CCR) from Westlaw
Title 17 Public Health, Division 3 regulations in the CCR from Westlaw
CARB's Low-Emission Vehicle Regulations and Test Procedures
CARB web site page on Climate Change
CARB's Diesel Emission Control Strategies Verification
News
California charts course to fight global warming: California's greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent over the next 12 years.
California air board announces plan for carbon-credit trading.
Air
Air pollution in California
Air pollution organizations
Air Resources Board
Environment of California
Government agencies established in 1967
1967 establishments in California
Sustainable transport |
420888 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS%20Tautog%20%28SS-199%29 | USS Tautog (SS-199) | USS Tautog (SS-199), the second , was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the tautog, a small edible sport fish, which is also called a blackfish. She was one of the most successful submarines of World War II. Tautog was credited with sinking 26 Japanese ships, for a total of 72,606 tons, scoring second by number of ships and eleventh by tonnage earning her the nickname "The Terrible T." Of the twelve Tambor-class submarines, she was one of only five to survive the war.
Tautogs first patrol, into the Marshall Islands in late 1941 and early 1942, produced reconnaissance information but no enemy vessels sunk. However, on her second visit to that area, in the spring of 1942, she torpedoed the Japanese submarines and , plus a freighter. Operating out of Australia between July 1942 and May 1943, Tautog went into the waters of the East Indies and Indochina on five patrols during which Tautog sank the and seven merchant ships. She also laid mines off Haiphong and endured a depth charge attack in November 1942.
Following an overhaul at San Francisco, California, Tautog resumed operations from Pearl Harbor in October 1943, sinking the and damaging a tanker and three freighters during this cruise, her eighth of the war. Her next four patrols, from December 1943 to August 1944, took her to the Japanese home islands, including the frigid northern Pacific. This period was a very productive one, with the destroyer and eleven Japanese merchant ships falling victim to Tautog. A stateside overhaul followed, with the submarine's thirteenth war patrol, into the East China Sea, beginning in December 1944. The next month she sank a landing ship and a motor torpedo boat tender to conclude the submarine's combat career.
Assigned to training duty in February 1945, Tautog spent the rest of World War II in that role and supporting developmental work off Hawaii and the West Coast. She transferred to the Atlantic in November 1945, a few months after Japan's surrender, and was decommissioned in December. In 1947 Tautog went to the Great Lakes, where she was employed as a stationary Naval Reserve training submarine at Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for nearly twelve years. Tautog was removed from service in September 1959. Sold some months later, she was scrapped at Manistee, Michigan, during the early 1960s.
Construction and commissioning
The submarine's keel was laid down on 1 March 1939 at Groton, Connecticut, by the Electric Boat Company. She was launched on 27 January 1940 and was sponsored by Mrs. Hallie N Edwards, wife of Captain Richard S. Edwards, Commander Submarine Squadron Two. The boat was commissioned on 3 July 1940.
Operational history
1940–1941
Following a short training period in Long Island Sound, Tautog departed for the Caribbean Sea on her shakedown cruise which lasted from 6 September 1940 to 11 November 1940. She returned to New London, Connecticut and operated from that base until early February 1941 when she was ordered to the Virgin Islands.
Late in April, she returned to New London, Connecticut, loaded supplies, and sailed with two other submarines for Hawaii on 1 May. After calls at Coco Solo, Canal Zone, and San Diego, California, they arrived at Pearl Harbor on 6 June 1941. Tautog operated in the Hawaiian area until mid-October. On 21 October, she and stood out to sea, under sealed orders, to begin a 45-day, full-time, simulated war patrol in the area around Midway Island. For 38 consecutive days, the two submarines operated submerged for 16 to 18 hours each day. Tautog returned to Pearl Harbor on 5 December 1941.
Two days later, on Sunday, 7 December, Tautog was at the submarine base when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Shortly after the attack began on Ford Island, Tautogs gun crews, with the help of and a destroyer, shot down a Japanese torpedo bomber as it came over Merry Point.
First patrol
Tautogs first war patrol began on 26 December 1941 and took her to the Marshall Islands for reconnaissance work. After 26 days in the area gathering information, particularly of Kwajalein, she reported no enemy activity at Rongelop, Bat, Wotho, or Bikini. On 13 January 1942, she launched three torpedoes at a small minelayer, receiving a depth charging in return. Plagued by a fogging periscope, she returned to Pearl Harbor on 4 February and was routed to Mare Island for upkeep.
Second patrol
On 9 April 1942, Tautog headed westward toward Hawaii and started her next war patrol upon leaving Pearl Harbor 15 days later. Her assigned area was again in the Marshall Islands. Around 10:00 on 26 April near Johnston Island, while en route to her station, Tautog sighted the periscope of an enemy submarine, apparently maneuvering to reach a favorable firing position. Tautog made a sharp turn and fired one stern torpedo, evidently exploding above the target, and was officially credited as sinking Ro-30 (1,000 tons).
Shortly after her arrival in the Marshalls, Tautog was ordered to Truk to intercept ships returning from the Battle of the Coral Sea, especially the Japanese aircraft carriers Zuikauku and Shōkaku (the latter codenamed "Wounded Bear"); because Pearl Harbor underestimated Shōkakus speed, Tautog and two compatriots arrived too late and did not see Shōkaku depart, on 11 or 12 May. South of the harbor, Tautog launched two torpedoes at Goyo Maru, scoring one hit and suffering a circular run (typical of the erratic Mark XIV torpedo), forcing Tautog deep. (Goyo Maru beached herself.) Two days later, Tautog was alerted by ULTRA of four Japanese submarines in the vicinity, also returning from battle. She was caught by surprise by the first, and failed to attack. She detected and fired two torpeodes at the second. Although the Japanese boat was not in sight when Tautog surfaced, she was not officially credited with a sinking. Later in the morning, Tautog sighted another submarine with the designation "I-28" clearly discernible on its conning tower. Just as I-28 fired at Tautog, the American boat launched two torpedoes, then went to to avoid. One torpedo missed, the second sent the Japanese boat to the bottom, making her the third sunk by Pacific Fleet submarines.
Tautog sighted two ships departing Truk on 22 May and made a submerged sound attack on the larger. The American submarine's crew thought they had sunk the target, but the 5,461-ton cargo ship Sanko Maru had been only damaged. Three days later, Tautog made an attack from periscope depth against a cargo ship. Her spread of torpedoes sent Shoka Maru to the bottom. The patrol ended at Fremantle on 11 June. She was credited with six ships sunk for 19,500 tons; postwar, this was reduced to three for 7,500 tons.
Third patrol
Her third war patrol, conducted from 17 July to 10 September 1942, took Tautog to the coast of Indochina, where (in part due to torpedo shortages) she laid mines. The hunting was poor, and she sank only one ship, Ohio Maru (5,900 tons), on 6 August.
Fourth patrol
Tautog was refitted by at Albany, south of Fremantle. Again loaded with mines, the submarine put to sea 8 October 1942. On 20 October, her lookouts spotted the dim outline of a ship through a rain squall. Quickly submerging, the submarine determined that the ship was a 75-ton fishing schooner. Tautog prepared for battle, surfaced, closed the range, and fired a shot from her deck gun across the schooner's bow; the target hove to. The stranger broke the Japanese colors and hoisted a signal flag. Investigation revealed a Japanese crew and four Filipinos on board. The Filipinos swam over to the submarine and later enlisted in the United States Navy. The Japanese were ordered to take to their boats but refused to do so. Three shells fired in the schooner's stern disabled her rudder and propeller. The Japanese then launched a boat, were given water, and directed to the nearest land. When Tautog opened fire to sink the ship, several more Japanese emerged and scrambled into the boat. Ten more rounds left the schooner a burning hulk.
On 27 October, Tautog tracked a passenger-cargo ship until dark and launched two torpedoes into her. A fire started in the target aft, her bow rose into the air, and the unidentified ship sank within a few minutes (tentatively identified as the Hokuango Maru formerly Chinese vessel Pei An ) The next day, a spread of torpedoes fired at another merchantman turned out to be duds; their impacts on the target which could be heard in the sub. However, escort ships had seen their tracks, and the submarine received a thorough depth charging which caused no serious damage. During the night of 2 November, Tautog laid mines off Haiphong, Indochina, with several exploding as they were emplaced. On 11 November, she launched a torpedo at another passenger/cargo ship. It missed and alerted an escort which gave Tautog a severe depth charge attack. Five explosions close aboard caused extensive minor damage. The submarine returned to Fremantle ten days later for repair and refit. She was credited with one ship of 5,100 tons; postwar, it was reduced to 4,000 tons.
Fifth patrol
Her fifth war patrol, from 15 December 1942 to 30 January 1943, took Tautog to the Java Sea, near Ambon Island, Timor Island, and Celebes Island. She contacted a freighter in Ombai Strait on 24 December and tracked her until 03:06 the next morning when she fired three stern tubes. Two hits sent Banshu Alaru Number 2 to the bottom. Tautog went deep and began retiring westward; enemy patrol boats kept her down for ten hours before they withdrew.
That night, Tautog was headed for Alors Strait when she sighted a ship (thought to be a freighter) coming west, accompanied by an escort. The targets suddenly turned toward Tautog and were recognized as an antisubmarine warfare team. The submarine went deep but still received a severe pounding. On 5 January 1943, Tautog sighted a sail off her port bow and promptly closed the ship. It turned out to be a native craft with a dozen Muslim sailors, four women, several babies, some chickens, and a goat on board. After he had examined the ship's papers, Tautog'''s commanding officer, William B. Sieglaff, allowed the vessel to resume its voyage. On 9 January at 08:38, Tautog (relying on ULTRA) sighted Natori, a Nagara-class cruiser off Ambon Island, at a range of about . Three minutes later, the submarine fired her first torpedo. At 09:43, her crew heard a loud explosion, and sonar reported the cruiser's screws had stopped. In the next few minutes, as the cruiser got underway at reduced speed, Tautog scored two more hits, while the cruiser opened fire on her periscope with guns, preventing her from tracking the target for another attack; the cruiser limped into Ambon.
Later in the patrol, in the Salajar Strait, Tautog spotted a second cruiser (again thanks to ULTRA), and launched four torpedoes in heavy seas; all missed. She sighted a freighter on 22 January in the Banda Sea, and three of the submarine's torpedoes sent her to the bottom. The victim was later identified as Hasshu Maru, a former Dutch passenger-cargo ship which had been taken over by the Japanese. Tautog then headed for Fremantle, where she was greeted warmly for her "extreme aggressiveness." She was credited with two ships sunk for 6,900 tons; postwar, this was limited to two of 2,900.
Sixth patrolTautogs next patrol was conducted in Makassar Strait and around Balikpapan (where she again laid mines) from 24 February 1943 to 19 April. On 17 March, she sighted a grounded tanker with topside damage from an air attack. One torpedo, well placed near the stern, produced a secondary explosion, and the ship settled by the stern. Tautog expended three additional torpedoes on a freighter, but missed. On 9 April in the Celebes Sea off Boston Island, Tautog contacted a convoy of five ships. She sank the 5,214-ton freighter Penang Maru with three torpedoes, then the destroyer Isonami (1,750 tons) as it rescued crew from the Penang Maru with three more and missed with three. During this patrol, in four battle surfaces to test her new gun (only the third 5"/25 cal pirated from an old V-boat,) Tautog also sank a schooner, a sailboat, and a motor sampan. Despite five torpedo and four gun attacks, however, she only sank two confirmed ships for 7,000 tons (wartime, 6,800).
Seventh patrolTautog stood out of Fremantle on 11 May 1943 and headed for a patrol area that included the Flores Sea, the Gulf of Boni, the Molucca Sea, the Celebes Sea, and the Moru Gulf. On 20 May, she sank a sampan with her deck guns. On 6 June, the submarine fired a spread of three torpedoes at a cargo ship off the entrance to Basalin Strait. The first torpedo scored a hit 20 seconds after being fired and a yellowish-green flash went up amidships of Shinei Maru as she went down. Tautog sank the 4,474-ton cargo ship Meiten Maru on 20 June, prior to ending her 53-day patrol at Pearl Harbor. This patrol was no more successful; despite six torpedo and three gun attacks, she only sank two confirmed ships for 14,300 tons (reduced to 5,300 tons postwar). The submarine was then routed back to the United States for an overhaul at Hunter's Point Navy Yard. She held refresher training when the yard work was completed and got underway for Hawaii.
Eighth patrol
On 7 October 1943, Tautog departed Pearl Harbor to patrol in waters near the Palau Islands. On 22 October, she surfaced near Fais Island to shell a phosphate plant. She sank Submarine Chaser Number 30 on 4 November. and subsequently damaged a tanker and three cargo ships. With all torpedoes expended, Tautog tracked a convoy for two days while radioing its position back to Pearl Harbor before she returned to Midway Island on 18 November.
Ninth patrolTautog's ninth war patrol began on 12 December 1943 and took her to Japanese home waters, southeast of Shikoku Island and along the southern coast of Honshū. On 27 December, she fired a spread of three torpedoes at a freighter and made a similar attack on a passenger ship. However, she never learned the results of these attacks since enemy escorts forced her to go deep and kept her down for four hours while they rained 99 depth charges on her. On 3 January 1944, Tautog tracked a cargo ship off the mouth of the Kumano Kawa River, approximately one-half mile from the seawall. She fired a spread of three torpedoes, turned, and headed for deep water. The submarine ran up her periscope, but an explosion filled the air with debris and obscured Saishu Maru from view as the freighter sank. The sound of approaching high-speed propellers and a closing patrol plane convinced the submarine that it was time to depart.
The next day, Tautog made radar contact with a ship and tracked the target while working toward a good firing position. A profligate spread of six torpedoes produced four hits which broke Usa Maru in half. When last seen, the cargoman's bow and stern were both in the air. On 11 January, Tautog intercepted two freighters and launched three torpedoes at the first and larger, and one at the second. Escorts forced the submarine deep, but timed explosions indicated a hit on each ship. Tautog was later credited with inflicting medium damage to Kogyo Maru. She returned to Pearl Harbor for a refit by on 30 January, credited with two ships for 9,700 tons (postwar, 6,000).
Tenth patrolTautog's assignment for her tenth war patrol took her to the cold waters of the northern Pacific near the Kuril Islands, from Paramushiro south to the main islands of Japan and the northeast coast of Hokkaidō. The submarine topped off with fuel at Midway and entered her patrol area on 5 March 1944. Her only casualty of the war occurred that day. While several members of her crew were doing emergency work on deck, a giant wave knocked them all off their feet and swept one man, newly assigned Motor Machinist's Mate R. A. Laramee, overboard; a search for him proved fruitless.
On 13 March, Tautog tracked a freighter until she reached a good position for an attack and then launched three torpedoes from , of which two hit and stopped Ryua Maru. The target refused to sink, even after Tautog fired four more torpedoes into "the rubber ship". To avoid wasting more precious torpedoes, the submarine surfaced and finished the job with her 5" gun. While she was attempting this, another ship came over the horizon to rescue survivors. Leaving the bait sitting, Tautog dived and began a submerged approach, firing a spread of three torpedoes; cargo ship Shojen Maru sank, more quickly than her inexplicably durable sister. As the sub headed homeward on the night of 16 March, Tautog made radar contact on a convoy of seven ships off Hokkaidō. She maneuvered into position off the enemy's starboard flank so that two ships were almost overlapping and launched four torpedoes. After watching the first one explode against the nearer ship, Tautog was forced deep by an escort, but heard two timed explosions and breaking-up noises accompanied by more explosions. The American submarine pursued the remaining ships and attacked again from their starboard flank, firing three torpedoes at a medium-sized freighter and four at another ship. A Japanese destroyer closed the submarine, forced her deep, and subjected her to a depth charge attack for one and one-half hours. Tautog was officially credited with sinking Shirakumo (1,750 tons) and the passenger/cargo ship Nichiren Maru, bringing her total for the patrol to five ships for 17,700 tons (reduced postwar to four for 11,300), one of the most aggressive, and successful, of the war. She returned to Midway on 23 March.
Eleventh patrol
During her next patrol, from 17 April to 21 May 1944, Tautog returned to the Kuril Islands. On 2 May, she sighted a cargo ship in a small harbor between Banjo To and Matsuwa To. The submarine launched four torpedoes from a range of . One hit obscured the target. An hour later, Tautog fired two more and scored another hit. The 5,973-ton Army cargo ship Ryoyo Maru settled in of water, decks awash. The next morning, Tautog made radar contact in a heavy fog, closing the enemy ship and firing four torpedoes; two hit the target. The submarine circled for a follow-up shot, but this was difficult as the water was covered with gasoline drums, debris, and life rafts. When Tautog last saw Fushimi Maru (5,000 tons) through the fog, her bow was in the air. On 8 May, amid "swarms of ships" the submarine contacted a convoy bound for Esan Saki. She fired torpedoes at the largest ship. One hit slowed the target, and two more torpedoes left Miyazaki Maru (4,000 tons) sinking by the stern. Escorts forced Tautog deep and depth charged her for seven hours without doing any damage. At dawn on 9 May, she fired on another freighter, missing. Three days later, the submarine fired her last three torpedoes at Banei Maru Number 2 (1,100 tons) and watched her disappear in a cloud of smoke. When Tautog returned to Pearl Harbor, she was credited with four ships sunk for 20,500 tons (postwar reduced to 16,100).
Twelfth patrol
On 23 June 1944, Tautog departed Pearl Harbor for Japanese waters to patrol the east coasts of Honshū and Hokkaidō. On 8 July, she stopped a small freighter dead in the water with one spread of torpedoes and followed with another spread that sank the ship. A lone survivor, taken on board the submarine, identified the ship as Matsu Maru which was transporting a load of lumber from Tokyo to Muroran. The next day, Tautog was patrolling on the surface near Simusu Shima, when she sighted a ship coming over the horizon. She submerged, closed the range, identified the ship as a coastal steamer. Surfacing, the sub fired 21 5" shells into the target, starting a fire and causing an explosion that blew off the target's stern. She then rescued six survivors from a swamped lifeboat who identified their ship as the Hokoriu Maru, en route from the Bonin Islands to Tokyo laden with coconut oil.
On 2 August, Tautog sighted several ships off Miki Saki. She launched three torpedoes at a freighter from a range of . The first hit caused a secondary explosion which obscured the target, and the second raised a column of black smoke. When the air cleared, the cargo ship Konei Maru had sunk. The submarine was briefly attacked by escorts but evaded them and set her course for Midway. Tautog arrived there on 10 August, credited with a disappointing two ships for 4,300 tons (postwar reduced to 2,800); she was routed to the United States for overhaul.
Thirteenth patrolTautog was back in Pearl Harbor in early December and, on 17 December 1944, began her 13th and last war patrol. She called at Midway and Saipan before taking her patrol station (in company with ) in the East China Sea. On 17 January 1945, Tautog sighted a ship heading toward her. She attained a position and fired a spread of three torpedoes. One hit blew off the enemy's bow. She fired another torpedo from a range of ; and the loaded troopship, Transport Number 15, disintegrated. The bright moonlight of 20 January disclosed an enemy ship at a range of . Tautog maneuvered to silhouette the target against the moon and attacked with two torpedoes and then watched the ship sink. The submarine approached the wreckage and rescued one survivor who identified the ship as the motor torpedo boat tender Shuri Maru (1,800 tons), en route from Tsingtao to Sasebo. The next day, Tautog damaged a tanker but could not evaluate the damage as she had to evade enemy escorts that were approaching. On her way back to Midway Island, the submarine sank a wooden trawler with her deck guns. Her score for the patrol was three ships for 8,500 tons (postwar, two for 3,300).Tautog completed her patrol at Midway on 1 February 1945 and was assigned to training duty. On 2 March, the submarine shifted her operations to Pearl Harbor to assist aircraft in anti-submarine warfare for one month before heading for the United States. She reached San Diego on 9 April and operated in conjunction with the University of California's Department of War Research in experimenting with new equipment which it had developed to improve submarine safety. On 7 September, she headed for San Francisco to join the Pacific Reserve Fleet. Her orders were subsequently modified, and she got underway on 31 October for the East Coast. Tautog arrived at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on 18 November and was decommissioned on 8 December 1945.
Fate
Plans to use Tautog as a target during atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll in 1946 were cancelled, and she was assigned to the Ninth Naval District on 9 May 1947 as a reserve training ship. The submarine was towed to Wisconsin and arrived at Milwaukee on 26 December 1947. She provided immobile service at the Great Lakes Naval Reserve Training Center for the next decade.Tautog was placed out of service and stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 11 September 1959. On 15 November 1959, she was sold to the Bultema Dock and Dredge Company of Manistee, Michigan, for scrap.
Awards
Navy Unit Commendation for a combined seven war patrols
American Defense Service Medal with "FLEET" clasp
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with 14 battle stars
World War II Victory Medal
Notes
References
References
Blair, Clay, Jr. Silent Victory. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1975.
Fitzsimons, Bernard, ed. Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Weapons and Warfare. London: Phoebus Publishing, 1978. Volume 20, pp. 2214–8 passim.
__. Illustrated Encyclopedia of 20th Century Weapons and Warfare (London: Phoebus, 1978), Volume 10, p. 1040, "Fubuki".
Lenton, H.T. American Submarines.'' New York: Doubleday & Co., 1973.
External links
Tambor-class submarines
World War II submarines of the United States
Ships built in Groton, Connecticut
1940 ships
Ships present during the attack on Pearl Harbor |
420910 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delaware%20Valley | Delaware Valley | The Delaware Valley, sometimes referred to as Greater Philadelphia or the Philadelphia metropolitan area, is a metropolitan region in the Northeast on the East Coast of the United States that centers on Philadelphia and spans four U.S. states: southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey, northern Delaware, and the northern Eastern Shore of Maryland. As of the 2020 census, the core metropolitan statistical area of the Delaware Valley had a total population of 6.288 million residents, making it the nation's seventh-largest, the continent's eighth-largest, and the world's 35th-largest metropolitan area. The combined statistical area of the Delaware Valley is even larger with a total population of 7.366 million.
The Delaware Valley's urban core is Philadelphia, the nation's 6th-most populous city. Other major urban population centers in the region include Reading, Upper Darby Township, and Chester in Pennsylvania; Atlantic City, Camden, Vineland, and Cherry Hill in New Jersey; and Wilmington and Dover in Delaware. Philadelphia metropolitan area has a gross domestic product (G.D.P.) of $431 billion, the ninth-largest among U.S. metropolitan areas.
The Delaware Valley has been influential in the nation's history and economy. The area has been home to many people and sites significant to American culture, history, and politics. Philadelphia is sometimes known as "The Birthplace of America", since both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were drafted and signed in the city. The Delaware Valley was home to many other instrumental moments during the American Revolution, and Philadelphia served as the nation's first capital for most of the 18th century until construction of the nation's capital in Washington, D.C., in 1800. Both the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed and ratified in Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1776 and 1789, respectively.
The Delaware Valley is one of the nation's leading regions for academia and academic research with a considerable number of globally-known and highly ranked universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, Thomas Jefferson University, Rowan University, Villanova University, Saint Joseph's University, Temple University, Rutgers University–Camden, La Salle University, the University of Delaware, Stockton University, and others. Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley are a biotechnology hub. As of 2023, metropolitan Philadelphia had entered the ranks of the top five U.S. venture capital centers, facilitated by its relative proximity to the New York metropolitan area and its entrepreneurial and financial ecosystems. In addition, South Jersey and the wider Philadelphia metropolitan area have become a U.S. East Coast epicenter for logistics and warehouse construction.
Geography
The Delaware Valley is geographically associated and proximate to the Delaware River's main watershed, which encompass the Delaware River's three primary tributaries, the Schuylkill River, Lehigh River, and the Brandywine River, and their respective valleys and sub-basins. These extensions also apply culturally because the ease of land travel in the region affords a great deal of daily interaction, creating a regional culture and value structure that largely blends and is parallel throughout it.
U.S. government agencies have reached various definitions of the Delaware Valley and the Greater Philadelphia Area.
The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defines metropolitan statistical area (MSAs), which are regions with relatively high population densities at their cores and close economic ties throughout their respective areas. MSAs are further combined into combined statistical areas (CSAs), reflecting commuting patterns. Neither is a formal administrative division.
Metropolitan statistical area (MSA)
Philadelphia is located in the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area, which includes:
Camden, NJ Metropolitan Division
Burlington County
Camden County
Gloucester County
Philadelphia, PA Metropolitan Division
Bucks County
Chester County
Delaware County
Montgomery County
Philadelphia County
Wilmington, DE-NJ Metropolitan Division
New Castle County, Delaware
Salem County, New Jersey
Cecil County, Maryland
Combined statistical area (CSA)
Philadelphia-Reading-Camden Combined Statistical Area includes:
Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington MSA (11 counties, as defined above)
Berks County, Pennsylvania, comprising the Reading, PA MSA
Atlantic County, New Jersey, comprising the Atlantic City-Hammonton, NJ MSA
Cape May County, New Jersey, comprising the Ocean City, NJ MSA
Cumberland County, New Jersey, comprising the Vineland-Bridgeton, NJ MSA
Kent County, Delaware, comprising the Dover, DE MSA
Regional Planning Commission
The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) serves all of the counties of the MSA above, except for the counties in the Wilmington, DE-MD-NJ Metropolitan Division. However the DVRPC's jurisdiction does include, additionally, Mercer County, New Jersey, which the OMB classifies as the Trenton-Princeton, NJ MSA, part of the larger New York-Newark CSA.
Population and economy
According to 2016 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau, the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area ranks as the seventh-largest MSA in the U.S. with 6,070,500 people. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington MSA had a gross domestic product of $431 billion, the ninth-largest among U.S. metropolitan areas. 2016 Census Bureau estimates rank the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden Combined Statistical Area as the ninth-largest CSA in the U.S., with 7,179,357 people.
The Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington Metropolitan Statistical Area's population of roughly 6 million people is comparable to that of countries such as Lebanon, Denmark, and Nicaragua. The MSA's nominal gross domestic product of $431 billion is comparable to countries such as Belgium, Iran, and Thailand. The MSA also ranks as the second most populous in the Northeastern U.S. after the New York metropolitan area, while the CSA is third-largest in the Northeast after the New York and Boston metropolitan areas. The Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area, which is part of Northeast Megalopolis but is considered part of the Southeastern U.S. under Census Bureau definitions, is also larger than the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Philadelphia itself is the sixth-most populous city in the U.S. and the third-most populous U.S. city east of the Mississippi River, after New York City and Chicago. Metropolitan Philadelphia is one of the top five American venture capital hubs, credited to its proximity to the New York metropolitan area and its financial and tech and biotechnology ecosystems.
At least two educational institutions, Delaware Valley Regional High School in Alexandria Township and Delaware Valley College in Doylestown Township, and a now defunct local newspaper, The Delaware Valley News in
Frenchtown, are named for the region.
Subregions
Sixteen counties in four states constitute the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden Combined Statistical Area. The five Pennsylvania counties in the Metropolitan Statistical Area are collectively known as Southeastern Pennsylvania, and the four suburban counties from this region are sometimes called the "collar counties." Aside from Philadelphia, major municipalities in Southeastern Pennsylvania include the inner suburbs of Upper Darby Township and Bensalem Township. Berks County, which forms its own MSA and contains the CSA's second largest city, Reading, is generally not considered to be part of Southeastern Pennsylvania and is sometimes assigned to South Central Pennsylvania.
The seven New Jersey counties in the CSA form South Jersey, although Ocean County, which is part of the New York CSA, is also sometimes considered to be part of South Jersey. Atlantic County, Cape May County, and Cumberland County each form their own respective metropolitan statistical areas. Atlantic City, Cape May County, and the southern Jersey Shore, including Margate City, Ventnor City, the Wildwoods, and Sea Isle City, are major tourist destinations for people from inside and outside of the Delaware Valley. Other major municipalities in South Jersey include Cherry Hill and Camden, which is across the Delaware River, east of Philadelphia.
The two counties of Delaware in the CSA constitute a majority of Delaware's land mass and population. Wilmington is the most populous city in Delaware and the fifth-most populous municipality in the Delaware Valley. The lone Maryland county in the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden Combined Statistical Area is part of the region known as the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Media market
The Delaware Valley and several areas bordering up on it, including the Lehigh Valley, are part of the Philadelphia media market, the fourth-largest media market in the nation as of 2023.
Components of Philadelphia-Camden-Wilmington, PA-NJ-DE-MD Metropolitan Statistical Area
Additional Components of Philadelphia-Camden-Vineland, PA-NJ-DE-MD Combined Statistical Area
List of largest municipalities
The following municipalities are all within the Philadelphia-Reading-Camden combined statistical area and part of the Delaware Valley:
Statistical history
When metropolitan areas were originally defined in 1950, most of the area now in the Delaware Valley was split between four metropolitan areas, or "standard metropolitan areas", as they were called. The Philadelphia SMA comprised Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery counties in Pennsylvania and Burlington, Camden and Gloucester counties in New Jersey. The Wilmington SMA comprised New Castle County in Delaware and Salem County in New Jersey, while Berks County was the Reading SMA and Atlantic County was the Atlantic City SMA.
In 1960, Cecil County was added to what was now the Wilmington Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area (SMSA). In 1980, Cumberland County was defined as the Vineland-Millville-Bridgeton SMSA.
In 1990, the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Vineland-Millville-Bridgeton SMSAs were merged with the Trenton SMSA as the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Trenton Consolidated Metropolitan Statistical Area. At the same time, Cape May County was added to the Atlantic City SMSA. "Philadelphia-Wilmington-Trenton" became obsolete one census later, with Trenton moving to the New York-Newark-Bridgeport CSA, and the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Vineland CSA consisting only of the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Camden MSA and the Vineland-Millville-Bridgeton MSA. Kent County became the Dover MSA in 2000, and it and Atlantic City were added to the Philadelphia CSA in 2010, for a total of six MSA components; as a result of new 2010 definitions based on a threshold of 15% labor interchange between MSAs, two more MSAs were added to the CSA, for a total of six. With Ocean City, NJ, and Reading, PA, the CSA is now known as Philadelphia-Reading-Camden.
Characteristics
The Delaware Valley is home to extensive populations of Irish Americans, German Americans, English Americans, Ukrainian Americans, Italian Americans, Swedish-Americans, who have a museum located at FDR Park in South Philadelphia, Polish Americans, Scottish Americans, Ulster Scot or "Scotch-Irish" Americans, Welsh Americans, Jewish Americans, Greek Americans, African Americans, Chinese Americans, Indian Americans, Russian Americans, Korean Americans, Vietnamese Americans, Armenian Americans, Arab Americans, Turkish Americans, Pakistani Americans, Israeli Americans, various African immigrant groups, particularly from West Africa, including Nigerian Americans, Ghanaian Americans, and Sierra Leonean Americans, as well as East African immigrants, such as Ethiopian Americans; various West Indian American groups, including Jamaican Americans and Haitian Americans; and various Hispanic American groups. Within the Hispanic population, the vast majority are Puerto Ricans, though other significant groups include Dominican Americans, Mexican Americans, and populations from Central America. There is even a small Native American community known as Lenapehoking for Lenni-Lenape Indians of West Philadelphia.
Philadelphia's suburbs contain a high concentration of malls, the two largest of which have at least of office space, and at least of retail. These are the King of Prussia mall in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, which is the largest in the U.S. (leasable sq. feet of retail space), and the Cherry Hill Mall in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, which was the first enclosed mall on the East Coast. In addition, the Christiana Mall in Newark, Delaware, is a popular destination due to its proximity to Interstate 95 and because of the availability of tax-free shopping in Delaware. Malls, office complexes, strip shopping plazas, expressways, and tract housing are common sights, and more and more continue to replace rolling countryside, farms, woods, and wetlands. However, due to strong opposition by residents and political officials, many acres of land have been preserved throughout the Delaware Valley. Older townships and large boroughs such as Cheltenham, Norristown, Jenkintown, Upper Darby and West Chester retain distinct community identities while engulfed in suburbia. The fastest-growing counties are Chester, Montgomery, Bucks, and Gloucester.
Mid-Atlantic American English and its subset, Philadelphia English, are two common dialects of American English in Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley.
Climate
The Delaware Valley has four distinct seasons with ample precipitation and is divided by the 0 °C (32 °F) January isotherm. Philadelphia and the New Jersey portion of the area, almost all of the Delaware and Maryland portions, most of Delaware County and lower Bucks County, lowland southern Chester County, and some southern and lowland areas of Montgomery County have a humid subtropical climate (Cfa according to the Köppen climate classification.) The remainder of the Delaware Valley has a hot-summer humid continental climate (Dfa.) PRISM Climate Group at Oregon State University Snow amounts may vary widely year-to-year and normally do vary widely within the Delaware Valley.
The region has only two ski areas: Bear Creek Mountain Resort in Longswamp Township, Berks County and Spring Mountain Adventures in central Montgomery County. Global warming endangers skiing at the latter, where the climate narrowly remains Dfa and the owners have diversified to year-round activities.
Using the -3 °C January isotherm as a boundary, all of the Delaware Valley is humid subtropical except for higher portions of Berks County. The warm-summer humid continental climate (Dfb) only exists in higher areas of Berks where all monthly temperatures average below 22 °C. The hardiness zone in the region ranges from 6a in higher areas of Berks to 7b.
Using the Trewartha climate classification system, which requires eight months to average at least 50 °F for the climate to be considered subtropical, the region only has seven such months, so the area considered Cfa by Köppen is oceanic (Do) in the Trewartha system.
Colonial history
The valley was the territory of the Susquehannock and Lenape, who are recalled in place names throughout the region. The region became part of the Dutch colony of New Netherland after the exploration of Delaware Bay in 1609. The Dutch called the Delaware River the Zuyd Rivier, or South River, and considered the lands along it banks and those of its bay to be the southern flank of its province of New Netherland. In 1638, it began to be settled by Swedes, Forest Finns, Dutch, and Walloons and became the colony of New Sweden, though this was not officially recognized by the Dutch Empire which re-asserted control in 1655. The area was taken by the English in 1664.
The name Delaware comes from Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr, who had arrived at Jamestown, Virginia in 1610, just as original settlers were about to abandon it, and thus maintaining the English foothold on the North American continent. In the early 1700s, Huguenot refugees from France by way of Germany and then England began settling in the Delaware River Valley. Specifically, they left their mark in Hunterdon County, New Jersey (Frenchtown) and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Transportation
Many residents commute to jobs and travel in Philadelphia, Camden, Wilmington, and the surrounding suburbs with the help of expressways, trains, and buses. There are currently no transit connections to Reading, the second largest municipality in the region.
Rail
Rapid transit
SEPTA
Market–Frankford Line connecting 69th Street Transportation Center in Upper Darby to Frankford Transportation Center in Near Northeast Philadelphia, passing through Center City
Broad Street Line connecting Fern Rock Transportation Center in North Philadelphia to Center City and NRG station in South Philadelphia
Norristown High Speed Line connecting 69th Street Transportation Center with Norristown Transportation Center in Norristown
PATCO
PATCO Speedline connecting Philadelphia to Lindenwold, NJ in Camden County with connections to NJT's Atlantic City Line.
Light rail
SEPTA
Subway–surface lines: Routes 10, 11, 13, 34, and 36, connecting West Philadelphia and Delaware County with 13th Street Station, running at street-level through Delaware County and West Philadelphia, and beneath Market Street in Center City
Route 15 along Girard Avenue from 63rd Street and Girard Avenue to Richmond and Westmoreland Streets
Routes 101 and 102 connecting Media (Route 101) and Sharon Hill (Route 102) in Delaware County with 69th Street Transportation Center
NJ Transit
River Line connecting Camden, New Jersey to Trenton, New Jersey, running along the east bank of the Delaware River.
Commuter rail
SEPTA Regional Rail
Airport Line connecting Central Philadelphia with Philadelphia International Airport in Philadelphia and Delaware Counties.
Wilmington/Newark Line connecting Philadelphia to the Wilmington, Delaware area (with limited weekday service to Newark, Delaware), via Chester City and Delaware County.
Warminster Line connecting Philadelphia with southeastern Montgomery County and Warminster in Bucks County.
West Trenton Line connecting Philadelphia north to the Trenton, New Jersey area, serving Montgomery and Bucks County, Pennsylvania, between Jenkintown and Yardley, Pennsylvania, with the final stop in Ewing, New Jersey.
Media/Wawa Line connecting Philadelphia to central Delaware County.
Paoli/Thorndale Line connecting Philadelphia with the affluent Main Line area and western Chester County near Coatesville.
Lansdale/Doylestown Line connecting Philadelphia with Lansdale in central Montgomery County and Doylestown in Bucks County.
Manayunk/Norristown Line connecting Philadelphia with Conshohocken and Norristown in Montgomery County.
Cynwyd Line connecting Philadelphia with Bala Cynwyd on the Philadelphia/Montgomery County line (limited weekday service)
Trenton Line connecting Philadelphia to Trenton, New Jersey, serving Bucks County.
Fox Chase Line connecting Central Philadelphia with the Fox Chase area in Philadelphia.
Chestnut Hill East Line and Chestnut Hill West Line connecting Central Philadelphia with the Chestnut Hill area of the city.
NJ Transit
Atlantic City Line connecting Philadelphia to Atlantic City, New Jersey with connections to PATCO Speedline in Lindenwold, New Jersey.
MARC Train
Penn Line connecting Perryville, Maryland to Baltimore and Washington D.C., and in the future will connect to SEPTA at Newark, DE.
Intercity rail
Amtrak
Acela: high-speed rail connecting Washington, D.C., with Boston
Cardinal connecting Chicago with New York City
Carolinian connecting Charlotte, NC with New York City
Crescent connecting New Orleans and New York City
Keystone Service connecting Harrisburg, PA with New York City
Northeast Regional: inter-city regional rail service from Virginia to Boston
Palmetto connecting Savannah, GA with New York City
Pennsylvanian connecting Pittsburgh with New York City
Silver Meteor connecting Miami with New York City
Silver Star connecting Miami with New York City
Vermonter connecting Washington, D.C., with St. Albans, VT
Bus service
Transit buses
SEPTA
NJ Transit
South Jersey Transportation Authority
DART First State
Krapf Transit
Bucks County Transport
Transportation Management Association of Chester County
TMA Bucks
Pottstown Area Rapid Transit
Berks Area Regional Transportation Authority
Cecil Transit
Atlantic City casino bus routes by a number of private carriers
Intercity bus
Amtrak Thruway Motorcoach
BoltBus
Greyhound Lines
Klein Transportation
Martz Trailways
Megabus
OurBus
Peter Pan Bus Lines
Trans-Bridge Lines
Major highways
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
Delaware
Maryland
Delaware River Bridges
New Hope–Lambertville Toll Bridge
Scudder Falls Bridge
Delaware River – Turnpike Toll Bridge
Burlington–Bristol Bridge
Tacony–Palmyra Bridge
Betsy Ross Bridge
Benjamin Franklin Bridge
Walt Whitman Bridge
Commodore Barry Bridge
Delaware Memorial Bridge
Airports
Major:
Philadelphia International Airport (PHL), located 15 miles southwest of Center City Philadelphia, is the main international airport serving the Delaware Valley
Secondary:
Atlantic City International Airport (ACY)
Lehigh Valley International Airport (ABE) (not in CSA)
New Castle Airport (ILG)
Northeast Philadelphia Airport (PNE)
Reading Regional Airport (RDG)
Trenton–Mercer Airport (TTN) (not in CSA)
Ferry
The Cape May–Lewes Ferry crosses the mouth of the Delaware Bay between Cape May County, New Jersey and Sussex County, Delaware; U.S. Route 9 uses this ferry.
Colleges and universities
Delaware
Delaware College of Art and Design
Delaware State University
Goldey-Beacom College
University of Delaware
Wesley College
Widener University School of Law
Wilmington University
Maryland
Cecil College
New Jersey
Rider University
Rowan University
Rutgers School of Law–Camden
Rutgers University (Camden)
Stockton University
The College of New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Albright College
Alvernia University
Arcadia University
Bryn Mawr College
Cabrini College
Cairn University
Chestnut Hill College
Cheyney University of Pennsylvania
Curtis Institute of Music
Delaware Valley University
DeVry University
Drexel University
Eastern University
Gwynedd-Mercy College
Harcum College
Haverford College
Holy Family University
Immaculata University
Kutztown University of Pennsylvania
La Salle University
Lincoln University
Manor College
Moore College of Art and Design
Neumann University
Peirce College
Penn State Abington
Penn State Berks
Penn State Brandywine
Penn State Great Valley
Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine
Point Park University
Rosemont College
Saint Joseph's University
Swarthmore College
Temple University
Thomas Jefferson University
University of Pennsylvania
University of the Arts (Philadelphia)
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
Ursinus College
Valley Forge Christian College
Valley Forge Military Academy and College
Villanova University
West Chester University
Westminster Theological Seminary
Widener University
Culture
Sports teams
Listing of the professional sports teams in the Delaware Valley
National Basketball Association (NBA)
Philadelphia 76ers
Major League Baseball (MLB)
Philadelphia Phillies
Minor League Baseball (MiLB)
Jersey Shore BlueClaws
Reading Fightin Phils
Wilmington Blue Rocks
National Football League (NFL)
Philadelphia Eagles
National Hockey League (NHL)
Philadelphia Flyers
Major League Soccer (MLS)
Philadelphia Union
NBA G League
Delaware Blue Coats
National Lacrosse League (NLL)
Philadelphia Wings
Media
The two main newspapers are The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, owned by the Philadelphia Media Network. Local television channels include KYW-TV 3 (CBS), WPVI 6 (ABC), WCAU 10 (NBC), WHYY-TV 12 (PBS), WPHL-TV 17 (MyNetworkTV), WTXF 29 (FOX), WPSG 57 (CW), and WPPX 61 (Ion). Radio stations serving the area include: WRTI, WIOQ, WDAS (AM), and WTEL.
Area codes
215/267/445: The City of Philadelphia and some of its northern suburbs
610/484/835: Southeastern Pennsylvania outside Philadelphia, including the western suburbs, the Lehigh Valley, and most of Berks County
856: Southwestern New Jersey, including Camden, Cherry Hill, and Vineland
609/640: Central and Southeastern New Jersey, including Trenton, Atlantic City and the southern Jersey Shore
302: Delaware
410/443/667: Eastern half of Maryland, including Cecil County
717/223: South Central Pennsylvania, including Western Berks County
Politics
Philadelphia is heavily Democratic, having voted for the Democratic candidate in every presidential election since 1936. The surrounding suburban counties are key political areas in Pennsylvania, which itself is an important swing state in federal politics. South Jersey has consistently voted Democratic at the presidential level in recent years, although the region is slightly more Republican-leaning than North Jersey and has voted for Republicans at the state and local level. New Castle County's Democratic lean and large share of Delaware's population has tended to make Delaware as a whole vote for Democrats, while the less populous Kent County is more competitive. Recent well-known political figures from the Greater Philadelphia area include current U.S. President Joe Biden, former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell and late former U.S. Senator Arlen Specter.
Congressional districts
The following congressional districts of the United States House of Representatives are located partly or entirely in the Delaware Valley CSA. Italicized counties are not part of the CSA.
Additionally, the Delaware Valley is represented in the United States Senate by the eight Senators from Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.
See also
Central Delaware Valley AVA
Delaware Valley Railway
Northeast megalopolis
Mid-Atlantic states
Notes
References
Further reading
Jean R. Soderlund, Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society before William Penn. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014.
Mark L. Thompson, The Contest for the Delaware Valley: Allegiance, Identity, and Empire in the Seventeenth Century. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2013.
External links
Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission
Delaware River Basin Commission
Metropolitan areas of Delaware
Metropolitan areas of Maryland
Metropolitan areas of New Jersey
Metropolitan areas of Pennsylvania
Mid-Atlantic states
Northeast megalopolis
Regions of Pennsylvania
Regions of New Jersey
Regions of Maryland
Tourism regions of New Jersey |
420927 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir%20Kabir | Amir Kabir | Mirza Taghi Khan-e Farahani (), better known as Amir Kabir (Persian: , 9 January 1807 – 10 January 1852), also known by the title of Amir-e Nezam or Amir Nezam (), was chief minister to Naser al-Din Shah Qajar (Shah of Persia) for the first three years of his reign. He is widely considered to be "Iran's first reformer", a modernizer who was "unjustly struck down" as he attempted to bring "gradual reform" to Iran. As the prime minister, he also ordered the killing of many Babis and the execution of the founder of the movement, the Báb. In the last years of his life he was exiled to Fin Garden in Kashan and was murdered by command of Naser al-Din Shah Qajar on 10 January 1852.
Background and achievements
Early career
Amir Kabir was born in Hazaveh in the Arak district, in what is now Markazi Province of Iran. His father, Karbalaʾi Mohammad Qorban, entered the service of Mirza Bozorg Qa'em-Maqam of Farahan as cook, and when Mirza Bozorg was appointed chief minister to ʿAbbas Mirza, the crown prince, in Tabriz, Karbalaʾi Qorban accompanied him there, taking his son with him. Amir Kabir first assisted his father in performing domestic duties in the household of Mirza Bozorg, who saw signs of unusual talent in the boy and had him study with his own children. Mirza Bozorg died in 1237/1822 and was succeeded in the post of minister to the crown prince by his son, Mirza Bozorg. Under the son's aegis, Amir Kabir entered government service, being appointed first to the post of lashkarnevis [military registrar] for the army of Azerbaijan. In 1251/1835, he was promoted to the position of mostofi-ye nezam, becoming responsible for supervising the finances of the army of Azerbaijan; several years later he was put in charge of the same army’s provisions, financing, and organization with the title of vazir-e nezam.
During his tenure, Amir Kabir participated in many missions abroad. He spent almost four years in Erzurum, part of a commission to delineate the Ottoman-Iranian frontier. He resisted attempts to exclude Mohammareh (present-day Khorramshahr) from Iranian sovereignty and to make Iran pay compensation for its military incursions into the area of Solaymaniyeh. In this, he acted independently of the central government in Tehran, which not only failed to formulate a consistent policy vis-à-vis the Ottomans but also opposed most of Amir Kabir’s initiatives. Although a form of treaty was concluded between Iran and the Ottoman state, the borders had still not been delineated when the Crimean War erupted and the British and Russian mediators, now at war with one another, withdrew. Amir Kabir nonetheless acquired first-hand knowledge of the procedures of international diplomacy and of the aims and policies of Britain and Russia with respect to Iran. This helped him in the elaboration of his own distinct policies toward the two powers when he became chief minister.
Moreover, his years in Erzurum fell during the Ottoman military and administrative reforms known as the Tanzimat. Some awareness of these reached Amir Kabir in Erzurum and inspired in him at least one aspect of his policy as chief minister: the elimination of clerical influence upon affairs of state. When explaining to the British consul at Tabriz in 1265/1849 his own determination to make the authority of the state paramount, he said, “The Ottoman government was able to begin reviving its power only after breaking the power of the mullahs”.
Reforms of the army
Amir Kabir returned to Tabriz in 1263/1847. A year later, while retaining the post and title of vazir-e nezam, he was appointed lala-bashi or chief tutor to the crown prince Naser-al-din, who was still only fifteen years of age. Soon after, in Shawwal, 1264/September, 1848, Mohammad Shah died, and Naser-al-din had to proceed to Tehran and assume the throne. But his minister, Mirza Fathallah Nasir-al-molk ʿAliabadi, was unable to procure the necessary funds, so Naser-al-din had recourse to Amir Kabir, who made the necessary arrangements. Naser-al-din’s confidence in Amir Kabir increased, and shortly after leaving Tabriz, he awarded him the rank of amir-e nezam, with full responsibility for the whole Iranian army. After arriving in Tehran, he also appointed him chief minister (shakhs-e avval-e Iran), with the supplementary titles of amir-e kabir and atabak (Ḏu’l-qaʿda, 1264/October, 1848). The former title came to be his common designation; the latter, used for the first time since the Saljuq period, referred to the tutorial relationship between the minister and his young master.
His appointment as the chief minister aroused resentment, particularly the queen mother and other princes, who resented Amir Kabir’s reduction of their spending and allowances. The intrigues of his opponents resulted in a mutiny of a company of Azerbaijani troops garrisoned in Tehran; but with the cooperation of Mirza Abu’l-Qasem Imam of Friday Prayer in Tehran, who ordered the merchants of Tehran to close the bazaar and arm themselves, the mutiny was soon quelled, and Amir Kabir resumed his duties.
More severe disorder prevailed in a number of provincial cities, especially Mashhad. Toward the end of the reign of Mohammad Shah, Hamza Mirza Heshmat-al-doleh was appointed governor of Khorasan, but he found his authority disputed by Hasan Khan Salar, who, with the help of some local chieftains, had rebelled against the central government (1262/1846). Hamza Mirza abandoned Mashad to Hasan Khan and fled to Herat. Amir Kabir sent two armies against Hasan Khan, the second of which, commanded by Soltan Morad Mirza, defeated his forces and captured him. Amir Kabir had him executed (1266/1850), together with one of his sons and one of his brothers, a punishment of unprecedented severity for such provincial resistance to central authority, and a clear sign of Amir Kabir’s intention to assert the prerogatives of the state.
Administrative reforms
With order reestablished in the provinces, Amir Kabir turned to a wide variety of administrative, cultural, and economic reforms that were the major achievement of his brief ministry. His most immediate success was the vaccination of Iranians against smallpox, saving the lives of many thousands if not millions. Faced with an empty treasury on his arrival in Tehran, he first set about balancing the state budget by attempting to increase the sources of revenue and to decrease state expenditure. To aid him in the task, he set up a budgetary committee headed by Mirza Yusof Mostofi-al-mamalek that estimated the deficiency in the budget at one million Iranian toman. Amir Kabir thereupon decided to reduce drastically the salaries of the civil service, often by half, and to eliminate a large number of stipends paid to pensioners who did little or no governmental work. This measure increased his unpopularity with many influential figures and thus contributed to his ultimate disgrace and death.
At the same time he strove to collect overdue taxes from provincial governors and tribal chieftains by dispatching assessors and collectors to every province of the country. The collection of customs duties, previously farmed out to individuals, was now made the direct responsibility of the central government, and the Caspian fisheries, an important source of revenue, were recovered from a Russian monopoly and contracted out to Iranians.
The administration of the royal lands (khalesajat) came under review, and the income derived from them was more closely supervised than before. Yield and productivity, not area, were established as the basis of tax assessment for other lands, and previously dead lands were brought under cultivation. These various measures for the encouragement of agriculture and industry also benefited the treasury by raising the level of national prosperity and hence taxability.
Of particular interest is the care shown by Amir Kabir for the economic development of Khuzestan (then known as ʿArabestan), identified by him as an area of strategic importance, given its location at the head of the Persian Gulf, and also of potential prosperity. He introduced the planting of sugarcane to the province, built the Naseri dam on the river Karkheh and a bridge at Shushtar, and laid plans for the development of Mohammara. He also took steps to promote the planting of American cotton near Tehran and Urmia.
Dar al-Fanun and cultural achievements
Among the various measures enacted by Amir Kabir, the foundation of the Darolfonun, in Tehran was possibly the most lasting in its effects. Decades later, many parts of this establishment were turned into the University of Tehran, with the remaining becoming Darolfonun Secondary School. The initial purpose of the institution was to train officers and civil servants to pursue the regeneration of the state that Amir Kabir had begun, but as the first educational institution giving instruction in modern learning, it had far wider impact. Among the subjects taught were medicine, surgery, pharmacology, natural history, mathematics, geology, and natural science. The instructors were for the most part Austrians, recruited in Vienna by Daʾud Khan, an Assyrian who had become acquainted with Amir Kabir during the work of the Ottoman–Iranian border commission. By the time the instructors arrived in Tehran in Moharram, 1268/November, 1851, Amir Kabir had already been dismissed, and it fell to Daʾud Khan to receive them. The Austrian instructors initially knew no Persian, so interpreters had to be employed to assist in the teaching; but some among them soon learned Persian well enough to compose textbooks in the language on various natural sciences. These were to influence the evolution of a more simple and effective prose style in Persian than had previously existed. Dar ul-Funun had large fluctuations in its enrollment, primarily due to the Shah's fluctuating commitment in funding put into the institution. A clear decline in investment was apparent when a visitor reported in 1870 that seventy students and only a single European instructor were enrolled at the institution. Mirza Aqa Khan Nuri, Amir Kabir's successor, sought to persuade Naser-al-din Shah to abrogate the whole project, but the Darolfonun, soon became a posthumous monument to its founder.
Amir Kabir made a second indirect contribution to the elaboration of Persian as a modern medium with his foundation of the newspaper Vaqayeʿ-ye Ettefaqiyeh, which survived under different titles until the reign of Mozaffar-al-din Shah. A minimum circulation was ensured by requiring every official earning more than 2,000 rials a year to subscribe. In founding the journal Amir Kabir hoped to give greater effect to government decrees by bringing them to the attention of the public; thus the text of the decree forbidding the levying of soyursat was published in the third tissue of the paper. He also wished to educate its readers in the world’s political and scientific developments; among the items reported in the first year of publication were the struggles of Mazzini against the Habsburg Empire, the drawing up of the Suez Canal project, the invention of the balloon, a census of England, and the doings of cannibals in Borneo.
All of the measures enumerated so far had as their purpose the creation of a well-ordered and prosperous country, with undisputed authority exercised by the central government. This purpose was in part frustrated by the Ulema, who throughout the Qajar period disputed the legitimacy of the state and often sought to exercise an independent and rival authority. Amir Kabir took a variety of steps designed to curb their influence, above all in the sphere of law. He sought initially to supersede the sharʿ courts in the capital by sitting in judgment himself on cases brought before him; he abandoned the attempt when he realized that the inadequacy of his juridical knowledge had caused him to pronounce incorrect verdicts. Then he established indirect control over the sharʿ courts by giving prominence to one of them that enjoyed his special favor and by assigning the divan-khana, the highest instance of ʿorf jurisdiction, a more prominent role. All cases were to be referred to it before being passed on to a sharʿ court of the state’s choosing, and any verdict the sharʿ court then reached was valid only if endorsed by the divan-khaneh. In addition, any case involving a member of the non- Muslim minorities belonged exclusively to the jurisdiction of the divan-khana. Not content with thus circumscribing the prerogatives of the sharʿ courts, Amir Kabir took stringent measures against sharʿ judges found guilty of bribery or dishonesty; thus Molla ʿAbd-al-Rahim Borujerdi was expelled from Tehran when he offered to settle a case involving one of Amir Kabir's servants to the liking of the minister.
Amir Kabir also sought to reduce clerical power by restricting the ability of the ulema to grant refuge (bast), in their residences and mosques. In 1266/1850, bast was abolished, for example, at the Masjed-e Shah in Tehran, although it was restored after the downfall of Amir Kabir. In Tabriz, prolonged efforts were made to preserve bast at various mosques in the city, and recourse was even had to the alleged miracle of a cow that twice escaped the slaughterhouse by running into the shrine known as Boqʿa-ye Saheb-al-amr. The immediate instigators of the "miracle" were brought to Tehran, and soon after the emam-e jomʿa and shaykh-al-eslam of Tabriz, who had reduced civil government in the city to virtual impotence, were expelled. Less capable of fulfillment was Amir Kabir's desire to prohibit the taziyeh, the Shia "passion play" enacted in Moharram, as well as the public self-flagellation that took place during the mourning season. He obtained the support of several ulema in his attempt to prohibit these rites, but was obliged to relent in the face of strong opposition, particularly from Isfahan and Azerbaijan.
Minorities
Amir Kabir took a largely benevolent interest in the non-Muslim minorities of Iran, though in order to further his desire of strengthening the state. In Erzurum he had learned how European powers intervened in Ottoman affairs on the pretext of "protecting" the Christian minorities, and there were indications that Britain, Russia, and France hoped for similar benefits from the Assyrians and Armenians of Iran. He moved therefore to remove any possible grievances and hence any need for a foreign "protector." He exempted the priests of all denominations from taxation, and gave material support to Christian schools in Azerbaijan and Isfahan. In addition, he established a close relationship with the Zoroastrians of Yazd, and gave strict orders to the governor of the city that they not be molested or subjected to arbitrary taxes. He also forbade attempts made in Shushtar to convert forcibly the Mandaean community to Islam.
Foreign policy
The foreign policy of Amir Kabir was as innovative as his internal policies. He has been credited with pioneering the policy of "negative equilibrium," (giving concessions to neither Britain nor Russia) that was to later prove influential in Iranian foreign affairs. He thus abrogated the agreement whereby the Russians were to operate a trade center and hospital in Astarabad, and attempted to put an end to the Russian occupation of Ashuradeh, an island in the southeastern corner of the Caspian Sea, as well as the anchorage rights enjoyed by Russian ships in the lagoon of Anzali.
In the south of Iran he made similar efforts to restrict British influence in the Persian Gulf, and denied Britain the right to stop Iranian ships in the Persian Gulf on the pretext of looking for slaves. It is not surprising that he frequently clashed with Dolgorukiy and Sheil, the representatives of Russia and Britain in Tehran. In order to counteract British and Russian influence, he sought to establish relations with powers without direct interests in Iran, notably Austria and the United States. It may finally be noted that he set up a counter-espionage organization that had agents in the Russian and British embassies.
Suppression of Bábís and execution of the Báb
Amir Kabir regarded the followers of Bábism, the predecessor of the Baháʼí Faith, as a threat and repressed them. He suppressed the Babi upheavals of 1848-51 and personally ordered the execution of the Seven Martyrs of Tehran and the execution of The Báb, the movement's founder. `Abdu'l-Bahá referred to Amir Kabir as the greatest of the religion's oppressors but also acknowledged his significant government reforms.
The challenging and heterodox nature of the Báb's claims provoked opposition on the part of the Shiʿite establishment, which then led the civil authorities of Qajar Persia to intervene on the side of the clerics. Although no Bábis are known to have been put to death for their faith during the first three-and-a-half years of the movement and during the reign of Mohammad Shah (May 1844-late 1847), several leading Bábi were persecuted for their activities; e.g. Mullá ʻAlíy-i-Bastámí, one of the early disciples of the Bab was arrested and put on trail in Ottoman Iraq in January 1845, and condemned to work in the naval dockyards in Istanbul where he soon died.
In 1848, however, after the death of Mohammad Shah, and enthronement of the new teenage king, Nasir al-Din Shah and premiership of Amir Kabir, circumstances changed and a number of confrontations occurred between the Bábís and government and clerical establishment which lead to the massacre of several thousand Bábís.
The first major killings of Bábís recorded in history took place in Qazvin. Since then, attacks against the Bábís by prominent clerics and their followers became more common and some Bábís started to carry arms. In remote and isolated places the scattered Bábís were readily attacked and killed while in places where large numbers of them resided they acted in self-defense. One of these attacks occurred in Babol of Mazandaran, where a group of Bábís under the leadership of Mullá Husayn Bushrui were passing through. A mob led by a local cleric attacked them and a fighting broke out between the two groups. The Bábís took refuge in the nearby shrine of Shaykh Tabarsi. Accused of rebellion by their opponents, they were subsequently attacked by various local and national forces. After seven months of siege and severely weakened by starvation and their own loss of men, they responded to sworn promises of a truce and were for the most part massacred. After that, two other big clashes between the Bábís and their opponents took place in the cities of Zanjan and Neyriz in the north and south of Iran, respectively, as well as a smaller conflict in Yazd. A total of several thousand Bábís were killed in these conflicts. In the three main conflicts in Ṭabarsí, Zanjan and Neyriz, Bábís were accused by their enemies of revolting against the government. However, in all three cases, the battles that took place were of a defensive nature, and not considered an offensive jihad, as the Báb did not allow it and in the case of two urban conflicts (Neyriz and Zanjan), they were related to pre-existing social and political tensions within the towns.
After the Ṭabarsi conflict, mere adherence to the Báb could be sufficient to lead to a death sentence. One famous example of that is when Amir Kabir personally ordered the public beheading of seven prominent Babis of high social rank, (three merchants, two clerics, a leading dervish and a government official) in February 1850 . The seven could easily have saved their lives by recanting their faith, but they refused.
In mid-1850, Amir Kabir ordered the execution of the Báb which was followed by the killings of many other Bábís. The Báb stood his ground despite great pressure to recant, and gain his freedom. Consequently he was executed by a firing squad in public in Tabriz, the first exection of its kind in Iran, to crush the Babi movement and to display the restored power of the Qajar government under the new minister, Amir Kabir.
The confrontation between Amir Kabir and the Bábís was between two visions of modernity. Amir Kabir envisaged state-enforced reforms that were authoritarian and secular while the Bábís advocated an all-embracing religious renewal, proposed by the Báb that emphasized, among other teachings, on progressive revelation, abolishing priesthood, independent investigation of religious matters without the need for the clergy, and improving the status of women.
The Babis were advocating a grass-roots revolution to reform religious doctrine and remedy the ills of the clerical class and those of the community as a whole. Amir Kabir, on the other, sought to eliminate all expressions of religious dissent while trying unsuccessfully to subordinate the clerical class to the authority of the state. The European-inspired secularism of Amir Kabir was antithetical to serious reconsideration of religious tenets; especially if they could disturb security and order. By denying the Babis a chance to survive as a viable alternative, the Qajar state reaffirmed the unrivaled status of the clergy as the sole arbiter of religious norms. With the suppression of the Bábi movement chances for an indigenous movement of change ceased to exist for decades to come, and Amir Kabir inadvertently cleared the way for the consolidation of the power of the clergy for the rest of the century and beyond.
Dismissal and execution
From the start, Amir Kabir's policies incited animosity within the influential circles of Iranian elite – most notably the inner circle of the monarchy whose pensions and income were slashed by his financial reforms. He was also later opposed by those who envied him his numerous posts; they were backed strongly by foreign powers, whose influence had greatly diminished under his leadership. A coalition was thus formed among this opposition whose prominent members consisted of the Queen Mother, Mirza Aqa Khan-e Nuri (Amir Kabir’s lieutenant, reputedly Anglophile), and Mirza Yusuf Khan Ashtiyani (the Court's chief accountant, reputedly Russophile).
As the adolescent Nasir al-Din Shah began to exert his own independence in government, he was strongly influenced by the Queen Mother. Through her influence, Amir Kabir was demoted solely to the chief of the army and replaced by Nuri as the premier. This transition marked a rejection "of … reformist measures in favor of the traditional practices of government." The power struggle in government finally resulted in his arrest and expulsion from the capital under continued Russian and British interference. Amir Kabir was sent to Kashan under duress and kept in isolation by the Shah's decree. His execution was ordered six weeks later after the Queen Mother and his executioner, Ali Khan Farash-bashi, had convinced the King that Amir Kabir would soon be granted protection by the Russians – possibly allowing him to make an attempt to regain control of the government by force. The young Shah may have been inclined to believe these accusations because of the arrogance and disdain for protocol that Amir Kabir had shown since the beginning of his government career in Tabriz. Amir Kabir was murdered in Kashan on 10 January 1852. With him, many believe, died the prospect of an independent Iran led by meritocracy rather than nepotism.
Legacy
Among his Iranian contemporaries Amir Kabir received praise from several poets of the age, notably Sorush and Qaʾani, but his services to Iran remained generally unappreciated in the Qajar period. Modern Iranian historiography has done him more justice, depicting him as one of the few capable and honest statesmen to emerge in the Qajar period and the progenitor of various political and social changes that came about half a century later.
Contemporary Legacy
Amir Kabir Dam, inaugurated in 1961, is named after him.
Tehran Polytechnic, established in 1958, was renamed Amirkabir University of Technology after him in 1979.
Amirkabir, a well-known publisher founded in 1949.
In fiction
Amir Kabir Farahani is portrayed by actor Dariush Arjmand in Mohsen Makhmalbaf's movie Nasereddin Shah, Actor-e Cinema.
He is also portrayed by Saeed Nikpour in the Iranian television series Amir Kabir.
He is also portrayed by Naser Malek Motiee in Iranian television series Soltan-e Sahebgharan.
See also
List of prime ministers of Iran
Military history of Iran
Prime Minister of Iran
Dapir
References and notes
Amir Kabir and Iran' by Fereydun Adamiyat, Tehran, Kharazmi Publishing, 1354/1975.
1807 births
1852 deaths
Executed Iranian people
Executed politicians
People from Markazi Province
Prime Ministers of Iran
People executed by Qajar Iran
19th-century executions by Iran
Foreign ministers of Iran
19th-century Iranian politicians
People of Qajar Iran
People from Arak, Iran |
420941 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mai%20Kuraki | Mai Kuraki | (born October 28, 1982) is a Japanese pop and R&B singer-songwriter and record producer. After releasing her US debut single "Baby I Like" in 1999, Kuraki signed with Giza Studio and released her Japanese debut single "Love, Day After Tomorrow" in 1999. In 2000, she released her debut album, Delicious Way, which debuted at number-one and sold over 2.2 million copies in its first week. The album has spawned four top-three singles, "Love, Day After Tomorrow", "Stay by My Side", "Secret of My Heart", and "Never Gonna Give You Up". Eventually, the album sold over 3.5 million copies nationwide and became the best-selling album in Japan in 2000, and has been the ninth best-selling album in Japan of all-time.
Her second album, Perfect Crime (2001) debuted atop in Japan and has sold over 1.3 million copies nationwide. After the success in Japan, Kuraki targeted the American market again, with the English-language studio album Secret of My Heart (2002), however it failed to enter any charts in the United States. Her third Japanese album, Fairy Tale was released in 2002 and topped the Oricon albums chart. The album has spawned one number-one song, "Winter Bells". Her fourth album, If I Believe become her fourth consecutive number-one album in Japan. Her first compilation album, Wish You the Best (2004) sold nearly a million copies and became the seventh best-selling album of 2004 in Japan. Kuraki's succeeding albums, Fuse of Love (2005), Diamond Wave (2006), and One Life (2008) were released to less commercial success.
In 2009, Kuraki saw a revival in her popularity with the increased television appearances and the promotion. Her eighth studio album, Touch Me!, debuted atop in Japan, becoming her first number-one album in five years. Her second compilation album, All My Best (2009) topped the chart in Japan, making her one of the two artists who sent two albums at the top spot on the chart in the year. Her next studio albums, Future Kiss (2010) and Over the Rainbow (2012) both reached top three in Japan. Her third compilation album, Mai Kuraki Best 151A: Love & Hope (2014) managed to peak at number two in Japan and became the ninety-fifth best-selling album in Japan of the year. Her eleventh studio album, Smile (2017) sold less than her previous albums, partly due to the lack of the promotion.
Released in 2017, the single "Togetsukyo (Kimi Omou)" peaked at number two in Japan and became the best-selling single for a solo female artist in 2017. The single marked Kuraki's second revival in charts, succeeded by the compilation album, Mai Kuraki x Meitantei Conan Collaboration Best 21: Shinjitsu wa Itsumo Uta ni Aru! (2017), which peaked at number four in Japan and charted on the year-end album chart in 2017 and 2018. Her twelfth and thirteenth albums, Kimi Omou: Shunkashūtō (2018) and Let's Goal!: Barairo no Jinsei (2019) were both moderate success, reaching top three in Japan. Her fifth compilation album, Mai Kuraki Single Collection: Chance for You was released in 2019, in celebration of her 20th anniversary. In 2021, Kuraki released her fourteenth studio album Unconditional Love, which peaked at number four in Japan and spawned a number-one single "Zero kara Hajimete".
Kuraki is best known for singing the theme songs for the Japanese television anime series, Case Closed. As of October 2020, she has recorded twenty-three songs for the series and earning her a Guinness World Record for singing the most theme songs for the same television series. Kuraki also holds the record for being the only female artist to have all of her singles consecutively debut in the Top 10 since her debut in 1999, and is the 38th best-selling Japanese music artist of all time. To date, Kuraki has seven number-one albums (five originals and two compilations) and two number-one singles.
Biography
Early life and career beginnings
Mai Kuraki was born on October 28, 1982, to entrepreneur, film director and actor, Isomi Yamasaki. Her grandfather is Saneharu Yamasaki, a poet, and her aunt is Reiko Takizawa, an actor. Upon hearing Whitney Houston's music and seeing the dance moves of Michael Jackson, Kuraki dreamed to be a singer. While in high school, with the help of her father, who was a friend of the music label, Giza Studio, Kuraki sent a demo tape to the label and contracted a record deal with them. However, before Kuraki made her debut in Japan, she made her American debut. Under Giza USA and Bip! Records, Kuraki released the single, "Baby I Like" under the stage name Mai K. The cover of Yoko Black. Stone song, even impressed executives from the major label East West Records, prompting the label to distribute it. However, the song failed to chart on the Billboard charts and Giza sent her back to Japan.
2000–2001: Delicious Way and Perfect Crime
After coming back to Japan, Kuraki began working on her J-pop materials. She released her Japan debut single, "Love, Day After Tomorrow", on December 8, 1999. The single entered the Oricon single chart at number 18, and eventually peaked at number 2, selling 1.4 million copies and becoming the fourth best-selling single of 2000 in Japan. In June 2000, Kuraki's debut studio album, Delicious Way was released to a commercial success, debuting at number one in Japan and selling 2,210,000 copies in its first week, which still has been the biggest first week sales for the debut album in Japan as of 2020. Delicious Way has sold over three million copies and was certified 3x million as well as won "Rock album of the Year" at the 16th annual Japan Gold Disc Awards. As of 2020, the album remains as the ninth best-selling album in Japan. The album has spawned three other singles, "Stay by My Side", "Secret of My Heart", and "Never Gonna Give You Up", all of which reached top three in Japan. "Secret of My Heart" won a Japan Gold Disc Award for "Song of the Year" and was chosen as the theme song to the television anime series, Case Closed, for which Kuraki would be known for singing the multiple theme songs. In 2000, Kuraki sent six singles inside the top 100 on the Oricon Yearly Singles chart.
In July 2001, Kuraki released her second album, Perfect Crime. The album sold over 800,000 copies in its first week and debuted atop on the Oricon chart. The album has sold over 1.3 million copies and been certified Million by the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ). Perfect Crime won "Rock album of the Year". The album has spawned six singles, including platinum-certified singles, "Reach for the Sky", "Tsumetai Umi"/"Start in My Life", and "Stand Up". In August 2000, Kuraki embarked on her first promotional tour, Sokenbicha Natural Breeze 2001 Happy Live, supported by Coca-Cola, as their advertising campaign for their brand, Sokenbicha.
2002: Secret of My Heart and Fairy Tale
In January 2002, Kuraki released her first English-language album, Secret of My Heart in the United States. The album included the English versions of her hit songs as well as her US single, "Baby I Like". Like the single, Secret of My Heart commercially failed in the US market. In the same month, Kuraki embarked on her first nationwide headlining tour, Mai Kuraki "Loving You..." Tour 2002. The fourteen-show tour was attended by approximately 150,000 audience. In April, Kuraki signed a promotional deal with Shiseido for their brand, Sea Breeze. her song, "Feel Fine!" was used for their television commercial, in which Kuraki herself appeared. In June 2002, Kuraki made her television appearance, performing at the 2002 FIFA World Cut Official Concert Korea/Japan Day with the other artists such as Lauryn Hill and Ken Hirai.
Her third studio album, Fairy Tale was released in October 2002. The album debuted at number one in Japan, and has sold over 730,000 copies nationwide. The album has spawned four top-three singles, "Can't Forget Your Love", "Feel Fine!", "Like a Star in the Night", and "Winter Bells", which peaked at number one in Japan. Fairy Tale won the "Rock & Pop album of the Year" award at the Japan Gold Disc Awards. In the same month, Kuraki embarked on the Mai Kuraki Fairy Tale Tour 02–03 in support of the album. In December 2002, Kuraki published her first autobiographical book, Myself Music.
2003–2004: If I Believe and Wish You the Best
Kuraki released her fourth studio album, If I Believe, in July 2003. The album debuted at number one in Japan and has sold over 445,000 copies nationwide. If I Believe has yielded four singles, "Make My Day", "Time After Time: Hana Mau Machi de", "Kiss" and "Kaze no La La La", all of which reached number three in Japan. In October 2003, Kuraki was featured as a guest vocalist for Tak Matsumoto's single, "Imitation Gold", the cover of Momoe Yamaguchi. The single debuted at number one and has sold over 80,000 copies, earning Matsumoto his first number one single. The song was included on his eighth studio album, The Hit Parade (2003). In December 2003, Kuraki made her first appearance at the Kōhaku Uta Gassen and performed "Stay by My Side" at Tō-ji in Kyoto.
Wish You the Best, her first compilation album was released on the New Year's Day of 2004. The album became her fifth consecutive number-one album and has been certified million by RIAJ, although the album entirely consisted of previously released songs. In April 2004, Kuraki embarked on the Mai Kuraki 2004 Live Tour Wish You the Best: Grow, Step by Step. The tour was attended by the audience of 117,000. In December 2004, Kuraki performed her single, " at the Kōhaku Uta Gassen.
2005–2006: Fuse of Love and Diamond Wave
Her fifth studio album, Fuse of Love was released in August 2005. The album failed to match the success of her previous albums, only peaking at number three on the Oricon chart, while it managed to enter the Taiwan's newly established G-Music chart at number thirteen. Fuse of Love has spawned four singles, including three top five singles: "Ashita e Kakeru Hashi", "Love, Needing" and "Dancing". The music video of "Dancing" was directed by Nigel Dick, who also directed the music video of the artists like Britney Spears, Guns N' Roses, and Backstreet Boys. The album was later certified gold by the RIAJ and has sold over 185,000 copies nationwide. Kuraki embarked on the Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2005 Like a Fuse of Love, in September 2005. In December 2005, Kuraki made her third appearance at the Kōhaku Uta Gassen, perfotming her debut single, "Love, Day After Tomorrow".
In August 2006, Kuraki released her sixth studio album, Diamond Wave. The album was a moderate success, peaking at number three in Japan and number thirteen in Taiwan. It has sold over 132,000 copies and has certified gold by the RIAJ. Diamond Wave has spawned three top ten singles: "Growing of My Heart", , and "Diamond Wave". From August 2006 to November 2006, Kuraki embarked on the Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2006 Diamond Wave to promote the album.
2007-2009: One Life, Touch Me!, and All My Best
In June 2007, Kuraki left Giza Studio in Osaka and made a new record contract with the newly founded record label, Northern Music in Tokyo, although the labels are both under the Being Inc, group. On 7 June 2007, Kuraki performed "Born to Be Free" at the A3 Champions Cup 2007 in Shandong, China. On 16 June 2007, she performed "Secret of My Heart" at the Golden Melody Awards in Taiwan as the representative artist from Japan. In September 2007, Kuraki made her first appearance at the Asia Song Festival in Seoul, South Korea. Kuraki embarked on the promotional tour, Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2007 Be With U in December 2007. In January 2008, Kuraki released her seventh studio album, One Life. The album failed to reach top ten in Japan, only peaking at number fourteen, partly due to the chart system of Oricon. The album peaked at number twelve in Taiwan and has been sold over 89,000 copies in Japan, certified gold by the RIAJ. One Life has spawned four top ten singles, "Shiroi Yuki", "Season of Love", and "Silent Love: Open My Heart"/"Be With U".
In October 2008, Kuraki embarked on the Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2008 "Touch Me!" to promote her then unreleased eighth studio album, Touch Me!. The album was released in January 2009. Kuraki made her first appearance on the music television program, Music Station, where she performed the album's title track, "Touch Me!", to promote the album. This performance became Kuraki's first performance on the television program, aside the Kōhaku Uta Gassen. The album was a commercial success, the album debuted at number one in Japan, earning her first number one album in five years, since the release of Wish You the Best (2004). It has sold over 90,000 copies nationwide and been certified gold by the RIAJ. The album also peaked at number twelve in Taiwan. Touch Me! has spawned four top ten singles, "Yume ga Saku Haru"/"You and Music and Dream", "Ichibyōgoto ni Love for You", and "24 Xmas Time". The title track also charted in Japan, peaking at number sixteen on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, despite not being released as a single. In April 2009, Kuraki was featured as a guest vocalist on ZARD's posthumous single, "Sunao ni Ienakute", The single peaked at number 5 in Japan, selling over 36,000 copies nationwide.
In July 2009, Kuraki embarked on the Asia tour, titled 10th Anniversary Mai Kuraki Tour 2009 "Best", in celebration of her tenth debut. Her second compilation album, All My Best was released to a commercial success, debuting atop on the Oricon chart, making her among the two artists who sent two albums atop on the chart in 2009, the other being Greeeen. The album has sold over 250,000 copies nationwide and been certified platinum by the RIAJ, as well as enter the year-end album chart at number twenty-five. The album has spawned two top three singles, "Puzzle" and "Beautiful". The lead track from the album, "Watashi no, Shiranai, Watashi." was used in the television commercials for the cosmetic company, Kosé, in which she was featured as a model. The song peaked at number twenty on the Billboard Japan Hot 100, even though it was not released as a single. The double A-side single, "Puzzle"/"Revive" became Kuraki's first top three single in 5 years since "Ashita e Kakeru Hashi" (2004). On 31 October 2009, Kuraki held a Halloween concert, titled 10th Anniversary Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2009 "Best" Happy Happy Halloween Live at Nippon Budokan. "Puzzle" was used as the ending theme for the thirteenth movie Detective Conan: The Raven Chaser, while "Revive" was used as the twenty-fifth opening theme song for the TV series.
2010–2012: Future Kiss and Over the Rainbow
In March 2010, Kuraki released the double A-side single, "Eien Yori Nagaku"/"Drive Me Crazy". The former was used in the television commercial for Kosé, while the latter was used as the Japanese theme song to the American television series, Heroes Season 3. The single peaked at number four in Japan and fifteen in Taiwan. In November 2010, her ninth studio album, Future Kiss was released. The album debuted at number three and has sold over 65,000 copies in Japan. It also peaked at number eleven in Taiwan, making her highest-charting album in the country to date. The album has spawned four top five singles, "Revive", "Beautiful", "Drive Me Crazy", and "Summer Time Gone". The title track of the album was performed on the several television programs including SMAP×SMAP and Music Station, making it peak at number thirteen on the Billboard Japan Hot 100. Another song from the album, "Tomorrow Is the Last Time" was used as the theme song to the anime, Case Closed and charted on the RIAJ Digital Track Chart at number forty-two. In November 2010, Kuraki performed at Kamigamo Shrine in Kyoto, the UNESCO World Heritage Site, as a part of the Tokyo FM's 40th anniversary campaign.
In March 2011, Kuraki sang the national anthem at the soccer charity match, titled "The Tohoku Earthquake recovery support charity match Ganbarou Nippon!", at Yanmar Stadium Nagai, Osaka. The match was held again in August 2011, where Kuraki performed the anthem. In April 2011, she released a single titled "Anata ga Irukara", which she dedicated to the victims of the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. The song was re-released in August as a video single, featuring the performance by a professional figure skater, Shizuka Arakawa. The proceeds from all versions of the song were donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society to benefit the victims and the reconstruction in the disaster area. In June 2011, Kuraki was featured on Nerdhead's single, "Doushite Suki nandaro?" under the name, Mai-K. The song peaked at number fifteen in Japan. In August 2011, Sanrio announced their collaboration with Northern Music for the creation of one of the characters of Wish me mell, Maimai. Maimai is officially based on Kuraki herself in collaboration with Sanrio, and she released the series' official image song "Stay the Same". In October 2011, Kuraki held a charity concert titled Mai Kuraki Premium Live One for All, All for One at Nippon Budokan. The concert was supported by the musicians such as Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, Alex Ru, and Nerdhead. In November 2011, Kuraki released her first video single, "Strong Heart". The single peaked at number seven and three in Japan and Taiwan respectively. The part of the proceeds were donated to reconstract the disaster area of 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. In January 2012, her tenth studio album Over the Rainbow was released. The album debuted at number two in Japan and has sold approximately 50,000 copies nationwide. Over the Rainbow was preceded by four top ten singles, "1000 Mankai no Kiss", "Mou Ichido", "Your Best Friend", and "Strong Heart". From the same month, she embarked on the Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2012: Over the Rainbow in support of the album. In April 2012, Kuraki won The Most Popular Asian Influential Japanese Singer at the 2012 Channel V "Migu" Chinese Music Award, which was held in Macau. In June 2012, she signed a promotional deal with NGW Japan to promote their bottled mineral water series, Ice Field. In September 2012, Kuraki held her first orchestral concert titled Mai Kuraki Symphonic Live -Opus 1- at Tokyo Metropolitan Theatre. In December 2012, she released an orchestral compilation album, Mai Kuraki Symphonic Collection in Moscow. The lead track from the album, "Hakanasa" was chosen as the Japanese theme song to the Chinese fantasy film, Painted Skin and the television series adapted from the film.
2013–2014: Mai Kuraki Best 151A: Love & Hope
In February 2013, Kuraki released a single "Try Again", which was used as the theme song to the anime series Case Closed. The single peaked at number seven and managed to enter G-Music J-Pop chart at number three. In June 2013, Kuraki embarked on the national tour titled Mai Kuraki Live Project 2013 "Re:". In September 2013, she held her second orchestral concert, Mai Kuraki Symphonic Live -Opus 2- in Tokyo. In March 2014, as a part of JICA's Nantokashinakya! Project, Kuraki visited Siem Reap, Cambodia to support and help education system in Cambodia. After the visit, Kuraki started the project to raise fund to found a school in Trei Nhoar, Puok District, Cambodia. In February 2016, the project was completed, and Trey Nhoar Community Learning Center was founded. From June 2014, Kuraki embarked on two tours, 15th Anniversary Mai Kuraki Live Project 2014 Best "151A": Fun Fun Fun and 15th Anniversary Mai Kuraki Live Project 2014 Best 151A: Muteki na Heart. During the former tour, Kuraki performed at the relatively small music venues while she performed at the music halls during the latter tour. In November 2014, Kuraki released her third compilation album Mai Kuraki Best 151A: Love & Hope in celebration of her fifteenth debut anniversary. The album peaked at number two in Japan and has sold over 67,000 copies, certified gold by the RIAJ. It also chart in Taiwan at number nineteen. Mai Kuraki Best 151A: Love & Hope has yielded six top ten singles, "Koi ni Koishite"/"Special Morning Day to You", "Try Again", "Wake Me Up", "Muteki na Heart"/"Stand by You".
2015–2017: Smile and "Togetsukyo (Kimi Omou)"
In May 2015, Kuraki released a promotional single "Serendipity" in celebration of 40th anniversary of West Japan Railway Company's San'yō Shinkansen. The single debuted at number six on the Recochoku weekly chart. In November 2015, Kuraki and other musicians including Kazufumi Miyazawa, Tetsuya Takeda, and Ai Kawashima recorded the charity single "Hitori, Hitotsu" to support the Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. In April 2016, Kuraki held her first concert in Russia, at the Mariinsky Theatre. In May 2016, Kuraki signed an ambassador deal with Nihon Unisys and wrote the image song to the company, "Make That Change". In September 2016, Kuraki embarked on the China tour, Mai Kuraki "Time After Time" Chine Live Tour. In January 2017, Kuraki released "Yesterday Love" as the first VR single in Japan. In the following month, her first studio album in five years, Smile was released to a minor commercial success. The album managed to peak at number four and has sold over 29,000 copies in Japan. The album was preceded by one single, "Yesterday Love", and two promotional singles, "Serendipity" and "Sawage Life". To promote the album, Kuraki embarked on the Mai Kuraki Live Project 2017 Sawage Live.
In April 2017, Kuraki released the single "Togetsukyo (Kimi Omou)", the ending theme for the animated film Detective Conan: Crimson Love Letter. The song instantly entered the major music charts in Japan, selling about 30,000 physical copies in its first week. "Togetsukyo (Kimi Omou)" peaked at number two on the Billboard Japan Hot 100 and number five on the Oricon Weekly Singles Chart. Finally it sold over 76,000 physical copies and became her best-selling song since her 2004 single "Ashita e Kakeru Hashi". Finally the song became the best-selling single by a solo female musician in Japan, and fifty-second overall. Also, the song sold over 250,000 digital copies and became her most downloaded song since her debut, certified as platinum by the RIAJ. On July 25, 2017, she was awarded a Guinness World Record for singing the most theme songs in a single anime series (Case Closed). Kuraki's fourth compilation album Mai Kuraki x Meitantei Conan Collaboration Best 21: Shinjitsu wa Itsumo Uta ni Aru!, a collaboration with Case Closed, was released on October 25, 2017. The album was a commercial success, peaking at number four and selling over 79,000 copies in Japan. In December 2017, Kuraki made her first appearance at the Kōhaku Uta Gassen in twelve years, performing "Togetsukyo (Kimi Omou)".
2018–2020: Kimi Omou: Shunkashūtō and Let's Goal!: Barairo no Jinsei
In September 2018, Kuraki appeared on the television commercials of Kyoto City, as an Kyoto sightseeing ambassador. In October 2018, Kuraki was chosen as an image character for the department store chain Parco, for their Chinese New Year campaign. In the same month, Kuraki released her first concept album, Kimi Omou: Shunkashūtō. The album peaked at number three and has sold approximately 30,000 copies in Japan. The album has spawned five singles, "Togetsukyo (Kimi Omou)", "We Are Happy Women", "Do It!", "Light Up My Life", and "Koyoi wa Yume wo Misasete". From 13 October 2018, she embarked on the Mai Kuraki Live Project 2018 "Red It Be": Kimi Omou Shunkashūtō to promote the album. "Light Up My Life" served as the theme song to the Japanese tactical role-playing game, Valkyria Chronicles IV.
In March 2019, Kuraki released a double A-side single "Kimi to Koi no Mama de Owarenai Itsumo Yume no Mama ja Irarenai"/"Barairo no Jinsei". Both songs served as the theme songs to the special episodes of Case Closed, "The Scarlet School Trip", on which Kuraki appeared as a voice actor. The song peaked at number four, becoming her forty-second consecutive top ten CD single since her debut "Love, Day After Tomorrow", extending her record for being the only female artist in Japan to do so. In celebration of 20th anniversary of debut, Kuraki embarked on the Asia tour 20th Anniversary Mai Kuraki Live Project 2019 in Asia from July 2019. In August 2019, she released her thirteenth studio album Let's Goal!: Barairo no Jinsei. The album debuted at number three and has sold over 29,000 copies in Japan. In support of the album, she embarked on the tour, 20th Anniversary Mai Kuraki Live Project 2019 "Let's Goal!: Barairo no Jinsei" from August to November 2019.
In December 2019, Kuraki released her fifth compilation album Mai Kuraki Single Collection: Chance for You. The album peaked at number six and has sold over 29,000 copies in Japan. The four-disc single collection was mastered by the Grammy-nominated/winning engineers, Ryan Smith, Chris Gehringer, Randy Merrill, Joe LaPorta, and Ted Jensen. In October 2020, Kuraki wrote All at Once's song, "Just Believe You", which also sampled Kuraki's single, "Secret of My Heart".
2021-present: Unconditional Love
On 6 March 2021, Kuraki released the first single in approximately two years, "Zero kara Hajimete". The song was written in celebration of the 1000th episode of the anime television series, Case Closed. On the same day, the songs which Kuraki wrote for the anime were released on streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music. In June, "Zero kara Hajimete" was re-released as a video single. The single topped on the Oricon Weekly DVD chart, becoming Kuraki's first number-one on the chart since Mai Kuraki Clip & Live Selection "My Reflection" debuted atop in January 2004.
In August 2021, Kuraki announced the release of her thirteenth studio album, Unconditional Love. The singer will also embark on the tour, Mai Kuraki Live Project 2021 in support of the album.
On 26 January 2022, the website Goo Ranking released a survey of "TOP49 female celebrities who might surprise you to know they are 40 years old in 2022". She ranked 2nd with 97 votes. The survey was based on the vote of 500 people, made of 50% females and 50% males, with age around 20~40 years.
Artistry
Influences
Kuraki has cited Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, and Lauryn Hill as being major influence in her career. She cites the live performance of Houston and the music videos of Jackson as the mains reasons why she started to dream of becoming a singer. In the interview with Natalie, Kuraki stated that she practiced vibrato, singing "Man in the Mirror" by Jackson. She has covered several songs from Jackson's discography, including "I'll Be There", "Smile", and "I Just Can't Stop Loving You". In the 2014 interview with Barks,
Kuraki told that she sang "Grace of My Heart", a song by the Japanese girl group MAX at the audition. Kuraki also named Michael Bublé, Shakira, Christina Aguilera, Janet Jackson, Stacie Orrico, Britney Spears, and Jennifer Lopez as sources of inspiration.
Kuraki has been cited by many musicians as their main influence. Shizuka, a former member of E-girls and Mikako Komatsu have cited Kuraki as one of their major influence. Yui sang "Like a Star in the Night" and Ai Takahashi sang "Tsumetai Umi" for their auditions.
Musical style
Kuraki's songs are often written and produced by the fellow musicians from her label, Being Group, such as Aika Ohno, Akihito Tokunaga, and Yoko Blaqstone, and Cybersound, an engineering team in Boston and Michael Africk. Kuraki frequently blends elements of J-pop, R&B, dance, and sometimes rock into her songs, and her records typically include a combination of ballads and uptempo tracks. Following her debut, Kuraki was credited with influencing the revival of R&B in Japan of the late 1990s and the early 2000s. Other musicians in the field counts Misia, Hikaru Utada, and Yuki Koyanagi. Delicious Way (2000) prominently displayed R&B and J-pop sound, while Perfect Crime (2001) incorporates rock sound, as seen on "Stand Up" and "Come On! Come On!". Her third studio album Fairy Tale (2002) adopted a wide range of genres, including surf rock on "Feel Fine!" and Christmas music on "Winter Bells", while sticking to the R&B sounds. On her fourth studio album If I Believe (2003), Kuraki mixed the elements of R&B, J-pop and kayokyoku on "Time After Time (Hana Mau Machi de)". On the album, she recorded a song, "Tonight, I Feel Close to You" with a Singaporean singer Stefanie Sun.
Her fifth and sixth studio albums Fuse of Love (2005) and Diamond Wave (2006) saw the drastic change in her musical style, diverting into the teen pop and J-pop sounds throughout the entire albums. Kuraki returned to R&B sound on her seventh studio album, One Life (2008). For the album, Kuraki listed some musicians outside of Being Group, including Martin Ankelius and Daisuke Miyachi. For Touch Me! (2009), Kuraki worked with R&B, J-pop, hip hop music, aiming for musical diversity and artistic growth. Kuraki worked with Rodney Jerkins on her ninth studio album Future Kiss (2010), influenced by the American R&B sounds. For her tenth album Over the Rainbow (2012), Kuraki collaborated with a Japanese hip hop musician, Nerdhead, on the several songs. Kuraki listed some American musicians on her eleventh studio album Smile (2017), including Nash Overstreet and Porcelain Black. After the gagaku-influenced song "Togetsukyo (Kimi Omou)" (2017) commercially succeeded, Kuraki veered into incorporating the traditional Japanese sounds on her songs. Her twelfth studio album Kimi Omou: Shunkashūtō (2018) mixed elements of J-pop, R&B, gagaku, kayokyoku, and rock. For her thirteenth studio album Let's Goal!: Barairo no Jinsei (2019), Kuraki enlisted the Western musicians such as Fernando Garibay, Benjamin Ingrosso, and Quiz & Larossi. The works of Kuraki have been remixed by prominent DJs, including Johnny Vicious, Justin Strauss, Mark Kamins, and Ken Ishii.
Image
Upon her debut in December 1999, Kuraki scarcely made the appearances on the television shows or the concerts, with people calling her "the Veiled Diva". The similar strategy have taken for the other artists from her label, Being Group, including Zard, Maki Ohguro, and Miho Komatsu. Her first performing took place at the first show on the Sokenbicha Natural Breeze 2001 Happy Live in August 2000. Kuraki her made her first appearance on the live broadcasting television show when she performed "Stay by My Side" on the Kōhaku Uta Gassen in December 2003. She began to appear on multiple television show after performing "Touch Me!" on the television show, Music Station in February 2009.
Legacy
As of 2020, Kuraki has sold over 20 million albums and singles worldwide, and is the 38th best-selling Japanese music artist of all time. Kuraki's works have earned her several awards and accolades, including seven Japan Gold Disc Awards. Kuraki is the only female artist in Japan who has sent all her forty-two singles within the top ten on the Oricon weekly singles chart, since her debut single "Love, Day After Tomorrow" (1999).
Her debut album, Delicious Way sold over 2,210,000 copies in its first week and it has remains as the biggest first week sales for the debut album by a Japanese artist. The album is also the third best-selling debut album and the ninth best-selling album overall in Japan. Kuraki's music is known throughout East Asia, winning The Most Popular Asian Influential Japanese Singer at the Chinese Music Awards in 2012.
Other ventures
Products and endorsements
In March 2000, Kuraki collaborated with entertainment company Konami and released a puzzle video game for the PlayStation, Techno BB. Kuraki designed the main character in the game, called Mai B Bear. In April 2001, Kuraki teamed up with Coca-Cola Japan to promote their beverage product, Sokenbicha. Those who bought the product could apply for the tickets to attend Kuraki's first promotional tour, Sokenbicha Natural Breeze 2001 Happy Live. In December 2001, Kuraki appeared in the television advertisements for the Shiseido's product, Sea Breeze. Three of her songs, "Feel Fine!", "Kiss", and "If I Believe" have been used for the advertisement series.
In 2009, she signed a deal with cosmetic company Kosé to promote their Esprique Precious collection. From August 2009 to 2011, Kuraki was featured in five television advertisements for the collection. Her songs, "Watashi no, Shiranai, Watashi.", "Eien Yori Nagaku", "Summer Time Gone", "Boyfriend", and "1000 Mankai no Kiss" were all used in the ads. She has also endorsed several brands, U-Can, Clevery Home, Icefield, JR-West, Parco, and Dwango. City of Kyoto has appointed Kuraki as an ambassador of the city and starred her in their television advertisements after the hit of "Togetsukyo (Kimi Omou)". The advertisements featured Kuraki's song, "Hanakotoba".
Many of Kuraki's songs have been used in television advertisements. In 2017, her song "Kimi e no Uta" was used in the television commercial by Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers. In 2009, "Top of the World", the Carpenters' cover by Kuraki, was used in the advertisements by Lion Corporation, for their detergent brand Top.
Philanthropy
Kuraki has been involved with many charities and philanthropies. In April 2006, Kuraki performed at the Cosmo Earth Conscious Act Earth Day Concert at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo. The annual event has been held by Japan FM Network, Tokyo FM, and Cosmo Oil Company to raise awareness for the Earth Day. Ahead of the performance, Kuraki had a talk with a Kenyan social, environmental and political activist Wangari Maathai. Following these events, Kuraki stated that she would begin to start working on global environmental conservation. Kuraki had been a member of the governmental project, Team Minus 6%, which was established to reduce the emission of greenhouse gas. During the Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2006 Diamond, Kuraki invited a Japanese politician Yuriko Koike on the stage to talk about the environmental issues.
Kuraki was among the first and biggest artists to work on the charities and philanthropies after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. On March 29, 2011, eighteen days after the earthquake occurred, Kuraki performed the national anthem at the charity soccer match "The Tohoku Earthquake recovery support charity match Ganbarou Nippon!", which was played to raise a donation to the victims. All the players, referees, and Kuraki gratuitously participated in the match, and Yanmar Stadium Nagai allowed them to use the stadium free of charge, to send as much donation as possible to the victims. The match was played on March 29, 2011, as well, and Kuraki performed the national anthem again. On April 11, 2011, Kuraki released a charity single, "Anata ga Irukara". The proceeds from the single was donated to the Japanese Red Cross Society. In August 2011, Kuraki visited Onagawa, Miyagi, to do a soup-run and perform a concert. She has visited the city several times since 2011, performing at the music festival Gareki Stock and including the city on her tours. In October 2011, Kuraki held a charity concert, Mai Kuraki Premium Live One for All, All for One at Nippon Budokan. The video of the concert was included on the video album of the same title and was released in March 2012. Another charity single, "Strong Heart" was released in November 2011. In June 2013, Kuraki participated in the Green Wall Project, which aims to plant evergreen broad-leaved trees to work as natural tide embankments in Iwanuma, Miyagi, where the tsunami killed 180 people in March 2011. To promote the project, Kuraki performed at the symposium, in January 2013. Following the 2016 Kumamoto earthquakes in April 2016, Kuraki took part in the volunteering project in Mashiki, Kumamoto by soup-running and performing the live. In October 2017, Kuraki visited the city again to participate in the conference titled "Mirai Talk", where the citizens in the city talked about the strategy for reconstruction. In September 2019, after the Typhoon Faxai hit Chiba Prefecture, Kuraki performed at the public school Nagasaku Gakuen to cheer up the elementary school students in the prefecture. In June 2011, Kuraki performed at the charity concert to encourage blood donation, Love in Action Meeting, as a headliner.
In March 2014, as a part of JICA's Nantokashinakya! Project, Kuraki visited Siem Reap, Cambodia to support the education system in Cambodia. After the visit, Kuraki started her own project with the support by JICA, called Minna de Cambodia ni Terakoya wo Tateyou! Project to found a school in Trei Nhoar, Puok District, Cambodia. Kuraki raised a fund by selling charity merchandises, raising a donation, and auctioning. In February 2016, the project was completed, and Trey Nhoar Community Learning Center, the first school in the village, was founded. The project was featured as a documentary television program titled Mai Kuraki Cambodia no Uta: Sore ga Yume no Hajimari ni naru. Her single, "Stand by You" (2014) was written based on her experience in the country.
Discography
Delicious Way (2000)
Perfect Crime (2001)
Fairy Tale (2002)
If I Believe (2003)
Fuse of Love (2005)
Diamond Wave (2006)
One Life (2008)
Touch Me! (2009)
Future Kiss (2010)
Over the Rainbow (2012)
Smile (2017)
Kimi Omou: Shunkashūtō (2018)
Let's Goal!: Barairo no Jinsei (2019)
Unconditional Love (2021)
Filmography
Books
Myself Music, (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten, 2002)
Mai Kuraki: Treasure Book, (Tokyo: CSI, 2020)
Tours
Sokenbicha Natural Breeze 2001 Happy Live (2001)
Mai Kuraki Loving You... Tour 2002 (2002)
You & Mai First Meeting 2002 (2002)
Giza Studio Hotrod Beach Party (2002) (As Mai-K and Friends)
Mai Kuraki Fairy Tale Tour 02-03 (2002–2003)
Giza Studio Valentine Concert (2003) (co-headlined with Rina Aiuchi and Garnet Crow)
Mai Kuraki 2004 Live Tour Wish You The Best: Grow, Step by Step (2004)
Mai-K a Tumarrow 2005 (2005)
Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2005 Like a Fuse of Love (2005)
Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2006 Diamond Wave (2006)
Mai-K.net "De Ma Chi" Live de Show (2006)
Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2007 Be With U (2007)
Mai-K.net Exclusive Live: You & Mai Summer 2008 (2008)
Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2008 "Touch Me!" (2008)
10th Anniversary Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2009 "Best" (2009)
Mai Kuraki Live Tour "Future Kiss" (2010–2011)
Mai Kuraki Live Tour 2012: Over the Rainbow (2012)
Mai Kuraki Live Project 2013 "Re:" (2013)
15th Anniversary Mai Kuraki Live Project 2014 "151A": Fun Fun Fun (2014)
15th Anniversary Mai Kuraki Live Project 2014 "151A": Muteki na Heart (2014)
Mai Kuraki Live Project 2017 "Sawage Live" (2017)
Mai Kuraki Live Project 2018 "Red It Be": Kimi Omou Shunkashūtō (2018)
20th Anniversary Mai Kuraki Live Project 2019 in Asia (2019)
20th Anniversary Mai Kuraki Live Project 2019 "Let's Goal!: Barairo no Jinsei" (2019)
Accolades
See also
List of best-selling music artists in Japan
References
External links
Mai Kuraki on Oricon
Northern Music
1982 births
Living people
20th-century Japanese women singers
20th-century Japanese singers
21st-century Japanese women singers
21st-century Japanese singers
Being Inc. artists
English-language singers from Japan
Japanese women pop singers
Japanese women record producers
Japanese rhythm and blues singers
Japanese women singer-songwriters
Japanese singer-songwriters
Singers from Funabashi
Ritsumeikan University alumni
Fantasy on Ice guest artists |
420943 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic%20stability%20control | Electronic stability control | Electronic stability control (ESC), also referred to as electronic stability program (ESP) or dynamic stability control (DSC), is a computerized technology that improves a vehicle's stability by detecting and reducing loss of traction (skidding). When ESC detects loss of steering control, it automatically applies the brakes to help steer the vehicle where the driver intends to go. Braking is automatically applied to wheels individually, such as the outer front wheel to counter oversteer, or the inner rear wheel to counter understeer. Some ESC systems also reduce engine power until control is regained. ESC does not improve a vehicle's cornering performance; instead, it helps reduce the chance of the driver losing control of the vehicle.
According to the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in 2004 and 2006 respectively, one-third of fatal accidents could be prevented by the use of the technology. In Europe the electronic stability program has saved an estimated 15,000 lives. ESC has been mandatory in new cars in Canada, the US, and the European Union since 2011, 2012, and 2014, respectively. Worldwide, 82 percent of all new passenger cars feature the anti-skid system.
History
In 1983, a four-wheel electronic "Anti-Skid Control" system was introduced on the Toyota Crown. In 1987, Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Toyota introduced their first traction control systems. Traction control works by applying individual wheel braking and throttle to maintain traction under acceleration, but unlike ESC, it is not designed to aid in steering.
In 1990, Mitsubishi released the Diamante in Japan. It featured a new electronically controlled active trace & traction control system. Named TCL when it first entered the market, the system evolved into Mitsubishi's modern Active Skid and Traction Control (ASTC) system. Developed to help the driver maintain the intended line through a corner; an onboard computer monitored several vehicle operating parameters through various sensors. When too much throttle had been used when taking a curve, engine output and braking were automatically regulated to ensure the proper line through a curve and to provide the proper amount of traction under various road surface conditions. While conventional traction control systems at the time featured only a slip control function, Mitsubishi's TCL system had an active safety function, which improved course tracing performance by automatically adjusting the traction force (called "trace control"), thereby restraining the development of excessive lateral acceleration while turning. Although not a ‘proper’ modern stability control system, trace control monitors steering angle, throttle position and individual wheel speeds, although there is no yaw input. The TCL system's standard wheel slip control function enabled better traction on slippery surfaces or during cornering. In addition to the system's individual effect, it also worked together with the Diamante's electronically controlled suspension and four-wheel steering to improve total handling and performance.
BMW, working with Bosch and Continental, developed a system to reduce engine torque to prevent loss of control and applied it to most of the BMW model line for 1992, excluding the E30 and E36. This system could be ordered with the winter package, which came with a limited-slip differential, heated seats, and heated mirrors. From 1987 to 1992, Mercedes-Benz and Bosch co-developed a system called Elektronisches Stabilitätsprogramm ("Electronic Stability Program", trademarked as ESP) to control lateral slippage.
Introduction, second generation
In 1995, three automobile manufacturers introduced ESC systems. Mercedes-Benz, supplied by Bosch, was the first to implement ESP with their Mercedes-Benz S 600 Coupé. Toyota's Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) system appeared on the Toyota Crown Majesta in 1995.
General Motors worked with Delphi Automotive and introduced its version of ESC, called "StabiliTrak", in 1996 for the 1997 model year on select Cadillac models. StabiliTrak was made standard equipment on all GM SUVs and vans sold in the U.S. and Canada by 2007, except for certain commercial and fleet vehicles. While the StabiliTrak name is used on most General Motors vehicles for the U.S. market, "Electronic Stability Control" is used for GM's overseas brands, such as Opel, Holden and Saab, except in the cases of Saab's 9-7X and 9-4X (which also use the StabiliTrak name).
The same year, Cadillac introduced an integrated vehicle handling and software control system called the Integrated Chassis Control System (ICCS), on the Cadillac Eldorado. It involves an omnibus computer integration of engine, traction control, Stabilitrak electronic stability control, steering, and adaptive continuously variable road sensing suspension (CVRSS), with the intent of improving responsiveness to driver input, performance, and overall safety, similar to Toyota/Lexus Vehicle Dynamics Integrated Management.
In 1997, Audi introduced the first series production ESP for all-wheel drive vehicles (Audi A8 and Audi A6 with quattro (four-wheel drive system)). In 1998, Volvo Cars began to offer their version of ESC called Dynamic Stability and Traction Control (DSTC) on the new Volvo S80. Meanwhile, others investigated and developed their own systems.
During a moose test, Swedish journalist Robert Collin of Teknikens Värld rolled a Mercedes A-Class (without ESC) at 78 km/h in October 1997. Because Mercedes Benz promoted a reputation for safety, they recalled and retrofitted 130,000 A-Class cars with firmer suspension and sportier tyres; all newly produced A- class featured ESC as standard along with the upgraded suspension and wheels. This produced a significant reduction in crashes, and the number of vehicles with ESC rose. The availability of ESC in small cars like the A-Class ignited a market trend; thus, ESC became available for all models (whether standard or as an option).
Ford's version of ESC, called AdvanceTrac, was launched in the year 2000. Ford later added Roll Stability Control to AdvanceTrac which was first introduced in the Volvo XC90 in 2003. It has been implemented in many Ford vehicles since.
Ford and Toyota announced that all their North American vehicles would be equipped with ESC standard by the end of 2009 (it was standard on Toyota SUVs as of 2004, and after the 2011 model year, all Lexus, Toyota, and Scion vehicles had ESC; the last one to get it was the 2011 model-year Scion tC). However, as of November 2010, Ford still sold models in North America without ESC. General Motors had made a similar announcement for the end of 2010.
Third generation and after
The market for ESC is growing quickly, especially in European countries such as Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. For example, in 2003 in Sweden the purchase rate on new cars with ESC was 15%. The Swedish road safety administration issued a strong ESC recommendation and in September 2004, 16 months later, the purchase rate was 58%. A stronger ESC recommendation was then given and in December 2004, the purchase rate on new cars had reached 69% and by 2008 it had grown to 96%. ESC advocates around the world are promoting increased ESC use through legislation and public awareness campaigns and by 2012, most new vehicles should be equipped with ESC.
Legislation
In 2009, the European Union decided to make ESC mandatory. Since November 1, 2011, EU type approval is only granted to models equipped with ESC. Since November 1, 2014, ESC has been required on all newly registered cars in the EU.
The NHTSA required all new passenger vehicles sold in the US to be equipped with ESC as of the 2012 model year, and estimated it will prevent 5,300–9,600 annual fatalities. A similar requirement has been proposed for new trucks and buses, but it has not yet been finalized.
Concept and operation
During normal driving, ESC continuously monitors steering and vehicle direction. It compares the driver's intended direction (determined by the measured steering wheel angle) to the vehicle's actual direction (determined through measured lateral acceleration, vehicle rotation, and individual road wheel speeds).
Normal operation
ESC intervenes only when it detects a probable loss of steering control, such as when the vehicle is not going where the driver is steering. This may happen, for example, when skidding during emergency evasive swerves, understeer or oversteer during poorly judged turns on slippery roads, or hydroplaning. During high-performance driving, ESC can intervene when unwanted, because steering input may not always be indicative of the intended direction of travel (such as during controlled drifting). ESC estimates the direction of the skid, and then applies the brakes to individual wheels asymmetrically in order to create torque about the vehicle's vertical axis, opposing the skid and bringing the vehicle back in line with the driver's commanded direction. Additionally, the system may reduce engine power or operate the transmission to slow the vehicle down.
ESC can function on any surface, from dry pavement to frozen lakes. It reacts to and corrects skidding much faster and more effectively than the typical human driver, often before the driver is even aware of any imminent loss of control. This has led to some concern that ESC could allow drivers to become overconfident in their vehicle's handling and/or their own driving skills. For this reason, ESC systems typically alert the driver when they intervene, so that the driver is aware that the vehicle's handling limits have been reached. Most activate a dashboard indicator light and/or alert tone; some intentionally allow the vehicle's corrected course to deviate very slightly from the driver-commanded direction, even if it is possible to more precisely match it.
All ESC manufacturers emphasize that the system is not a performance enhancement nor a replacement for safe driving practices, but rather a safety technology to assist the driver in recovering from dangerous situations. ESC does not increase traction, so it does not enable faster cornering (although it can facilitate better-controlled cornering). More generally, ESC works within the limits of the vehicle's handling and available traction between the tyres and road. A reckless maneuver can still exceed these limits, resulting in loss of control. For example, during hydroplaning, the wheels that ESC would use to correct a skid may lose contact with the road surface, reducing its effectiveness.
Due to the fact that stability control can be incompatible with high-performance driving, many vehicles have an override control which allows the system to be partially or fully deactivated. In simple systems, a single button may disable all features, while more complicated setups may have a multi-position switch or may never be fully disengaged.
Off-road use
ESC systems—due to their ability to enhance vehicle stability and braking—often work to improve traction in off-road situations, in addition to their on-road duties. The effectiveness of traction control systems can vary significantly, due to the significant number of external and internal factors involved at any given time, as well as the programming and testing performed by the manufacturer.
At a rudimentary level, off-road traction varies from typical operational characteristics of on-road traction, depending on the terrain encountered. In an open differential setup, power transfer takes the path of least resistance. In slippery conditions, this means when one wheel loses traction, power will counter-productively be fed to that axle instead of the one with higher grip. ESCs focus on braking wheels that are spinning at a rate drastically different from the opposing axle. While on-road application often supplements rapidly intermittent wheel braking with a reduction of power in loss-of-traction situations, off-road use will typically require consistent (or even increased) power delivery to retain vehicle momentum while the vehicle's braking system applies intermittent braking force over a longer duration to the slipping wheel until excessive wheel-spin is no longer detected.
In intermediate level ESC systems, ABS will be disabled, or the computer will actively lock the wheels when brakes are applied. In these systems, or in vehicles without ABS, the performance in emergency braking in slippery conditions is greatly improved as grip state can change extremely rapidly and unpredictably off-road when coupled with inertia. When the brakes are applied and wheels are locked, the tyres do not have to contend with the wheel rolling (providing no braking force) and braking repeatedly. Grip provided by the tyres is constant and as such can make full use of traction wherever it is available. This effect is enhanced where more aggressive tread patterns are present as the large tread lugs dig into the imperfections on the surface or below the substrate, as well as dragging dirt in front of the tyre to increase the rolling resistance even further.
Many newer vehicles designed for off-road duties from the factory, are equipped with Hill Descent Control systems to minimise the risk of such runaway events occurring with novice drivers and provide a more consistent and safe descent than either no ABS, or on-road orientated ABS. These systems aim to keep a fixed speed (or user selected speed) while descending, applying strategic braking or acceleration at the correct moments to ensure wheels all rotate at the same rate while applying full locking braking when required.
In some vehicles, ESC systems automatically detect whether to operate in off- or on-road mode, depending on the engagement of the 4WD system. Mitsubishi's unique Super-Select 4WD system (found in Pajero, Triton and Pajero Sport models), operates in on-road mode in 2WD as well as 4WD High-range with the centre differential unlocked. However, it automatically activates off-road traction control and disables ABS braking when shifted into 4WD High-range with centre differential locked, or 4WD Low-range with centre differential locked. Most modern vehicles with fully electronically controlled 4WD systems such as various Land Rovers and Range Rovers, also automatically switch to an off-road-orientated mode of stability and traction control once low range, or certain terrain modes are manually selected.
Effectiveness
Numerous studies around the world have confirmed that ESC is highly effective in helping the driver maintain control of the car, thereby saving lives and reducing the probability of occurrence and severity of crashes. In the fall of 2004, the American National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) confirmed international studies, releasing results of a field study of ESC effectiveness in the USA. The NHTSA concluded that ESC reduces crashes by 35%. Additionally, SUVs with stability control are involved in 67% fewer accidents than SUVs without the system. The United States Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) issued its own study in June 2006 showing that up to 10,000 fatal US crashes could be avoided annually if all vehicles were equipped with ESC. The IIHS study concluded that ESC reduces the likelihood of all fatal crashes by 43%, fatal single-vehicle crashes by 56%, and fatal single-vehicle rollovers by 77–80%.
ESC is described as the most important advance in auto safety by many experts, including Nicole Nason, administrator of the NHTSA, Jim Guest and David Champion of Consumers Union of the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), E-Safety Aware, Csaba Csere, former editor of Car and Driver, and Jim Gill, long time ESC proponent of Continental Automotive Systems.
The European New Car Assessment Program (Euro NCAP) "strongly recommends" that people buy cars fitted with stability control. The IIHS requires that a vehicle must have ESC as an available option in order for it to qualify for their Top Safety Pick award for occupant protection and accident avoidance.
Components and design
ESC incorporates yaw rate control into the anti-lock braking system (ABS). Anti-lock brakes enable ESC to slow down individual wheels. Many ESC systems also incorporate a traction control system (TCS or ASR), which senses drive-wheel slip under acceleration and individually brakes the slipping wheel or wheels and/or reduces excess engine power until control is regained. However, ESC serves a different purpose from that of ABS or traction control.
The ESC system uses several sensors to determine where the driver intends to travel. Other sensors indicate the actual state of the vehicle. The control algorithm compares driver input to vehicle response and decides, when necessary, to apply brakes and/or reduce throttle by the amounts calculated through the state space (set of equations used to model the dynamics of the vehicle). The ESC controller can also receive data from and issue commands to other controllers on the vehicle such as an all-wheel drive system or an active suspension system to improve vehicle stability and controllability.
The sensors in an ESC system have to send data at all times in order to detect a loss of traction as soon as possible. They have to be resistant to possible forms of interference, such as precipitation or potholes. The most important sensors are as follows:
A steering wheel angle sensor that determines where the driver wants to steer. This kind of sensor often uses AMR elements.
A yaw rate sensor that measures the rotation rate of the car. The data from the yaw sensor is compared with the data from the steering wheel angle sensor to determine regulating action.
A lateral acceleration sensor that measures the vehicle's lateral acceleration. This is often called an accelerometer.
Wheel speed sensors that measure wheel speed.
Other sensors can include:
A longitudinal acceleration sensor that is similar to the lateral acceleration sensor in design, but provides additional information about road pitch, as well as being another sensor for vehicle acceleration and speed.
A roll rate sensor that is similar to the yaw rate sensor in design, but improves the fidelity of the controller's vehicle model and provides more accurate data in combination with the other sensors.
ESC uses a hydraulic modulator to assure that each wheel receives the correct brake force. A similar modulator is used in ABS. Whereas ABS reduces hydraulic pressure during braking, ESC may increase pressure in certain situations, and an active vacuum brake booster unit may be utilised in addition to the hydraulic pump to meet these demanding pressure gradients.
At the centre of the ESC system is the electronic control unit (ECU), which contains various control techniques. Often, the same ECU is used for different systems at the same time (such as ABS, traction control, or climate control). The input signals are sent through an input circuit to the digital controller. The desired vehicle state is determined based upon the steering wheel angle, its gradient, and the wheel speed. Simultaneously, the yaw sensor measures the vehicle's actual yaw rate. The controller computes the needed brake or acceleration force for each wheel and directs the valves of the hydraulic modulator. The ECU is connected with other systems via a Controller Area Network interface in order to avoid conflicting with them.
Many ESC systems have an override switch so the driver can disable ESC, which may be used on loose surfaces such as mud or sand, or if using a small spare tire, which could interfere with the sensors. Some systems also offer an additional mode with raised thresholds, so that a driver can utilize the limits of their vehicle's grip with less electronic intervention. However, the ESC reactivates when the ignition is restarted. Some ESC systems that lack an off switch, such as on many recent Toyota and Lexus vehicles, can be temporarily disabled through an undocumented series of brake pedal and handbrake operations. Furthermore, unplugging a wheel speed sensor is another method of disabling most ESC systems. The ESC implementation on newer Ford vehicles cannot be completely disabled, even through the use of the "off switch". The ESC will automatically reactivate at highway speeds, and below such speeds if it detects a skid with the brake pedal depressed.
Regulation
Public awareness and law
While Sweden used public awareness campaigns to promote ESC use, others implemented or proposed legislation.
The Canadian province of Quebec was the first jurisdiction to implement an ESC law, making it compulsory for carriers of dangerous goods (without data recorders) in 2005.
The United States followed, passing FMVSS 126 which requires ESC for all passenger vehicles under 10,000 pounds (4536 kg), phasing in the regulation starting with 55% of 2009 models (effective 1 September 2008), 75% of 2010 models, 95% of 2011 models, and all 2012 models.
Canada required all new passenger vehicles to have ESC from 1 September 2011.
The Australian government announced on 23 June 2009 that ESC would be compulsory from 1 November 2011 for all new passenger vehicles sold in Australia, and for all new vehicles from November 2013, however the State Government of Victoria preceded this unilaterally on Jan 1 2011, much as they had done seatbelts 40 years before. The New Zealand government followed suit in February 2014 making it compulsory on all new vehicles from 1 July 2015 with a staggered roll-out to all used-import passenger vehicles by 1 January 2020.
The European Parliament has also called for the accelerated introduction of ESC. The European Commission has confirmed a proposal for the mandatory introduction of ESC on all new cars and commercial vehicle models sold in the EU from 2012, with all new cars being equipped by 2014.
Argentina requires all new normal cars to have ESC since 1 January 2022, for all new normal vehicles from January 2024.
Chile requires all new cars to have ESC from August 2022.
Brazil will require all new cars to have ESC from 1 January 2024.
International vehicle regulations
The United Nations Economic Commission for Europe has passed a Global Technical Regulation to harmonize ESC standards. Global Technical Regulation No. 8 ELECTRONIC STABILITY CONTROL SYSTEMS was sponsored by the United States of America, and is based on Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard FMVSS 126.
In Unece countries, approval is based on UN Regulation 140: Electronic Stability Control (ESC) Systems.
Availability and cost
Cost
ESC is built on top of an anti-lock brake system, and all ESC-equipped vehicles are fitted with traction control. ESC components include a yaw rate sensor, a lateral acceleration sensor, a steering wheel sensor, and an upgraded integrated control unit. In the US, federal regulations have required that ESC be installed as a standard feature on all passenger cars and light trucks as of the 2012 model year. According to NHTSA research, ABS in 2005 cost an estimated US$368; ESC cost a further US$111. The retail price of ESC varies; as a stand-alone option it retails for as little as US$250. ESC was once rarely offered as a sole option, and was generally not available for aftermarket installation. Instead, it was frequently bundled with other features or more expensive trims, so the cost of a package that included ESC was several thousand dollars. Nonetheless, ESC is considered highly cost-effective and may pay for itself in reduced insurance premiums.
Availability
Availability of ESC in passenger vehicles has varied between manufacturers and countries. In 2007, ESC was available in roughly 50% of new North American models compared to about 75% in Sweden. However, consumer awareness affects buying patterns, so that roughly 45% of vehicles sold in North America and the UK were purchased with ESC, contrasting with 78–96% in other European countries such as Germany, Denmark, and Sweden. While few vehicles had ESC prior to 2004, increased awareness has increased the number of vehicles with ESC on the used car market.
ESC is available on cars, SUVs and pickup trucks from all major automakers. Luxury cars, sports cars, SUVs, and crossovers are usually equipped with ESC. Midsize cars have also been gradually catching on, though the 2008 model years of the Nissan Altima and Ford Fusion only offered ESC on their V6 engine-equipped cars; however, some midsize cars, such as the Honda Accord, had it as standard by then. While traction control is usually included with ESC, there were vehicles such as the 2008 Chevrolet Malibu LS, 2008 Mazda6, and 2007 Lincoln MKZ that had traction control but not ESC. ESC was rare among subcompact cars in 2008. The 2009 Toyota Corolla in the United States (but not Canada) had stability control as a $250 option on all trims below that of the XRS, which had it as standard. In Canada, for the 2010 Mazda3, ESC was an option on the midrange GS trim as part of its sunroof package, and is standard on the top-of-the-line GT version. The 2009 Ford Focus had ESC as an option for the S and SE models, and it was standard on the SEL and SES models
In the UK, even mass-market superminis such as the Ford Fiesta Mk.6 and VW Polo Mk.5 came with ESC as standard.
Elaborate ESC and ESP systems (including Roll Stability Control) are available for many commercial vehicles, including transport trucks, trailers, and buses from manufacturers such as Daimler, Scania, and Prevost,. In heavy trucks the ESC and ESP functions must be realized as part of the pneumatic brake system. Typical component and system suppliers are e.g. Bendix, and WABCO,.
ESC is also available on some motor homes.
The ChooseESC! campaign, run by the EU's eSafetyAware! project, provides a global perspective on ESC. One ChooseESC! publication shows the availability of ESC in EU member countries.
In the US, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety website shows availability of ESC in individual US models and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration website lists US models with ESC.
In Australia, the NRMA shows the availability of ESC in Australian models.
Future
Just as ESC is founded on the anti-lock braking system (ABS), ESC is the foundation for new advances such as Roll Stability Control or active rollover protection that works in the vertical plane much like ESC works in the horizontal plane. When RSC detects impending rollover (usually on transport trucks or SUVs), RSC applies brakes, reduces throttle, induces understeer, and/or slows down the vehicle.
The computing power of ESC facilitates the networking of active and passive safety systems, addressing other causes of crashes. For example, sensors may detect when a vehicle is following too closely and slow down the vehicle, straighten up seat backs, and tighten seat belts, avoiding and/or preparing for a crash.
ESC products
Product names
Electronic stability control (ESC) is the generic term recognised by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association (ACEA), the North American Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE), the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, and other worldwide authorities. However, vehicle manufacturers may use a variety of different trade names for ESC:
Acura: Vehicle Stability Assist (VSA) (formerly CSL 4-Drive TCS)
Alfa Romeo: Vehicle Dynamic Control (VDC)
Audi: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Bentley: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
BMW: Co engineering partner and inventor with Robert BOSCH GmbH and Continental (TEVES) Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) (including Dynamic Traction Control)
Bugatti: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Buick: StabiliTrak
Cadillac: StabiliTrak and StabiliTrak3.0 with Active Front Steering (AFS)
Chery: Electronic Stability Program
Chevrolet: StabiliTrak and Active Handling (Corvette & Camaro only)
Chrysler: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Citroën: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Daihatsu: Vehicle Stability Control (VSC)
Dodge: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Daimler: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Fiat: Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and Vehicle Dynamic Control (VDC)
Ferrari: Controllo Stabilità (CST)
Ford: AdvanceTrac with Roll Stability Control (RSC) and Interactive Vehicle Dynamics (IVD) and Electronic Stability Program (ESP); Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) (Australia only)
General Motors: StabiliTrak
Honda: Vehicle Stability Assist (VSA) (formerly CSL 4-Drive TCS)
Holden: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Hyundai: Electronic Stability Program (ESP), Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and Vehicle Stability Assist (VSA)
Infiniti: Vehicle Dynamic Control (VDC)
Isuzu: Electronic Vehicle Stability Control (EVSC)
Jaguar: Dynamic Stability Control (DSC), and Automatic Stability Control (ASC)
Jeep: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Kia: Electronic Stability Control (ESC) and Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Lamborghini: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Land Rover: Dynamic Stability Control (DSC)
Lexus: Vehicle Dynamics Integrated Management (VDIM) with Vehicle Stability Control (VSC)
Luxgen: Electronic Stability Control (ESC)
Lincoln: AdvanceTrac
Maserati: Maserati Stability Program (MSP)
Mazda: Dynamic Stability Control (DSC) (including Dynamic Traction Control)
Mercedes-Benz (co-inventor) with Robert BOSCH GmbH: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Mercury: AdvanceTrac
Mini: Dynamic Stability Control
Mitsubishi: Active Skid and Traction Control MULTIMODE and Active Stability Control (ASC)
Nissan: Vehicle Dynamic Control (VDC)
Oldsmobile: Precision Control System (PCS)
Opel: Electronic Stability Program (ESP) and Trailer Stability Program (TSP)
Peugeot: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Pontiac: StabiliTrak
Porsche: Porsche Stability Management (PSM)
Proton: Electronic Stability Control (ESC) or Vehicle Dynamics Control (VDC)
Renault: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Rover Group: Dynamic Stability Control (DSC)
Saab: Electronic Stability Program (ESP) or StabiliTrak
Saturn: StabiliTrak
Scania: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
SEAT: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Škoda: Electronic Stability Program (ESP) and Electronic Stability Control (ESC)
Smart: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Subaru: Vehicle Dynamics Control (VDC)
Suzuki: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Tata: Electronic Stability Programme (ESP) (not to be confused with Corner Stability Control and Brake Sway Control)
Toyota: Vehicle Stability Control (VSC) and Vehicle Dynamics Integrated Management (VDIM)
Tesla: Electronic Stability Control (ESC)
Vauxhall: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
Volvo: Dynamic Stability and Traction Control (DSTC)
Volkswagen: Electronic Stability Program (ESP)
System manufacturers
ESC system manufacturers include:
Fujitsu Ten Ltd.
Robert Bosch GmbH
Aisin Advics
Bendix Corporation
Continental Automotive Systems
BeijingWest Industries
Hitachi
ITT Automotive, since 1982 part of Continental AG
Johnson Electric
Mando Corporation
Veoneer Nissin Brake Systems (former Nissin Kogyo, which owned 49% of the company). Japanese offices now part of Hitachi Astemo, US offices now part of ZF.
Teves, now part of Continental AG
TRW, now part of ZF
WABCO
Hyundai Mobis
Knorr-Bremse
References
External links
Bosch ESC Information
ChooseESC! a combined initiative from the European Commission, eSafetyAware, and Euro NCAP
NHTSA on ESC including US Regulation and list of US vehicles with ESC
Transport Canada on ESC
Australia (Victoria) on ESC
Advanced driver assistance systems
Automotive technology tradenames
Mechanical power control |
420944 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire%20squid | Vampire squid | The vampire squid (Vampyroteuthis infernalis, lit. 'vampire squid from hell') is a small cephalopod found throughout temperate and tropical oceans in extreme deep sea conditions. The vampire squid uses its bioluminescent organs and its unique oxygen metabolism to thrive in the parts of the ocean with the lowest concentrations of oxygen. It has two long retractile filaments, located between the first two pairs of arms on its dorsal side, which distinguish it from both octopuses and squids, and places it in its own order, Vampyromorphida, although its closest relatives are octopods. As a phylogenetic relict, it is the only known surviving member of its order.
The first specimens were collected on the Valdivia Expedition and were originally described as an octopus in 1903 by German teuthologist Carl Chun, but later assigned to a new order together with several extinct taxa.
Discovery
The vampire squid was discovered during the Valdivia Expedition (1898–1899), led by Carl Chun. Chun was a zoologist who was inspired by the Challenger Expedition, and wanted to verify that life does indeed exist below 300 fathoms (550 meters). Chun later classified the vampire squid into its family, Vampyroteuthidae. This expedition was funded by the German society Gesellschaft Deutscher Naturforscher und Ärzte, a group of German scientists who believed there was life at depths greater than 550 meters, contrary to the Abyssus theory. was fitted with equipment for the collection of deep-sea organisms, as well as laboratories and specimen jars, in order to analyze and preserve what was caught. The voyage began in Hamburg, Germany, followed by Edinburgh, and then traced around the west coast of Africa. After navigating around the southern point of Africa, the expedition studied deep areas of the Indian and Antarctic Ocean. Researchers had not before discovered any species from this family that could be traced back to the Cenozoic. This suggests two ideas which include, a notable preservation bias called the Lazarus effect may exist or the is difficulty to determine when vampire squids originally settled in the deep oceans. The Lazarus effect may result from the scarcity of post-Cretaceous research regions or from the reduced abundance and distribution of vampire squids. In any case, even while the search regions remain the same, it is more difficult to locate and analyze them.
Description
The vampire squid can reach a maximum total length around . Its gelatinous body varies in colour from velvety jet-black to pale reddish, depending on location and lighting conditions. A webbing of skin connects its eight arms, each lined with rows of fleshy spines or cirri; the inner side of this "cloak" is black. Only the distal halves (farthest from the body) of the arms have suckers. Its limpid, globular eyes, which appear red or blue, depending on lighting, are proportionately the largest in the animal kingdom at in diameter. The name of the animal was inspired by its dark colour, and cloaklike webbing, rather than habit—it feeds on detritus, not blood.
Mature adults have a pair of small fins projecting from the lateral sides of the mantle. These earlike fins serve as the adult's primary means of propulsion: vampire squid move through the water by flapping their fins. Their beaklike jaws are white. Within the webbing are two pouches wherein the tactile velar filaments are concealed. The filaments are analogous to a true squid's tentacles, extending well past the arms; but differ in origin, and represent the pair that was lost by the ancestral octopus.
The vampire squid is almost entirely covered in light-producing organs called photophores, capable of producing disorienting flashes of light ranging in duration from fractions of a second to several minutes. The intensity and size of the photophores can also be modulated. Appearing as small, white discs, the photophores are larger and more complex at the tips of the arms and at the base of the two fins, but are absent from the undersides of the caped arms. Two larger, white areas on top of the head were initially believed to also be photophores, but are now identified as photoreceptors.
The chromatophores (pigment organs) common to most cephalopods are poorly developed in the vampire squid. The animal is, therefore, incapable of changing its skin colour in the dramatic fashion of shallow-dwelling cephalopods, though such ability would not be useful at the lightless depths where it lives.
Habitat and adaptations
The vampire squid is an extreme example of a deep sea cephalopod, thought to reside at aphotic (lightless) depths from or more. Within this region of the world's oceans is a discrete habitat known as the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ). Within the zone, the saturation of oxygen is too low to support aerobic metabolism in most complex organisms. The vampire squid is the only cephalopod able to live its entire life cycle in the minimum zone, at oxygen saturations as low as 3%.
The vampire squid's worldwide range is confined to the tropics and subtropics.
To cope with life in the suffocating depths, vampire squids have developed several adaptations: Of all deep-sea cephalopods, their mass-specific metabolic rate is the lowest. Their blue blood's hemocyanin binds and transports oxygen more efficiently than in other cephalopods, aided by gills with an especially large surface area. The animals have weak musculature, but maintain agility and buoyancy with little effort because of sophisticated statocysts (balancing organs akin to a human's inner ear) and ammonium-rich gelatinous tissues closely matching the density of the surrounding seawater. The vampire squid's ability to thrive in OMZs also keeps it safe from apex predators that require a large amount of oxygen to live.
The vampire squid possesses large eyes and optic lobes which may be an adaptation to increase sensitivity for long-ranging detection of bioluminescence and monitoring a huge water volume where density of prey and mates is low.
Like many deep-sea cephalopods, the vampire squid lacks ink sacs. If disturbed, it will curl its arms up outwards and wrap them around its body, turning itself inside-out in a way, exposing spiny projections. If highly agitated, it may eject a sticky cloud of bioluminescent mucus containing innumerable orbs of blue light from the arm tips. This luminous barrage, which may last nearly 10 minutes, would presumably serve to dazzle would-be predators and allow the vampire squid to disappear into the blackness without the need to swim far. The glowing ink is also able to stick to the predator, creating what is called a burglar alarm (making the vampire squid's predator more visible to secondary predators). The display is made only if the animal is very agitated, because regenerating the mucus is metabolically costly. The vampire squid also has bioluminescent organs at the end of each of its arms, using them as a lure to attract prey. The ends of squid's arms are also regenerative, so if they are bitten off, they can be used as a diversion allowing the animal to escape while its predator is distracted.
Development and reproduction
Few specifics are known regarding the ontogeny of the vampire squid. Their development progresses through three morphologic forms: the very young animals have a single pair of fins, an intermediate form has two pairs, and the mature form again has one. At their earliest and intermediate phases of development, a pair of fins is located near the eyes; as the animal develops, this pair gradually disappears as the other pair develops. As the animals grow and their surface area to volume ratio drops, the fins are resized and repositioned to maximize gait efficiency. Whereas the young propel themselves primarily by jet propulsion, mature adults find flapping their fins to be the most efficient means. This unique ontogeny caused confusion in the past, with the varying forms identified as several species in distinct families.
If hypotheses may be drawn from knowledge of other deep-sea cephalopods, the vampire squid likely reproduces slowly by way of a small number of large eggs. Ovulation is irregular and there is minimal energy devotion into the development of the gonad. Growth is slow, as nutrients are not abundant at depths frequented by the animals. The vastness of their habitat and its sparse population make procreative encounters a fortuitous event. The female may store a male's hydraulically implanted spermatophore (a tapered, cylindrical satchel of sperm) for long periods before she is ready to fertilize her eggs. Once she does, she may need to brood over them for up to 400 days before they hatch. Their reproductive strategy appears to be iteroparous, which is an exception amongst the otherwise semelparous Coleoidea. During their life, Coleoidea cephalopods are thought to go through only one reproductive cycle whereas vampire squid have shown evidence of multiple reproductive cycles. After releasing their eggs, new batches of eggs are formed after the female vampire squid returns to resting. This process may repeat up to, and sometimes more than, twenty times. It has been hypothesized that the iteroparous lifestyle of the vampire squid has evolved with the squid's relaxed lifestyle. With iteroparity often seen in organisms with high adult survival rates, such as the vampire squid, many low-cost reproductive cycles would be expected for the species.
Hatchlings are about 8 mm in length and are well-developed miniatures of the adults, with some differences. Their arms lack webbing, their eyes are smaller, and their velar filaments are not fully formed. The hatchlings are transparent and survive on a generous internal yolk for an unknown period before they begin to actively feed. The smaller animals frequent much deeper waters, perhaps feeding on marine snow (falling organic detritus). The mature vampire squid is also thought to be an opportunistic hunter of larger prey as fish bones, other squid flesh, and gelatinous matter has been recorded in mature vampire squid stomachs.
Reproduction of the vampire squid is unlike any other coleoid cephalopod. During mating the males pass a “packet” of sperm to a female and the female accepts it and stores it in a special pouch inside her mantle. When the female is ready, she will use the packet to reproduce. The females spawn eggs in separate spawning “events” when she feels the necessity to reproduce. These spawning events happen quite far apart due to the vampire squid's low metabolic rate, meaning they take a long time to accumulate the necessary resources to spawn. This is very rare and needs further research done on it.
Behavior
What behavioral data is known has been gleaned from ephemeral encounters with remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROV); animals are often injured during capture, and survive up to two months in aquaria, although it is hypothesized that they can live for over eight years. An artificial environment makes reliable observation of non-defensive behavior difficult. In May 2014, Monterey Bay Aquarium (California, United States) became the first to ever put this species on display.
With their long velar filaments deployed, vampire squids have been observed drifting along in the deep, black ocean currents. If the filaments contact an entity, or if vibrations impinge upon them, the animals investigate with rapid acrobatic movements. They are capable of swimming at speeds equivalent to two body lengths per second, with an acceleration time of five seconds. However, their weak muscles limit stamina considerably.
Unlike their relatives living in more hospitable climates, deep-sea cephalopods cannot afford to expend energy in protracted flight. Given their low metabolic rate and the low density of prey at such depths, vampire squids must use innovative predator avoidance tactics to conserve energy. Their aforementioned bioluminescent "fireworks" are combined with the writhing of glowing arms, erratic movements, and escape trajectories, making it difficult for a predator to identify multiple targets. The vampire squid's retractile filaments have been suggested to play a larger role in predator avoidance via both detection and escape mechanisms.
In a threat response called the "pumpkin" or "pineapple" posture, the vampire squid inverts its caped arms back over the body, presenting an ostensibly larger form covered in fearsome-looking though harmless spines (called cirri). The underside of the cape is heavily pigmented, masking most of the body's photophores. The glowing arm tips are clustered together far above the animal's head, diverting attack away from critical areas. If a predator were to bite off an arm tip, the vampire squid can regenerate it.
Feeding
Vampire squid have eight arms but lack feeding tentacles, and instead use two retractile filaments in order to capture food. These filaments have small hairs on them, made up of many sensory cells, that help them detect and secure their prey. They combine waste with mucus secreted from suckers to form balls of food. As sedentary generalists, they feed on detritus, including the remains of gelatinous zooplankton (such as salps, larvaceans, and medusae jellies) and complete copepods, ostracods, amphipods, and isopods, as well as faecal pellets of other aquatic organisms that live above. Vampire squids also use a unique luring method where they purposefully agitate bioluminescent protists in the water as a way to attract larger prey for them to consume.
Vampire squids have been found among the stomach contents of large, deepwater fish, including giant grenadiers, and deep-diving mammals, such as whales and sea lions.
Relationships
The Vampyromorphida is the extant sister taxon to all octopuses. Phylogenetic studies of cephalopods using multiple genes and mitochondrial genomes have shown that the Vampyromorphida are the first group of Octopodiformes to evolutionarily diverge from all others. The Vampyromorphida is characterized by derived characters such as the possession of photophores and of two velar filaments which are most probably modified arms. It also shares the inclusion of an internal gladius with other coleoids, including squid, and eight webbed arms with cirrate octopods.
Vampyroteuthis shares its eight cirrate arms with the Cirrata, in which lateral cirri, or filaments, alternate with the suckers. Vampyroteuthis differs in that suckers are present only on the distal half of the arms while cirri run the entire length. In cirrate octopods suckers and cirri run and alternate on the entire length. Also, a close relationship between Vampyroteuthis and the Jurassic-Cretaceous Loligosepiina is indicated by the similarity of their gladii, the internal stiffening structure. Vampyronassa rhodanica from the middle Jurassic La Voulte-sur-Rhône of France is considered as one of a vampyroteuthid that shares some characters with Vampyroteuthis.
The supposed vampyromorphids from the Kimmeridgian-Tithonian (156–146 mya) of Solnhofen, Plesioteuthis prisca, Leptoteuthis gigas, and Trachyteuthis hastiformis, cannot be positively assigned to this group; they are large species (from 35 cm in P. prisca to > 1 m in L. gigas) and show features not found in vampyromorphids, being somewhat similar to the true squids, Teuthida.
Conservation status
The vampire squid is currently not on any endangered or threatened species list and they have no known impact on humans. Vampire squids are at increased risk for micro plastic pollution because their diet is mostly marine snow. Micro plastics can cause death by decreasing feeding activity as they take up space in the digestive tract causing the animal's stomach to feel full without providing nutrients.
Popular culture
Following an article in Rolling Stone magazine by Matt Taibbi after the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008, the term "vampire squid" has been regularly used in popular culture to refer to Goldman Sachs, the American investment bank.
Real vampire squids are shown in the "Ocean Deep" episode of Planet Earth.
Notes
References
(Version of 5/6/03, retrieved 2006-DEC-06.)
(French with English abstract)
(HTML abstract)
External links
Tree of Life: Vampyroteuthis infernalis.
National Geographic video of a vampire squid
Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI): What the vampire squid really eats.
Vampire squid
Vampyroteuthis infernalis discussed on RNZ Critter of the Week, 13 Oct 2023
Images
The vampire squid's photophores and photoreceptors
Diagram and images of a Vampyroteuthis hatchling
Photomicrograph of arm tip fluorescence
Squid
Molluscs described in 1903
Bioluminescent molluscs
Taxa named by Carl Chun |
420956 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins%20of%20the%20Cold%20War | Origins of the Cold War | The Cold War originated in the breakdown of relations between the two main victors in World War II: United States and the Soviet Union, and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc, in the years 1945–1949.
The origins derive from diplomatic (and occasional military) confrontations stretching back decades, followed by the issue of political boundaries in Central Europe and non-democratic control of the East by the Soviet Army. In the 1940s came economic issues (especially the Marshall Plan) and then the first major military confrontation, with a threat of a hot war, in the Berlin Blockade of 1948–1949. By 1949, the lines were sharply drawn and the Cold War was largely in place in Europe. Outside Europe, the starting points vary, but the conflict centered on the US's development of an informal empire in Southeast Asia in the mid-1940s.
Events preceding World War II and even the Communist takeover of Russia in 1917, underlay older tensions between the Soviet Union, European countries and the United States.
Russian Revolution
In World War I, Britain, France and Russia, who had formed a Triple Entente, comprised the major Allied Powers from the start. The US joined them as a self-styled Associated Power in March 1917. The Bolsheviks seized power in Russia in November 1917 but the Imperial German Army advanced rapidly across the borderlands. The Allies responded with an economic blockade against all of Russia. In early March 1918, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic followed through on the wave of popular disgust against the war and accepted harsh German peace terms with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. In the eyes of the Allies, Russia now was helping Germany win the war by freeing up a million German soldiers for the Western Front and by "relinquishing much of Russia's food supply, industrial base, fuel supplies, and communications with Western Europe". According to historian Spencer Tucker, the Allies felt that "The treaty was the ultimate betrayal of the Allied cause and sowed the seeds for the Cold War. With Brest-Litovsk the spectre of German domination in Eastern Europe threatened to become reality, and the Allies now began to think seriously about military intervention", and proceeded to step up their economic warfare against the Bolsheviks. Some Bolsheviks saw Russia as only the first step, planning to incite revolutions against capitalism in every western country, but the need for peace with Germany led Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin away from this position.
In 1918, Britain sent in money and some troops to support the anti-Bolshevik "White" counter-revolutionaries. This policy was spearheaded by Minister of War Winston Churchill. France, Japan and the United States also sent forces to help decide the Russian Civil War in the Whites’ favor. Lenin made peace overtures to Wilson, and the American leader responded by sending diplomat William Bullitt to Moscow. The Allies ultimately rejected the ceasefire terms which Bullitt negotiated, believing that a White victory was imminent.
However, the Bolsheviks, operating a unified command from a central location, defeated all the opposition one by one and took full control of Russia, as well as breakaway provinces such as Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Bainbridge Colby, the American Secretary of State, in 1920 announced an American policy of refusing to deal with the new regime.
Soviet Russia found itself isolated in international diplomacy. Lenin stated that the Soviet Union was surrounded by a "hostile capitalist encirclement" and he viewed diplomacy as a weapon to keep Soviet enemies divided. Lenin set up the Comintern, which called for revolutionary upheavals in capitalist countries. Nevertheless, Communist revolutions failed in Germany, Bavaria, and Hungary and by the mid-1920s Moscow was no longer fomenting revolution.
Interwar diplomacy (1918–1939)
Differences in the political and economic systems of Western democracies and the Soviet Union—dictatorship by one party versus pluralistic competition among parties, mass arrests and execution of dissidents versus free press and independent courts, state ownership of all farms and businesses versus capitalism, became simplified and refined in ideologies to represent two ways of life.
In 1933, the United States under President Franklin D. Roosevelt officially recognized the Soviet Union. The long delay was caused by Moscow's repudiation of Tsarist-era debts, the undemocratic nature of the Soviet government, and its threats to overthrow capitalism using local Communist Parties. By 1933 these issues had faded and the opportunity for greater trade appealed to Washington.
Start of World War II (1939–1941)
Moscow was angry with Western appeasement of Adolf Hitler after the signing of the Munich Agreement in 1938 which gave Nazi Germany partial control of Czechoslovakia after conference in which the Soviet Union was not invited.
In 1939, after conducting negotiations with both the British and French group and Germany regarding potential military and political agreements, the Soviet Union and Germany signed a Commercial Agreement providing for the trade of certain German military and civilian equipment in exchange for Soviet raw materials and the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, commonly named after the foreign secretaries of the two countries (Molotov–Ribbentrop), which included a secret agreement to split Poland and Eastern Europe between the two states.
Wartime alliance (1941–1945)
On June 22, 1941, Germany broke the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union through the territories that the two countries had previously divided. Stalin switched his cooperation from Hitler to Winston Churchill. Britain and the Soviets signed a formal alliance, but the US did not join until after the Attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Immediately, there was disagreement between Britain's ally Poland and the Soviet Union. The British and Poles strongly suspected that when Stalin was cooperating with Hitler, he ordered the execution of about 22,000 Polish officer POWs, at what was later to become known as the Katyn massacre. Still, the Soviets and the Western Allies were forced to cooperate, despite their tensions. The US shipped vast quantities of Lend-Lease material to the Soviets. Britain agreed a broader military and political alliance in 1942.
During the war, both sides disagreed on military strategy, especially the question of the opening of a second front against Germany in Western Europe. As early as July 1941, Stalin asked Britain to invade northern France, but Britain was in no position to carry out such a request. Stalin had also requested that the Western Allies open a second front from the early months of the war—which finally occurred on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The US and Britain initially indicated that they would open the second front in 1942, and then in 1943, but it was postponed both times.
Throughout World War II, the Soviet NKVD's mole Kim Philby had access to high-importance British MI6 intelligence, and passed it to the Soviets. He was able to alert the NKVD about all British intelligence on the Soviets—including what the American OSS had shared with the British about the Soviets.
The Soviets believed at the time, and charged throughout the Cold War, that the Americans intentionally delayed the opening of a second front against Germany in order to intervene only at the last minute so as to influence the peace settlement and dominate Europe. Historians such as John Lewis Gaddis dispute this claim, citing other military and strategic calculations for the timing of the Normandy invasion. In the meantime, the Russians suffered heavy casualties, with as many as twenty million dead. Nevertheless, Soviet perceptions (or misconceptions) of the West and vice versa left a strong undercurrent of tension and hostility between the Allied powers.
In turn, in 1944, the Soviets appeared to the Allies to have deliberately delayed the relief of the Polish underground's Warsaw Uprising against the Nazi occupation. The Soviets did not supply the Uprising from the air, and for a significant time also refused to allow American air drops. On at least one occasion, a Soviet Air Force fighter shot down a British Royal Air Force plane supplying the Polish insurgents in Warsaw. George Orwell was moved to make a public warning about Soviet postwar intentions. A 'secret war' also took place between the British SOE-backed AK and Soviet NKVD-backed partisans. British-trained Polish Cichociemni agent Maciej Kalenkiewicz was killed by the Soviets at this time. The British and Soviets sponsored competing factions of resistance fighters in Yugoslavia and Greece, although both ceased after Churchill and Stalin made the Percentages Agreement.
Both sides, moreover, held very dissimilar ideas regarding the establishment and maintenance of post-war security. The Americans tended to understand security in situational terms, assuming that, if US-style governments and markets were established as widely as possible, countries could resolve their differences peacefully, through international organizations. The key to the US vision of security was a post-war world shaped according to the principles laid out in the 1941 Atlantic Charter—in other words, a liberal international system based on free trade and open markets. This vision would require a rebuilt capitalist Europe, with a healthy Germany at its center, to serve once more as a hub in global affairs.
This would also require US economic and political leadership of the postwar world. Europe needed the US's assistance if it was to rebuild its domestic production and finance its international trade. The US was the only world power not economically devastated by the fighting. By the end of the war, it was producing around fifty percent of the world's industrial goods.
Soviet leaders, however, tended to understand security in terms of space. This reasoning was conditioned by Russia's historical experiences, given the frequency with which the country had been invaded over the preceding 150 years. The Second World War experience was particularly dramatic for the Russians: the Soviet Union suffered unprecedented devastation as a result of the Nazi onslaught, and over 20 million Soviet citizens died during the war; tens of thousands of Soviet cities, towns, and villages were leveled; and 30,100 Soviet factories were destroyed. In order to prevent a similar assault in the future, Stalin was determined to use the Red Army to gain control of Poland, to dominate the Balkans and to destroy utterly Germany's capacity to engage in another war. The problem was that Stalin's strategy risked confrontation with the equally powerful United States, who viewed Stalin's actions as a flagrant violation of the Yalta agreement.
At the end of the war in Europe, in May 1945, the Soviets insisted on occupying the Danish island of Bornholm, due to its strategic position at the entrance to the Baltic. When the local German commander insisted on surrendering to the Western Allies, as did German forces in the rest of Denmark, the Soviets bombed the island, causing heavy casualties and damage among a civilian population which was only lightly touched throughout the war, and then invaded the island and occupied it until mid-1946—all of which can be considered as initial moves in the Cold War.
Even before the war came to an end, it seemed highly likely that cooperation between the Western powers and the USSR would give way to intense rivalry or conflict. This was due primarily to the starkly contrasting economic ideologies of the two superpowers, now quite easily the strongest in the world. Whereas the US was a liberal, two-party democracy with an advanced capitalist economy, based on free enterprise and profit-making, the USSR was a one-party Marxist–Leninist State with a state-controlled economy where private wealth was all but outlawed. Nevertheless, the origins of the Cold War should also be seen as a historical episode that demarcated the spheres of interests of the United States and the Soviet Union.
Wartime conferences
Several postwar disagreements between western and Soviet leaders were related to their differing interpretations of wartime and immediate post-war conferences.
In late 1943, the Tehran Conference was the first Allied conference in which Stalin was present. At the conference the Soviets expressed frustration that the Western Allies had not yet opened a second front against Germany in Western Europe. In Tehran, the Allies also considered the political status of Iran. At the time, the British had occupied southern Iran, while the Soviets had occupied an area of northern Iran bordering the Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. Nevertheless, at the end of the war, tensions emerged over the timing of the pull out of both sides from the oil-rich region.
The differences between Roosevelt and Churchill led to several separate deals with the Soviets. In October 1944, Churchill traveled to Moscow and proposed the "percentages agreement" to divide the Balkans into respective spheres of influence, including giving Stalin predominance over Romania and Bulgaria and Churchill carte blanche over Greece. At the Yalta Conference of February 1945, Roosevelt signed a separate deal with Stalin in regard of Asia and refused to support Churchill on the issues of Poland and Reparations. Roosevelt ultimately approved the percentage agreement, but there was still apparently no firm consensus on the framework for a post-war settlement in Europe.
At the Second Quebec Conference, a high-level military conference held in Quebec City, 12–16 September 1944, Churchill and Roosevelt reached agreement on a number of matters, including a plan for Germany based on Henry Morgenthau Jr.'s original proposal. The memorandum drafted by Churchill provided for "eliminating the warmaking industries in the Ruhr and the Saar ... looking forward to converting Germany into a country primarily agricultural and pastoral in its character". However, it no longer included a plan to partition the country into several independent states. On 10 May 1945, President Truman signed the US occupation directive JCS 1067, which was in effect for over two years, and was enthusiastically supported by Stalin. It directed the US forces of occupation to "... take no steps looking toward the economic rehabilitation of Germany".
Some historians have argued that the Cold War began when the US negotiated a separate peace with Nazi SS General Karl Wolff in northern Italy. The Soviet Union was initially not allowed to participate and the dispute led to heated correspondence between Franklin Roosevelt and Stalin. General Wolff, a war criminal, appears to have been guaranteed immunity at the Nuremberg trials by Office of Strategic Services (OSS) commander (and later CIA director) Allen Dulles when they met in March 1945. Wolff and his forces were being considered to help implement Operation Unthinkable, a secret plan to invade the Soviet Union which Winston Churchill advocated during this period.
At the February 1945 Yalta Conference, the Allies attempted to define the framework for a postwar settlement in Europe. The Allies could not reach firm agreements on the crucial questions: the occupation of Germany, postwar reparations from Germany, and the fate of Poland. No final consensus was reached on Germany, other than to agree to a Soviet request for reparations totaling $10 billion "as a basis for negotiations". Debates over the composition of Poland's postwar government were also acrimonious. The Yalta Conference ended with "a declaration on liberated Europe pledging respect for democratic forms and providing a diplomatic mechanism for constituting a generally acceptable Polish government".
Following the Allied victory in May, the Soviets effectively occupied Eastern Europe, while the US had much of Western Europe. In occupied Germany, the US and the Soviet Union established zones of occupation and a loose framework for four-power control with the ailing French and British.
Potsdam and the atomic bomb
At the Potsdam Conference starting in late July 1945, the Allies met to decide how to administer the defeated Nazi Germany, which had agreed to unconditional surrender nine weeks earlier on May 7 and May 8, 1945, VE day. Serious differences emerged over the future development of Germany and Eastern Europe. At Potsdam, the US was represented by a new president, Harry S. Truman, who on April 12 succeeded to the office upon Roosevelt's death. Truman was unaware of Roosevelt's plans for post-war engagement with the Soviet Union, and more generally uninformed about foreign policy and military matters. The new president, therefore, was initially reliant on a set of advisers (including Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman and Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal). This group tended to take a harder line towards Moscow than Roosevelt had done. Administration officials favoring cooperation with the Soviet Union and the incorporation of socialist economies into a world trade system were marginalized. The UK was represented by a new prime minister, Clement Attlee, who had replaced Churchill after the Labour Party's defeat of the Conservatives in the 1945 general election.
The US had invited Britain into its atomic bomb project but kept it secret from the Soviet Union. Stalin became aware that the Americans were working on the atomic bomb through his spy network, however. One week after the end of the Potsdam Conference, the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Shortly after the attacks, Stalin protested to US officials when Truman offered the Soviets little real influence in occupied Japan. Stalin was also outraged by the actual dropping of the bombs, calling them a “superbarbarity” and claiming that “the balance has been destroyed ... That cannot be”. The Truman administration intended to use its ongoing nuclear weapons program to pressure the Soviet Union in international relations.
The immediate end of war material shipments from America to the USSR after the surrender of Germany also upset some politicians in Moscow, who believed this showed the US had no intentions to support the USSR any more than they had to.
Administration officials met with Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov and others to press for an economically self-sufficient Germany, including a detailed accounting of the industrial plants, good and infrastructure already removed by the Soviets. After six weeks of negotiations, Molotov refused the demands and the talks were adjourned.
Creation of the Eastern Bloc
A number of Eastern European countries (notably without Poland) were covered by Stalin's secret agreement with Winston Churchill concluded at the 4th Moscow Conference in 1944 and called the Percentages Agreement. This only became known about in 1953 when Churchill published his memoirs. Resis' research illustrates that Roosevelt was well aware of this agreement but only gave conditional support to Churchill after receiving updated information regarding the talks; however, prior to the meeting Roosevelt had informed Stalin that "in this global war, there is no question, political or military, that the United States is not interested" and as such, the 4th October 1944 is arguably the day the Cold War started.
The immediate post-1945 period may have been the historical high point for the popularity of communist ideology. The burdens the Red Army and the Soviet Union endured had earned it massive respect which, had it been fully exploited by Joseph Stalin, had a good chance of resulting in a communist Europe. Communist parties achieved a significant popularity in Greece, France and Italy, as well as in some nations outside of Europe such as China, Iran or the Republic of Mahabad. Communist parties had already come to power in Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, and Yugoslavia. The United Kingdom and the United States were concerned that electoral victories by communist parties in any of these countries could lead to sweeping economic and political change in Western Europe.
After the war, Stalin sought to secure the Soviet Union's western border by installing communist-dominated regimes under Soviet influence in bordering countries. During and in the years immediately after the war, the Soviet Union annexed several countries as Soviet Socialist Republics within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Many of these were originally countries effectively ceded to it by Nazi Germany in the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, before Germany invaded the Soviet Union. These later annexed territories include Eastern Poland (incorporated into two different SSRs), Latvia (became Latvia SSR), Estonia (became Estonian SSR), Lithuania (became Lithuania SSR), part of eastern Finland (Karelo-Finnish SSR and annexed into the Russian SFSR) and northern Romania (became the Moldavian SSR).
In Hungary, when the Soviets installed a communist government, Mátyás Rákosi was appointed General Secretary of the Hungarian Communist Party, which began one of the harshest dictatorships in Europe under the People's Republic of Hungary. In Bulgaria, toward the end of World War II, the Soviet Union crossed the border and created the conditions for a communist coup d'état on the following night. The Soviet military commander in Sofia assumed supreme authority, and the communists whom he instructed, including Kimon Georgiev (who was not a communist himself, but a member of the elitarian political organization "Zveno", working together with the communists), took full control of domestic politics in the People's Republic of Bulgaria. In the Romanian general election of 1946, the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) employed widespread intimidation tactics and electoral fraud to obtain 80 percent of the vote and, thereafter, eliminated the role of the centrist parties and forced mergers, the result of which was that, by 1948, most non-Communist politicians were either executed, in exile or in prison. In the December 1945 Albanian election, the only effective ballot choices were those of the communist Democratic Front (Albania), led by Enver Hoxha. In 1946, Albania was declared the People's Republic of Albania.
The defining characteristic of the Stalinist communism implemented in Eastern Bloc states was the unique symbiosis of the state with society and the economy, resulting in politics and economics losing their distinctive features as autonomous and distinguishable spheres. Initially, Stalin directed systems that rejected Western institutional characteristics of market economies, democratic governance (dubbed "bourgeois democracy" in Soviet parlance) and the rule of law subduing discretional intervention by the state. They were economically communist and depended upon the Soviet Union for significant amounts of materials. While in the first five years following World War II, massive emigration from these states to the West occurred, restrictions implemented thereafter stopped most East-West migration, except that under limited bilateral and other agreements.
Yugoslavia
On 29 November 1945, the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia was proclaimed. It was under Soviet influence in the final months of the war and the first few post-war years, Stalin declared it outside the Soviet sphere of interest on several occasions, treating it like a satellite state. The contrast with the rest of Eastern Europe was underscored ahead of a Soviet offensive in October 1944. Tito's Partisans supported the offensive, which ultimately pushed the Wehrmacht and its allies out of northern Serbia and captured Belgrade. Marshal Fyodor Tolbukhin's Third Ukrainian Front had to request formal permission from Tito's provisional government to enter Yugoslavia and had to accept Yugoslav civil authority in any liberated territory. which maintained its claims against Italy and Austria. The territorial dispute in the northwest part of Istria peninsula and around the city of Trieste caused the Treaty of Peace with Italy to be delayed until 1947, and establishment of the independent Free Territory of Trieste. This did not satisfy Tito as he sought revisions of the borders around Trieste and in Carinthia prompting the Western Allies to keep a garrison in Trieste to prevent Yugoslav takeover. Tito's continued insistence on acquisition of Trieste was also seen by Stalin as an embarrassment to the Italian Communist Party. On 10 January 1945, Stalin called Yugoslavia's foreign policy unreasonable because of its territorial claims against most of its neighbours, The USSR and Yugoslavia signed a friendship treaty when Tito met with Stalin in Moscow in April 1945.
Origins of containnment
"Long Telegram" and "Mr. X"
Key State Department personnel grew increasingly frustrated with and suspicious of the Soviets as the war drew to a close. Averell Harriman, US Ambassador in Moscow, once a "confirmed optimist" regarding US–Soviet relations, was disillusioned by what he saw as the Soviet betrayal of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising as well as by violations of the February 1945 Yalta Agreement concerning Poland. Harriman would later have a significant influence in forming Truman's views on the Soviet Union.
In February 1946, the US State Department asked George F. Kennan, then at the US Embassy in Moscow, why the Russians opposed the creation of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. He responded with a wide-ranging analysis of Russian policy now called the Long Telegram:
Kennan's cable was hailed in the State Department as "the appreciation of the situation that had long been needed." Kennan himself attributed the enthusiastic reception to timing: "Six months earlier the message would probably have been received in the State Department with raised eyebrows and lips pursed in disapproval. Six months later, it would probably have sounded redundant." Clark Clifford and George Elsey produced a report elaborating on the Long Telegram and proposing concrete policy recommendations based on its analysis. This report, which recommended "restraining and confining" Soviet influence, was presented to Truman on September 24, 1946.
"Iron Curtain" speech
On March 5, 1946, Winston Churchill, while at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, gave his speech "The Sinews of Peace", declaring that an "iron curtain" had descended across Europe. From the standpoint of the Soviets, the speech was an incitement for the West to begin a war with the USSR, as it called for an Anglo-American alliance against the Soviets.
Morgenthau and Marshall Plans
Having lost 20 million people in the war, suffered German invasion twice in 30 years, and suffered tens of millions of casualties from onslaughts from the West three times in the preceding 150 years, the Soviet Union was determined to destroy Germany's capacity for another war. This was in alignment with the Allied policy which had foreseen returning Germany to a pastoral state without heavy industry (the Morgenthau Plan). On September 6, 1946, US Secretary of State James F. Byrnes made a speech in Germany, repudiating the Morgenthau Plan and warning the Soviets that the US intended to maintain a military presence in Europe indefinitely. (see Restatement of Policy on Germany) As Byrnes admitted one month later, "The nub of our program was to win the German people [...] it was a battle between us and Russia over minds ...". Because of the increasing costs of food imports to avoid mass-starvation in Germany, and with the danger of losing the entire nation to communism, the US government abandoned the Morgenthau plan in September 1946 with Secretary of State James F. Byrnes's speech Restatement of Policy on Germany. In January 1947, Truman appointed General George Marshall as Secretary of State, scrapped Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) directive 1067, which embodied the Morgenthau Plan and supplanted it with JCS 1779, which decreed that an orderly and prosperous Europe requires the economic contributions of a stable and productive Germany".
Greece and Italy
In Greece, during a civil war involving the communist-led partisan movement ELAS-EAM, British Special Forces terminated arms supplies to the ELA-ELAM, pro-monarchist armed forces were strengthened. On the political front, Americans, with British encouragement, attempted to dismantle ELAS-EAM socialist structures in the countryside, and an anti-communist swing gradually occurred.
Western Allies conducted meetings in Italy in March 1945 with German representatives to forestall a takeover by Italian communist resistance forces in northern Italy and to hinder the potential there for post-war influence of the civilian Italian Communist Party. The affair caused a major rift between Stalin and Churchill, and in a letter to Roosevelt on 3 April Stalin complained that the secret negotiations did not serve to "preserve and promote trust between our countries".
Soviet military perspective
The Soviet military was focused on its main mission, the defense of the Soviet Union. From that perspective, the formation of NATO in 1949 was the decisive threat, and became its starting point for the Cold War. Historian David Glantz argues that:
Militarily, the Soviets considered themselves threatened by, first, the United States's atomic monopoly (broken in 1949) and, second, by the emergence of United States dominated military alliances, the most menacing of which was NATO. The Soviet Union responded strategically by preserving a large, expandable peacetime military establishment, keeping large military forces in conquered regions of Eastern Europe, and cloaking these forces within the political guise of an alliance (the Warsaw Pact), Which could contend with NATO on a multilateral basis. The major thrust of Soviet military strategy was to possess a conventional military force whose offensive capabilities could check Western nuclear and conventional military power.
Other regions
The Cold War took place worldwide, but it had a somewhat different timing and trajectory outside Europe. In Africa, decolonization took place first; it was largely accomplished in the 1950s. The main rivals then sought bases of support in the new national political alignments.
Latin America
During World War II, the United States military operations had widespread support across Latin America, except for Argentina. After 1947, with the Cold War emerging in Europe, Washington made repeated efforts to encourage all the Latin American countries to take a Cold War anti-Communist position. They were reluctant to do so—for example, only Colombia sent soldiers to the United Nations Command in the Korean War. The Soviet Union was quite weak across Latin America. Not until the late 1950s did Moscow achieve diplomatic or commercial relationships with most Latin American countries., Before then it had only two trade agreements (with Argentina and Mexico). The communist movements that had existed in Brazil and elsewhere in the 1930s had been disbanded or outlawed. Washington exaggerated the dangers, and decided on a preemptive attack against a possible communist threat. It sought anti-communist resolutions at the annual meetings of the Pan American Union (renamed the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1948) and paid special attention to the growth of left-wing forces in Guatemala. A compromise was reached whereby the Latin American states agreed on vague statements of support for the American Cold War position, and the United States provided expanded financial grants and loans to stimulate economic growth. In 1954, at the 10th Inter-American Conference in Caracas, Washington demanded a resolution that the establishment of a communist government in any American state was a threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere. Guatemala cast the only negative vote. The Guatemalan Armed Forces, with CIA encouragement, overthrew its left-wing government later that year. Fidel Castro engineered his revolutionary takeover of Cuba in 1957–58 with very little Soviet support. The United States and the smaller Latin countries, outvoted the larger powers by the required two-thirds majority in 1962 to identify Cuba as a communist regime and suspend it from the OAS.
Far East and Pacific
After the war ended, British Malaya was plunged into a state of emergency as British and Commonwealth forces fought a protracted counter-insurgency war against their former communist-led Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army ally, who had fought the Japanese occupation and now demanded independence from the British Empire. In British Hong Kong, which had surrendered to Japan in December 1941, civil unrest occurred after Britain rapidly re-established rule at the end of the war.
Australia's entry into the Cold War came in 1950, when it rushed combat air and sea forces into the Korean War, two days after the Americans did. Australian Prime Minister Robert Menzies received a hero's welcome in Washington. The ANZUS military alliance with New Zealand and the United States was signed in July 1951; it was a plan for consultation and did not involve military planning like NATO. Public opinion in Australia was intensely hostile to Japan after its wartime atrocities, but Japan was now an ally in the Cold War, so Australia's accepted the very generous soft peace treaty with Japan in 1951. Instead of worrying about a resurgent Japan, Australia now worried more about a possible Chinese threat.
Asia
Following decades of struggle, in 1949 the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong defeated Chiang Kai-shek's National Revolutionary Army and took control of Mainland China. The Nationalist government leaders and much of the Republic of China's upper class fled to Taiwan where they had American protection. Stalin had long supported Chiang Kai-shek, while also giving some help to the Communists. The United States had tried in 1945–1948 to bring the Nationalists and Communists together in a coalition, but had no success. The conflict was not therefore part of the Cold War until 1949–1959. By the late 1950s, however, China and the USSR were at sword's point, and became bitter enemies over ideological control of the Marxist–Leninist orthodoxy. The two set up rival communist organizations in countries across the world. The Cold War then became a three-way conflict.
France for many years had been dealing with a nationalist insurgency in Vietnam in which communists, led by Ho Chi Minh, played a prominent leadership role. In 1949, Mao's Communists took control of the north side of the China-Vietnam border, and began supporting the Viet Minh insurgents, especially by providing sanctuary from French attacks. Mark Lawrence and Frederik Logevall point out that "resurgent French colonialism became inextricably intertwined with Cold War tensions, especially in the years after 1949". American pressure on France after 1949 tried to force France to give priority to fighting communism, rather than fighting Vietnamese nationalism.
Middle East
The political situation in Iran was a flashpoint between the major players in 1945–1946, with the Soviet Union sponsoring two breakaway provinces in northern Iran, adjacent to the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Soviet troops were stationed in northwestern Iran as part of the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran during the war. They not only refused to withdraw in 1945 but backed revolts that established short-lived, pro-Soviet separatist national states called the Azerbaijan People's Government and the Republic of Kurdistan. The issue was debated at the United Nations, and in 1946 Moscow abandoned its position, and the conflict was permanently resolved peacefully, with a pro-western government resuming control. Iran did not become a major battlefield of the Cold War, but it had its own history of confrontation with Britain and the United States.
The long-standing conflict between Arabs and Jews in Mandatory Palestine continued after 1945, with Britain and in an increasingly impossible situation as the mandate holder. The Balfour Declaration of 1917 calling for a homeland for the Jews was supported in 1947 by both the Soviet Union and the United States. Both countries promptly Recognize the independent state of Israel in 1948. The Soviet Union later broke with Israel to support its Arab enemies. The region was more of an independent trouble zone rather than a playing field of the Cold War, and was not a precipitating factor in the Cold War.
By 1953, Arab nationalism based in Egypt was a neutralizing force. The Soviet Union leaned increasingly toward Egypt. The United States based its Cold War coalition primarily on the Baghdad Pact of 1955 which formed Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), that included Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and the United Kingdom.
Historians on the causes of the Cold War
While most historians trace its origins to the period immediately following World War II, others argue that it began with the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 when the Bolsheviks took power. In 1919 Lenin stated that his new state was surrounded by a "hostile capitalist encirclement", and he viewed diplomacy as a weapon that should be used in order to keep the Soviet Union's enemies divided. He began with a new Communist International ("Comintern"), based in Moscow, which was designed to plan for revolutionary upheavals abroad. It was ineffective—Communist uprisings all failed in Germany, Hungary and elsewhere. Historian Max Beloff argues that the Soviets saw "no prospect of permanent peace", with the 1922 Soviet Constitution proclaiming:
Since the time of the formation of the soviet republics, the states of the world have divided into two camps: the camp of capitalism and the camp of socialism. There—in the camp of capitalism—national enmity and inequality, colonial slavery, and chauvinism, national oppression and pogroms, imperialist brutalities and wars. Here —in the camp of socialism —mutual confidence and peace, national freedom and equality, a dwelling together in peace and the brotherly collaboration of peoples.
According to British historian Christopher Sutton:
In what some have called the First Cold War, from Britain's intervention in the Russian Civil War in 1918 to its uneasy alliance with the Soviet Union against the Axis powers in 1941, British distrust of the revolutionary and regicidal Bolsheviks resulted in domestic, foreign, and colonial policies aimed at resisting the spread of communism. This conflict after 1945 took on new battlefields, new weapons, new players, and a greater intensity, but it was still fundamentally a conflict against Soviet imperialism (real and imagined).
The idea of long-term continuity is a minority scholarly view that has been challenged. Frank Ninkovich writes:
As for the two cold wars thesis, the chief problem is that the two periods are incommensurable. To be sure, they were joined together by enduring ideological hostility, but in the post-World War I years Bolshevism was not a geopolitical menace. After World War II, in contrast, the Soviet Union was a superpower that combined ideological antagonism with the kind of geopolitical threat posed by Germany and Japan in the Second World War. Even with more amicable relations in the 1920s, it is conceivable that post-1945 relations would have turned out much the same.
The usage of the term "Cold War" to describe the postwar tensions between the US- and Soviet-led blocs was popularized by Bernard Baruch, a US financier and an adviser to Harry Truman, who used the term during a speech before the South Carolina state legislature on April 16, 1947.
Since the term "Cold War" was popularized in 1947, there has been extensive disagreement in many political and scholarly discourses on what exactly were the sources of postwar tensions. In the American historiography, there has been disagreement as to who was responsible for the quick unraveling of the wartime alliance between 1945 and 1947, and on whether the conflict between the two superpowers was inevitable or could have been avoided. Discussion of these questions has centered in large part on the works of William Appleman Williams, Walter LaFeber, Gabriel Kolko and John Lewis Gaddis.
Officials in the Truman administration placed responsibility for postwar tensions on the Soviets, claiming that Stalin had violated promises made at Yalta, pursued a policy of expansionism in Eastern Europe, and conspired to spread communism throughout the world. Historians associated with the "Wisconsin School" of diplomatic history such as Williams, however, placed responsibility for the breakdown of postwar peace mostly on the US, citing a range of US efforts to isolate and confront the Soviet Union well before the end of World War II. According to Williams and later writers influenced by his work—such as LaFeber, author of the popular survey text America, Russia, and the Cold War (published in ten editions between 1967 and 2006)—US policymakers shared an overarching concern with maintaining capitalism domestically. In order to ensure this goal, they pursued a policy of ensuring an "Open Door" to foreign markets for US business and agriculture across the world. From this perspective, a growing economy domestically went hand-in-hand with the consolidation of US power internationally.
Williams and LaFeber also dismissed the assumption that Soviet leaders were committed to postwar "expansionism". They cited evidence that Soviet Union's occupation of Eastern Europe had a defensive rationale, and Soviet leaders saw themselves as attempting to avoid encirclement by the United States and its allies. From this view, the Soviet Union was so weak and devastated after the end of the Second World War as to be unable to pose any serious threat to the US, which emerged after 1945 as the sole world power not economically devastated by the war, and also as the sole possessor of the atomic bomb until 1949.
Gaddis, however, argues that the conflict was less the lone fault of one side or the other and more the result of a plethora of conflicting interests and misperceptions between the two superpowers, propelled by domestic politics and bureaucratic inertia. While Gaddis does not hold either side as entirely responsible for the onset of the conflict, he argues that the Soviets should be held at least slightly more accountable for the problems. According to Gaddis, Stalin was in a much better position to compromise than his Western counterparts, given his much broader power within his own regime than Truman, who had to contend with Congress and was often undermined by vociferous political opposition at home. Asking if it were possible to predict if the wartime alliance would fall apart within a matter of months, leaving in its place nearly a half century of cold war, Gaddis wrote in a 1997 essay, "Geography, demography, and tradition contributed to this outcome but did not determine it. It took men, responding unpredictably to circumstances, to forge the chain of causation; and it took [Stalin] in particular, responding predictably to his own authoritarian, paranoid, and narcissistic predisposition, to lock it into place".
Global historian Prasenjit Duara has placed the issue in a global context:
The Cold War is increasingly treated as a global historical period beginning customarily in 1947 when the Truman Doctrine sought to contain communism and the expansion of Soviet influence, and ending with the decline and fall of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc in the late 1980s.
See also
The Great Game
Culture during the Cold War
Historiography of the Cold War
Non-Aligned Movement
Notes
Further reading
Brune, Lester Brune and Richard Dean Burns. Chronology of the Cold War: 1917–1992 (2005) 700pp; highly detailed month-by-month summary for many countries*
Leffler, Melvyn P. and Odd Arne Westad, eds. The Cambridge History of the Cold War: Volume 1, Origins (2015) 23 essays by leading scholars. excerpt
Lewkowicz, Nicolas (2018) The United States, the Soviet Union and the Geopolitical Implications of the Origins of the Cold War, Anthem Press, London
Porter, Bernard, The Lion's Share: A Short History of British Imperialism 1850–1995, Longman, 1996. pp. 84–89.
Roberts, Geoffrey. "Stalin, the Pact with Nazi Germany, and the Origins of Postwar Soviet Diplomatic Historiography". Journal of Cold War Studies 4#4 (2002): 93-103.
Ryan, Henry B. "A New Look at Churchill's ‘Iron Curtain’ Speech". Historical Journal 22.4 (1979): 895-920 online.
Yergin, Daniel, Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State, Houghton Mifflin, 1977.
Young, John W. The Longman Companion to America, Russia and the Cold War, 1941-1998 (1999) excerpt
External links
The division of Europe Portal to topic documents. CVCE.eu (Centre for European Studies)
James F. Byrnes, Speaking Frankly The division of Germany. CVCE.eu (Centre for European Studies)
Address given by Winston Churchill: ‘The Sinews of Peace’ Recording of Winston Churchill's speech in 5, March, 1946, warning about the advance of communism in central Europe. CVCE.eu (Centre for European Studies).
The Origins of the Cold War, 1945–1949 | NEH-Edsitement EDSITEment's curriculum unit The Origins of the Cold War
Causes of the Cold War Study guide, primary sources, multimedia, teacher resources
The CWIHP at the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars Document Collection on the Origins of the Cold War
Cold War
Cold War
Cold War by period |
420974 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky%20Colonels | Kentucky Colonels | The Kentucky Colonels were a member of the American Basketball Association (ABA) for all of the league's nine years. The name is derived from the historic Kentucky Colonels. The Colonels won the most games and had the highest winning percentage of any franchise in the league's history, but the team did not join the National Basketball Association (NBA) in the 1976 ABA–NBA merger. The downtown Louisville Convention Center (now known as The Gardens) was the Colonels' venue for their first three seasons before moving to Freedom Hall for the remaining seasons, beginning with the 1970–71 schedule.
The Kentucky Colonels were only one of two ABA teams, along with the Indiana Pacers, to play for the entire duration of the league without relocating, changing its team name, or folding. The Colonels were also the only major league franchise in Kentucky since the Louisville Breckenridges left the National Football League in 1923.
Overview and background
The Louisville-based Colonels started their time in the ABA as a colorful franchise, and not just because of their bright chartreuse green uniforms. Among the things they were known for was their "mascot" Ziggy, a prize-winning Brussels Griffon dog that was owned by original team owners Joe and Mamie Gregory.
They were equally famous for publicity stunts, their most famous coming in 1968 when Penny Ann Early, the first licensed female horse racing jockey, was signed to appear in an ABA game (albeit for a few seconds).
The early color of their franchise began to wane during the 1970–71 season, when they signed another Wildcat star in All-American Dan Issel. They also dropped the chartreuse green uniforms in favor of a blue and white scheme similar to that of the Wildcats. Another abnormality to the Colonels uniform change was that the players' last names on the back had only the first letter capitalized, as opposed to all capital letters, which are almost universally featured on the back of nearly every professional or collegiate basketball uniform where names are featured on the back. Issel's signing helped the Colonels become well known as a legitimate basketball team. Despite an average record in the regular season, they made a serious run at the 1971 ABA championship. They fell just short, however, and lost to the Utah Stars in seven games.
They proved to be even better in 1971, with the signing of Artis Gilmore. Gilmore's signing would help make the Colonels a legitimate powerhouse for years to come. The Colonels won 68 games in his rookie campaign under coach Joe Mullaney; their record turned out to be best in the league's entire history. Yet, in the playoffs, they were upset by the New York Nets in the first round. Kentucky recovered and made another championship run during the 1972–73 playoffs, but lost a physical series to the Indiana Pacers in 7 games, 4 games to 3.
After the season, the franchise was nearly moved out-of-state to Cincinnati, but was purchased by John Y. Brown, Jr., a future Kentucky governor who owned Kentucky Fried Chicken for years. Brown helped increase interest in the team, and looked to improve its on-court performance by hiring popular ABA coach Babe McCarthy. But after they were swept in the second round of the playoffs by the Nets, Brown gave McCarthy his walking papers.
For the 1974–75 season, Brown hired Hubie Brown (no relation), a former NBA assistant coach, to give them that championship. Unlike the past year, the Colonels would not be denied. After a torrid finish to the regular season, which saw them win 23 of 26 games, they ripped through the playoffs, and beat their nemesis, the Indiana Pacers, in a dominant 4 games to 1 victory to win the 1975 ABA championship. Gilmore scored 28 points and grabbed an amazing 31 rebounds in the final game. That same season the Golden State Warriors won the NBA Title. Colonels owner, John Y. Brown, offered the NBA Champs a million dollars to play a one-game world championship. The Warriors and the NBA refused.
The celebration of the 1975 season ended when John Y. Brown, Jr. dealt Dan Issel to the ABA's new Baltimore Claws franchise (which folded after a few preseason exhibition games, never taking the floor in the regular season) for financial reasons. They acquired all-star Caldwell Jones to replace him, but he never gelled with the team. Jones was dealt mid-season for young Maurice Lucas. Hubie managed to make the team competitive, but they lost in the postseason to the Denver Nuggets in 7 games.
Kentucky was one of the league's strongest teams both on and off the court. It boasted a talented roster and had one of its best fan bases. However, during merger talks with the NBA, the older league's Chicago Bulls objected to the Colonels being part of the merger. They owned the NBA rights to Artis Gilmore, and desperately wanted him on their roster. As a result, John Y. Brown, Jr. was forced to fold the Colonels. Brown would indeed get an NBA franchise: he purchased the Buffalo Braves in 1976, then traded it for the Boston Celtics two years later.
Colonels players were distributed to other teams in a dispersal draft, with Gilmore going to Chicago. Maurice Lucas went on to be an all-star for the Portland Trail Blazers and Louie Dampier, who ended up being the all-time leader in points and assists, ended his career as a sixth man for the San Antonio Spurs. Coach Hubie Brown went on to coach the Atlanta Hawks for five seasons after the merger before being fired.
The Colonels won 448 games in the ABA, more than any other team or franchise. The Colonels' overall regular season record was 448–296; their .602 winning percentage is better than that of any ABA franchise except for the Minnesota Muskies who only played one season. (If the Utah Stars' statistics are counted on their own, excluding their seasons as the Anaheim Amigos and the Los Angeles Stars, that team's winning percentage, .608, is slightly better than the Colonels'.)
The Colonels' playoff record was 55–46 (.545). Only the Indiana Pacers won more ABA playoff games (69).
Year-by-year results
1967–1968
On March 6, 1967, the American Basketball Association awarded the franchise that became the Kentucky Colonels to Don Regan for $30,000. Later that year the franchise was bought by Joseph Gregory, Mamie Gregory and William C. Boone.
John Givens was named as the first coach of the Colonels.
The Colonels draft picks were used on UK standout Louie Dampier, who signed with the Colonels; Western Kentucky University standout Clem Haskins, who signed with the NBA's Chicago Bulls; Bob Verga, who signed with Dallas, and Randy Mahaffey, who signed with the Colonels. The team also signed Darel Carrier (WKU) and Jim "Goose" Ligon (from Kokomo, Indiana). The Colonels' 1967–68 roster was rounded out with Kendall Rhine (Rice University), Stew Johnson (Murray State), Rubin Russell, Bill Bradley (Tennessee Tech), Cotton Nash (UK), Bobby Rascoe (WKU), Howard Bayne (Tennessee), Orbie Bowling (Tennessee) and Tommy Woods.
The Colonels played their home games at the Kentucky Fair and Exposition Center (Freedom Hall) and at the Louisville Convention Center (now Louisville Gardens). The team only won 5 of their first 17 games, leading to Givens being fired as coach. He was replaced by Gene Rhodes. In November, Stew Johnson was traded to the New Jersey Americans for Jim Caldwell. Darel Carrier, Randy Mahaffey and Louie Dampier played in the ABA All Star game but the team finished with a record of 36 wins and 42 losses, tying New Jersey for fourth place in the Eastern Division. For the season the Colonels averaged 3,225 fans per game.
The Colonels and Americans scheduled a one-game playoff game to determine who would get the playoff bid slated for the Eastern Division's fourth place team. The game was scheduled at the Long Island Arena, as New Jersey's Teaneck Armory was unavailable, but the facility was in such poor condition that the game could not be played, and the Colonels won by forfeit. The Colonels then advanced to the Eastern Division semifinals where they lost to the Minnesota Muskies 3 games to 2.
1968–1969
Among the Colonels' draft picks was University of Louisville star Wes Unseld, who opted to take a higher paying deal with the NBA's Baltimore franchise. The Colonels also drafted Manny Leaks and Gene Moore, who signed with the team. Sam Smith was acquired from Minnesota and then Randy Mahaffey and Manny Leaks were traded to the New York Nets for Oliver Darden and Andy Anderson.
The Colonels hosted the 1969 ABA All-Star Game in Louisville. Kentucky coach Gene Rhodes was the head coach for the East team, which lost to the West 133–127. Darel Carrier and Louie Dampier repeated as ABA All Stars and were joined by Kentucky's Jim "Goose" Ligon.
During this season the Colonels fielded the first ever female professional basketball player when jockey Penny Ann Early joined the team for pregame warmups and appeared briefly during a game.
The Colonels finished in third place in the Eastern Division with a 42–36 record. Their average home attendance was 4,157.
In the Eastern Division semifinals the Colonels lost a tight series to their rival the Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 3.
1969–1970
The Colonels used their draft picks to select Bob Dandridge, who joined the Milwaukee Bucks of the NBA and Herm Gilliam, who signed with the NBA's Cincinnati franchise. Bud Olsen, former Kentucky Wesleyan College star George Tinsley, future Kentucky Wesleyan coach Wayne Chapman and former University of Kentucky star Tommy Kron were added to the roster.
In April 1969 the Colonels were bought by a group of Louisville investors that included H. Wendell Cherry, Bill DeWitt, J. David Grissom, Stuart P. Jay, David A. Jones, John Y. Brown, Jr. and Mike Storen. Storen had previously been the president and general manager of the Indiana Pacers. The group then hired former University of Kentucky star Alex Groza as the team's business manager.
Darel Carrier and Louie Dampier again appeared in the ABA All Star Game and were joined by Gene Moore.
The Colonels finished the season with a record of 45–39 which was good for second place in the Eastern Division.
The Colonels defeated the New York Nets 4 games to 3 in the Eastern Division semifinals but lost in the Eastern Division finals to the Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 1.
1970–1971
In July the Colonels traded Jim "Goose" Ligon, Gene Moore and Bud Olsen to Dallas for Cincy Powell. They also signed University of Kentucky star Dan Issel. Issel was given a 10-year contract worth $1.4 million. The Colonels also traded a draft pick to the New York Nets for Walt Simon. Mike Pratt joined the Colonels' roster for the season.
The Colonels began the regular season with a 10–5 record, resulting in coach Gene Rhodes being fired. Rhodes was briefly replaced by Alex Groza, who won both games he coached. Groza was quickly replaced as coach by Frank Ramsey, the former star for the University of Kentucky and the Boston Celtics.
Kentucky's Dan Issel and Cincy Powell played in the ABA All-Star Game. Issel was named Co-Rookie of the Year, along with Charlie Scott of the Virginia Squires.
The Colonels finished the regular season with a record of 44–40 and in second place in the Eastern Division. Their average home attendance for the season was 7,375. Beginning with this season the Colonels moved their home games from the Louisville Convention Center (now Louisville Gardens) to Freedom Hall.
The Colonels defeated The Floridians 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division semifinals and defeated the Virginia Squires 4 games to 2 in the Eastern Division finals. Facing the Utah Stars in the ABA championship, the Colonels and Stars each won three games before Utah pulled out Game 7 at home in front of an ABA record crowd. The Colonels finished as the league's runner up.
1971–1972
The Colonels' draft picks included Artis Gilmore, John Roche and Mike Gale, who all signed with Kentucky, and Fred Brown and Larry Steele, who signed with the Seattle SuperSonics and Portland Trail Blazers of the NBA, respectively. The Colonels then sold Roche to the New York Nets. Gilmore, like Issel, signed a contract for 10 years and $1.5 million. Joe Mullaney was named coach of the Colonels.
On September 22, 1971, the Colonels played in the second ever ABA vs. NBA preseason exhibition game. 13,821 fans watched the Colonels defeat the Baltimore Bullets 111–85 in Freedom Hall. It was the ABA's first win against the NBA, as the ABA's Dallas Chaparrals had lost to the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks 106–103 the night before in the first ever matchup between the two leagues.
On October 8, 1971, the Colonels hosted the Milwaukee Bucks and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at Freedom Hall in front of over 18,000 fans. Dan Issel scored 34 points and Artis Gilmore posted 18 points, 16 rebounds and 5 blocked shots. However, Abdul-Jabbar had 30 points, 20 rebounds and 3 blocked shots and the Bucks edged the Colonels, 99–93. The very next night the Colonels hosted the New York Knicks in Freedom Hall. The Knicks won, 112–100, before 12,238 fans.
The Colonels had a terrific regular season. Mullaney coached in the ABA All Star Game, heading up the East team which won 142–115. Dan Issel, Louie Dampier and Artis Gilmore each played in the All Star Game for the East team; Issel was the game's Most Valuable Player. Gilmore ended up as the league's Most Valuable Player at the end of the season and was also the league's Rookie of the Year. Gilmore's impressive statistics included leading the league with 3,666 minutes in play, a field goal percentage of 59.8% and an average of 17.8 rebounds per game. Gilmore and Issel were both on the All-ABA First Team.
Kentucky finished the season with the best record ever posted in ABA play, with 68 wins and 16 losses, a winning percentage of .810. This secured the Colonels' first ever first-place finish in the Eastern Division. The Colonels' average home attendance was 8,811.
Kentucky's remarkable season came to a surprising end when the Colonels lost in the Eastern Division semifinals to the New York Nets, 4 games to 2.
1972–1973
Prior to the season the Colonels traded Cincy Powell to the Utah Stars for a draft pick and cash, and bought Rick Mount from the Indiana Pacers for $250,000. Wendell Ladner joined the Colonels' roster for the season.
In preseason play, on September 23, 1972, the Colonels hosted the NBA's Atlanta Hawks for an exhibition game in Frankfort. Julius Erving played for the Hawks, posting 28 points and 18 rebounds in 42 minutes. The Hawks prevailed, 112–99. On September 30, 1972, the Colonels traveled to Phoenix, Arizona for an exhibition game against the Phoenix Suns. The Colonels won, 120–118. On October 1, 1972, the Milwaukee Bucks returned to Freedom Hall. Oscar Robertson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar each scored 20 points as the Bucks beat the Colonels 131–100. On October 6, 1972, the Phoenix Suns played the Colonels at Freedom Hall. The Suns won, 103–91. The next night the Colonels lost a close game to the Baltimore Bullets, 95–93.
Louie Dampier, Dan Issel and Artis Gilmore returned to the ABA All-Star Game. Gilmore was again First Team All-ABA and posted a 55.9% field goal percentage and averaged 17.6 rebounds per game. Issel led the league in minutes played with 3,531.
The Colonels finished in second place in the Eastern Division with a record of 56 wins and 28 losses. Their average home attendance was 7,113.
The Colonels beat the Virginia Squires 4 games to 1 in the Eastern Division Semifinals and beat the Carolina Cougars 4 games to 3 in the Eastern Division finals. The Colonels then lost a very close ABA Championship Series to the Indiana Pacers, 4 games to 3.
1973–1974
Prior to the Colonels' 1973–74 season the Colonels drafted M. L. Carr and Ron Behagen; Carr stayed in college and Behagen signed with the NBA's Kansas City-Omaha Kings. The Colonels also selected Ernie DiGregorio in a special circumstance draft but he signed with the NBA's Buffalo Braves.
In July 1973 the franchise was bought by a group headed by John Y. Brown, Jr. and his wife Ellie Brown. Ellie Brown was later named Chairman of the Board of the team; the board itself was made up of ten women. Legendary former University of Kentucky head coach Adolph Rupp was named as Vice President of the Board. Mike Storen left the team; he later surfaced with the ABA's Memphis franchise. Former head coach Gene Rhodes became general manager of the team.
Head coach Joe Mullaney departed to become head coach of the Utah Stars. Mullaney was succeeded by Babe McCarthy.
In preseason play against the NBA the Colonels defeated the Houston Rockets 110–102 at Freedom Hall on September 21, 1973, and defeated the Kansas City-Omaha Kings 110–99 the following night.
In January 1974 the Colonels traded Jim O'Brien and a first round draft pick to the San Diego Conquistadors for Red Robbins and Chuck Williams. That same month Kentucky dealt Rick Mount to the Utah Stars for a draft pick and cash, and then sent Mike Gale and Wendell Ladner to the New York Nets for former Colonel John Roche.
Louie Dampier, Dan Issel and Artis Gilmore again played in the ABA All-Star Game, and Babe McCarthy coached the East team. Gilmore was again named the game's Most Valuable Player. Gilmore again posted remarkable statistics including 3,502 minutes played (tops in the league) and 18.3 rebounds per game (Gilmore grabbed 40 rebounds in one game against the New York Nets that season). Louie Dampier posted a league high 38.7% percentage in three-point shots. Babe McCarthy and his Colonels predecessor Joe Mullaney were named ABA Co-Coaches of the Year.
The Colonels posted a regular season record of 53 wins and 31 losses, clinching second place in the Eastern Division. Kentucky's average home attendance for the season was 8,201.
In the playoffs Kentucky defeated the Carolina Cougars 4 games to none in the Eastern Division semifinals but then lost the Eastern Division finals to the New York Nets 4 games to none. Despite being named ABA Coach of the Year, Babe McCarthy was fired at the end of the season.
1974–1975
The Colonels took Jim Price, Greg Smith, Rowland Garrett, Herm Gilliam and Larry Steele in a draft of NBA players, bought Ted McClain from the Carolina Cougars, signed Wil Jones, and traded a draft pick and cash to the San Antonio Spurs for Bird Averitt. The Colonels also sent Al Eberhard to the Denver Nuggets in exchange for Marv Roberts and sent Red Robbins to the Virginia Squires for cash. John Roche was sold to the Utah Stars in the midst of the season. Gene Littles was added to the Colonels roster for the season.
Hubie Brown was named the new head coach of the Colonels.
In preseason play against the NBA the Colonels lost a game in Lincoln, Nebraska to the Kansas City-Omaha Kings 102–91 on September 29, 1974; beat the Washington Bullets 118–95 at Freedom Hall on October 1, 1974; lost by one point on the road to the Houston Rockets on October 5, 1974, 96–95; beat the Detroit Pistons 109–100 at Freedom Hall on October 8, 1974, and on October 12, 1974, defeated the Chicago Bulls at Freedom Hall 93–75.
Louie Dampier, Dan Issel and Artis Gilmore again played in the ABA All Star Game. Gilmore again was First Team All ABA and led the league with 3,493 minutes played.
The Colonels claimed first place in the Eastern Division with a record of 58 wins and 26 losses, but tied with the New York Nets for the division crown. The Colonels' average home attendance was 8,727.
The Colonels began the playoffs with a one-game matchup against the New York Nets to determine who would be first place in the Eastern Division. The Colonels won that game in Louisville 108–99. The Colonels then defeated the Memphis Sounds 4 games to 1 in the Eastern Division semifinals and defeated the Spirits of St. Louis 4 games to 1 in the Eastern Division finals. The Colonels met their rivals the Indiana Pacers for the ABA Championship and the Colonels prevailed, 4 games to 1, winning their first ABA Championship.
Colonels owner John Y. Brown offered $1 million to the NBA Champion Golden State Warriors to play a world title game. The NBA and Golden State refused. Many believe the Colonels were the better team. Hubie Brown went on to coach many teams in the NBA but has always maintained (including in his Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame induction) that the 1974–75 Colonels were the best team he coached.
1975–1976
Prior to the season the Colonels and the ABA's commissioner, Dave DeBusschere, challenged the NBA to have its champion, the Golden State Warriors, face the Colonels in a championship series, the winner of which would get $1 million. The NBA declined. Interest in ABA vs. NBA play extended beyond the two leagues' management. In 1976, CBS sought to establish a postseason playoff between the ABA and NBA, and to win the rights to broadcast those games.
To the dismay of Colonels fans and players, owner John Y. Brown, Jr. dealt star Dan Issel to the Baltimore Claws prior to the season for $500,000; the cash was not forthcoming from the struggling Baltimore franchise and Issel ended up with the Denver Nuggets shortly before the Claws were shut down by the league.
Gene Rhodes was named vice president of operations and David Vance was named general manager for the team.
In preseason play the Colonels defeated the Chicago Bulls, 95–86, at Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati on October 1, 1975; lost to the New York Knicks in Landover, Maryland at the Capital Centre, 107–102, on October 4, 1975; defeated the Detroit Pistons 114–113 on October 5, 1975, in Cincinnati; defeated the Milwaukee Bucks 96–91 in Freedom Hall on October 10, 1975; lost an overtime game to the Detroit Pistons in Detroit on October 12, 1975, 115–107; defeated the Buffalo Braves, 120–116, in Freedom Hall on October 14, 1975; defeated the Philadelphia 76ers 112–110 in Cincinnati, Ohio on October 17, 1975; and won another ABA vs. NBA exhibition on October 19, 1975, with a 121–111 victory over the Washington Bullets in Lexington, Kentucky. The game against the Bullets was the penultimate ABA vs. NBA contest; two nights later in the final ABA vs. NBA matchup the Utah Stars defeated the Milwaukee Bucks, 106–101.
The prior year, the NBA declined the ABA champion Colonels' challenge against the NBA champion Golden State Warriors for a $1 million payout. However, the two teams met on October 8, 1975, at Freedom Hall. The Colonels won the matchup of the league champions, 93–90.
The Colonels finished the 1975–76 preseason with a record of 7–2 against NBA teams. The Colonels, like the ABA as a whole, had a winning overall record against the NBA over the course of their existence.
Shortly after the regular season began the San Diego Sails folded and the Colonels picked up Caldwell Jones from their roster. Kentucky then traded Jones to the Spirits of St. Louis for Maurice Lucas. The Colonels also traded Marv Roberts to the Virginia Squires during the season in exchange for Johnny Neumann and Jan van Breda Kolff. Another move in the middle of the season sent Ted McClain to the New York Nets in exchange for $150,000. Allen Murphy, Jimmy Dan Connor, Johnny Neumann, Jimmy Baker, Kevin Joyce and Jim McDaniels joined the Colonels' roster for the 1975–76 season.
Artis Gilmore returned to the ABA All-Star Game and once again was named First Team All ABA. Dampier, after eight straight appearances in that game, was not chosen.
The Colonels finished in fourth place in the Eastern Division with a record of 46–38. Their average home attendance was 6,935.
The Colonels defeated their rivals, the Indiana Pacers, 2 games to 1 in the first round of the playoffs. In the league semifinals, the Colonels and the Denver Nuggets each won three games apiece before Denver claimed Game 7 133–110 at Denver on April 28, 1976. It was the Kentucky Colonels' final game.
Aftermath
The ABA had entered the 1975–1976 preseason with ten teams. After three preseason games, the Baltimore Claws were shut down by the league due to financial problems and unpaid bills. The San Diego Sails and the Utah Stars each folded shortly after the season began, the Sails after 11 games and the Stars after 16. The ABA was reduced to seven teams for the remainder of the season. Shortly after the regular season ended, the Virginia Squires were forced to fold because they could not meet a league-mandated financial assessment. The six remaining ABA teams began negotiations for the eventual ABA–NBA merger. According to Jim Bukata of the ABA, the NBA opposed Kentucky joining the league, and Bill Wirtz of the Chicago Bulls opposed Kentucky joining because Chicago wanted to acquire Kentucky's Artis Gilmore in a dispersal draft. In the end, the Colonels were not among the four teams the NBA agreed to take in.
On July 17, 1976, the Kentucky Colonels ceased to exist as John Y. Brown, Jr. agreed to fold the Colonels in exchange for $3 million. Brown used the money to purchase the Buffalo Braves of the NBA, bringing Colonels head coach Joe Mullaney and point guard Bird Averitt with him to Buffalo. The Braves are now known as the Los Angeles Clippers.
The Colonels players were put into a dispersal draft. The Chicago Bulls took Artis Gilmore for $1.1 million as they had wished. The Portland Trail Blazers took Maurice Lucas for $300,000. The Buffalo Braves took Bird Averitt for $125,000. The Indiana Pacers took Wil Jones for $50,000. The New York Nets took Jan Van Breda Kolff for $60,000. The San Antonio Spurs took Louie Dampier for $20,000.
In contrast to Brown receiving $3 million in cash for the Colonels, the Spirits of St. Louis' owners received $2.2 million in cash along with a 1/7 share of each of the four remaining teams' television income in perpetuity. That deal netted the Spirits ownership about $300 million until 2014, then the league decided to buy out most the deal for $500 million.
Basketball Hall of Famers
Notes:
1 Inducted as a player. Never played for the team.
2 Inducted as a contributor.
Season-by-season
|-
!colspan="6" align=center style="background:#0E3386; color:#FFFFFF; text-align:center; border:2px solid #CC3433;"| Kentucky Colonels
|-
|1967–68 || 36 || 42 || .462 || Won 1968 Eastern Division PlayoffLost 1968 Eastern Division Semifinals || Kentucky Colonels 1, New Jersey Americans 0Minnesota Muskies 3, Kentucky Colonels 2
|-
|1968–69 || 42 || 36 || .538 || Lost 1969 Eastern Division Semifinals || Indiana Pacers 4, Kentucky Colonels 3
|-
|1969–70 || 45 || 39 || .536 || Won 1970 Eastern Division SemifinalsLost 1970 Eastern Division Finals || Kentucky Colonels 4, New York Nets 3Indiana Pacers 4, Kentucky Colonels 1
|-
|1970–71 || 44 || 40 || .524 || Won 1971 Eastern Division SemifinalsWon 1971 Eastern Division FinalsLost 1971 ABA Finals || Kentucky Colonels 4, The Floridans 2Kentucky Colonels 4, Virginia Squires 2Utah Stars 4, Kentucky Colonels 3
|-
|1971–72 || 68 || 16 || .810 || Lost 1972 Eastern Division Semifinals || New York Nets 4, Kentucky Colonels 2
|-
|1972–73 || 56 || 28 || .667 || Won 1973 Eastern Division SemifinalsWon 1973 Eastern Division FinalsLost 1973 ABA Finals || Kentucky Colonels 4, Virginia Squires 1Kentucky Colonels 4, Carolina Cougars 3Indiana Pacers 4, Kentucky Colonels 3
|-
|1973–74 || 53 || 31 || .631 || Won 1974 Eastern Division SemifinalsLost 1974 Eastern Division Finals || Kentucky Colonels 4, Carolina Cougars 0New York Nets 4, Kentucky Colonels 0
|-
|1974–75 || 58 || 26 || .690 || Won 1975 Eastern Division First Place GameWon 1975 Eastern Division SemifinalsWon 1975 Eastern Division FinalsWon 1975 ABA Finals || Kentucky Colonels 1, New York Nets 0Kentucky Colonels 4, Memphis Sounds 1Kentucky Colonels 4, Spirits of St. Louis 1Kentucky Colonels 4, Indiana Pacers 1
|-
|1975–76 || 46 || 38 || .548 || Won 1976 First RoundLost 1976 ABA Semifinals || Kentucky Colonels 2, Indiana Pacers 1Denver Nuggets 4, Kentucky Colonels 3
|-
Broadcast media
Colonels games were broadcast throughout their history on WHAS Radio, the Louisville market's top-rated station at the time and a 50,000-watt clear-channel station, which meant that Colonels broadcasts could be heard over much of the continental United States at night. Van Vance was the play-by-play announcer for nearly all of the games in the franchise's history, with Cawood Ledford (better known as the longtime voice of the University of Kentucky Wildcats) behind the microphone as well, sometimes as color analyst beside Vance.
The Colonels had some games broadcast on various local television stations, but were usually only seen on TV during the ABA network games.
New ABA, New Kentucky Colonels
In 2004, the ABA 2000 brought Louisville a new team with the same name, the Kentucky Colonels.
See also
Kentucky Colonels (ABA 2000)
Sports in Louisville, Kentucky
1968 ABA Playoffs
1969 ABA Playoffs
1970 ABA Playoffs
1971 ABA Playoffs
1972 ABA Playoffs
1973 ABA Playoffs
1974 ABA Playoffs
1975 ABA Playoffs
1976 ABA Playoffs
1973–74 Kentucky Colonels season
1974–75 Kentucky Colonels season
References
External links
Kentucky Colonels history from RememberTheABA.com
Basketball teams established in 1967
Basketball teams disestablished in 1976
American Basketball Association teams
Defunct basketball teams in Kentucky
1967 establishments in Kentucky
1976 disestablishments in Kentucky
Basketball teams in Louisville, Kentucky |
420986 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wayne%20Morse | Wayne Morse | Wayne Lyman Morse (October 20, 1900 – July 22, 1974) was an American attorney and United States Senator from Oregon. Morse is well known for opposing the Democratic Party’s leadership and for his opposition to the Vietnam War on constitutional grounds.
Born in Madison, Wisconsin, and educated at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Minnesota Law School, Morse moved to Oregon in 1930 and began teaching at the University of Oregon School of Law. During World War II, he was elected to the U.S. Senate as a Republican; he became an Independent after Dwight D. Eisenhower's election to the presidency in 1952. While an independent, he set a record for performing the third-longest one-person filibuster in the history of the Senate. Morse joined the Democratic Party in February 1955, and was reelected twice while a member of that party.
Morse made a brief run for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination in 1960. In 1964, Morse was one of two senators to oppose the later-to-become-controversial Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. It authorized the president to take military action in Vietnam without a declaration of war. He continued to speak out against the war in the ensuing years, and lost his 1968 bid for reelection to Bob Packwood, who criticized his strong opposition to the war. Morse made two more bids for reelection to the Senate before his death in 1974.
Early life and career
Morse was born on October 20, 1900, in Madison, Wisconsin, home of his maternal grandparents, Myron and Flora White. Morse's parents, Wilbur F. Morse and Jessie Elnora Morse, farmed a plot near Verona, a small community west-southwest of Madison. Morse grew up on this farm, where the family raised Devon cattle for beef, Percheron and Hackney horses, dairy cows, hogs, sheep, poultry, and feed crops for the animals. The family eventually included five children: Mabel, seven years older than Morse; twin brothers Harry and Grant, four years older; Morse; and Caryl, fourteen years younger.
Encouraged by Jessie, the Morse family held relatively formal nightly discussions about crops, animals, education, religion, and most frequently about politics. Like many of their neighbors, the family was progressive and discussed ideas championed by Robert M. La Follette, Sr., a leader of the progressive movement who served as Wisconsin's governor from 1900 to 1906 and thereafter as a member of the U.S. Senate. During these family discussions, Morse developed debating skills and strong opinions about political corruption, corporate domination, labor rights, women's suffrage, education, and, on a personal level, hard work and sobriety.
Morse and his siblings began their education in a one-room school near Verona. However, the Morse parents, particularly Jessie, shared the Progressive belief that improvement of self and society came through good education, and they admired the schools in Madison. After Morse finished second grade, his parents enrolled him in Longfellow School in Madison, to which Morse commuted round-trip daily by riding relay on three of the family's smaller horses. After eighth grade, Morse attended Madison High School, where he became class president and debating club president, and placed academically among the top 10 in his graduating class. In high school, he developed his relationship with Mildred "Midge" Downie, whom he had known since third grade, and who was class valedictorian and class vice-president the same year Morse was president.
Morse received his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1923 and his master's, in speech, from Wisconsin the next year. He married Downie in the same year. For several years, he taught speech at the University of Minnesota Law School, and earned his LLB degree there in 1928. He held a reserve commission as second lieutenant, Field Artillery, U.S. Army, from 1923 to 1929, and was a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.
Morse became an assistant professor of law at the University of Oregon School of Law in 1929. Within nine months, he was promoted to associate professor and then dean of the law school. At age 31, this made him the youngest dean of any law school accredited by the American Bar Association.
After becoming a full professor of law in 1931, he completed his SJD (a research doctorate in law equivalent to the PhD) at Columbia Law School in 1932. He served on many government commissions and boards, including: member, Oregon Crime Commission; administrative director, United States Attorney General's Survey of Release Procedures (1936–1939); Pacific Coast arbitrator for the United States Department of Labor (maritime industry) (1938–1942); chairman, Railway Emergency Board (1941); alternate public member of the National Defense Mediation Board (1941); and public member of the National War Labor Board (1942–1944).
United States Senator
1944 election and first term
In 1944, Morse won the Republican primary election for senator, unseating incumbent Rufus C. Holman, and then the general election that November. To secure the support of the ultra-conservative wing of the Oregon Republicans in 1944, Morse had presented himself as being more right-wing than he really was, criticizing the New Deal in vitriolic terms though he also praised the wartime foreign policy of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Once in Washington, D.C., he revealed his progressive roots, to the consternation of his more conservative Republican peers. Morse had intended to pull the Republican Party leftwards on the issue of union rights, a stance that put him at odds with many of the more right-wing Republicans. Morse's political heroes were other progressive Republicans such as Theodore Roosevelt and Robert La Follette, and despite being a Republican admitted that he had voted in the 1944 presidential election for Franklin D. Roosevelt against the Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey. He was greatly influenced by the "one world" philosophy of Wendell Willkie, making it clear from the onset he was an internationalist, which caused much tension with the Republican Senate Minority Leader, Robert A. Taft who favored a quasi-isolationist foreign policy.
Morse believed that World War II had been partly caused by American isolationism and in one of his first speeches before the Senate, in February 1945, called on the United States to join the planned organization that would replace the League of Nations, namely the United Nations (UN). As a former law professor, Morse believed very strongly in international law, and in the same speech called upon the United Nations to be an "international police organization" with such powers as to enforce via military means international law against any nation that might break it and to be given the power to prevent rich nations from economically exploiting poor nations. In another speech in March 1945, he called upon the two militarily strongest members of the "Big Three" alliance, namely the Soviet Union and the United States to work together after the war to preserve the peace and end poverty all over the world. In a speech in November 1945, he declared his concern as he "watched some of the nations of the world taking a toboggan ride down the slopes of national aggrandizement and into the abyss of blind nationalism." In the same speech, he deplored the "rattling of swords and manufacturing of atomic bombs" as he called the nations of the world to stop dividing themselves into "power blocs", to take their disputes to the World Court and for the UN to have control of nuclear weapons, which he maintained were too dangerous to be entrusted to any nation.
In January 1946, after President Truman delivered an address criticizing Congress and defending his proposals, Morse referred to President Truman's speech as a "sad confession of the Democratic majority in Congress under the President's leadership" and called for the election of liberal Republicans in the midterm elections that year. Also in January 1946, Morse called on Congress to vote on President Truman's pending legislation, citing continued delay would produce "a great economic uncertainty" and add to "reconversion slow-up". He asserted that Americans were entitled to Congress being held accountable for the passage of bills. In 1946, Morse cosponsored legislation proposing a full Senate investigation into labor dispute causes, saying in March, "I think we've got to find out whether certain segments of industry are out to wreck unions." He was outspoken in his opposition to the Taft–Hartley Act of 1947, which concerned labor relations.
In April 1946, Morse in a speech denounced "blind national isolationism" and the tendency of many Americans to forget about their responsibilities to the "one-world community" in which they lived. He charged that too many Americans had a "holier than thou" attitude towards other nations and the assumption "that if any bad faith is ever practiced within the world of nations, it is always practiced by nations other than the United States." Morse concluded that America had not always practiced "simon-pure" behavior and had economically exploited poor nations. In a speech in February 1947, Morse called Wendell Willkie his principal inspiration in foreign policy, saying that "human rights cannot be nationalized or become the monopoly of any nation" and the nations of the world must work towards "a one-world philosophy of permanent peace." Morse argued that a system of international law was needed to protect the weak nations from being dominated and exploited by strong nations. Morse strongly criticized imperialism, saying neither the Netherlands or Great Britain were suitable allies for the United States, criticizing the Dutch for attempting to reconquer their lost colony of the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) and the British for staying in the Palestine Mandate (modern Israel) against the wishes of the majority of people in Palestine, both Jewish and Arab. Morse urged both the Dutch and the British to leave the Dutch East Indies and Palestine, saying they did not have the right to rule places where they were not wanted. He supported Zionism, arguing that after the Holocaust the Jews needed their own state, and urged Britain to leave Palestine so that a Jewish state to be called Israel could be created.
Though Morse had early on called for the United States to work with the Soviet Union, as the Cold War began he supported the foreign policy of President Harry S. Truman as necessary to stop Soviet expansionism. Morse voted for the Truman Doctrine, the Marshall Plan, for the National Security Act and for the United States to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
In March 1948, Morse said he would support a tax reduction on the premise of world conditions worsening and Congress thereby being forced to recall the tax cut and admitted both his personal fear of large reductions and belief that Americans wanted tax cuts.
In February 1949, during a Senate Labor committee session, Morse stated the Truman administration labor bill was not going to pass in the Senate based on how it was presently written and that "a lot of compromises must be made". That year, Morse also put forward legislation that would impose national emergency strikes be handled on a case-by-case basis, the plan being turned down by the Senate on June 30 in a vote of 77 to 9. The vote was seen as a victory for supporters of the Taft–Hartley Act's provision allowing the government to get injunctions against critical strikes, though opposition was noted to have arisen from senators that did not favor this provision.
In 1950, when Truman used United Nations Security Council Resolution 84 as the legal basis for committing U.S. forces to action in the Korean War, Morse supported his decision. At the time, Morse argued that Article 2 of the American constitution gave the president "very broad powers in times of emergency and national crisis" and that the resolution from the UN Security Council was binding. At the same time, Morse also warned Truman to "not get sucked" into a war in Asia and condemned him for agreeing to support France in its efforts to hold onto Vietnam. Taft was opposed to using Resolution 84 as the basis for going to war in Korea, and in subsequently brought Morse around to his viewpoint that Truman acted illegally by not asking Congress for a declaration of war.
In November 1950, Morse stated his belief that the incoming 82nd United States Congress would attempt revamping the Taft–Hartley Act and while admitting his continued opposition to the law, acknowledged portions of the Act that he believed could be incorporated into subsequent legislation.
Re-election and independence from the Republican Party
Morse was reelected in 1950. Earlier in that year, he was one of the six Senators who supported Margaret Chase Smith's Declaration of Conscience, which criticized the tactics of McCarthyism.
Morse was kicked in the head by a horse in 1951. He sustained major injuries: the kick "tore his lips nearly off, fractured his jaw in four places, knocked out most of his upper teeth, and loosened several others."
In protest of Dwight Eisenhower's selection of Richard Nixon as his running mate, Morse left the Republican Party in 1952. Morse criticized the 1952 Republican platform with its call to repeal much of the New Deal and further felt that Eisenhower had shown cowardice by his refusal to publicly criticize Senator Joseph McCarthy, whom Morse felt was a menace to American democracy. The 1952 election produced an almost evenly divided Senate; Morse brought a folding chair when the session convened, intending to position himself in the aisle between the Democrats and Republicans to underscore his lack of party affiliation. Morse expected to retain certain committee memberships but was denied membership on the Labor Committee and others. He used a parliamentary procedure to force a vote of the entire Senate but lost his bid. New York's Senator Herbert Lehman offered Morse his seat on the Labor Committee, which Morse ultimately accepted.
As a result of Morse's becoming an Independent, Republican control was reduced to a 48–47 majority. The deaths of nine senators, and the resignation of another, caused many reversals in control of the Senate during that session.
In January 1953, after Dwight D. Eisenhower nominated Charles E. Wilson as United States Secretary of State, Morse told reporters a possible objection to the nomination could stem from the more than 10,000 General Motors shares owned by the nominee's wife. In February, Morse stated that Eisenhower was partly to blame for a waste of both American manpower and money as it pertained to overseas military bases, reasoning that this had occurred while he was commander of NATO forces in Europe under the Democratic administration of President Truman. In July, Morse joined nine Democrats in sponsoring a bill proposing a revision of present law to add 13,000 people to Social Security and aid benefits increases. Later that month, after the death of Senate Majority Leader Robert A. Taft and questions arose of continued Republican control of the Senate, Morse confirmed his "ethical obligation" to vote with members of the party on organizational issues, citing his belief that he was acting on behalf of the American people given the Republicans gaining a majority in the 1952 elections.
In 1953, Morse conducted a filibuster for 22 hours and 26 minutes protesting the Submerged Lands Act, which at the time was the longest one-person filibuster in U.S. Senate history (a record surpassed four years later by Strom Thurmond's 24-hour-18-minute filibuster in opposition of the Civil Rights Act of 1957). In 1954, with France on the verge of defeat at the Battle of Dien Bien Phu, Eisenhower tentatively put forward a plan code-named Operation Vulture for American intervention. Morse spoke against U.S. intervention, saying "The American people are in no mood to contemplate the killing of thousands of American boys in Indochina" on the basis of "generalities". Morse also demanded that Congress be allowed to vote on Operation Vulture first, stating "if we get into another war, this country will be in it before Congress ever has time to declare war". After the French defeat, Morse accused Eisenhower of making the same mistakes as France did by assuming that a military solution was the best solution to Vietnamese revolutionary nationalism. Morse argued that the United States should work through the United Nations for a diplomatic solution of the Vietnam issue and to promote economic growth that would lift Vietnam out of its Third World poverty. He argued that such a policy would give the Soviet Union "clear notice" that the world community intended to protect the nations of Indochina their "right to self-government until such time as free elections can be held". After the Geneva Accords which ended the Indochina War, Morse accused the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, of having led America into "a diplomatic defeat of major significance." In September 1954, Morse voted for the United States to join the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization because it conformed to the UN Charter.
In late 1954, the First Taiwan Strait Crisis began and Morse led the fight in the Senate against what became the Formosa Resolution. Morse argued that the "predated authorization" of military force that the resolution allowed violated the constitution as he noted the constitution explicitly stated that Congress had the power to declare war, and at most the president can do is merely ask Congress to declare war if he feels the situation warrants such a step. Morse proposed three amendments to the Formosa Resolution, all of which were defeated.
Ruth Shipley headed the Passport Division of the United States Department of State from 1928 to 1955. She received criticism for denying passports for political reasons in the absence of due process rights but also got support as her actions were seen as opposing Communism. Linus Pauling, who had been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, had his 1953 passport application that would have allowed him to accept the Prize in Sweden refused by Shipley. In rejecting his application, she cited the standard language of her office, that issuance "would not be in the best interests of the United States." but that decision was overruled. Morse characterized her decisions as "tyrannical and capricious" due to her failures to disclose her actual reasons for the denial of such passport applications. Her supporters included President Truman's Secretary of State Dean Acheson and U.S. Senator Pat McCarran of Nevada, the author of the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950, Section 6 of which made it a crime for any member of a communist organization to use or obtain a passport. In 1964, that provision was declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.
In 1955, Democratic Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson persuaded Morse to join the Democratic caucus.
Joining the Democratic Party
After a term as an independent, during which he campaigned heavily for Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Richard Neuberger in 1954, Morse switched to the Democratic Party in February 1955. The New York Times' Saturday, February 19, 1955 issue featured a front-page photograph of Morse with the caption, "Democrats Welcome Morse to the Fold." The New York Times' noted that Morse had made the switch and registered as a Democrat that Friday in his hometown of Eugene, Oregon.
In his book, Profiles in Courage, Sen. John F. Kennedy makes reference to Morse's time in the Republican and then later in the Democratic Party during Kennedy's tenure in the Senate.
When the Formosa resolution came to a vote in January 1955, Morse was one of the three senators who voted against the resolution. In February 1955, during his first public appearance as a Democrat, Morse stated that the vote on the Formosa resolution would have been different if senators were not under the belief that a resolution for a ceasefire was going to be introduced the following week and that Americans did not want war with the Chinese.
Despite his changes in party allegiance, for which he was branded a maverick, Morse won re-election to the United States Senate in 1956. He defeated U.S. Secretary of the Interior and former governor Douglas McKay in a hotly contested race; campaign expenditures totaled over $600,000 between the primary and general elections, a very high amount by then-contemporary standards.
In March 1957 when King Saud of Saudi Arabia visited Washington and was hailed by Eisenhower as America's number one ally in the Middle East, Morse was not impressed. In a speech before the Senate, Morse stated: "Here we are, pouring by the way of gifts to that completely totalitarian state, Saudi Arabia, millions of dollars of the taxpayers' money to maintain the military forces of a dictatorship. We ought to have our heads examined!" Morse charged that Saudi Arabia's abysmal record on human rights made it an unacceptable ally.
In 1957, Morse voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1957. He was the only Senator opposed to the bill who was not from the South.
In 1959, Morse opposed Eisenhower's appointment of Clare Boothe Luce as ambassador to Brazil. Morse, who had known Luce for many years, chastised Luce for her criticism of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Although the Senate confirmed Luce's appointment in a 79–11 vote, Luce retaliated against him. In a conversation with a reporter at a party before she departed for Brazil, Luce commented that her troubles with Senator Morse were attributable to the injuries he sustained from being kicked by a horse in 1951. She also remarked that riots in Bolivia might be dealt with by dividing the country up among its neighbors. An immediate backlash against these remarks from Morse and other senators, and Luce's refusal to retract the remark about the horse, led to her resignation just three days after her appointment.
On September 4, 1959, Morse charged Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson with having attempted to form a dictatorship over other Senate Democrats and with failing to defend individual senators' rights.
Feud with Richard Neuberger
Toward the end of the 1950s, Morse's relationship with Richard Neuberger, the junior senator from Oregon, deteriorated and led to much public feuding. The two had known each other since 1931, when Morse was dean of the University of Oregon law school, and Neuberger was a 19-year-old freshman. Morse befriended Neuberger and often gave him advice, and he used his rhetorical skill to successfully defend Neuberger against charges of academic cheating. After the charges against him were dropped, Neuberger rejected Morse's advice to leave the university and start afresh elsewhere but instead enrolled in Morse's class in criminal law. Morse gave him a "D" in the course and, when Neuberger complained, changed the grade to an "F".
According to Mason Drukman, one of Morse's biographers, even after the two men had become senators, neither could get past what had happened in 1931. "Whatever his accomplishments," Drukman writes, "Neuberger was to Morse a man flawed in character" while Neuberger "could not forgive Morse either for propelling him out of law school ... or for having had to protect him in the honor proceedings." Morse later helped Neuberger, who won his Senate seat in 1954 by only 2,462 votes out of more than a half-million cast, but he also continued to give Neuberger advice that was not always appreciated. "I don't think you should scold me so much," said Neuberger, as quoted by Drukman, in a letter to Morse during the 1954 campaign.
By 1957, the relationship had deteriorated to the point where, rather than talking face-to-face, the senators exchanged angry letters delivered almost daily by messenger between offices in close proximity. Although the letters were private, the feud quickly became public through letters leaked to the press and comments made to colleagues and other third parties, who often had trouble deciding what the fight was about. Drukman describes the feud as a "classic struggle ... of dominating father and rebellious son locked in the age-old fight for supremacy." The feud ended only with Neuberger's death from a stroke in 1960.
1960 presidential campaign
Morse was a late entry in the race for the Democratic nomination for president in 1960. It began unofficially at a 1959 press conference held at the state capitol in Salem by local resident Gary Neal and other Morse supporters. They declared they would put Senator Morse on the ballot by petition. As early as April 1959, Morse told a meeting of the state's Young Democrats that he had no intention of running. The group still voted to advance Senator Morse, after Congresswoman Edith Green introduced him as a favorite son.
Gary Neal was persistent and by winter of 1959 was nearing completion of his signature petition to place Morse on the May ballot. Morse soon found himself at a meeting with Neal where they discussed his efforts. Neal said to Morse, "if we [supporters] don't put your name on the ballot, your enemies will." It was clear the elephant in the room with Gary Neal and Wayne Morse was the Oregon Republican Party. Morse shot back about the Oregon Republicans, "I say to the Republican Party, trot out your governor. I'm ready to take him on."
On December 22, 1959, Wayne Morse announced his candidacy for president. He said at his announcement, "Although I would have preferred not to have entered the Oregon race, I shall not run away from a good political fight if it is inevitable." The Morse for President Oregon Headquarters was located at 353 S.W. Morrison St. Portland, Oregon 97204. The Morse entry into the presidential race did not sit well with many who had anticipated significant campaigning in Oregon from a large field of candidates. Morse was accused of flip-flopping on whether or not he would run.
Morse filed to run in May primaries in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Oregon, in that order. He had solid connections in all three areas. Oregon was his home and where his wife and family lived. He owned a small farm in Poolesville, Maryland, and had spent fifteen years fighting for D.C. home rule, sponsoring legislation for that cause. Kennedy did not enter the D.C. primary. Senator Hubert Humphrey was Morse's main opponent in the D.C. contest, which Humphrey won 7,831 to 5,866.
Morse had known when he entered the Maryland contest that he was climbing an extremely steep hill, and had hoped to offset a potential loss there with a win in the District. John F. Kennedy was a Catholic and Maryland was the birthplace of the American Catholic church. Morse attempted to generate as much media coverage as possible. The New York Times caught wind of the Morse campaign and did their best to follow Morse around. Morse made his liberalism a key issue at every campaign stop. His remarks in Cumberland, Maryland suggest that Kennedy was anything but a liberal:
When the Eisenhower Administration took office one of its first objectives was to riddle the tax code with favors for big business and it did so with the help of the Senator from Massachusetts. We need a candidate who will reverse the big money and big business domination of government. We need a courageous candidate who will stand up and fight the necessary political battle for the welfare of the average American. Kennedy has never been willing to do that.
As Morse had predicted, he lost to Kennedy in Maryland. Morse continued to pursue his liberalism strategy as the campaign moved to his home turf. Oregon Democrats prepared for a showdown between Morse and Kennedy, although five candidates would appear on the Oregon ballot. Humphrey, to this point Kennedy's main challenger in the primaries, had lost badly to Kennedy in West Virginia and had dropped out of the race.
The Kennedy campaign began to focus on Oregon. Its workers repeatedly denied that Morse was a serious candidate, but to make sure of a win, the campaign sent Rose Kennedy and Ted Kennedy to speak in Oregon and outspent Morse $54,000 to $9,000. Morse often found himself responding to Kennedy's claim that he was not a "serious candidate", by proclaiming: "I'm a dead serious candidate." Quietly, Oregon Democrats began to worry about what a loss for Morse would mean in 1962 against possible Republican challenger Governor Mark Hatfield. Morse would use this to his advantage to help sway undecided Democrats, claiming that if he lost in the primary, it would certainly help Republicans defeat him in 1962. Kennedy brushed off this argument by claiming that regardless of the outcome of the presidential primary, the people of Oregon had a tremendous respect for Wayne Morse and would send him back to the Senate, and that he would even come back to Oregon in 1962 to campaign for him. On Election Day, Morse came up roughly 50,000 votes short of defeating Kennedy. Morse abandoned his presidential race that same week.
Morse largely sat out the rest of the 1960 campaign. He even opted out of going to the 1960 Democratic National Convention. Instead he sat at home and watched it on television from Eugene.
Final Senate term
In September 1960, after Democrats James Eastland and Thomas Dodd asserted that lower-ranking officials in the State Department had cleared the way for the regime of Fidel Castro to reign in Cuba, Morse denied the charge and stated that he knew of no basis for the claim.
In February 1961, during a press release, Morse announced his intent to request $12 million for civil works in Oregon from Congress, furthering that the request would be based around information gathered by the Corps of Engineers and that the state of Oregon was facing "serious economic conditions". In March 1961, after President Kennedy nominated Charles M. Meriwether for Director of the Export-Import Bank, Morse labeled Meriwether as racist and antisemitic. Morse added that President Kennedy owed an apology to every Jewish and black person in the United States as a result of the appointment.
In April 1961, Morse was outraged by the Bay of Pigs invasion, and in a letter to the Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, accused the Kennedy administration of acting unconstitutionally as he expressed his "deep regret" that Congress was not informed by the administration "prior to making its decision to intervene in the Cuban invasion through granting logistic and other support to the Cuban exiles." In May 1961, Morse announced that the Senate Latin Affairs Committee would investigate reports that the United States was holding survivors of the Bay of Pigs Invasion incommunicado on U.S. submarine base in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Morse said the investigation had primarily been handled by White House staff instead of State Department officials.
In January 1962, at the nomination hearing of John A. McCone whom Kennedy had nominated as CIA director, Morse accused the CIA having "an unchecked executive power that ought to be brought to an end". Speaking of the Bay of Pigs invasion, he accused the CIA of engaging in reckless actions that could easily cause a war and stated: "We are in a situation in which we shall probably never again see Congress pass a declaration of war prior to the beginning of a war."
In February 1963, Morse stated that the United States was providing France with more foreign aid "than any other country in the world" and that France was concurrently not fulfilling responsibilities as they pertained to NATO, adding that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee would investigate how much aid France should receive from the US amid its continued defiance and France should be allowed to be independent foreign policy outside of the Atlantic alliance if President of France Charles De Gaulle wanted to.
In February 1963, after President Kennedy contended that American air cover for the Cuban invasion was never promised, Morse stated that the comments were supported by the testimony of members of the Kennedy administration following the invasion and that the document containing the testimony should be made public as a result of "subsequent developments". Morse contended that the Kennedy administration-created Alliance for Progress was "a belated program" that should have been created during the previous decade at a time with lessened "critical and social pressures" and furthered that "a great mistake" would be made in believing the program would be successful in completing its goal within 10 years.
In the spring of 1964, Morse began to call the Vietnam War "McNamara's War" after the hawkish Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. In a speech on 17 April 1964, Morse stated "Not one voice has yet answered my contention that the United States, under the leadership of Defense Secretary McNamara, is fighting an illegal and unwise war in Vietnam.". A month later on May 20, 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson asked Congress to vote for a request of additional $125 million in aid to South Vietnam, Morse voted against the request, accusing Johnson of "trying by indirection to obtain
congressional approval of our illegal, unilateral military action in South Vietnam without coming forward with a request for a declaration of war."
By 1964, Morse had the reputation of being the "Typhoid Mary" of the Senate, an eccentric whose humorlessness and teetotalism made him widely disliked and shunned by the other senators. Morse's refusal to drink alcohol under any circumstances together with a lack of humor that was legendary within the Senate excluded him from the "Club" of the Senate, where important informal meetings were held in private in a convivial atmosphere where much alcohol was consumed. When Morse spoke before the Senate, he usually allowed only five to ten minutes to speak before the other senators voted to cut him off. However, Morse was also known as a stubborn and cantankerous character who was determined to uphold Congress's powers against the presidency, and in a memo to President Johnson in March 1964, William Bundy predicted that Morse was the senator most likely to oppose a congressional resolution giving Johnson the power to wage war in Vietnam.
On August 7, 1964, Morse, who had won re-election in 1962, was one of only two United States senators to vote against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (Alaska's Ernest Gruening was the other). Ten other senators voted "present" or missed the vote. It authorized an expansion of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. His central contention was that the resolution violated Article One of the United States Constitution, granting the president the ability to take military action in the absence of a formal declaration of war. In a speech before the Senate, Morse stated "I rise to speak in opposition to the joint resolution [S.J. Res. 189]. I do so with a sad heart. But I consider the resolution, as I considered the resolution of 1955, known as the Formosa resolution, and the subsequent resolution, known as the Middle East resolution, to be naught but a resolution which embodies a predated declaration of war."
In a speech on 18 February 1965, Morse in a speech “completely” repudiated Johnson's Vietnam policy, accusing the president of leading the United States into a war unconstitutionally. When Johnson announced the beginning of the strategic bombing offensive against North Vietnam code-named Operation Rolling Thunder, Morse stated the president "has not the slightest legal right under the Constitution of the United States to be bombing North Vietnam, short of a declaration of war." On 24 March 1965, the first campus protest against the Vietnam War took place with a "teach-in" at the University of Michigan. In a letter to John Donoughue, the organizer of the protest at the University of Michigan, Morse praised the "Teach-in Protest" and stated: "It is urgent that the American people insist that their country return to a respect for law before we create a holocaust in Asia." In April 1965, Morse took part in an anti-war protest for the first time when he spoke at a "teach-in" at the University of Oregon where he offered lavish praise for the student protesters, saying that as an old man it gladdened him to see so many young people willing to take a stand. On 8 June 1965, Morse was the lead speaker at an anti-war rally attended by 17, 000 people at Madison Square Garden in New York.
During the following years Morse remained one of the country's most outspoken critics of the war. It was later revealed that the FBI investigated Morse based on his opposition to the war, allegedly at the request of President Johnson in an attempt to find information that could be used politically against Morse. In June 1965, Morse joined Benjamin Spock, Coretta Scott King and others in leading a large anti-war march in New York City. After that, Morse "readily joined such protests when he could, and eagerly called upon others to participate."
In February 1966, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, J. William Fulbright, held televised hearings about the Vietnam war, which Morse took part in as a member of the committee. Johnson sent General Maxwell Taylor before the committee as a rebuttal witness. In response to Taylor's testimony, Morse said: "I happen to hold to the point of view that it isn't going to be long before the American people, as a people, will repudiate our war in Southeast Asia". In response, Taylor stated "That of course, is good news to Hanoi, Senator". An infuriated Morse snapped back: "I know that is the smear that you militarists give to those of us who have honest differences of opinion with you, but I don't intend to get down in the gutter with you and engage in that kind of debate, General!"
In the 1966 U.S. Senate election, he angered many in his own party for supporting Oregon's Republican Governor, Mark Hatfield, over the Democratic nominee, Congressman Robert Duncan, in that year's Senate election, due to Duncan's support of the Vietnam War. Hatfield won that race, and Duncan then challenged Morse in the 1968 Democratic senatorial primary. Morse won renomination, but only by a narrow margin. Morse lost his seat in the 1968 general election to State Representative Bob Packwood, who criticized Morse's opposition to continued funding of the war as being reckless, and as distracting him from other issues of importance to the state. Packwood won by a mere 3,500 votes, less than one half of one percent of the total votes cast.
Post-Senate career
Morse spent most of the remaining years of his life attempting to regain his membership in the U.S. Senate. His first attempt since being defeated in 1968 was in 1972. He won the Democratic primary against his old foe, Robert Duncan. In the general election, he lost to the incumbent Mark Hatfield, the Republican incumbent whom he had endorsed in 1966 over fellow Democrat Duncan because of Hatfield's shared opposition to the war in Vietnam but which had become for Morse, according to his principal biographer, a "dismissible virtue" in 1972.
In that same year, following the withdrawal of Thomas Eagleton from the national Democratic ticket, a "mini convention" was called to confirm Sargent Shriver as George McGovern's vice presidential running mate. Although most of the delegates voted for Shriver, Oregon cast 4 of its 34 votes for Morse.
On March 19, 1974, Morse, at age 73, filed the paperwork to seek the Democratic nomination for the Senate seat he had lost six years before. Three other Oregon Democrats filed to run against Morse in the 1974 Democratic primary election on May 28 and made Morse's age a key campaign issue. His most prominent opponent was Oregon Senate President Jason Boe. The New York Times said in an editorial that Morse would serve the state with "fierce integrity if elected". Morse managed to defeat Boe in the primary and began preparing for the general election.
On July 21, 1974, while trying to keep up a busy campaign schedule, Morse was hospitalized at Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland due to kidney failure and was listed in critical condition. He died the next day. An editorial ran in The New York Times stating that death "has deprived the United States Senate of a superb public servant".
The Oregon Democratic Central Committee met in August and nominated state Senator Betty Roberts to replace Morse as the Democratic nominee in the Senate race. Roberts lost to the incumbent Bob Packwood in the fall.
Legacy
A dozen years after joining the Democratic Party, Morse's lack of lifelong commitment to a single political party was viewed as his contribution to a longstanding tradition in the politics of the Western United States.
Wayne Morse was given a state funeral on July 26, 1974, in the Oregon House of Representatives. His body lay in state in the Capitol rotunda before the funeral. More than 600 people attended the funeral service. Former Senator Eugene McCarthy, Governor Tom McCall, Senator Mark Hatfield and Oregon House Speaker Richard Eymann were all in attendance. Pallbearers included Oregon Congressman Al Ullman and three candidates for Congress, Democrats Les AuCoin, Jim Weaver, and Morse's old rival, Robert B. Duncan, who was running for a seat vacated by Congresswoman Edith Green.
When Congressman AuCoin sought to unseat Senator Packwood 18 years later, he adopted Morse's slogan, "principle above politics". Since 1996, the U.S. Senate seat Morse filled has been held by Ron Wyden who as a 19-year-old, drove Morse in the senator's last campaign. Elected in a special election after Packwood's resignation, Wyden won a full term in 1998 and re-election in 2004, 2010, 2016 and 2022.
In 2006, the Wayne L. Morse U.S. Courthouse opened in downtown Eugene. In addition, he was recognized in the Wayne Morse Commons of the University of Oregon's William W. Knight Law Center. Also housed in the University of Oregon Law Center is the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. The Lane County Courthouse in Eugene renovated and rededicated its adjacent Wayne L. Morse Free Speech Plaza in the spring of 2005, complete with a life-size statue and pavers imprinted with quotations.
The Morse family's Eugene property and home, Edgewood Farm, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Wayne Morse Farm. The City of Eugene, assisted by a nonprofit corporation, operates the historical park formerly known as Morse Ranch. The City of Eugene officially renamed the park Wayne Morse Family Farm in 2008, following a recommendation by the Wayne Morse Historical Park Corporation Board and Morse family members. The new name is more historically accurate. Wayne L. Morse is interred at Rest Haven Memorial Park in Eugene.
Documentary films
The Last Angry Man: The Story of America's Most Controversial Senator, documentary film by Christopher Houser and Robert Millis
, a 2007 documentary film
Electoral history
See also
List of United States senators who switched parties
References
Works cited
Further reading
External links
Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics
Wayne Morse papers at the University of Oregon
Wayne Morse video from "War Made Easy"
Audio of various Wayne Morse radio commercials
Transcript: The Gulf of Tonkin and Wayne Morse October 13, 1999
Pacifica Radio's Wayne Morse 1968 DNC audio clips
Phone call #1 between Morse and President Johnson
Phone call #2 between Morse and President Johnson on an education bill
Wayne Morse interviewed by Mike Wallace on The Mike Wallace Interview'' May 26, 1957
Wayne Morse Documentary produced by Oregon Public Broadcasting
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1900 births
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Candidates in the 1952 United States presidential election
Candidates in the 1960 United States presidential election
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Liberalism in the United States |
420993 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SMS%20Dresden%20%281907%29 | SMS Dresden (1907) | SMS ("His Majesty's Ship ") was a German light cruiser built for the (Imperial Navy). The lead ship of her class, she was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in 1906, launched in October 1907, and completed in November 1908. Her entrance into service was delayed by accidents during sea trials, including a collision with another vessel which necessitated major repairs. Like the preceding cruisers upon which her design was based, was armed with ten SK L/40 guns and two torpedo tubes.
spent much of her career overseas. After commissioning, she visited the United States in 1909 during the Hudson–Fulton Celebration, before returning to Germany to serve in the reconnaissance force of the High Seas Fleet for three years. In 1913, she was assigned to the Mediterranean Division. She was then sent to the Caribbean to protect German nationals during the Mexican Revolution. In mid-1914, she carried the former dictator Victoriano Huerta to Jamaica, where the British had granted him asylum. She was due to return to Germany in July 1914, but was prevented from doing so by the outbreak of World War I. At the onset of hostilities, operated as a commerce raider in South American waters in the Atlantic, then moved to the Pacific Ocean in September and joined Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron.
saw action in the Battle of Coronel in November, where she engaged the British cruiser , and at the Battle of the Falkland Islands in December, where she was the only German warship to escape destruction. She eluded her British pursuers for several more months, until she put into Robinson Crusoe Island in March 1915. Her engines were worn out and she had almost no coal left for her boilers, so the ship's captain contacted the local Chilean authorities to have interned. She was trapped by British cruisers, including her old opponent Glasgow. The British violated Chilean neutrality and opened fire on the ship in the Battle of Más a Tierra. The Germans scuttled and the majority of the crew escaped to be interned in Chile for the duration of the war. The wreck remains in the harbor; several artifacts, including her bell and compass, have been returned to Germany.
Design
The 1898 Naval Law authorized the construction of thirty new light cruisers; the program began with the , which was developed into the and es, both of which incorporated incremental improvements over the course of construction. The primary alteration for the two -class cruisers, assigned to the 1906 fiscal year, consisted of an additional boiler for the propulsion system to increase engine power.
was long overall with a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced as designed and up to at full load. She had a crew of 18 officers and 343 enlisted men.
Her propulsion system consisted of two Parsons steam turbines, designed to give for a top speed of . The engines were powered by twelve coal-fired water-tube boilers. carried up to of coal, which gave her a range of at .
The ship was armed with a main battery of ten SK L/40 guns in single mounts. Two were placed side by side forward on the forecastle, six were located amidships, three on either side, and two were placed side by side aft. The guns could engage targets out to . They were supplied with 1,500 rounds of ammunition, for 150 shells per gun. The secondary battery comprised eight SK L/55 guns, with 4,000 rounds of ammunition. She was also equipped with two torpedo tubes with four torpedoes, mounted on the deck.
The ship was protected by an armored deck that was up to thick. The conning tower had thick sides, and the guns were protected by thick shields.
Service history
was ordered under the contract name . She was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in 1906 and launched on 5 October 1907. The of her namesake city, Otto Beutler, christened the ship. Fitting-out work then commenced, and was commissioned into the High Seas Fleet on 14 November 1908. Following her commissioning, began her sea trials. On 28 November she accidentally collided with and sank the Swedish galeas outside Kiel. s starboard propeller shaft was shoved in , and she required six months of repair work. She resumed sea trials in 1909, but a turbine accident necessitated further repairs, which lasted until September.
Although had not completed the required testing, her trials were declared over on 7 September, as she had been ordered to visit the United States. The purpose of the voyage was to represent Germany at the Hudson–Fulton Celebration in New York; was joined by the protected cruisers and and the light cruiser . left Wilhelmshaven on 11 September and stopped in Newport, where she met the rest of the ships of the squadron. The ships arrived in New York on 24 September, remained there until 9 October, and arrived back in Germany on 22 October.
then joined the reconnaissance force for the High Seas Fleet; the following two years consisted of the peacetime routine of squadron exercises, training cruises, and annual fleet exercises. On 16 February 1910, she collided with the light cruiser . The collision caused significant damage to , though no one on either vessel was injured. She made it back to Kiel for repairs, which lasted eight days. visited Hamburg on 13–17 May that year. From 14 to 20 April 1912, she was temporarily transferred to the Training Squadron, along with the armored cruiser and the light cruiser . For the year 1911–12, won the Kaiser's (Shooting Prize) for excellent gunnery amongst the light cruisers of the High Seas Fleet. From September 1912 through September 1913, she was commanded by (Frigate Captain) Fritz Lüdecke, who would command the ship again during World War I.
On 6 April 1913, she and the cruiser were sent from Kiel to the Adriatic Sea, where she joined the (Mediterranean Division), centered on the battlecruiser and commanded by (Rear Admiral) Konrad Trummler. The ships cruised the eastern Mediterranean for several months, and in late August, was ordered to return to Germany. After arriving in Kiel on 23 September, she was taken into the (Imperial Shipyard) for an overhaul that lasted until the end of December. She was scheduled to return to the Mediterranean Division, but the (Admiralty Staff) reassigned to the North American station to protect German interests in the Mexican Revolution. The cruiser , then in North American waters, was also due to return to Germany, but her intended replacement, , had not yet entered service. On 27 December 1913, departed Germany and arrived off Vera Cruz on 21 January 1914, under the command of Erich Köhler. The United States had already sent a squadron of warships to the city, as had several other countries.
The ordered , which had been on a training cruise for naval cadets, to join off Mexico. was also recalled to reinforce the German naval contingent; after arriving, she was tasked with transferring European nationals to German HAPAG liners. and the British cruiser rescued 900 American citizens trapped in a hotel in Vera Cruz and transferred them to American warships. The German consul in Mexico City requested additional forces, and so provided a landing party of a (Junior Petty Officer) and ten sailors, armed with two MG 08 machine guns. On 15 April 1914, steamed to Tampico on Mexico's Gulf coast. That month, the German-flagged merchant ship arrived in Mexico, carrying a load of small arms for the regime of Mexican dictator Victoriano Huerta. The United States had put an arms embargo into effect in an attempt to reduce the violence of the civil war. The US Navy intercepted Ypiranga on 21 April. arrived, confiscated the merchantman, and pressed her into naval service to transport German refugees out of Mexico. Despite the American embargo, the Germans delivered the weapons and ammunition to the Mexican government on 28 May.
On 20 July, after the Huerta regime was toppled, carried Huerta, his vice president, Aureliano Blanquet, and their families to Kingston, Jamaica, where Britain had granted them asylum. Upon arriving in Kingston on the 25th, Köhler learned of the rising political tensions in Europe during the July Crisis that followed the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. By this time, the ship was in need of a refit in Germany, and met with her replacement, , in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the following day. Lüdecke, who had arrived in command of , traded places with Köhler aboard . The initially ordered to return to Germany for overhaul, but the heightened threat of war by the 31st led the staff to countermand the order, instead instructing Lüdecke to prepare to conduct (trade war) in the Atlantic.
World War I
After receiving the order to remain in the Atlantic, Lüdecke turned his ship south while maintaining radio silence to prevent hostile warships from discovering his vessel. On the night of 4–5 August, he received a radio report informing him of Britain's declaration of war on Germany. He chose the South Atlantic as s operational area, and steamed to the Brazilian coast. Off the mouth of the Amazon River, he stopped a British merchant ship on 6 August. The ship, , whose captain professed to know nothing of Britain's entry into the war, was permitted to proceed unmolested in accordance with the rules set forth in the Hague Convention of 1907. rendezvoused with the German collier , a converted HSDG vessel. The cruiser moved to the Rocas Atoll on the 12th, along with the HAPAG steamers , , and . After departing the atoll, en route to Trinidade, caught the British steamer ; Lüdecke took off the ship's crew and then sank the merchantman. captured the British collier on 24 August and sank her after evacuating her crew. After arriving in Trinidade, she rendezvoused with the gunboat and several steamers.
On 26 August, while steaming off the mouth of the Río de la Plata, she caught two more British steamers, but the poor condition of s engines curtailed further operations. On 5 September, put into Hoste Island for engine maintenance until the 16th. While the ship was there, the HAPAG steamer arrived from Punta Arenas with news of the war, and the heavy merchant traffic off the western coast of South America. Lüdecke decided to steam there, and on 18 September passed the Strait of Magellan. While en route, encountered the French steamer ; Lüdecke refrained from attacking the transport ship, since she had fled into neutral waters. After steaming up the Chilean coast, she stopped in the Juan Fernández Islands, where she made radio contact with the light cruiser , which was operating on the Pacific coast of South America. saw no further success against British shipping, and on 12 October, she joined (Vice Admiral) Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron, which had crossed the Pacific and was coaling at Easter Island. The following day, Lüdecke was promoted to (Captain at Sea).
On 18 October, and the East Asia Squadron, centered on the armored cruisers and , departed Easter Island for the South American coast. They arrived at Más a Fuera island on 26 October. The following evening, the German cruisers escorted the auxiliary cruiser and the merchant ships and to Chile. The flotilla arrived off Valparaiso on 30 October, and the following evening, Spee received intelligence that a British cruiser was at the Chilean port of Coronel. Spee decided his squadron should ambush the cruiser——when it was forced to leave port due to Chile's neutral status, which required belligerent warships to leave after twenty-four hours. Spee did not realize Glasgow was in the company of Rear Admiral Christopher Craddock's 4th Cruiser Squadron, which also included the armored cruisers and and the auxiliary cruiser .
Battle of Coronel
Early on the morning of 1 November, Spee took his squadron out of Valparaiso, steaming at south toward Coronel. At around 16:00, spotted the smoke column from the leading British cruiser. By 16:25, the other two ships had been spotted. The two squadrons slowly closed the distance, until the Germans opened fire at 18:34, at a range of . The German ships engaged their opposite numbers, with firing on Otranto. After s third salvo, Otranto turned away; the Germans claimed a hit that caused a fire, though Otranto reported taking no damage. Following Otrantos departure, shifted her fire to Glasgow, which was also targeted by . The two German cruisers hit their British opponent five times.
At around 19:30, Spee ordered and to launch a torpedo attack against the damaged British armored cruisers. increased speed to position herself off the British bows, and briefly spotted Glasgow as she was withdrawing, but the British cruiser disappeared in the haze and gathering darkness. then encountered ; both ships initially thought the other was hostile. s crew was loading a torpedo when the two ships confirmed each other's identity. By 22:00, and the other two light cruisers were deployed in a line that searched unsuccessfully for the British cruisers. had emerged from the battle completely unscathed.
On 3 November, Spee took , , and back to Valparaiso for provisioning and to consult with the . Neutrality laws permitted only three belligerent warships in a port at a given time. and remained with the squadron's colliers in Más a Fuera. Spee returned to Más a Fuera on 6 November, and detached and for a visit to Valparaiso, where they also restocked their supplies. The two cruisers arrived on 12 November, left the following day, and met the rest of the squadron at sea on 18 November. Three days later, the squadron anchored in St. Quentin Bay in the Gulf of Penas, where they coaled. The Royal Navy had deployed Vice Admiral Doveton Sturdee's pair of battlecruisers, and , to hunt down the German squadron. They left Britain on 11 November, and arrived in the Falkland Islands on 7 December. There, they joined the armored cruisers , , and , and the light cruisers Glasgow and .
On 26 November, the German East Asia Squadron left St. Quentin Bay, bound for the Atlantic. On 2 December, they caught the Canadian sailing ship Drummuir, which was carrying of high-grade Cardiff coal. The following morning, the Germans anchored off Picton Island, where they unloaded the coal from Drummuir into their own auxiliaries. On the morning of 6 December, Spee held a council aboard to discuss their next moves. With the support of the captains of and , he successfully argued for an attack on the Falklands to destroy the British wireless station and coal stocks there. Lüdecke and the captains of and all opposed the plan, and were in favor of bypassing the Falklands and proceeding to the La Plata area to continue to raid British shipping.
Battle of the Falkland Islands
On the afternoon of 6 December, the German ships departed Picton Island, bound for the Falklands. On 7 December, they rounded Tierra del Fuego and turned north into the Atlantic. They arrived off the Falklands at around 02:00; three hours later, Spee detached and to land a party ashore. By 08:30, the ships were approaching Port Stanley, when they noticed thick columns of smoke rising from the harbor. After closing to the harbor entrance, they quickly realized they were confronted by a much more powerful squadron, which was just getting up steam. Spee immediately broke off the operation and turned east to flee before the British ships could catch his squadron. By 10:45, and had rejoined the fleet, and the German auxiliaries were detached to seek shelter in the maze of islands off Cape Horn.
The British ships set off in pursuit, and by 12:50, Sturdee's two battlecruisers had overtaken the Germans. A minute later, he gave the order to open fire at the trailing German ship, . Spee ordered the three small cruisers to try to escape to the south, while he turned back with and in an attempt to hold off the British squadron. Sturdee had foreseen this possibility, and so had ordered his armored and light cruisers to pursue the German light cruisers. The battlecruisers quickly overwhelmed Spee's armored cruisers, and destroyed them with heavy loss of life. , with her turbine engines, was able to outpace her pursuers, and was the only German warship to escape destruction. Lüdecke decided to take his ship into the islands off South America to keep a steady supply of coal available.
On 9 December, she passed back around Cape Horn to return to the Pacific. That day, she anchored in Sholl Bay, with only of coal remaining. (lieutenant at sea) Wilhelm Canaris convinced the Chilean naval representative for the region to permit to remain in the area for an extra twenty-four hours so enough coal could be taken aboard to reach Punta Arenas. She arrived there on 12 December, and received of coal from a German steamer. The hoped would be able to break through to the Atlantic and return to Germany, but the poor condition of her engines precluded this. Lüdecke instead decided to attempt to cross the Pacific via Easter Island, the Solomon Islands, and the Dutch East Indies and raid commerce in the Indian Ocean. took on another of coal on 19 January. On 14 February, left the islands off the South American coast for the South Pacific. On 27 February, the cruiser captured the British barque Conway Castle south of Más a Tierra. From December to February, the German liner had supplied and had accompanied her northward to a final coaling at Juan Fernández Islands just before the cruiser was scuttled.
On 8 March, was drifting in dense fog when lookouts spotted Kent, which also had her engines off, about away. Both ships immediately raised steam, and escaped after a five-hour chase. The strenuous effort depleted her coal stocks and overtaxed her engines. Lüdecke decided his ship was no longer operational, and determined to have his ship interned to preserve it. The following morning, she put into Más a Fuera, dropping anchor in Cumberland Bay at 8:30. The following day, Lüdecke received by wireless the German Admiralty's permission to let be interned, and so Lüdecke informed the local Chilean official of his intention to do so.
Battle of Más a Tierra
On the morning of 14 March, Kent and Glasgow approached Cumberland Bay; their appearance was relayed back to by one of her pinnaces, which had been sent to patrol the entrance to the bay. was unable to maneuver, owing to her fuel shortage, and Lüdecke signaled that his ship was no longer a combatant. The British disregarded this message, as well as a Chilean vessel that approached them as they entered the bay. Glasgow opened fire, in violation of Chile's neutrality; Britain had already informed Chile that British warships would disregard international law if they located in Chilean territorial waters. Shortly thereafter, Kent joined in the bombardment as well. The German gunners fired off three shots in response, but the guns were quickly knocked out by British gunfire.
Lüdecke sent the signal "Am sending negotiator" to the British warships, and dispatched Canaris in a pinnace; Glasgow continued to bombard the defenseless cruiser. In another attempt to stop the attack, Lüdecke raised the white flag, which prompted Glasgow to cease fire. Canaris came aboard to speak with Captain John Luce; the former strongly protested the latter's violation of Chile's neutrality. Luce simply replied that he had his orders, and demanded an unconditional surrender. Canaris explained that had already been interned by Chile, and thereafter returned to his ship, which had in the meantime been prepared for scuttling.
At 10:45, the scuttling charge detonated in the bow and exploded the forward ammunition magazines. The bow was badly mangled; in about half an hour, the ship had taken on enough water to sink. As it struck the sea floor, the bow was torn from the rest of the ship, which rolled over to starboard. As the rest of the hull settled below the waves, a second scuttling charge exploded in the ship's engine rooms.
Aftermath
Most of the ship's crew managed to escape; only eight men were killed in the attack, with another twenty-nine wounded. The British auxiliary cruiser took fifteen severely wounded men to Valparaiso; four of them died. The destruction of his ship had left Lüdecke in shock, and so Canaris took responsibility for the fate of the ship's crew. They remained on the island for five days until two Chilean warships brought a German passenger ship to take the men to Quiriquina Island, where they were interned for the duration of the war. Canaris escaped from the internment camp on 5 August 1915 and reached Germany exactly two months later. On 31 March 1917, a small group of men escaped on the Chilean barque ; the voyage back to Germany lasted 120 days. The rest of the crew did not return to Germany until 1920.
The wreck lies at a depth of . In 2002, the first survey of the wreck was done by a team led by James P. Delgado for the Sea Hunters documentary produced by the National Underwater and Marine Agency. The team included the archaeologist Dr. Willi Kramer, the first German to visit the wreck since she sank 88 years before. lies on her starboard side pointed north, toward the beach. The wreck is heavily damaged; much of the upper works, including the bridge, the masts, the funnels, and many of the guns have been torn from the ship. The bow was cut off by the scuttling charges detonated by the ship's crew, and sits upright on the sea floor. The stern is also badly damaged, with the main deck blasted away and many shell holes in the ship's side. Some of the damage to the aft of the ship appears to have been done by an undocumented salvage operation before Delgado's survey. According to German records, was carrying gold coins from their colony at Tsingtau; Delgado speculated that this salvage work was an attempt to retrieve these.
In 1965, the ship's compass and several flags were recovered and returned to Germany, where they are held at the German Naval Academy Mürwik in Flensburg-Mürwik. In 2006, Chilean and German divers found and recovered s bell, which is now in Germany. C. S. Forester's 1929 novel Brown on Resolution, and two subsequent movies, were inspired by the s escape and subsequent destruction.
Notes
Footnotes
Citations
References
Further reading
1907 ships
1915 in Chile
Dresden-class cruisers
Scuttled vessels of Germany
Ships built in Hamburg
Shipwrecks in the Chilean Sea
World War I cruisers of Germany
World War I commerce raiders
World War I shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean
es:SMS Dresden
fr:Classe Dresden |
421008 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl%20%28poem%29 | Pearl (poem) | Pearl () is a late 14th-century Middle English poem that is considered one of the most important surviving Middle English works. With elements of medieval allegory and from the dream vision genre, the poem is written in a North-West Midlands variety of Middle English and is highly—though not consistently—alliterative; there is, among other stylistic features, a complex system of stanza-linking.
A father, mourning the loss of his (pearl), falls asleep in a garden; in his dream, he encounters the 'Pearl-maiden'—a beautiful and heavenly woman—standing across a stream in a strange landscape. In response to his questioning and attempts to obtain her, she answers with Christian doctrine. Eventually she shows him an image of the Heavenly City, and herself as part of the retinue of Christ the Lamb. However, when the Dreamer attempts to cross the stream, he awakens suddenly from his dream and reflects on its significance.
The poem survives in a single manuscript (London, British Library MS Cotton MS Nero A X), which includes two other religious narrative poems: Patience, and Cleanness, and the romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. All are thought to be by the same author, dubbed the "Pearl poet" or "Gawain poet", on the evidence of stylistic and thematic similarities. The first complete publication of Pearl, Patience and Cleanness was in Early English Alliterative Poems in the West Midland Dialect of the fourteenth century, printed by the Early English Text Society in 1864.
Author
Though the real name of "The Pearl Poet" (or poets) is unknown, some inferences about them can be drawn from an informed reading of their works. The original manuscript is known in academic circles as Cotton Nero A.x, following a naming system used by one of its owners, Robert Cotton, a collector of medieval English texts. Before the manuscript came into Cotton's possession, it was in the library of Henry Savile of Bank in Yorkshire. Little is known about its previous ownership, and until 1824, when the manuscript was introduced to the academic community in a second edition of Thomas Warton's History edited by Richard Price, it was almost entirely unknown. Now held in the British Library, it has been dated to the late 14th century, so the poet was a contemporary of Geoffrey Chaucer, author of The Canterbury Tales; however, it is highly unlikely that the two ever met. The three other works found in the same manuscript as Pearl (commonly known as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, and Cleanness or Purity) are often considered to be written by the same author. However, the manuscript containing these poems was transcribed by a copyist and not by the original poet. Although nothing explicitly suggests that all four poems are by the same poet, comparative analysis of dialect, verse form, and diction have pointed towards common authorship.
What is known today about the poet is general. As J. R. R. Tolkien and E. V. Gordon, after reviewing the text's allusions, style, and themes, concluded in 1925:
The most commonly suggested candidate for authorship is John Massey of Cotton, Cheshire. He is known to have lived in the dialect region of the Pearl Poet and is thought to have written the poem St. Erkenwald, which some scholars argue bears stylistic similarities to Gawain. St. Erkenwald, however, has been dated by some scholars to a time outside the Gawain poet's era. Thus, ascribing authorship to John Massey is still controversial and most critics consider the Gawain poet an unknown.
Genre and poetics
Since the time of the poem's first publication in the late 19th century, a great deal of critical discussion has taken place on the question of to which genre the poem belongs. Early editors, such as Morris, Gollancz and Osgood, took for granted that the poem was an elegy for the poet's lost daughter (presumed to have been named Margaret, i.e. 'pearl'); several scholars however, including W. H. Schofield, R. M. Garrett, and W. K. Greene were quick to point out the flaws in this assumption and sought to establish a definitive allegorical reading of the poem. There is no doubt that the poem has elements of medieval allegory and dream vision (as well as the slightly more esoteric genre of the verse lapidary), but all attempts to reduce the poem's complex symbolism to a single interpretation have fallen flat. More recent criticism has pointed to the subtle, shifting symbolism of the pearl as one of the poem's chief virtues, recognizing that there is no inherent contradiction between the poem's elegiac and its allegorical aspects, and that the sophisticated allegorical significance of the Pearl Maiden is not unusual but in fact has several quite well-known parallels in medieval literature, the most celebrated being probably Dante's Beatrice.
Besides the symbolic, on a sheer formal level, Pearl is almost astounding in its complexity, and is recognized to be, in the words of one prominent scholar, "the most highly wrought and intricately constructed poem in Middle English" (Bishop 27). It is 1212 lines long, and has 101 stanzas of 12 lines, each with the rhyme scheme ABABABABBCBC. Stanzas are grouped in sections of five (except for XV, which has six), and each section is marked by a capital letter in the manuscript; within each section, the stanzas are tied together by the repetition of a key "link"-word in the last line of each section, which is then echoed in the first line of the following section. The oft-praised "roundness" of the poem is thus emphasized, and the final link-word is repeated in the first line of the whole, forging a connection between the two ends of the poem and producing a structure that is itself circular. Alliteration is used frequently, but not consistently, throughout the poem, and there are several other sophisticated poetic devices.
Structure and content
The poem may be divided into three parts: an introduction (or "Prologue"), a dialogue between the two main characters in which the Pearl instructs the narrator, and a description of the New Jerusalem with the narrator's awakening.
Prologue
Sections I–IV (stanzas 1–20)
The narrator, distraught at the loss of his Pearl, falls asleep in an "erber grene" – a green garden – and begins to dream. In his dream he is transported to an other-worldly garden; the divine is thus set in opposition to the terrestrial, a persistent thematic concern within the poem. Wandering by the side of a beautiful stream, he becomes convinced paradise is on the other shore. As he looks for a crossing, he sees a young maid whom he identifies as his Pearl. She welcomes him.
Dialogue
Sections V–VII (stanzas 21–35)
When he asks whether she is the pearl he has lost, she tells him he has lost nothing, that his pearl is merely a rose which has naturally withered. He wants to cross to her side, but she says it is not so easy, that he must resign himself to the will and mercy of God. He asks about her state. She tells him that the Lamb has taken her as His queen.
Sections VIII–XI (stanzas 36–60)
He wonders whether she has replaced Mary as Queen of Heaven. He also objects that she was too young to merit such an exalted position through her works. She responds that no one envies Mary's position as Queen of courtesy, but that all are members of the body of Christ. Adopting a homiletic discourse, she recounts as proof the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. He objects to the idea that God rewards every man equally, regardless of his apparent due. She responds that God gives the same gift of Christ's redemption to all.
Sections XII–XV (stanzas 61–81)
She instructs him on several aspects of sin, repentance, grace and salvation. She describes the earthly and the heavenly Jerusalem, citing the Apostle John and focusing on Christ's past sacrifice and present glory. She wears the Pearl of Great Price because she has been washed in the blood of the Lamb and advises him to forsake all and buy this pearl.
Epilogue
Sections XVI–XX (stanzas 82–101)
He asks about the heavenly Jerusalem; she tells him it is the city of God. He asks to go there; she says that God forbids that, but he may see it by a special dispensation. They walk upstream, and he sees the city across the stream, which is described in a paraphrase of the Apocalypse. He also sees a procession of the blessed. Plunging into the river in his desperation to cross, he awakes from the dream back in the "erber" and resolves to fulfill the will of God.
Afterlife
Death and transience are major themes in the poem; outside of the Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard which we are presented in stanzas 42–60 we see notable reference to another biblical passage Matthew's Sermon on the Mount, in which he states "Do not lay up for yourselves treasure on earth where they moth and rust destroy ... but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust destroys" (Matthew 6:19–21). This lesson becomes vital to the speakers understanding of death: we see him at the opening of the text tormented by images of death and decay in relation to his daughter who we are told "lyfed not two yer". The text repeatedly highlights the faults in her father's materialistic views, as the maiden never refers to him by name but simply as "jeweller", and a distinctly poor one at that, appearing unable to realise the girl's true heavenly wealth; while her purity and innocence are displayed through several features—her white clothing, radiance, and pale complexion (all of which could also be considered as traits of a pearl). The apparition then rejoicingly informs the man that she now stands at the side of Christ as one of the 144 thousand brides of the lamb, residing in New Jerusalem as a Queen.
The text's structure of 1212 lines is reflective of this heavenly city, which is said in the Book of Revelation to be twelve thousand by twelve thousand furlongs and containing twelve gates for the twelve tribes of Israel (Revelation 21:12–17). But its poetic symmetry seems to be offset with the addition of an extra stanza bringing its total to 101, several scholars have suggested it to be reflective of the Pearl's encasement while others such as literary critic Sarah Stanbury believe it "suggests new beginnings after return". Towards the close of the poem, we are given a hallucinatory description of the spiritual bliss which awaits the virtuous within this golden citadel situated on a hill of precious stones. We will begin to see a slow and gradual break down in our protagonist's urbanity as he struggles to grasp the conventions of this realm, the dreamer's perceived ownership of the maiden "my Pearl", is an attitude derived from the social norms of the period as "the woman has no life outside the home, but simply moves, plotlessly, from daughterhood to wifehood". A process which death has interrupted for the Pearl and the Jeweller, but still, he assumes a patriarchal role and wrongly surmises that he may remain in this paradise devoid of her permission. However, the reversal in social status enables the divinely proclaimed Queen to ethically educate the dreamer during her assault on his morality, yet it seems to little avail. In the final stanzas of the poem, we witness the jeweller defiantly attempt to leap the brook which separates the living from this Edenic paradise, only for him to awaken once more upon the burial mound.
Pearl is the source of Thomas Eccleshare's 2013 play Perle, a solo performance staged in the Soho Theatre.
The Mediaeval Baebes set a passage from Part III to music, recording "Pearl" on their 1998 album Worldes Blysse.
See also
Allegory in the Middle Ages
References
Further reading
"Pearl, Cleanness, Patience and Sir Gawain, reproduced in facsimile from the unique MS. Cotton Nero A.x. in the British Museum", introduction by Sir Israel Gollancz, EETS OS 162 (London, 1923)
Cotton Nero A.x. Project, led by Murray McGillivray. See http://gawain.ucalgary.ca
Editions
Richard Morris, ed. "Early English Alliterative Poems", EETS o.S. 1 (1864; revision 1869; reprint 1965).
Sir Israel Gollancz, ed. and trans. "Pearl", (London 1891; revision 1897; 2nd edition with Giovanni Boccaccio's Olympia, 1921)
Charles C. Osgood, ed. "The Pearl" (Boston and London, 1906)
Sophie Jewett, trans. The Pearl. A Middle English Poem: A Modern Version in the Metre of the Original (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., 1908)
E. V. Gordon, ed. "Pearl" (Oxford, 1953).
Sister Mary V. Hillmann, ed. and trans., "The Pearl" (New York, 1961; 2nd edition., introduction by Edward Vasta, 1967)
Charles Moorman, ed. "The Works of the 'Gawain'-Poet", (Jackson, Mississippi, 1977)
A. C. Cawley and J. J. Anderson, ed., "Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (London, 1978)
William Vantuono, ed. The Pearl poems: an omnibus edition (New York: Garland Pub., 1984) (v. 1) (v. 2) Text in both Middle English and Modern English
Malcolm Andrew, Ronald Waldron and Clifford Peterson, ed. The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript (Berkeley: University of California Press. Fourth ed. 2002) .
Malcolm Andrew, Ronald Waldron, ed. The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, rev. 5th edn., 2007) with a prose translation on CD-ROM. .
Translations
Brian Stone, "Medieval English Verse" (Harmondsworth, 1964) [contains "Patience" and "Pearl"]
John Gardner, "The Complete Works of the Gawain Poet" (Chicago, London and Amsterdam, 1965)
Margaret Williams, "The Pearl-Poet: His Complete Works" (New York, 1967)
J. R. R. Tolkien, Trans. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo. (New York: Ballantine Books, 1975; repr. 1988) .
Marie Borroff, Trans. "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight; Patience; Pearl: verse translations". (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1967; repr. 1977, 2001)
Casey Finch, "The Complete Works of the Gawain Poet" (Berkeley, Los Angeles and Oxford, 1993) [contains a parallel text with an earlier edition of the Andrew, Waldron and Peterson edition, above]
Commentary and criticism
Jane Beal, "The Signifying Power of Pearl", Quidditas 33 (2012), 27–58. See: http://humanities.byu.edu/rmmra/pdfs/33.pdf
Ian Bishop, "Pearl in its Setting: A Critical Study of the Structure and Meaning of the Middle English Poem" (Oxford, 1968)
Robert J. Blanch, ed. "'SG' and 'Pearl': Critical Essays" (Bloomington, Indiana and London, 1966) [reprinted essays]
George Doherty Bond, The Pearl poem: an introduction and interpretation. (Lewiston, N.Y., USA: E. Mellen Press, 1991)
Robert J. Blanch, "The Gawain poems: A reference guide 1978–1993" (Albany, 2000)
John M. Bowers, "The Politics of 'Pearl': Court Poetry in the Age of Richard II" (Cambridge, 2001)
John Conley, ed., "The Middle English 'Pearl': Critical Essays" (Notre Dame and London, 1970) [reprinted essays]
J. A. Jackson, "The Infinite Desire of Pearl, in Levinas and Medieval Literature: The "Difficult Reading" of English and Rabbinic Texts, ed. Ann W. Astell and J. A. Jackson (Pittsburgh: Duquesne UP, 2009), 157–84.
P. M. Kean, "The Pearl: An Interpretation" (London, 1967)
Kottler, Barnet, and Alan M. Markman, "A Concordance to Five Middle English Poems: Cleanness, St Erkenwald, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Patience, Pearl" (Pittsburg, 1966)
Charles Muscatine, "The 'Pearl' Poet: Style as Defense", in "Poetry and Crisis in the Age of Chaucer" (Notre Dame and London, 1972), 37–69
Paul Piehler, "Pearl", in "The Visionary Landscape: A Study in Medieval Allegory" (London, 1971)
D. W. Robertson, "The Pearl as a Symbol", "MLN", 65 (1950), 155–61; reprinted in Conley, 1970
René Wellek, "'The Pearl', Studies in English by Members of the English Seminar of the Charles University, Prague" 4 (1933), 5–33; reprinted in Blanch, 1966
External links
Medieval Pearl by Jane Beal, PhD - with pages about the Pearl-poet, manuscript illustrations, editions and translations (with links to these), bibliographies of literary criticism, teaching, recordings, and the Pearl-Poet Society as well as blog posts about significant new publications on "Pearl" since 2015
Medieval English Narrator – The Pearl text & audio online Dr. Anthony Colaianne, Chris Baugh – listen to recorded excerpts of Medieval English literature with text alongside for translation help.
Pearl text & modern translation online William Graham Stanton – contains original text, literal translation, and poetic translation.
14th-century poems
Christian poetry
Cotton Library
Middle English poems
Pearls in religion
Visionary poems
Works of unknown authorship |
421034 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike%20Krzyzewski | Mike Krzyzewski | Michael William Krzyzewski ( , ; born February 13, 1947), nicknamed "Coach K", is an American former college basketball coach. He served as the head coach at Duke University from 1980 to 2022, during which he led the Blue Devils to five national titles, 13 Final Fours (the most of any coach), 15 ACC tournament championships, and 13 ACC regular season titles. Among men's college basketball coaches, only UCLA's John Wooden has won more NCAA championships, with a total of ten. Krzyzewski is widely regarded as one of the greatest college basketball coaches of all time.
Krzyzewski has also coached the United States national team, which he led to gold medals at the 2008, 2012, and 2016 Olympics. He was the head coach of the U.S. team that won gold medals at the 2010 and the 2014 FIBA World Cup, and an assistant coach for the "Dream Team" at the 1992 Olympics.
Krzyzewski was a point guard at Army from 1966 to 1969 under coach Bob Knight. From 1975 to 1980, he was the head coach for his alma mater. He is a two-time inductee into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, in 2001 for his individual coaching career and in 2010 as part of the collective induction of the "Dream Team." He was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006, and the United States Olympic Hall of Fame in 2009 (with the "Dream Team").
On November 15, 2011, Krzyzewski led Duke to a 74–69 victory over Michigan State at Madison Square Garden to become the coach with the most wins in NCAA Division I men's basketball history. Krzyzewski's 903rd victory set a new record, breaking that held by his former coach, Bob Knight. On January 25, 2015, Duke defeated St. John's, 77–68, again at Madison Square Garden, as Krzyzewski became the first Division I men's coach to reach 1,000 wins.
Early life
Krzyzewski was born in Chicago, the son of Polish American parents Emily M. (née Pituch) and William Krzyzewski. Raised as a Catholic, Krzyzewski attended St. Helen Catholic School in Ukrainian Village, Chicago and, later, Archbishop Weber High School in Chicago, a Catholic prep school for boys.
He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1969, where he played basketball under Bob Knight. He was captain of the Army basketball team in his senior season, 1968–69, leading the Cadets to the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) at Madison Square Garden in New York City, where West Point finished fourth.
From 1969 to 1974, Krzyzewski served as an officer in the U.S. Army and directed service teams for three years. In 2005, he was presented West Point's Distinguished Graduate Award.
Coaching career
Indiana and Army
He was discharged from active duty in 1974 with the rank of captain, and started his coaching career as an assistant on Knight's staff with the Indiana Hoosiers during their historic 1974–75 season. After one year with Indiana, Krzyzewski returned to West Point as head coach at age 28; in his five seasons, he led the Army Cadets to a record and an NIT berth in 1978.
Duke
On March 18, 1980, Krzyzewski was named the head coach at Duke University after five seasons at Army. After a few rebuilding seasons, he and the Blue Devils became a fixture on the national basketball scene with 35 NCAA Tournament berths in the past 36 years and 24 consecutive from 1996 to 2019, behind Kansas which has appeared in the tournament in 30 consecutive seasons. Overall, he has taken his program to postseason play in 36 of his 39 years at Duke and is the most winning active coach in men's NCAA Tournament play with a 100–30 record for a .769 winning percentage. His Duke teams have won 15 ACC Championships, been to 13 Final Fours, and won five NCAA tournament National Championships.
Krzyzewski had surgery to repair a ruptured disk in his back in October 1994, but insisted on returning to the sidelines for the 1994–95 season, using a special stool to keep him off his feet. However, the pain became so debilitating that he went several days without sleeping early in the season. By the start of ACC play, the pain had progressed to a point that he could not continue. Shortly after the first game of ACC play, Krzyzewski told his players and coaches that he was taking a leave of absence, with longtime assistant Pete Gaudet serving as interim head coach for the remainder of the season. He had actually planned to resign, but athletic director Tom Butters persuaded him to take a leave of absence instead. Per longstanding NCAA guidance, Duke only credits the first 12 games of the season to Krzyzewski and credits the remainder of the season to Gaudet. Years later, Krzyzewski said that he probably would have been out of basketball if he hadn't endured that season, since it made him realize he needed to manage his time better and delegate more responsibility.
On February 13, 2010, Krzyzewski coached in his 1,000th game as the Duke head coach. On March 20, 2011, Krzyzewski won his 900th game, becoming the second of three Division I men's basketball coaches to reach 900 basketball wins, the other two being Jim Boeheim at Syracuse and his head coach at Army, Bob Knight. On November 15, 2011, Krzyzewski got his 903rd win passing Knight's record for most Division I wins. In an interview of both men on ESPN the previous night, Krzyzewski discussed the leadership skills he learned from Knight and the United States Military Academy. Knight credited Krzyzewski's understanding of himself and his players as keys to his success over the years.
On January 25, 2015, Krzyzewski won his 1,000th game, when Duke defeated St. John's in Madison Square Garden. He is the first men's coach to win 1,000 NCAA Division I basketball games.
On April 6, 2015, Krzyzewski won his fifth NCAA championship, when Duke defeated Wisconsin in the title game.
Winning against Yale in the 2016 NCAA tournament on March 19, Krzyzewski became the all-time winningest coach in the NCAA Division I tournament with 90 total wins.
On November 11, 2017, Krzyzewski won his 1,000th game with the Duke Blue Devils, making him the first head coach to win 1,000 games with one NCAA Division I men's basketball program.
On March 17, 2018, Krzyzewski won his 1,099th game in his career, passing Pat Summitt for most wins by a Division I coach, male or female.
On February 16, 2019, Krzyzewski won his 1,123rd game to become the winningest coach in college basketball history at any level (men's or women's), passing Harry Statham of Division II McKendree University.
On June 2, 2021, Krzyzewski announced that he would retire at the conclusion of the 2021–22 season. Krzyzewski coached his final home game on March 5, 2022, against rival North Carolina, where Duke lost 94–81. Krzyzewski reached his 13th Final Four appearance, passing John Wooden for the most Final Four appearances as a coach, where Duke lost 81–77 to North Carolina in his final game on April 2, 2022. He ended his career at Duke with a 1,129–309 win-loss record.
On April 5, 2022, former Duke player Jay Williams theorized that Krzyzewski could return for another season, but Krzyzewski quickly put that theory to rest when he said he was not going to "pull a Tom Brady" on ESPNU Radio.
National team
Krzyzewski's teams won three consecutive gold medals in the Olympics with him as head coach of the USA men's national team. His other international coaching accolades include a silver medal at the 1987 World University Games, a bronze medal at the 1990 FIBA World Championship, a silver medal at the 1990 Goodwill Games, a bronze medal at the 2006 FIBA World Championship, and gold medals at the 2007 FIBA Americas Championship, the 2010 FIBA World Championship, and the 2014 FIBA World Cup.
He was also an assistant coach for USA teams that won gold medals at the 1984 and 1992 Olympics, 1979 Pan American Games, and 1992 Tournament of the Americas.
In 2005, he was appointed coach of the national team through the 2008 Olympics. In the 2006 FIBA World Championship, the USA won the bronze medal after losing in the semifinals to Greece, then beating defending Olympic gold medalist Argentina for third place.
On August 24, 2008, Krzyzewski's U.S. team won the gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. "The Redeem Team" finished the tournament with a perfect 8–0 record. He coached the U.S. team for the 2010 FIBA World Championship and led Team USA to a perfect 9–0 record, defeating host Turkey in the gold medal game, 81–64. His team won a second Olympic gold in London, defeating runners-up Spain, 107–100. Krzyzewski has amassed a total record of 75–1 (.987) as head coach of the USA National Team.
In February 2013, Krzyzewski stepped down after seven years of coaching the national team, but Team USA in May announced that he would return as head coach from 2013 through 2016.
NBA coaching offers
During his long tenure at Duke, Krzyzewski has been given the opportunity to coach in the NBA at least five times. The first time came after the 1990 season when he led the Blue Devils to their third straight Final Four appearance. The Boston Celtics offered a coaching position to Krzyzewski, but he soon declined their offer. The next season, Krzyzewski proceeded to lead the Blue Devils to the first of two straight national championships. In 1994, he was pursued by the Portland Trail Blazers, but again he chose to stay with Duke. In 2004, Krzyzewski was also interviewed by the Los Angeles Lakers following the departure of high-profile coach Phil Jackson. He was given a formal offer from Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak, reportedly for five years, $40 million and part ownership, but again turned down the NBA. In 2010, the New Jersey Nets were reportedly willing to pay Krzyzewski between $12 million and $15 million per season to coach the Nets. Krzyzewski again declined the offer and stayed at Duke. In 2011, Krzyzewski was offered the vacant coaching position for the Minnesota Timberwolves, but he again declined the offer and chose to stay at Duke.
Post-retirement
Although Krzyzewski retired as Duke's basketball coach in 2022, he maintained a position at Duke University and continued to use his office in the Schwartz-Butters Athletic Center. As of 2023, he said he talked to successor coach Jon Scheyer on a near-daily basis. According to The Athletic, Krzyzewski's post-retirement focuses included charity work for The V Foundation and the Emily Krzyzewski Center, speaking gigs, and time with family. He made his first post-retirement appearance at a Duke game on February 14, 2023.
Awards and honors
NCAA
Five-time NCAA Champion – 1991, 1992, 2001, 2010, 2015
Three-time Naismith College Coach of the Year – 1989, 1992, 1999
13-time ACC Regular Season Champion – 1986, 1991, 1992, 1994, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2010, 2022
15-time ACC Tournament Champion – 1986, 1988, 1992, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2017, 2019
Five-time ACC Coach of the Year – 1984, 1986, 1997, 1999, 2000
Two-time United States Sports Academy Amos Alonzo Stagg Coaching Award winner – 1991, 2008.
Basketball court at Cameron Indoor Stadium named "Coach K Court"
USA Basketball
Five-time coach of Olympic Gold Medal winning teams – 1984, 1992 (assistant coach); 2008, 2012, 2016 (head coach)
Two-time FIBA World Cup Gold Medal winner – 2010, 2014
Two-time FIBA World Cup Bronze Medal winner – 1990, 2006
Halls of Fame
Two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee – 2001 (individual career), 2010 (with the "Dream Team")
College Basketball Hall of Fame inductee (class of 2006)
United States Olympic Hall of Fame inductee (class of 2009 – with the "Dream Team")
FIBA Hall of Fame inductee (class of 2017 – with the "Dream Team")
United States Military Academy Sports Hall of Fame inductee (class of 2009)
National Polish American Sports Hall of Fame inductee (class of 1991)
Media
2001: Time/CNN America's Best Coach Award
2011: Sports Illustrated "Sportsman of the Year"
Other
2013: Chicago History Museum Making History Award
Award presented at the United States Military Academy named the "Coach Krzyzewski Teaching Character Through Sports Award"
Inducted as a Laureate of The Lincoln Academy of Illinois and awarded the Order of Lincoln (the State's highest honor) by the Governor of Illinois in 2014 in the area of sports.
Received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement in 1995.
2023: North Carolina State Board of Transportation voted to name three miles of North Carolina Highway 751 "Coach K Highway".
Family and charity
Krzyzewski married his wife, Carol "Mickie" Marsh, in the Catholic chapel at West Point on the day of his graduation in 1969. They have three daughters and ten grandchildren. According to The Wall Street Journal, she was the only person who could persuade him to step down during the 1994–95 season when he was suffering from a ruptured disk. She actually went as far as to give her husband an ultimatum–if he wanted to come home on what would prove to be his final day of coaching that season, he needed to skip practice and go to the doctor. His grandson, Michael Savarino, was a walk-on player at Duke for the 2019–20 season.
Krzyzewski and his family founded the Emily Krzyzewski Center, a non-profit organization affiliated with Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Durham, which was established in 2006 and named in honor of Krzyzewski's mother. The mission is to inspire students from kindergarten to high school to dream big, act with character and purpose, and reach their potential as leaders in their community. The center's K to College Model serves academically focused students in out-of-school programming designed to help them achieve in school, gain entry to college, and break the cycle of poverty in their families. Krzyzewski and his wife, Mickie, have also been active for years in fundraising and support for the Duke Children's Hospital, Children's Miracle Network, the V Foundation for Cancer Research. In all of those entities they have both served as chairs and/or led major fundraising efforts. In addition, the Krzyzewskis have been major donors to Duke University in supporting a number of areas, including establishing scholarship endowments for students in North and South Carolina as well as a Duke student-athlete every year. He also serves on the board of advisors of the Code of Support Foundation, a nonprofit military services organization.
In 2012, Krzyzewski received the U.S. Basketball Writers Association's Wayman Tisdale Humanitarian Award honoring his civic service and charitable efforts in making a significant positive impact on society.
Head coaching record
College
Coaching tree
Assistant coaches under Krzyzewski who became NCAA or NBA head coaches
Pete Gaudet – Army (1980–82)
Chuck Swenson – William & Mary (1987–1994)
Bob Bender – Illinois State (1989–1993), Washington (1993–2002)
Mike Brey – Delaware (1995–2000), Notre Dame (2000–2023)
Tommy Amaker – Seton Hall (1997–2001), Michigan (2001–2007), Harvard (2007–present)
Tim O'Toole – Fairfield (1998–2006)
Quin Snyder – Missouri (1999–2006), Austin Toros (2007–2010), Utah Jazz (2014–2022), Atlanta Hawks (2023–present)
David Henderson – Delaware (2000–2006)
Jeff Capel – VCU (2002–2006), Oklahoma (2006–2011), Pittsburgh (2018–present)
Johnny Dawkins – Stanford (2008–2016), UCF (2016–present)
Chris Collins – Northwestern (2013–present)
Bobby Hurley – Buffalo (2013–2015), Arizona State (2015–present)
Steve Wojciechowski – Marquette (2014–2021)
Nate James – Austin Peay (2021–2023)
Jon Scheyer – Duke (2022–present)
See also
FIBA Basketball World Cup winning head coaches
List of college men's basketball coaches with 600 wins
List of FIBA AmeriCup winning head coaches
List of NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament Final Four appearances by coach
NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament consecutive appearances
Poles in Chicago
Notes
References
External links
Duke profile
1947 births
Living people
American men's basketball coaches
American men's basketball players
Olympic coaches for the United States
American people of Polish descent
American Roman Catholics
Army Black Knights men's basketball coaches
Army Black Knights men's basketball players
Basketball coaches from Illinois
Basketball players from Chicago
College men's basketball head coaches in the United States
Duke Blue Devils men's basketball coaches
Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball coaches
Military personnel from Illinois
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductees
Point guards
Shooting guards
United States Army officers
United States men's national basketball team coaches |
421047 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meridiani%20Planum | Meridiani Planum | The Meridiani Planum (alternately Meridiani plain, Meridiani plains, Terra Meridiani, or Terra Meridiani plains) is either a large plain straddling the equator of Mars and covered with a vast number of spherules containing a lot of iron oxide or a region centered on this plain that includes some adjoining land. The plain sits on top of an enormous body of sediments that contains a lot of bound water. The iron oxide in the spherules is crystalline (grey) hematite (Fe203).
The Meridiani Planum is one of the most thoroughly investigated regions of Mars. Many studies were carried out by the scientists involved with NASA's Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity. Two outstanding features found by these investigations are the actions of water flow and aqueous chemistry in this plain's geological history and, particularly specific to the plain, an abundance and ubiquity of small spherules composed mainly of grey-hematite that sit loosely on top of the plain's soils and underneath embedded inside its sediments. The loose surface spherules were eroded out of the sediments. They are informally called "blueberries". The plain's sediments have extremely high sulfur content (as sulfates) and high phosphate levels.
The boundaries of the Meridiani Planum are not firmly fixed and accepted by the community of Mars planetary scientists. However, the boundaries of the hematite-bearing plain were operationally defined in the late 1990s and early 2000s by the extent of the orbital detection of the plain's surface hematite by the thermal emission spectrometer (TES) on the satellite Mars Global Surveyor. The various names for this region (i.e., Terra Meridiani, Meridiani Planum) started to be used in the published literature in 2002/2003/2004. Each name reflects the coincidental (somewhat arbitrary) fact that the plain straddles the prime meridian for the system of longitude lines introduced for east/west Mars mapping.
The area covered by the detected surface hematite is around 150,000 km2, i.e., larger than Lake Superior (82,000 km2) in North America. Except for transport by large meteor impact, loose surface spherules tend to remain within a few meters of their starting embedded location. The surface hematite spherules and sediments are coextensive in surface area. So, the area extent of the underlying sediments is at least as large as the area of detected surface hematite spherules but likely somewhat larger since, for example, a significant area of surface hematite was covered by ejecta from the Bopolu Crater impact. The typical depth of the underlying sediments is several hundred meters.
The Meridiani plain's sediments overlay older geological formations that appear around the sediments' boundary. The plain's sediments and surface hematite spherules were formed in three geological epochs and by three different sets of geological processes (more below).
The MER Opportunity rover investigated the rim of Endeavour Crater from August 2011 until the rover's demise in 2018. The plain's sediments do not cover this crater rim and are geologically younger than this rim. As such, the rim of Endeavour Crater is distinct from the plain, although it is surrounded by the plain and its sediments.
19th Century Maps
The Meridiani Planum was first observed as part of a larger region that appeared as a distinct dark (low albedo) spot in small telescope images of Mars. Around 1830 the earliest Mars map-makers, Johann Heinrich von Mädler and Wilhelm Beer,
chose to place the prime meridian for maps of Mars through this dark spot. In the late 1870s, Camille Flammarion called this dark region Sinus Meridiani ("Meridian Bay"). The Meridiani Planum covers the western part of the Sinus Meridiani.
Viking 1 & Viking 2: Smooth Terrain, Sediments, Water
The Viking 1 and Viking 2 missions successfully landed the first landers on Mars at locations far away from the Meridiani Planum. However, both missions also included satellites (operating between 1976 and 1982) that took many images of the surface of Mars from orbit. Viking 1 and Viking 2 satellite images of what is today called the Meridiani Planum (and its adjacent regions) were studied in three works in the 1980s
and again in two 1997 papers
published in the months between the launch of the Mars Global Surveyor mission and its arrival at Mars. Edgett and Parker noted the smooth terrain of what we now call the Meridiani Planum and realized early that the plain was likely made of sediments and probably had a wet, watery past.
Strategy Impacting the Exploration of Meridiani Planum: Search for Water & Life
In the 1990s, NASA officials, especially Daniel S. Goldin, wanted to delineate a framework for "faster, better, cheaper" exploration of Mars. In this context, the "Water Strategy" was outlined in 1995/1996. The "Water Strategy" was "to explore and study Mars in three areas: - Evidence of past or present life, - Climate (weather, processes, and history), - Resources (environment and utilization)." All three areas were seen as intimately connected to water.
High priority goals for NASA in the mid-1990s were to gather some evidence for surface water using satellite surveys and to land robotic rovers on the surface to collect detailed local evidence of water and signs of life.
Global Satellite Surveys: Surface Hematite & Water
Two NASA missions arrived at Mars in mid-1997: Mars Pathfinder and Mars Global Surveyor. Mars Pathfinder made the first successful Mars landing in over twenty years and the first-ever deployment of a Mars rover, the small, short-lived Sojourner. Mars Global Surveyor surveyed most of the surface of Mars to map its surface topography, some mineral distributions, and make some other measurements.
Hematite, Water, Plain, Life Potential: A Place to Land a Rover
An important survey carried out between 1997 and 2002 by the Mars Global Surveyor collected surface hematite levels with the satellite's thermal emissions spectrometer (TES). The TES hematite survey data was turned into the low-resolution map shown in Figure 1a. This map, covering all of Mars, has just one large spot covering a region with high hematite levels. This green, yellow, and red spot straddles the equator and the prime meridian in the middle of Figure 1a. A higher resolution image of the high-hematite region is shown in Figure 1b.
In early the 2000s, the hematite map of Figure 1b and the confirmation (from the topography mapping done by the Mars Global Surveyor) that this area is a flat plain and relatively easy to land on were the decisive pieces of evidence for choosing the Meridiani Planum as one of the landing sites for NASA's two bigger
Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs), named Opportunity and Spirit.
The decisiveness for NASA of the hematite map of Figure 1b for choosing the landing site for Opportunity
was due to the fact that NASA was using high hematite levels as proxy evidence for large amounts of liquid water flowing in the region in the past (hematite only forms in the presence of liquid water in geological settings). In 2003, this high-hematite region was a high-priority place to start to search for signs of life on Mars.
Present Day Water at Meridiani Planum (satellite evidence)
Since 2001, evidence for water at the present-day Meridiani Planum was collected by the High Energy Neutron Detector (HEND) mounted on the Mars Odyssey orbiter. This neutron detector collects signals of "water-equivalent hydrogen" (WEH) over the entire planet. It gradually built up global maps of surface WEH. These maps show that polar and near-polar regions of Mars have the highest levels of surface WEH; although, the Meridiani Planum has relatively high WEH for a non-polar region. The WEH maps are likely to underestimate the present-day water resources at Meridiani Planum since (a) the HEND has a shallow (1 m) penetration depth, (b) the majority of the plain's surface is covered in dehydrated soils, and hematite spherules.
Starting Missions: Opportunity rover and other landers
Starting with Daniel S. Goldin's strategies and NASA's engineering attention to detail, Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity successfully made the "hole-in-one" landing into Eagle Crater at Meridiani Planum on January 24th (PST), 2004. NASA named this landing site the Challenger Memorial Station to honor the final crew of the Space Shuttle Challenger, who died in 1986 when that shuttle broke up in flight.
The Meridiani Planum was also the target landing site for two other missions: Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander and Schiaparelli EDM. However, these other two lander missions were not successful. The Mars Surveyor 2001 Lander was canceled after the failures of the Mars Climate Orbiter and Mars Polar Lander missions, while the Schiaparelli EDM (Entry, Descent, and Landing Demonstrator Module) system lost control during the descent stage and terminally crash-landed on October 19th, 2016. (Schiaparelli EDM was part of the ExoMars program of the European Space Agency.)
==Opportunity'''s Traverse==
Opportunity traveled 28.06 miles (45.16 kilometers) across the Meridiani Planum and around the rim of Endeavour Crater between January 2004 and June 2018. Figure 2 highlights the rover's traverse route (yellow line). The route's position within the Meridiani Planum is shown by the blue line traverse route labeled "OT" in Figure 1b. The journey started on January 25th, 2004, with the landing in Eagle Crater. The rover crossed the plain's sediments and soils and studied many small and medium-sized craters until August 2011, when it reached the rim of the enormous Endeavour Crater. Between August 2011 and June 10th, 2018, it studied the rim of Endeavour (which has different geological features from the plain). The rover's last communication with NASA was on June 10th, 2018. The Opportunity mission was declared ended on February 13th, 2019.
==Opportunitys human-like (Pancam) view of Meridiani Planum==
The Opportunity rover had five cameras. One, the Pancam (panoramic cam), was mounted at the height of 1.5 m, i.e., a height similar to the eye height of most people. The Pancam was used to take scientific data, and it also took images that were approximate true color (ATC) photographs of the rover's surroundings;Bell III, J. F., et al., 2003, "The Mars Exploration Rover Athena Panoramic Camera (Pancam) Investigation," J. Geophys. Res.:Planets, 108 (E12). https://doi.org/10.1029/2003JE002070. that is, the Pancam photographed images close to what people would see if stood in the rover's place. The following pictures, Figure 3 through Figure 10, provide a selection of images that cover the common and outstanding features a person would see standing at locations along Opportunity's traverse of the Meridiani Planum. Click on any image to view at higher resolution.
The Wide View: A Flat Plain with Smooth or Ripple Soils
Inside Craters: Layered Sediments, Burns Cliff
Iron on the ground: Spherules (Blueberries), Meteorites
Crater Rim Overview (large and small)
The dominant visual impressions at eye level are that:
Meridiani is a very flat plain.
The plain is primarily covered in dark soils but with patches of lighter sediment outcrop.
Vast numbers of small bluish-grey hematite spherules (mostly 1 mm - 6 mm in diameter) sit loosely on the soils and sediment outcrop (many more spherules are on soils than outcrop).
At most locations, you are close to a visible small crater (5 to 30-meter diameters) - the visible small crater density is 65 to 127 craters per km2 (about 1 per hectare or about 1 per 2.5 acres). (There are plenty of tiny craters with diameters below 5 m.)
At larger craters (like Endurance and Victoria Craters), the crater walls expose large (stratigraphic) sections of Meridiani sediments in which many sediment layers and partly embedded hematite spherules are visible.
Scattered across the plain are (usually smallish) ejecta blocks of sediment from crater-forming meteorite impacts.
The tall rims of enormous craters (like Endeavour and Bopolu Craters) are visible from great distances.
Large meteorites sitting on soils and top sediment outcrops are somewhat rare but outstanding features.
The soils come in fields with two main bedform types (i) smooth sheets (these are remarkably flat, and almost no sediment outcrop is visible in smooth sheet fields) and (ii) plains ripples (these are slopped and usually 10 to 40 cm tall and 1.5 to 5 m wide) that are often interspersed with top sediment outcrop.
There are many sinuous, 1 cm tall "crest" ripples running on top of smooth sheet fields. These crest ripples are made up of sub-millimeter fragments of hematite spherules.
Composition of the Major Materials found at Meridiani Planum
This section covers the composition of the major materials found at the Meridiani plain (i.e., sediments, spherules, soils, and dust). The discoveries and compositions of meteorites and long-distance ejecta are given in the next section.
A later section covers the geological materials found by Opportunity after August 2011, i.e., around the rim of Endeavour Crater.
Sediments
The layered sedimentary outcrop rocks exposed in Eagle, Fram, and Endurance caters were examined by the suite of instruments on Opportunity.Klingelhofer, G. et al. 2004. "Jarosite and Hematite at Meridiani Planum from Opportunity's Mossbauer Spectrometer". Science: 306. 1740-1745. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1104653Bell, J., et al. 2004. "Pancam Multispectral Imaging Results from the Opportunity Rover at Meridiani Planum". Science: 306.1703-1708. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1105245 Mature data analysis found the following (broad category) mineral composition of the sediments (excluding embedded spherules): 36-37 wt% hydrated sulfates, 35 wt% hydrated aluminosilicates, 16 wt% basaltic rock, 10 wt% hematite and other oxides, 2 wt% chlorides, and 1-2 wt% phosphates. An outstanding feature of this composition is the extreme levels of the sulfates. These are about 5 times higher than the overlying Meridiani soils, about 20 times higher than in the basalts in Gusev Crater (investigated Spirit, the sibling MER), and even more extreme relative to typical Earth rocks. The principle sulfates are hydrated magnesium sulfates (e.g., kieserite & epsomite), hydrated calcium sulfates (e.g., bassanite & gypsum), and jarosite (a complicated hydrated sulfate containing iron and probably potassium or sodium); the chloride salts include halite and bischofite. Detecting jarosite was a surprise, and its presence significantly constrains the possible geochemical pathways leading to the formation of Meridiani sediments.Water Content?
An outstanding unknown is the amount of residual water in the layered sediments today. Answers from direct measurement by the rover Opportunity were not possible because the rover's instruments could not detect water or hydrogen. However, in 2005, Clark et al. gave a range of 6 wt% to 22 wt% based on an indirect geochemical argument. Further, the actual water content should be higher than the water equivalent hydrogen (WEH) measurements made by the neutron detector orbiting on Mars Odyssey (due to the shallow (1m) penetration depth of the neutron detector and the layer of water-poor top soil covering most areas of Meridiani). In 2005 the measured WEH level at Meridiani was 7 wt%, but continued neutron detection produced a 2018 WEH map indicating 9-10 wt% WEH across Meridiani.
There is a small field of scientific study concentrating on how hydration levels of hydrated magnesium and calcium sulfates vary with temperature at Martain atmosphere pressures.Peterson, R. C., Nelson, W., Madu, B., and Shurvell, H. G. (2007). "Meridianiite: A new mineral
species observed on Earth and predicted to exist on Mars." Am. Minerol., 92(10).
https://doi.org/10.2138/am.2007.2668 Grevel, K. D., Majzlan, J., Benisek, A., Dachs, E., Steiger, M., Fortes, A. D., and Marler, B. (2012).
"Experimentally Determined Standard Thermodynamic Properties of Synthetic MgSO 4.4H2O
(Starkeyite) and MgSO4.3H2O: A Revised Internally Consistent Thermodynamic Data Set for
Magnesium Sulfate Hydrates." Astrobiology, 12(11), 1042–1053. https://doi.org/10.1089/ast.2012.0823 At Martian pressures, these studies readily extracted water from magnesium sulfates with various levels of hydration using applied temperatures between 50 oC and 200 oC. They also observed a hyper-hydrated magnesium sulfate on Earth that they called meridianiite (after Meridiani Planum), with the formula MgSO4.11H2O, which decomposes to epsomite, MgSO4.7H2O, and water at 2 oC.
Opportunity's Alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS) found rather high levels of phosphorus in the rocks. Since the solubility of phosphorus is related to the solubility of uranium, thorium, and rare-earth elements, it was suggested these other metals are also enriched in Meridiani outcrop sediments.
Spherules
Early Spherule Results
Early on, Opportunity's Mössbauer spectrometer took data that determined that the iron mineral component of these spherules is dominated by hematite.Morris, R. V., et al. (2006). "Mössbauer mineralogy of rock, soil, and dust at Meridiani Planum, Mars: Opportunity's
journey across sulfate-rich outcrop, basaltic sand and dust, and hematite lag deposits." J. GeoPhys. Res. Planets, 111, E12S15. https://doi.org/10.1029/2006JE002791. However, the Mössbauer spectrometer provided no information about the mineral components of these spherules that do not contain iron.
The "berry bowl" experiment took alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS) readings of two sampling targets just centimeters apart: One had no (zero or one) spherules in the spectrometer's field of view (FOV), while the other had around 25 spherules in the FOV. Figure 11 shows the adjacent "berry bowl" sampling targets. The APXS results indicated there was noticeably more iron in the target with ~25 spherules relative to the target with 0 or 1 spherules. Based on this and similar experiments, several unreviewed conference abstracts claimed (deliberately not cited here)
that hematite dominated the composition of the spherules and some published papers cited these conference claims. However, there were reasons to be cautious. The instruments detected mixed signals from sampling targets that included signals not only from the spherules but also from dust and rock (in the "berry bowl" experiment) or dust and soils (in other composition data collections). In 2006, Morris et al. showed that the methods used by some researchers to pick out the spherule composition signal from the dust and soil signals were flawed and that such methods could do no more than constrain the iron oxide content of the spherules to between 24 wt% and 100 wt% (that is, almost no constraint at all).
Later Spherule Results
A 2008 paper published the result of a clever experiment that showed Opportunity's mini-TES (thermal emission spectrometer) could not detect any silicate minerals in the spherules. This non-detection constrained silicate levels in spherules to less than 10 wt% and probably below 8 wt%. This result is helpful since the APXS data shows a strong anti-correlation between silicates and iron oxide in the spherules -
so low silicate levels indicate high iron oxide levels.
A recent paper used the mini-TES's non-detection of silicates and some improved data analysis methods to find over 340,000 allowable standard oxide chemical compositions for the spherules (allowable = consistent with the silicate non-detection). The lowest and highest weight percentages for the iron oxide content in these allowable spherule compositions were, respectively, 79.5 wt% and 99.8 wt%. While, for the large majority of the allowable compositions, the iron oxide contents in the spherules were between 85 wt% and 96 wt%; further, the nickel content was always close to 0.3 wt%, a group of five standard oxides (MgO, Na2O, P2O5, SO3, and Cl) each had content above trace-level with a combined group content of 6.8 +/- 2.4 wt%, the SiO2 levels ranged between 8 wt% and 0 wt%, and the other eight APXS standard oxides had either 0 wt% content or only trace level content.
Soils
The underlying soils at Meridiani Planum are similar to those at Gusev Crater, Ares Vallis, and Gale Crater; although, the levels of sulfates in Meridiani soils are noticeably higher than other locations. At Meridiani Planum, the soils are armored with a thin top layer of hematite spherules with their distinct composition (not found at Gusev Crater, Ares Vallis, and Gale Crater). This layering of spherules (and spherule fragments) on top, with basaltic soils below, is shown in Figure 12.
Most of the underlying soil consists of basaltic material but mixed with varying amounts of dust and sulfate-rich ejecta debris from the sediments. A typical mineral composition for basaltic Meridiani soils is 40 wt% plagioclase, 35 wt% pyroxenes, 15 wt% amorphous glasses, 10 wt% olivine, and around 5 wt% sulfates and oxides. Standard oxide compositions for typical basaltic soils are 44-46 wt% SiO2, 18-19 wt% FeO + Fe2O3, 9-10 wt% Al2O3, 7.4 wt% MgO, 6.9 wt% CaO2, 5.8 wt% SO3, 2.2 wt% Na2O, ~5 wt% other oxides (total).Olsen, R. M., 2022, "Searching Mass-Balance Analysis to Find the Composition of
Martian Blueberries," Minerals, 12, 777. https://doi.org/10.3390/min12060777
Dust
Dust covers everything all over Mars and the composition of this dust is essentially uniform everywhere, due to the many dust storms over Mars, including global dust storms every few years.
Opportunity's APXS measurement of a commonly referenced dust-covered sampling target, MontBlanc_LeHauches, gives a dust composition that is largely basaltic in character with the following weight perecentages for the standard oxides: 45.3 wt% SiO2, 17.6 wt% Fe0, 9.2 wt% Al2O3, 7.6 wt% MgO, 7.3 wt% SO3, 6.6 wt% CaO, 2.2 wt% Na20, 1.0 TiO2, 0.9 wt% P2O5, and a total of 2.0 wt% for the other seven standard oxides.
A Mössbauer spectrum was made of the dust that gathered on Opportunitys capture magnet. The results suggested that the magnetic component of the dust was titanomagnetite, rather than just plain magnetite, as was once thought. A small amount of olivine was detected which was interpreted as indicating a long arid period on the planet. On the other hand, a small amount of hematite that was present meant that there may have been liquid water for a short time in the early history of the planet.
Discoveries of Meteorites & Long Distance Ejecta
Meteorites
Opportunity found six large iron-nickel meteorites just sitting on the plains (Heat Shield Rock (shown in Figure 8), Block Island, Shelter Island, Mackinac Island, Oileán Ruaidh, and Ireland),
although these six may originate from fewer impacts (i.e., an original meteor broke into pieces).
Examination with the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES), Mossbauer spectrometer, and APXS led researchers to classify Heat Shield Rock as an IAB meteorite with close to 93 wt% iron content and 7 wt% nickel content (mostly in metallic form). Heat Shield Rock (see Figure 8) was the first meteorite recognized on another planet.
(The other MER, Spirit, found two rocks in Gusev Crater, "Allan Hills" and "Zhong Shan," that may be iron meteorites.)
The top layers of the plain's soils contain a noticeable content (~1 wt%) of small-particle, iron-nickel meteoritic material
- many iron-nickel meteorites disintegrate during descent and impact, and these pieces were too small for the Pancam to identify.
Stony meteorites are more challenging to identify than iron-nickel meteorites. However, the cobble named "Fig Tree Barberton" and three others in the "Barberton group" are thought to be stony or stony-iron meteorites (mesosiderite silicate),.
Opportunity studied nine cobbles in the "Arkansas Group" that were breccias displaying evidence of material melting from heat generated by meteorite impacts.
Long Distance Ejecta
The rover found two odd boulders with mineralogies significantly different from the plain's common sediment rocks.
One rock, "Bounce Rock," contains mainly pyroxene and plagioclase but no olivine. It closely resembled a part, Lithology B, of the shergottite meteorite EETA 79001, a meteorite on Earth known to have come from Mars. Bounce rock received its name by being bounced on by the airbags of Opportunity'''s lander.Squyres et al., 2006, "Overview of the Opportunity Mars Exploration Rover Mission to Meridiani Planum - Eagle Crater to Purgatory Ripple," J. Geophys. Res., 111, E12S12, https://doi.org/10.1029/2006JE002771, The other rock, "Marquette Island," is believed to have originated deep inside the crust of Mars. Both "Bounce Rock" and "Marquette Island" are considered to be ejecta from large crater impacts occurring off the plain at large distances from where these rocks were found by the rover.
Geological history
The history of geological change at Meridiani Planum fits into three epochs with distinct processes. These three eras of change at Meridiani align reasonably well with the three standard epochs for the whole planet, i.e., the Noachian, Hesperian, and Amazonian epochs.
Noachian River Flows
Prior to the formation of Meridiani's defining sediments, in the wet Noachian (named for the biblical Noah) more than about ~3.7 billion years ago, liquid water was present and plentiful enough to form river channels that bought and deposited large quantities of basaltic silt to the current Meridiani region. Edgett and Parker could barely discern some of these river valleys in the Viking orbiter images from the 1970s. However, they are easy to see in thermal inertia images taken in orbit by Mars Odyssey and reproduced in Figure 13 (click on it for higher resolution). These river channels took water from the higher ground in the southeast (lower right of Figure 13) toward the northwest and down to the present-day Meridiani Planum. The river valleys seen in Figure 13 terminate abruptly as they flow into the Meridiani's massive formation of sediments.
Current evidence points to the sloping ground (necessary for the river flows) being created by a giant tilt in the surface of Terra Meridiani Mars caused by the emergence of the enormous Tharsis Plateau and the vast volcanoes of Tharsis several thousand kilometers away.Banerdt, W.B., and Golombek, M.P., "Tectonics of the Tharsis region of Mars: Insights from MGS topography and
gravity," Lunar and Planetary Science Conference XXXI, Houston, Texas, Lunar and Planetary Institute, 2000, 2038.pdf
Formation of Today's Sediments & Embedded Spherules
From around the late-Noachian/early-Hesperian to sometime around 3.5 billion years ago, the layered sediments deposited in the earlier Noachian epoch were transformed. This transformation probably included a significant additional deposition of high-sulfur-content material of volcanic origin. The change certainly included aqueous geochemistry that was acidic and salty, as well as rising & falling water levels: Features providing evidence include cross-bedded sediments, the presence of vugs (cavities), and embedded hematite spherules that cut across sediment layers, additionally the presence of large amounts of magnesium sulfate and other sulfate-rich minerals such as jarosite and chlorides. Jarosite formation requires aqueous acidic conditions below pH 3.
Figures 14 and 15 show Microscopic Imager close-up images of the sediment rock matrix that appeared (cropped) in a prestigious paper. Figure 14 illustrates the four physical constituents of sediment outcrop: (i) the sedimentary layers containing a lot of basaltic sand particles; (ii) the embedded hematite spherules; (iii) fine-grained, sulfate-rich cement (in most parts of the outcrop); (iv) vug cavities (that are thought to be molds for crystals of, for example, hydrated sulfates). Figure 15 images a similar sediment outcrop surface to Figure 14. However, Opportunity's Rock Abrasion Tool abraded this surface. Such abrasions showed that (a) the sediment layers are very soft and easy to cut, and (b) the hematite spherules have uniform internal structures.
The "diagenetic" transformation (i.e., change by water-rock interactions) to today's sediments involved a significant shift in water flows in the region. The inflows from rivers became less and less, and in this period, the dominant water movements in the sediments became vertical movements with rising and falling aquifer levels.
At least one model of global Martian hydrology accounts for the historical shift in water flows at Meridiani Planum. This model links Meridiani's change in water flows to activity in the volcanic Tharsis region. With the vertical aquifer flows, it is believed that (playa) lakes repeatedly formed and disappeared as the aquifer levels rose and fell. (The dry area around Utah's Great Salt Lake is a playa.) The Opportunity team found minerals ("evaporites") that typically form when salty water evaporates; these evaporites cemented together other components of the sediment (such as basaltic particles and the spherules).
McLennan and his students constructed a geochemical model that generates hematite within a context like the Meridiani sediment.Hurowitz, J. A., Fischer, W. W., Tosca, N. J., and Milliken, R. E., 2010, "Origin of acidic surface waters and the evolution
of atmospheric chemistry on early Mars," Nature Geoscience, 3, 323–326.
https://doi.org/10.1038/NGEo831 The hematite formed into spherules by concretion. The concretion process to form near spherical balls (spherules) of hematite probably occurred by diffusion of the hematite through the sedimentary rock matrix (the hematite still in the rock matrix probably fixed in place when moveable water disappeared).
The results of these transformations are still largely intact today. The main subsequent changes just affected the top layers of the Meridiani sediments (more below).
Crater Degradation, Formation of Soils & Loose Spherules
The period of rising and falling aquifer levels ceased, and no water flowed on Meridiani Planum thereafter. Although, when this happened is poorly understood. Estimates include around 3.5 billion years ago and about 3 billion years ago. The only water left at the plain was and is bound in rocks.
Erosion with water flows in earlier eras was much faster than in this last (and present) arid epoch.
However, erosion did not stop. Other much slower erosional processes continued and became the primary agents of change to the plain. This slower change was and is driven by meteorite impacts, the wind, and gravity. Over the hard-to-grasp eon of around three billion years, meteorite impacts and the wind formed the sandy top soils and loose hematite spherules and sorted these into the layered soil bedforms that Opportunity's Pancam photographed, and we can now see.Sullivan, R., Anderson, R., Biesiadecki, J., Bond, T., and Stewart, H., 2011, "Cohesions, friction
angles, and other physical properties of Martian regolith from Mars Exploration Rover wheel
trenches and wheel scuffs." J. Geophys. Res.: Planets, 116, E02006.
https://doi.org//10.1029/2010JE003625.
The meteorite, gravity, and wind-driven processes work like this:
Over billions of years, meteorite impacts created many craters on the plain.
There were enough small (5 to 30 m diameter) craters created in the eon of around three billion years to cover, on average, the whole plain once. Although, each small crater degraded and disappeared in about 25 million years or less, and only about 0.7% of the plain's area is presently covered in small craters.
Each meteorite impact produces large numbers of blocks of sediment material in the crater rim and as ejecta around the crater: See, for example, Concepcion Crater in Figure 10 and the tiny Granada Crater (on the right side) of Figure 9.
Most of the initial sediment blocks project above the surrounding material (by a few centimeters or more) and are exposed to saltating sand (i.e., wind-driven, bouncing sand).
The saltating sand erodes the soft, easy-to-erode parts of the sediment matrix in the projecting blocks.
These blocks are either completely eroded or erode until they become smooth and no longer project into saltating sand.
This block erosion creates dust particles and turns embedded spherules into loose spherules (more below).
The dust particles are blown off the plain and become part of the global dust.
The sulfates preferentially turn into dust and are transported off the plain by the wind.
The larger basalt sand particles, spherules fragments, and hematite spherules remain in place on the plain.
Wind, gravity, and size-sorting created the soil bedforms from the basaltic sands, spherule fragments, and spherules.
With the aid of gravity and wind, the original (small) crater holes are gradually filled in (with material from eroded rim blocks and other local erosion material), and the plain is returned to a flat state.
Phil Christensen outlined these processes in 2004, soon after Opportunity landed. Later, more in-depth research (with more years of data from Opportunity) confirmed the above processes and added details.Olsen, R., M., 2021, "Iron Oxide Harvesting on Mars," In AIAA ASCEND 2021, Las Vegas, Nevada & Virtual.
https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2021-4037 Christensen's rapid assessment of the erosional processes was probably connected to his correct 2000 prediction that the plain's surface material is soft and easy-to-erode (friable). And that prediction was made after orbiter data showed that Meridiani Planum is very smooth and that small craters degrade and disappear more rapidly than in adjoining regions.
Opportunity found that Meridiani sediments are soft and friable. More satellite and rover data showed that erosion rates on the Meridiani Planum are both very slow (relative to water-related erosion on Earth and early Mars) but also extremely fast (about 30 to 300 times faster) when compared to other arid regions of Mars (such as Gusev Crater).
Figure 17 shows hematite spherules as they turned from being embedded spherules into loose spherules. In Figure 17, right around seven blocks of eroding sediment ejecta (from the tiny Granada Crater) are rings surrounding these blocks where these rings are formed by locally high surface concentrations of loose spherules and caused by additional loose spherules eroding out of the blocks of sediment. Figure 17 is cropped from Figure 7, which was, in turn, cropped from Figure 9. Click and enlarge Figure 17 to see the high-density rings of spherules.
Size & Surface Density of Hematite Spherules (Blueberries)
Spherule Size
The size of the hematite spherules varied by location along Opportunity's traverse of Meridiani Planum. The figures below illustrate this variation. Figures 18, 19, and 20 show loose surface spherules at Eagle Crater (the rover's landing site in January 2004), 500m northwest of Victoria Carter (August 2007), and 200m outside the rim of Endeavour crater (late July 2011). The straight-line distance between the sampling targets shown in Figures 18 and 20 is about 23 km (the rover's route between the two targets was 33 km). Figure 20 features one of the largest spherules photographed on the plain by Opportunity's Microscopic Imager; it is 8.3 mm in diameter.
Figure 21 shows spherule fragments (or very small spherules) in a "crest ripple". These were right next to much larger spherules lying on top of smooth sandy soils and within a few meters of the trench shown in Figure 12. The top section of Figure 12 shows two crest ripples and the much larger spherules spread out between the crest ripples on top of the soils. The wide view Figure 3 also shows crest ripples as the sinuous wind-formed lines on top of the smooth sandy soil bedforms.
Numbers of Hematite Spherules & Loose Spherule Surface Density
There are no peer-reviewed published estimates of the number of loose hematite spherules on Meridiani's soils or embedded hematite spherules in the plain's sediments. However, the reader can sense how mind-boggling big those numbers are with a photograph of an area of soil with a typical surface density of the hematite spheres. Such a photograph has been published.
Figures 22 and 23 are true-color and false-color versions of the photo. The spherules are easier to see in the published false-color version (Figure 23). Click on it to enlarge it. The sampling target of Figures 22 & 23 had 29% coarse hematite coverage. The range of coverage among similar targets was 10% to 40%. These targets were sampled over a wide area, between Sol 70 (2004-04-04) and Sol 999 (2007-11-15).
The parts of the plain Opportunity studied are not special: Compared to the rest of Meridiani Planum, they do not have high surface hematite levels. To see this, look at the plain's surface hematite map (Figure 1b) and the small blue line (labeled OT ) indicating the route of Opportunity's Traverse of the plain.
The mind-bogglingness of the number of loose hematite spherules hits when Figures 22 & 23 are extrapolated to the plain's whole surface area (about 150,000 km2): 150,000 km2 is close to 2/3's the area of the main island of Japan (Honshu) and also 72% the area of the main island of the UK (Great Britain), it is also bigger than the land areas of 30 of the 50 states of the USA.
The number of embedded spherules (in the plain's sediments) is probably much higher than the number of loose spherules (on soils). Since (1) the estimates of the erosion depth of original sediment needed to produce the loose spherules are less than 1 meter, while (2) the typical depths of the plain's sediments are several hundred meters.
Summary of Evidence of Water
Many lines of evidence indicate water either at Meridiani Planum today or in the distant past.
Before giving a short summary of the major lines of evidence already provided above, a few more are introduced.
Some rocks showed small layers (laminations) with shapes only made by gently flowing water. The first such laminations were found in a rock called "The Dells." Geologists would say that the cross-stratification showed festoon geometry from transport in subaqueous ripples. Figure 24 illustrates cross-stratification, also called cross-bedding.
The concentration of the element bromine in rocks was highly variable. This may be evidence of water. Bromine is very soluble and may have moved with water flows. Thin-film water frost deposition may have concentrated bromine in certain spots.
In mid-2004, thermal inertia signals (collected by the Mars Global Surveyors TES) for "light-toned outcrop" (that is, outcrops of the plain's sediments) were found all over Meridiani Planum and also over extensive adjacent regions to the west, north, and east of the plain. Noting early results from Opportunity that the outcrop showed evidence of "long-term water interaction locally at the landing site", ref suggested the entire region with light-toned outcrop displayed evidence of past water.
Major Lines of Evidence for Water:
The orbiting satellite evidence includes (A) the TES spectra for surface hematite (mapped in Figure 1b) since hematite only forms in watery conditions, and (B) the orbiting neutron detector's finding of fairly high levels of WEH over the plain and the adjacent regions (to the west, north, and east).
The deposition of sediments and the visible dried-up river valleys flowing into the plain's sediments are both strong evidence of ancient water flows in the Meridiani region.
The stratigraphic details of plain's sediments provide several lines of evidence for water, including cross-bedded sediments, the presence of vugs (cavities), and embedded hematite spherules that cut across sediment layers.
The geochemical details of plain's sediments provide more lines of evidence for water, including the presence of large amounts of magnesium sulfate and other sulfate-rich minerals such as jarosite as well as chlorides.
Endeavour Crater
At Endeavour Crater, Opportunity investigated the Homestake Vein, the Matijevic formation containing smectites, the Shoemaker formation composed of breccia at the crater rim, the Grasberg formation composed of clastics, and much else.
Homestake Vein:
In December 2011, Opportunity had driven onto the rim of Endeavour Crater and found a white vein identified as being pure gypsum.
Tests confirmed that it contained calcium, sulfur, and water.
It was formed when water carrying gypsum in solution deposited the mineral in a crack in the rock.
The vein is called "Homestake." It is in a zone where the sulfate-rich sedimentary bedrock of the plains meets older, volcanic bedrock exposed at the rim of Endeavour.
North of Meridiani Planum
A broad region north of the Meridiani plain displays layered features from orbit.
A detailed discussion of layering with many Martian examples can be found in Sedimentary Geology of Mars.
Craters on Meridiani Planum
Ada Crater
Airy Crater – 40 kilometre (km) in diameter and about 375 km west-southwest of Opportunity
Airy-0 – Lies within the Airy crater, and defines the Martian Prime Meridian
Argo Crater – Visited by Opportunity
Beagle Crater – Visited by Opportunity
Beer Crater
Bopolu Crater
Concepcion Crater - Visited by Opportunity
Crommelin Crater
Eagle Crater – Landing site of Opportunity (diameter 30 meters)
Emma Dean Crater – Visited by Opportunity
Endeavour Crater – Visited by Opportunity
Endurance Crater – Visited by Opportunity
Erebus Crater – Visited by Opportunity
Firsoff Crater - Candidate landing site for 2020 rover mission
Iazu Crater
Mädler Crater
Santa Maria Crater - Visited by Opportunity
Victoria Crater – Visited by Opportunity (diameter 750 meters)
Vostok Crater – Visited by Opportunity
See also
Geography of Mars
List of plains on Mars
References
External links
NASA's Opportunity Rover Team present a 3.52 min overview video of the rover's mission on the Meridiani Planum
Google Mars zoomable map – centered on Meridiani Planum
The sedimentary rocks of Sinus Meridiani: Five key observations from data acquired by the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey orbiters
ESA - Meridiani Planum
High resolution video by Seán Doran of overflight of layered area of Meridiani Planum
Albedo features on Mars
Plains on Mars
Arabia quadrangle
Mars Exploration Rover mission |
421049 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit%20%28rover%29 | Spirit (rover) | Spirit, also known as MER-A (Mars Exploration Rover – A) or MER-2, is a Mars robotic rover, active from 2004 to 2010. Spirit was operational on Mars for sols or 3.3 Martian years ( days; ). It was one of two rovers of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover Mission managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). Spirit landed successfully within the impact crater Gusev on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity (MER-B), which landed on the other side of the planet. Its name was chosen through a NASA-sponsored student essay competition. The rover got stuck in a "sand trap" in late 2009 at an angle that hampered recharging of its batteries; its last communication with Earth was on March 22, 2010.
The rover completed its planned 90-sol mission (slightly less than 92.5 Earth days). Aided by cleaning events that resulted in more energy from its solar panels, Spirit went on to function effectively over twenty times longer than NASA planners expected. Spirit also logged of driving instead of the planned , allowing more extensive geological analysis of Martian rocks and planetary surface features. Initial scientific results from the first phase of the mission (the 90-sol prime mission) were published in a special issue of the journal Science.
On May 1, 2009 (5 years, 3 months, 27 Earth days after landing; 21 times the planned mission duration), Spirit became stuck in soft sand. This was not the first of the mission's "embedding events" and for the following eight months NASA carefully analyzed the situation, running Earth-based theoretical and practical simulations, and finally programming the rover to make extrication drives in an attempt to free itself. These efforts continued until January 26, 2010, when NASA officials announced that the rover was likely irrecoverably obstructed by its location in soft sand,
though it continued to perform scientific research from its current location.
The rover continued in a stationary science platform role until communication with Spirit stopped on March 22, 2010 (sol ). JPL continued to attempt to regain contact until May 24, 2011, when NASA announced that efforts to communicate with the unresponsive rover had ended, calling the mission complete. A formal farewell took place at NASA headquarters shortly thereafter.
Objectives
The scientific objectives of the Mars Exploration Rover mission were to:
Search for and characterize a variety of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity. In particular, samples sought include those that have minerals deposited by water-related processes such as precipitation, evaporation, sedimentary cementation, or hydrothermal activity.
Determine the distribution and composition of minerals, rocks, and soils surrounding the landing sites.
Determine what geologic processes have shaped the local terrain and influenced the chemistry. Such processes could include water or wind erosion, sedimentation, hydrothermal mechanisms, volcanism, and cratering.
Perform calibration and validation of surface observations made by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) instruments. This will help determine the accuracy and effectiveness of various instruments that survey Martian geology from orbit.
Search for iron-containing minerals, and to identify and quantify relative amounts of specific mineral types that contain water or were formed in water, such as iron-bearing carbonates.
Characterize the mineralogy and textures of rocks and soils to determine the processes that created them.
Search for geological clues to the environmental conditions that existed when liquid water was present.
Assess whether those environments were conducive to life.
Mission timeline
Opportunity and Spirit rovers were part of the Mars Exploration Rover program in the long-term Mars Exploration Program. The Mars Exploration Program's four principal goals were to determine if the potential for life exists on Mars (in particular, whether recoverable water may be found on Mars), to characterize the Mars climate and its geology, and then to prepare for a potential human mission to Mars. The Mars Exploration Rovers were to travel across the Martian surface and perform periodic geologic analyses to determine if water ever existed on Mars as well as the types of minerals available, as well as to corroborate data taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Both rovers were designed with an expected 90 sols (92 Earth days) lifetime, but each lasted much longer than expected. Spirit mission lasted 20 times longer than its expected lifetime, and its mission was declared ended on May 25, 2011, after it got stuck in soft sand and expended its power reserves trying to free itself. Opportunity lasted 55 times longer than its 90 sol planned lifetime, operating for days from landing to mission end. An archive of weekly updates on the rover's status can be found at the Opportunity Update Archive.
Launch and landing
The MER-A (Spirit) and MER-B (Opportunity) were launched on June 10, 2003 and July 7, 2003, respectively. Though both probes launched on Boeing Delta II 7925-9.5 rockets from Cape Canaveral Space Launch Complex 17 (CCAFS SLC-17), MER-B was on the heavy version of that launch vehicle, needing the extra energy for Trans-Mars injection. The launch vehicles were integrated onto pads right next to each other, with MER-A on CCAFS SLC-17A and MER-B on CCAFS SLC-17B. The dual pads allowed for working the 15- and 21-day planetary launch periods close together; the last possible launch day for MER-A was June 19, 2003 and the first day for MER-B was June 25, 2003. NASA's Launch Services Program managed the launch of both spacecraft.
Spirit successfully landed on the surface of Mars on 04:35 Spacecraft Event Time (SCET) on January 4, 2004. This was the start of its 90-sol mission, but solar cell cleaning events would mean it was the start of a much longer mission, lasting until 2010. Spirit was targeted to a site that appears to have been affected by liquid water in the past, the crater Gusev, a possible former lake in a giant impact crater about from the center of the target ellipse at . After the airbag-protected landing craft settled onto the surface, the rover rolled out to take panoramic images. These give scientists the information they need to select promising geological targets and drive to those locations to perform on-site scientific investigations. The MER team named the landing site "Columbia Memorial Station," in honor of the seven astronauts killed in the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster.
On May 1, 2009 (sol ), the rover became stuck in soft sand, the machine resting upon a cache of iron(III) sulfate (jarosite) hidden under a veneer of normal-looking soil. Iron sulfate has very little cohesion, making it difficult for the rover's wheels to gain traction.
On January 26, 2010 (sol ), after several months attempting to free the rover, NASA decided to redefine the mobile robot mission by calling it a stationary research platform. Efforts were directed in preparing a more suitable orientation of the platform in relation to the Sun in an attempt to allow a more efficient recharge of the platform's batteries. This was needed to keep some systems operational during the Martian winter. On March 30, 2010, Spirit skipped a planned communication session and as anticipated from recent power-supply projections, had probably entered a low-power hibernation mode.
The last communication with the rover was March 22, 2010 (sol ) and there is a strong possibility the rover's batteries lost so much energy at some point that the mission clock stopped. In previous winters the rover was able to park on a Sun-facing slope and keep its internal temperature above , but since the rover was stuck on flat ground it is estimated that its internal temperature dropped to . If Spirit had survived these conditions and there had been a cleaning event, there was a possibility that with the southern summer solstice in March 2011, solar energy would increase to a level that would wake up the rover.
Spirit remains silent at its location, called "Troy," on the west side of Home Plate. There was no communication with the rover after March 22, 2010 (sol ).
It is likely that Spirit experienced a low-power fault and had turned off all sub-systems, including communication, and gone into a deep sleep, trying to recharge its batteries. It is also possible that the rover had experienced a mission clock fault. If that had happened, the rover would have lost track of time and tried to remain asleep until enough sunlight struck the solar arrays to wake it. This state is called "Solar Groovy." If the rover woke up from a mission clock fault, it would only listen. Starting on July 26, 2010 (sol ), a new procedure to address the possible mission clock fault was implemented.
End of mission
JPL continued attempts to regain contact with Spirit until May 25, 2011, when NASA announced the end of contact efforts and the completion of the mission.
According to NASA, the rover likely experienced excessively cold "internal temperatures" due to "inadequate energy to run its survival heaters" that, in turn, was a result of "a stressful Martian winter without much sunlight." Many critical components and connections would have been "susceptible to damage from the cold." Assets that had been needed to support Spirit were transitioned to support Spirit's then still-active twin, Opportunity.
The primary surface mission for Spirit was planned to last at least 90 sols. The mission received several extensions and lasted about 2,208 sols. On August 11, 2007, Spirit obtained the second longest operational duration on the surface of Mars for a lander or rover at 1282 Sols, one sol longer than the Viking 2 lander. Viking 2 was powered by a nuclear cell whereas Spirit is powered by solar arrays. Until Opportunity overtook it on May 19, 2010, the Mars probe with longest operational period was Viking 1 that lasted for 2245 Sols on the surface of Mars. On March 22, 2010, Spirit sent its last communication, thus falling just over a month short of surpassing Viking 1's operational record. An archive of weekly updates on the rover's status can be found at the Spirit Update Archive.
Spirit's total odometry is .
Design and construction
Spirit (and its twin, Opportunity) are six-wheeled, solar-powered robots standing high, wide and long and weighing . Six wheels on a rocker-bogie system enabled mobility over rough terrain. Each wheel had its own motor. The vehicle was steered at front and rear and was designed to operate safely at tilts of up to 30 degrees. The maximum speed was ; , although the average speed was about . Both Spirit and Opportunity have pieces of the fallen World Trade Center's metal on them that were "turned into shields to protect cables on the drilling mechanisms".
Solar arrays generated about 140 watts for up to fourteen hours per sol, while rechargeable lithium ion batteries stored energy for use at night. Spirits onboard computer uses a 20 MHz RAD6000 CPU with 128 MB of DRAM and 3 MB of EEPROM. The rover's operating temperature ranges from and radioisotope heaters provide a base level of heating, assisted by electrical heaters when necessary.
Communications depended on an omnidirectional low-gain antenna communicating at a low data rate and a steerable high-gain antenna, both in direct contact with Earth. A low-gain antenna was also used to relay data to spacecraft orbiting Mars.
Science payload
The science instruments included:
Panoramic Camera (Pancam) – examined the texture, color, mineralogy, and structure of the local terrain.
Navigation Camera (Navcam) – monochrome with a higher field of view but lower resolution, for navigation and driving.
Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) – identified promising rocks and soils for closer examination, and determined the processes that formed them.
Hazcams, two B&W cameras with 120 degree field of view, that provided additional data about the rover's surroundings.
The rover arm held the following instruments:
Mössbauer spectrometer (MB) MIMOS II – used for close-up investigations of the mineralogy of iron-bearing rocks and soils.
Alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS) – close-up analysis of the abundances of elements that make up rocks and soils.
Magnets – for collecting magnetic dust particles.
Microscopic Imager (MI) – obtained close-up, high-resolution images of rocks and soils.
Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) – exposed fresh material for examination by instruments on board.
Spirit was 'driven' by several operators throughout its mission.
Power
The rover uses a combination of solar cells and a rechargeable chemical battery. This class of rover has two rechargeable lithium batteries, each composed of 8 cells with 8 amp-hour capacity. At the start of the mission the solar panels could provide up to around 900 watt-hours (Wh) to recharge the battery and power system in one Sol, but this could vary due to a variety of factors. In Eagle crater the cells were producing about 840 Wh, but by Sol 319 in December 2004, it had dropped to 730 Wh.
Like Earth, Mars has seasonal variations that reduce sunlight during winter. However, since the Martian year is longer than that of the Earth, the seasons fully rotate roughly once every 2 Earth years. By 2016, MER-B had endured seven Martian winters, during which times power levels drop which can mean the rover avoids doing activities that use a lot of power. During its first winter power levels dropped to under 300 Wh per day for two months, but some later winters were not as bad.
Another factor that can reduce received power is dust in the atmosphere, especially dust storms. Dust storms have occurred quite frequently when Mars is closest to the Sun. Global dust storms in 2007 reduced power levels for Opportunity and Spirit so much they could only run for a few minutes each day. Due to the 2018 dust storms on Mars, Opportunity entered hibernation mode on June 12, but it remained silent after the storm subsided in early October.
Discoveries
The rocks on the plains of Gusev are a type of basalt. They contain the minerals olivine, pyroxene, plagioclase and magnetite. They look like volcanic basalt, as they are fine-grained with irregular holes (geologists would say they have vesicles and vugs).
Much of the soil on the plains came from the breakdown of the local rocks. Fairly high levels of nickel were found in some soils; probably from meteorites.
Analysis shows that the rocks have been slightly altered by tiny amounts of water. Outside coatings and cracks inside the rocks suggest water deposited minerals, maybe bromine compounds. All the rocks contain a fine coating of dust and one or more harder rinds of material. One type can be brushed off, while another needed to be ground off by the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT).
The dust in Gusev Crater is the same as dust all around the planet. All the dust was found to be magnetic. Moreover, Spirit found the magnetism was caused by the mineral magnetite, especially magnetite that contained the element titanium. One magnet was able to completely divert all dust, hence all Martian dust is thought to be magnetic. The spectra of the dust was similar to spectra of bright, low thermal inertia regions like Tharsis and Arabia that have been detected by orbiting satellites. A thin layer of dust, maybe less than one millimeter thick, covers all surfaces. Something in it contains a small amount of chemically bound water.
Astronomy
Spirit pointed its cameras towards the sky and observed a transit of the Sun by Mars' moon Deimos (see Transit of Deimos from Mars). It also took the first photo of Earth from the surface of another planet in early March 2004.
In late 2005, Spirit took advantage of a favorable energy situation to make multiple nighttime observations of both of Mars' moons Phobos and Deimos. These observations included a "lunar" (or rather phobian) eclipse as Spirit watched Phobos disappear into Mars' shadow. Some of Spirits star gazing was designed to look for a predicted meteor shower caused by Halley's Comet, and although at least four imaged streaks were suspect meteors, they could not be unambiguously differentiated from those caused by cosmic rays.
A transit of Mercury from Mars took place on January 12, 2005, from about 14:45 UTC to 23:05 UTC. Theoretically, this could have been observed by both Spirit and Opportunity; however, camera resolution did not permit seeing Mercury's 6.1" angular diameter. They were able to observe transits of Deimos across the Sun, but at 2' angular diameter, Deimos is about 20 times larger than Mercury's 6.1" angular diameter. Ephemeris data generated by JPL Horizons indicates that Opportunity would have been able to observe the transit from the start until local sunset at about 19:23 UTC Earth time, while Spirit would have been able to observe it from local sunrise at about 19:38 UTC until the end of the transit.
Equipment wear and failures
Both rovers passed their original mission time of 90 sols many times over. The extended time on the surface, and therefore additional stress on components, resulted in some issues developing.
On March 13, 2006 (sol ), the right front wheel ceased working after having covered on Mars. Engineers began driving the rover backwards, dragging the dead wheel. Although this resulted in changes to driving techniques, the dragging effect became a useful tool, partially clearing away soil on the surface as the rover traveled, thus allowing areas to be imaged that would normally be inaccessible. However, in mid-December 2009, to the surprise of the engineers, the right front wheel showed slight movement in a wheel-test on sol 2113 and clearly rotated with normal resistance on three of four wheel-tests on sol 2117, but stalled on the fourth. On November 29, 2009 (sol ), the right rear wheel also stalled and remained inoperable for the remainder of the mission.
Scientific instruments also experienced degradation as a result of exposure to the harsh Martian environment and use over a far longer period than had been anticipated by the mission planners. Over time, the diamond in the resin grinding surface of the Rock Abrasion Tool wore down, after that the device could only be used to brush targets. All of the other science instruments and engineering cameras continued to function until contact was lost; however, towards the end of Spirit'''s life, the MIMOS II Mössbauer spectrometer took much longer to produce results than it did earlier in the mission because of the decay of its cobalt-57 gamma ray source that has a half life of 271 days.
Legacy and honors
To commemorate Spirits great contribution to the exploration of Mars, the asteroid 37452 Spirit has been named after it. The name was proposed by Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld who along with Cornelis Johannes van Houten and Tom Gehrels discovered the asteroid on September 24, 1960.
To honor the rover, the JPL team named an area near Endeavour Crater explored by the Opportunity rover, 'Spirit Point'.
Documentary film, Good Night Oppy, about the Opportunity, Spirit, and their long missions, was directed by Ryan White, and included support from JPL and Industrial Light & Magic. It was released in 2022.
Gallery
The rover could take pictures with its different cameras, but only the PanCam camera had the ability to photograph a scene with different color filters. The panorama views were usually built up from PanCam images. Spirit transferred 128,224 pictures in its lifetime.
See also
References
External links
JPL, MSSS, and NASA links
JPL's Mars Exploration Rover Mission home page
(obsolete JPL Mars Exploration Rover home page)
Planetary Photojournal, NASA JPL's Planetary Photojournal for Spirit NASA TV Special Events Schedule for MER News Briefings at JPL
Mission Status updates from NASA JPL
Wikisource:NASA MER press briefings
MER Analyst's Notebook, Interactive access to mission data and documentation
Other links
SpaceFlightNow Spaceflightnow.com, Status Page last updated May 2004
Cornell's rover site: Athena last update 2006
Finding Spirit: interactive Mars atlas based on Viking images: you can zoom in/out and pan images, to find your preferred site. Spirit approximate position is 14.82°S (= −14.82°N), 184.85°W (= 5.15°E) (not working as of June 4, 2008)
Google map with Spirit landing site marked
New Scientist on Spirit Dust Devils , March 15, 2005
New Scientist on Spirit wheel status, April 3, 2006
Unmanned Spaceflight.com discussion on Spirit as of 2008-06-04 last updated 2008-06-04
High-resolution video by Seán Doran that zooms in on Spirit''s final location
Archive of MER progress reports by A.J.S. Rayl at planetary.org
2003 robots
2004 on Mars
Aeolis quadrangle
Derelict landers (spacecraft)
Mars robots
Mars rovers
Missions to Mars
Robots of the United States
Six-wheeled robots
Soft landings on Mars
Solar-powered robots
Space probes launched in 2003
Spacecraft decommissioned in 2011
Spacecraft launched by Delta II rockets |
421051 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opportunity%20%28rover%29 | Opportunity (rover) | Opportunity, also known as MER-B (Mars Exploration Rover – B) or MER-1, is a robotic rover that was active on Mars from 2004 until 2018. Opportunity was operational on Mars for sols ( on Earth). Launched on July 7, 2003, as part of NASA's Mars Exploration Rover program, it landed in Meridiani Planum on January 25, 2004, three weeks after its twin, Spirit (MER-A), touched down on the other side of the planet. With a planned 90-sol duration of activity (slightly less than 92.5 Earth days), Spirit functioned until it got stuck in 2009 and ceased communications in 2010, while Opportunity was able to stay operational for sols after landing, maintaining its power and key systems through continual recharging of its batteries using solar power, and hibernating during events such as dust storms to save power. This careful operation allowed Opportunity to operate for 57 times its designed lifespan, exceeding the initial plan by (in Earth time). By June 10, 2018, when it last contacted NASA, the rover had traveled a distance of .
Mission highlights included the initial 90-sol mission, finding meteorites such as Heat Shield Rock (Meridiani Planum meteorite), and over two years of exploring and studying Victoria crater. The rover survived moderate dust storms and in 2011 reached Endeavour crater, which has been considered as a "second landing site." The Opportunity mission is considered one of NASA's most successful ventures.
Due to the planetary 2018 dust storm on Mars, Opportunity ceased communications on June 10 and entered hibernation on June 12, 2018. It was hoped it would reboot once the weather cleared, but it did not, suggesting either a catastrophic failure or that a layer of dust had covered its solar panels. NASA hoped to re-establish contact with the rover, citing a recurring windy period which was forecast for November 2018 to January 2019, that could potentially clean off its solar panels. On February 13, 2019, NASA officials declared that the Opportunity mission was complete, after the spacecraft had failed to respond to over 1,000 signals sent since August 2018.
Objectives
The scientific objectives of the Mars Exploration Rover mission were to:
Search for and characterize a variety of rocks and soils that hold clues to past water activity. In particular, samples sought include those that have minerals deposited by water-related processes such as precipitation, evaporation, sedimentary cementation, or hydrothermal activity.
Determine the distribution and composition of minerals, rocks, and soils surrounding the landing sites.
Determine what geologic processes have shaped the local terrain and influenced the chemistry. Such processes could include water or wind erosion, sedimentation, hydrothermal mechanisms, volcanism, and cratering.
Perform calibration and validation of surface observations made by Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) instruments. This will help determine the accuracy and effectiveness of various instruments that survey Martian geology from orbit.
Search for iron-containing minerals, and to identify and quantify relative amounts of specific mineral types that contain water or were formed in water, such as iron-bearing carbonates.
Characterize the mineralogy and textures of rocks and soils to determine the processes that created them.
Search for geological clues to the environmental conditions that existed when liquid water was present.
Assess whether those environments were conducive to life.
Mission timeline
Opportunity and Spirit rovers were part of the Mars Exploration Rover program in the long-term Mars Exploration Program. The Mars Exploration Program's four principal goals were to determine if the potential for life exists on Mars (in particular, whether recoverable water may be found on Mars), to characterize the Mars climate and its geology, and then to prepare for a potential human mission to Mars. The Mars Exploration Rovers were to travel across the Martian surface and perform periodic geologic analyses to determine if water ever existed on Mars as well as the types of minerals available, as well as to corroborate data taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Both rovers were designed with an expected 90 sols (92 Earth days) lifetime, but each lasted much longer than expected. Spirit mission lasted 20 times longer than its expected lifetime, and its mission was declared ended on May 25, 2011, after it got stuck in soft sand and expended its power reserves trying to free itself. Opportunity lasted 55 times longer than its 90 sol planned lifetime, operating for days from landing to mission end. An archive of weekly updates on the rover's status can be found at the Opportunity Update Archive.
Launch and landing
Spirit and Opportunity were launched a month apart, on June 10 and July 8, 2003, and both reached the Martian surface by January 2004. Opportunitys launch was managed by NASA's Launch Services Program. This was the first launch of the Delta II Heavy. The launch period went from June 25 to July 15, 2003. The first launch attempt occurred on June 28, 2003, but the spacecraft launched nine days later on July 7, 2003, due to delays for range safety and winds, then later to replace items on the rocket (insulation and a battery). Each day had two instantaneous launch opportunities. On the day of launch, the launch was delayed to the second opportunity (11:18 p.m. EDT) in order to fix a valve.
On January 25, 2004 (GMT) (January 24, 2004, PST), the airbag-protected landing craft settled onto the surface of Mars in the Eagle crater.
From its initial landing into an impact crater amidst an otherwise generally flat plain, Opportunity successfully investigated regolith and rock samples and took panoramic photos of its landing site. Its sampling allowed NASA scientists to make hypotheses concerning the presence of hematite and past presence of water on the surface of Mars. Following this, it was directed to travel across the surface of Mars to investigate another crater site, Endurance crater, which it explored from June to December 2004. Subsequently, Opportunity examined the impact site of its own heat shield and discovered an intact meteorite, now known as Heat Shield Rock, on the surface of Mars.
Opportunity was directed to proceed in a southerly direction to Erebus crater, a large, shallow, partially buried crater and a stopover on the way south towards Victoria crater, between October 2005 and March 2006. It experienced some mechanical problems with its robotic arm.
In late September 2006, Opportunity reached Victoria crater and explored along the rim in a clockwise direction. In June 2007 it returned to Duck Bay, its original arrival point at Victoria crater; in September 2007 it entered the crater to begin a detailed study. In August 2008, Opportunity left Victoria crater for Endeavour crater, which it reached on August 9, 2011.
At the rim of the Endeavour crater, the rover moved around a geographic feature named Cape York. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter had detected phyllosilicates there, and the rover analyzed the rocks with its instruments to check this sighting on the ground. This structure was analyzed in depth until summer 2013. In May 2013 the rover was heading south to a hill named Solander Point.
Opportunitys total odometry by June 10, 2018 (sol 5111), was , while the dust factor was 10.8. Since January 2013, the solar array dust factor (one of the determinants of solar power production) varied from a relatively dusty 0.467 on December 5, 2013 (sol 3507), to a relatively clean 0.964 on May 13, 2014 (sol 3662).
In December 2014, NASA reported that Opportunity was suffering from "amnesia" events in which the rover failed to write data, e.g. telemetry information, to non-volatile memory. The hardware failure was believed to be due to an age-related fault in one of the rover's seven memory banks. As a result, NASA had aimed to force the rover's software to ignore the failed memory bank; amnesia events continued to occur, however, which eventually resulted in vehicle resets. In light of this, on Sol 4027 (May 23, 2015), the rover was configured to operate in RAM-only mode, completely avoiding the use of non-volatile memory for storage.
End of mission
[[File:Mars Opportunity tau watt-hours graph.jpg|thumb|Graph of atmospheric opacity and Opportunitys energy reserve]]
In early June 2018, a large planetary-scale dust storm developed, and within a few days the rover's solar panels were not generating enough power to maintain communications, with the last contact on June 10, 2018. NASA stated that they did not expect to resume communication until after the storm subsided, but the rover kept silent even after the storm ended in early October, suggesting either a catastrophic failure or a layer of dust covering its solar panels. The team remained hopeful that a windy period between November 2018 and January 2019 might clear the dust from its solar panels, as had happened before. Wind was detected nearby on January 8, and on January 26 the mission team announced a plan to begin broadcasting a new set of commands to the rover in case its radio receiver failed.
On February 12, 2019, past and present members of the mission team gathered in the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL)'s Space Flight Operations Facility to watch final commands being transmitted to Opportunity via the dish of the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex in California. Following 25 minutes of transmission of the final 4 sets of commands, communication attempts with the rover were handed off to Canberra, Australia.
More than 835 recovery commands were transmitted since losing signal in June 2018 to the end of January 2019 with over 1000 recovery commands transmitted before February 13, 2019. NASA officials held a press conference on February 13 to declare an official end to the mission. NASA associate administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said, "It is therefore that I am standing here with a deep sense of appreciation and gratitude that I declare the Opportunity mission is complete." As NASA ended their attempts to contact the rover, the last data sent was the song "I'll Be Seeing You" performed by Billie Holiday. Assets that had been needed to support Opportunity were transitioned to support the Mars rovers Curiosity and Perseverance.
The final communication from the rover came on June 10, 2018 (sol 5111) from Perseverance Valley, and indicated a solar array energy production of 22 Watt-hours for the sol, and the highest atmospheric opacity (tau) ever measured on Mars: 10.8.
Design and construction
Opportunity (and its twin, Spirit) are six-wheeled, solar-powered robots standing high, wide and long and weighing . Six wheels on a rocker-bogie system enabled mobility over rough terrain. Each wheel had its own motor. The vehicle was steered at front and rear and was designed to operate safely at tilts of up to 30 degrees. The maximum speed was ; , although the average speed was about . Both Spirit and Opportunity have pieces of the fallen World Trade Center's metal on them that were "turned into shields to protect cables on the drilling mechanisms".
Solar arrays generated about 140 watts for up to fourteen hours per sol, while rechargeable lithium ion batteries stored energy for use at night. Opportunitys onboard computer uses a 20 MHz RAD6000 CPU with 128 MB of DRAM, 3 MB of DRAM and 3 MB of EEPROM. The rover's operating temperature ranges from and radioisotope heaters provide a base level of heating, assisted by electrical heaters when necessary.
Communications depended on an omnidirectional low-gain antenna communicating at a low data rate and a steerable high-gain antenna, both in direct contact with Earth. A low-gain antenna was also used to relay data to spacecraft orbiting Mars.
Science payload
The science instruments included:
Panoramic Camera (Pancam) – examined the texture, color, mineralogy, and structure of the local terrain.
Navigation Camera (Navcam) – monochrome with a higher field of view but lower resolution, for navigation and driving.
Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer (Mini-TES) – identified promising rocks and soils for closer examination, and determined the processes that formed them.
Hazcams, two B&W cameras with 120 degree field of view, that provided additional data about the rover's surroundings.
The rover arm held the following instruments:
Mössbauer spectrometer (MB) MIMOS II – used for close-up investigations of the mineralogy of iron-bearing rocks and soils.
Alpha particle X-ray spectrometer (APXS) – close-up analysis of the abundances of elements that make up rocks and soils.
Magnets – for collecting magnetic dust particles.
Microscopic Imager (MI) – obtained close-up, high-resolution images of rocks and soils.
Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) – exposed fresh material for examination by instruments on board.
Opportunity was 'driven' by several operators throughout its mission, including JPL roboticist Vandi Verma.
Power
The rover uses a combination of solar cells and a rechargeable chemical battery. This class of rover has two rechargeable lithium batteries, each composed of 8 cells with 8 amp-hour capacity. At the start of the mission the solar panels could provide up to around 900 watt-hours (Wh) to recharge the battery and power system in one Sol, but this could vary due to a variety of factors. In Eagle crater the cells were producing about 840 Wh, but by Sol 319 in December 2004, it had dropped to 730 Wh.
Like Earth, Mars has seasonal variations that reduce sunlight during winter. However, since the Martian year is longer than that of the Earth, the seasons fully rotate roughly once every 2 Earth years. By 2016, MER-B had endured seven Martian winters, during which times power levels drop which can mean the rover avoids doing activities that use a lot of power. During its first winter power levels dropped to under 300 Wh per day for two months, but some later winters were not as bad.
Another factor that can reduce received power is dust in the atmosphere, especially dust storms. Dust storms have occurred quite frequently when Mars is closest to the Sun. Global dust storms in 2007 reduced power levels for Opportunity and Spirit so much they could only run for a few minutes each day. Due to the 2018 dust storms on Mars, Opportunity entered hibernation mode on June 12, but it remained silent after the storm subsided in early October.
Scientific findings
Opportunity has provided substantial evidence in support of the mission's primary scientific goals: to search for and characterize a wide range of rocks and regolith that hold clues to past water activity on Mars. In addition to investigating the water, Opportunity has also obtained astronomical observations and atmospheric data.
Legacy and honors
Following its launch, Opportunity was anthropomorphized by its operators: the rover was called a "she," drawing from nautical tradition, and given an affectionate nickname, "Oppy." One scientist, who worked with Opportunity for over a decade, attributed this to the rover's unexpectedly long lifespan, which he called a story of "an underdog beating the odds," and its "familiar, almost biologically inspired shape." The media attention surrounding Opportunity'''s shutdown spread this usage to the general public.
With word on February 12, 2019, that NASA was likely to conclude the Opportunity mission, many media outlets and commentators issued statements praising the mission's success and stating their goodbyes to the rover. One journalist, Jacob Margolis, tweeted his translation of the last data transmission sent by Opportunity on June 10, 2018, as "My battery is low and it's getting dark." The phrase struck a chord with the public, inspiring a period of mourning, artwork, and tributes to the memory of Opportunity.
When the quote became widely reported, some news reports mistakenly asserted that the rover sent that exact message in English, resulting in NASA being inundated with additional questions. Margolis wrote a clarifying article on February 16, making it clear he had taken statements from NASA officials who were interpreting the data sent by Opportunity, both on the state of its low power and Mars's high atmospheric opacity, and rephrased them in a poetic manner, never to imply the rover had sent the specific words.
Honoring Opportunitys great contribution to the exploration of Mars, an asteroid was named Opportunity: 39382 Opportunity. The name was proposed by Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld who, along with Cornelis Johannes van Houten and Tom Gehrels, discovered the asteroid on September 24, 1960. Opportunitys lander is Challenger Memorial Station.
On March 24, 2015, NASA celebrated Opportunity having traveled the distance of a marathon race, . The rover covered the distance in 11 years and 2 months. The JPL technicians celebrated the occasion by running a race.
Documentary film, Good Night Oppy, about the Opportunity, Spirit, and their long missions, was directed by Ryan White, and included support from JPL and Industrial Light & Magic. It was released in 2022.
Images
The rover could take pictures with its different cameras, but only the PanCam camera had the ability to photograph a scene with different color filters. The panorama views are usually built up from PanCam images. By February 3, 2018, Opportunity had returned 224,642 pictures.
A selection of panoramas from the mission:
See also
List of surface features of Mars visited by Spirit and Opportunity
Perseverance (rover)
Comparison of embedded computer systems on board the Mars rovers
Zhurong rover
References
External links
NASA links
NASA/JPL Mission page
Sunrise on Mars – video (02:10) (NASA; November 7, 2018)
End of Opportunity'' Mission (February 13, 2019; videos) ‒ (3:52) overview ‒ (59:47) final panel
MSSS and WUSTL links
Finding Opportunity: high-resolution images of landing site (Mars Global Surveyor – Mars Orbiter Camera)
MER Analyst's Notebook, Interactive access to mission data and documentation
Other links
Archive of MER progress reports by A.J.S. Rayl at planetary.org
2003 robots
Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle
Mars rovers
Missions to Mars
Robots of the United States
Six-wheeled robots
Solar-powered robots
Space probes decommissioned in 2019
Space probes launched in 2003
Spacecraft launched by Delta II rockets
Derelict landers (spacecraft)
Soft landings on Mars
2004 on Mars
Mars robots |
421085 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paraconsistent%20logic | Paraconsistent logic | A paraconsistent logic is an attempt at a logical system to deal with contradictions in a discriminating way. Alternatively, paraconsistent logic is the subfield of logic that is concerned with studying and developing "inconsistency-tolerant" systems of logic which reject the principle of explosion.
Inconsistency-tolerant logics have been discussed since at least 1910 (and arguably much earlier, for example in the writings of Aristotle); however, the term paraconsistent ("beside the consistent") was first coined in 1976, by the Peruvian philosopher Francisco Miró Quesada Cantuarias. The study of paraconsistent logic has been dubbed paraconsistency, which encompasses the school of dialetheism.
Definition
In classical logic (as well as intuitionistic logic and most other logics), contradictions entail everything. This feature, known as the principle of explosion or ex contradictione sequitur quodlibet (Latin, "from a contradiction, anything follows") can be expressed formally as
Which means: if P and its negation ¬P are both assumed to be true, then of the two claims P and (some arbitrary) A, at least one is true. Therefore, P or A is true. However, if we know that either P or A is true, and also that P is false (that ¬P is true) we can conclude that A, which could be anything, is true. Thus if a theory contains a single inconsistency, it is trivial – that is, it has every sentence as a theorem.
The characteristic or defining feature of a paraconsistent logic is that it rejects the principle of explosion. As a result, paraconsistent logics, unlike classical and other logics, can be used to formalize inconsistent but non-trivial theories.
Comparison with classical logic
Paraconsistent logics are propositionally weaker than classical logic; that is, they deem fewer propositional inferences valid. The point is that a paraconsistent logic can never be a propositional extension of classical logic, that is, propositionally validate everything that classical logic does. In some sense, then, paraconsistent logic is more conservative or cautious than classical logic. It is due to such conservativeness that paraconsistent languages can be more expressive than their classical counterparts including the hierarchy of metalanguages due to Alfred Tarski et al. According to Solomon Feferman: "natural language abounds with directly or indirectly self-referential yet apparently harmless expressions—all of which are excluded from the Tarskian framework." This expressive limitation can be overcome in paraconsistent logic.
Motivation
A primary motivation for paraconsistent logic is the conviction that it ought to be possible to reason with inconsistent information in a controlled and discriminating way. The principle of explosion precludes this, and so must be abandoned. In non-paraconsistent logics, there is only one inconsistent theory: the trivial theory that has every sentence as a theorem. Paraconsistent logic makes it possible to distinguish between inconsistent theories and to reason with them.
Research into paraconsistent logic has also led to the establishment of the philosophical school of dialetheism (most notably advocated by Graham Priest), which asserts that true contradictions exist in reality, for example groups of people holding opposing views on various moral issues. Being a dialetheist rationally commits one to some form of paraconsistent logic, on pain of otherwise embracing trivialism, i.e. accepting that all contradictions (and equivalently all statements) are true. However, the study of paraconsistent logics does not necessarily entail a dialetheist viewpoint. For example, one need not commit to either the existence of true theories or true contradictions, but would rather prefer a weaker standard like empirical adequacy, as proposed by Bas van Fraassen.
Philosophy
In classical logic Aristotle's three laws, namely, the excluded middle (p or ¬p), non-contradiction ¬ (p ∧ ¬p) and identity (p iff p), are regarded as the same, due to the inter-definition of the connectives. Moreover, traditionally contradictoriness (the presence of contradictions in a theory or in a body of knowledge) and triviality (the fact that such a theory entails all possible consequences) are assumed inseparable, granted that negation is available. These views may be philosophically challenged, precisely on the grounds that they fail to distinguish between contradictoriness and other forms of inconsistency.
On the other hand, it is possible to derive triviality from the 'conflict' between consistency and contradictions, once these notions have been properly distinguished. The very notions of consistency and inconsistency may be furthermore internalized at the object language level.
Tradeoffs
Paraconsistency involves tradeoffs. In particular, abandoning the principle of explosion requires to abandon at least one of the following two principles:
Both of these principles have been challenged.
One approach is to reject disjunction introduction but keep disjunctive syllogism and transitivity. In this approach, rules of natural deduction hold, except for disjunction introduction and excluded middle; moreover, inference A⊢B does not necessarily mean entailment A⇒B. Also, the following usual Boolean properties hold: double negation as well as associativity, commutativity, distributivity, De Morgan, and idempotence inferences (for conjunction and disjunction). Furthermore, inconsistency-robust proof of negation holds for entailment: (A⇒(B∧¬B))⊢¬A.
Another approach is to reject disjunctive syllogism. From the perspective of dialetheism, it makes perfect sense that disjunctive syllogism should fail. The idea behind this syllogism is that, if ¬ A, then A is excluded and B can be inferred from A ∨ B. However, if A may hold as well as ¬A, then the argument for the inference is weakened.
Yet another approach is to do both simultaneously. In many systems of relevant logic, as well as linear logic, there are two separate disjunctive connectives. One allows disjunction introduction, and one allows disjunctive syllogism. Of course, this has the disadvantages entailed by separate disjunctive connectives including confusion between them and complexity in relating them.
Furthermore, the rule of proof of negation (below) just by itself is inconsistency non-robust in the sense that the negation of every proposition can be proved from a contradiction.
Strictly speaking, having just the rule above is paraconsistent because it is not the case that every proposition can be proved from a contradiction. However, if the rule double negation elimination () is added as well, then every proposition can be proved from a contradiction. Double negation elimination does not hold for intuitionistic logic.
Logic of Paradox
One example of paraconsistent logic is the system known as LP ("Logic of Paradox"), first proposed by the Argentinian logician Florencio González Asenjo in 1966 and later popularized by Priest and others.
One way of presenting the semantics for LP is to replace the usual functional valuation with a relational one. The binary relation relates a formula to a truth value: means that is true, and means that is false. A formula must be assigned at least one truth value, but there is no requirement that it be assigned at most one truth value. The semantic clauses for negation and disjunction are given as follows:
(The other logical connectives are defined in terms of negation and disjunction as usual.)
Or to put the same point less symbolically:
not A is true if and only if A is false
not A is false if and only if A is true
A or B is true if and only if A is true or B is true
A or B is false if and only if A is false and B is false
(Semantic) logical consequence is then defined as truth-preservation:
if and only if is true whenever every element of is true.
Now consider a valuation such that and but it is not the case that . It is easy to check that this valuation constitutes a counterexample to both explosion and disjunctive syllogism. However, it is also a counterexample to modus ponens for the material conditional of LP. For this reason, proponents of LP usually advocate expanding the system to include a stronger conditional connective that is not definable in terms of negation and disjunction.
As one can verify, LP preserves most other inference patterns that one would expect to be valid, such as De Morgan's laws and the usual introduction and elimination rules for negation, conjunction, and disjunction. Surprisingly, the logical truths (or tautologies) of LP are precisely those of classical propositional logic. (LP and classical logic differ only in the inferences they deem valid.) Relaxing the requirement that every formula be either true or false yields the weaker paraconsistent logic commonly known as first-degree entailment (FDE). Unlike LP, FDE contains no logical truths.
LP is only one of many paraconsistent logics that have been proposed. It is presented here merely as an illustration of how a paraconsistent logic can work.
Relation to other logics
One important type of paraconsistent logic is relevance logic. A logic is relevant if it satisfies the following condition:
if A → B is a theorem, then A and B share a non-logical constant.
It follows that a relevance logic cannot have (p ∧ ¬p) → q as a theorem, and thus (on reasonable assumptions) cannot validate the inference from {p, ¬p} to q.
Paraconsistent logic has significant overlap with many-valued logic; however, not all paraconsistent logics are many-valued (and, of course, not all many-valued logics are paraconsistent). Dialetheic logics, which are also many-valued, are paraconsistent, but the converse does not hold. The ideal 3-valued paraconsistent logic given below becomes the logic RM3 when the contrapositive is added.
Intuitionistic logic allows A ∨ ¬A not to be equivalent to true, while paraconsistent logic allows A ∧ ¬A not to be equivalent to false. Thus it seems natural to regard paraconsistent logic as the "dual" of intuitionistic logic. However, intuitionistic logic is a specific logical system whereas paraconsistent logic encompasses a large class of systems. Accordingly, the dual notion to paraconsistency is called paracompleteness, and the "dual" of intuitionistic logic (a specific paracomplete logic) is a specific paraconsistent system called anti-intuitionistic or dual-intuitionistic logic (sometimes referred to as Brazilian logic, for historical reasons). The duality between the two systems is best seen within a sequent calculus framework. While in intuitionistic logic the sequent
is not derivable, in dual-intuitionistic logic
is not derivable. Similarly, in intuitionistic logic the sequent
is not derivable, while in dual-intuitionistic logic
is not derivable. Dual-intuitionistic logic contains a connective # known as pseudo-difference which is the dual of intuitionistic implication. Very loosely, can be read as "A but not B". However, # is not truth-functional as one might expect a 'but not' operator to be; similarly, the intuitionistic implication operator cannot be treated like "". Dual-intuitionistic logic also features a basic connective ⊤ which is the dual of intuitionistic ⊥: negation may be defined as
A full account of the duality between paraconsistent and intuitionistic logic, including an explanation on why dual-intuitionistic and paraconsistent logics do not coincide, can be found in Brunner and Carnielli (2005).
These other logics avoid explosion: implicational propositional calculus, positive propositional calculus, equivalential calculus and minimal logic. The latter, minimal logic, is both paraconsistent and paracomplete (a subsystem of intuitionistic logic). The other three simply do not allow one to express a contradiction to begin with since they lack the ability to form negations.
An ideal three-valued paraconsistent logic
Here is an example of a three-valued logic which is paraconsistent and ideal as defined in "Ideal Paraconsistent Logics" by O. Arieli, A. Avron, and A. Zamansky, especially pages 22–23. The three truth-values are: t (true only), b (both true and false), and f (false only).
A formula is true if its truth-value is either t or b for the valuation being used. A formula is a tautology of paraconsistent logic if it is true in every valuation which maps atomic propositions to {t, b, f}. Every tautology of paraconsistent logic is also a tautology of classical logic. For a valuation, the set of true formulas is closed under modus ponens and the deduction theorem. Any tautology of classical logic which contains no negations is also a tautology of paraconsistent logic (by merging b into t). This logic is sometimes referred to as "Pac" or "LFI1".
Included
Some tautologies of paraconsistent logic are:
All axiom schemas for paraconsistent logic:
** for deduction theorem and ?→{t,b} = {t,b}
** for deduction theorem (note: {t,b}→{f} = {f} follows from the deduction theorem)
** {f}→? = {t}
** ?→{t} = {t}
** {t,b}→{b,f} = {b,f}
** ~{f} = {t}
** ~{t,b} = {b,f} (note: ~{t} = {f} and ~{b,f} = {t,b} follow from the way the truth-values are encoded)
** {t,b}v? = {t,b}
** ?v{t,b} = {t,b}
** {t}v? = {t}
** ?v{t} = {t}
** {f}v{f} = {f}
** {b,f}v{b,f} = {b,f}
** {f}&? = {f}
** ?&{f} = {f}
** {b,f}&? = {b.f}
** ?&{b,f} = {b,f}
** {t}&{t} = {t}
** {t,b}&{t,b} = {t,b}
** ? is the union of {t,b} with {b,f}
Some other theorem schemas:
** every truth-value is either t, b, or f.
Excluded
Some tautologies of classical logic which are not tautologies of paraconsistent logic are:
** no explosion in paraconsistent logic
** disjunctive syllogism fails in paraconsistent logic
** contrapositive fails in paraconsistent logic
** not all contradictions are equivalent in paraconsistent logic
** counter-factual for {b,f}→? = {t,b} (inconsistent with b→f = f)
Strategy
Suppose we are faced with a contradictory set of premises Γ and wish to avoid being reduced to triviality. In classical logic, the only method one can use is to reject one or more of the premises in Γ. In paraconsistent logic, we may try to compartmentalize the contradiction. That is, weaken the logic so that Γ→X is no longer a tautology provided the propositional variable X does not appear in Γ. However, we do not want to weaken the logic any more than is necessary for that purpose. So we wish to retain modus ponens and the deduction theorem as well as the axioms which are the introduction and elimination rules for the logical connectives (where possible).
To this end, we add a third truth-value b which will be employed within the compartment containing the contradiction. We make b a fixed point of all the logical connectives.
We must make b a kind of truth (in addition to t) because otherwise there would be no tautologies at all.
To ensure that modus ponens works, we must have
that is, to ensure that a true hypothesis and a true implication lead to a true conclusion, we must have that a not-true (f) conclusion and a true (t or b) hypothesis yield a not-true implication.
If all the propositional variables in Γ are assigned the value b, then Γ itself will have the value b. If we give X the value f, then
.
So Γ→X will not be a tautology.
Limitations:
(1) There must not be constants for the truth values because that would defeat the purpose of paraconsistent logic. Having b would change the language from that of classical logic. Having t or f would allow the explosion again because
or
would be tautologies. Note that b is not a fixed point of those constants since b ≠ t and b ≠ f.
(2) This logic's ability to contain contradictions applies only to contradictions among particularized premises, not to contradictions among axiom schemas.
(3) The loss of disjunctive syllogism may result in insufficient commitment to developing the 'correct' alternative, possibly crippling mathematics.
(4) To establish that a formula Γ is equivalent to Δ in the sense that either can be substituted for the other wherever they appear as a subformula, one must show
.
This is more difficult than in classical logic because the contrapositives do not necessarily follow.
Applications
Paraconsistent logic has been applied as a means of managing inconsistency in numerous domains, including:
Semantics: Paraconsistent logic has been proposed as means of providing a simple and intuitive formal account of truth that does not fall prey to paradoxes such as the Liar. However, such systems must also avoid Curry's paradox, which is much more difficult as it does not essentially involve negation.
Set theory and the foundations of mathematics
Epistemology and belief revision: Paraconsistent logic has been proposed as a means of reasoning with and revising inconsistent theories and belief systems.
Knowledge management and artificial intelligence: Some computer scientists have utilized paraconsistent logic as a means of coping gracefully with inconsistent or contradictory information. Mathematical framework and rules of paraconsistent logic have been proposed as the activation function of an artificial neuron in order to build a neural network for function approximation, model identification, and control with success.
Deontic logic and metaethics: Paraconsistent logic has been proposed as a means of dealing with ethical and other normative conflicts.
Software engineering: Paraconsistent logic has been proposed as a means for dealing with the pervasive inconsistencies among the documentation, use cases, and code of large software systems.
Electronics design routinely uses a four-valued logic, with "hi-impedance (z)" and "don't care (x)" playing similar roles to "don't know" and "both true and false" respectively, in addition to true and false. This logic was developed independently of philosophical logics.
Control System: A model reference control built with recurrent paraconsistent neural network for a rotary inverted pendulum presented better robustness and lower control effort compared to a classical well tuned pole placement controller.
Quantum physics
Black hole physics
Hawking radiation
Quantum computing
Spintronics
Quantum entanglement
Quantum coupling
Uncertainty principle
Criticism
Some philosophers have argued against dialetheism on the grounds that the counterintuitiveness of giving up any of the three principles above outweighs any counterintuitiveness that the principle of explosion might have.
Others, such as David Lewis, have objected to paraconsistent logic on the ground that it is simply impossible for a statement and its negation to be jointly true. A related objection is that "negation" in paraconsistent logic is not really negation; it is merely a subcontrary-forming operator.
Alternatives
Approaches exist that allow for resolution of inconsistent beliefs without violating any of the intuitive logical principles. Most such systems use multi-valued logic with Bayesian inference and the Dempster-Shafer theory, allowing that no non-tautological belief is completely (100%) irrefutable because it must be based upon incomplete, abstracted, interpreted, likely unconfirmed, potentially uninformed, and possibly incorrect knowledge (of course, this very assumption, if non-tautological, entails its own refutability, if by "refutable" we mean "not completely [100%] irrefutable"). These systems effectively give up several logical principles in practice without rejecting them in theory.
Notable figures
Notable figures in the history and/or modern development of paraconsistent logic include:
Alan Ross Anderson (United States, 1925–1973). One of the founders of relevance logic, a kind of paraconsistent logic.
Florencio González Asenjo (Argentina, 1927-2013)
Diderik Batens (Belgium)
Nuel Belnap (United States, b. 1930) developed logical connectives of a four-valued logic.
Jean-Yves Béziau (France/Switzerland, b. 1965). Has written extensively on the general structural features and philosophical foundations of paraconsistent logics.
Ross Brady (Australia)
Bryson Brown (Canada)
Walter Carnielli (Brazil). The developer of the possible-translations semantics, a new semantics which makes paraconsistent logics applicable and philosophically understood.
Newton da Costa (Brazil, b. 1929). One of the first to develop formal systems of paraconsistent logic.
Itala M. L. D'Ottaviano (Brazil)
J. Michael Dunn (United States). An important figure in relevance logic.
Carl Hewitt
Stanisław Jaśkowski (Poland). One of the first to develop formal systems of paraconsistent logic.
R. E. Jennings (Canada)
David Kellogg Lewis (USA, 1941–2001). Articulate critic of paraconsistent logic.
Jan Łukasiewicz (Poland, 1878–1956)
Robert K. Meyer (United States/Australia)
Chris Mortensen (Australia). Has written extensively on paraconsistent mathematics.
Lorenzo Peña (Spain, b. 1944). Has developed an original line of paraconsistent logic, gradualistic logic (also known as transitive logic, TL), akin to fuzzy logic.
Val Plumwood [formerly Routley] (Australia, b. 1939). Frequent collaborator with Sylvan.
Graham Priest (Australia). Perhaps the most prominent advocate of paraconsistent logic in the world today.
Francisco Miró Quesada (Peru). Coined the term paraconsistent logic.
B. H. Slater (Australia). Another articulate critic of paraconsistent logic.
Richard Sylvan [formerly Routley] (New Zealand/Australia, 1935–1996). Important figure in relevance logic and a frequent collaborator with Plumwood and Priest.
Nicolai A. Vasiliev (Russia, 1880–1940). First to construct logic tolerant to contradiction (1910).
See also
Deviant logic
Formal logic
Probability logic
Intuitionistic logic
Table of logic symbols
Notes
Resources
(First published Tue Sep 24, 1996; substantive revision Fri Mar 20, 2009)
External links
"World Congress on Paraconsistency, Ghent 1997, Juquehy 2000, Toulouse, 2003, Melbourne 2008, Kolkata, 2014"
Paraconsistent First-Order Logic with infinite hierarchy levels of contradiction LP#. Axiomatical system HST#, as paraconsistent generalization of Hrbacek set theory HST
O. Arieli, A. Avron, A. Zamansky, "Ideal Paraconsistent Logics"
Belief revision
Non-classical logic
Philosophical logic
Systems of formal logic |
421116 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norbert%20Elias | Norbert Elias | Norbert Elias (; 22 June 1897 – 1 August 1990) was a German sociologist who later became a British citizen. He is especially famous for his theory of civilizing/decivilizing processes.
Biography
Elias was born on 22 June 1897 in Breslau (today: Wrocław) in Prussia's Silesia Province to Hermann Elias (1860–1940) and Sophie Elias, née Gallewski (also Galewski, 1875–1942). His father was a native of Kempen (today: Kępno) and a businessman in the textile industry. His mother was a native of the Jewish community of Breslau itself.
After passing the abitur in 1915, Norbert Elias volunteered for the German army in World War I and was employed as a telegrapher, first at the Eastern front, then at the Western front. After suffering a nervous breakdown in 1917, he was declared unfit for service and was posted to Breslau as a medical orderly. The same year, Elias began studying philosophy, psychology and medicine at the University of Breslau, in addition spending a term each at the universities of Heidelberg (where he attended lectures by Karl Jaspers) and Freiburg in 1919 and 1920. He quit medicine in 1919 after passing the preliminary examination (Physikum). To finance his studies after his father's fortune had been reduced by hyperinflation, he took up a job as the head of the export department in a local hardware factory 1922. In 1924, he graduated with a doctoral dissertation in philosophy entitled Idee und Individuum (Idea and Individual) supervised by Richard Hönigswald, a representative of neo-Kantianism. Disappointed about the absence of the social aspect from neo-Kantianism, which had led to a serious dispute with his supervisor about his dissertation, Elias decided to turn to sociology for his further studies.
During his Breslau years, until 1925, Elias was deeply involved in the German Zionist movement, and acted as one of the leading intellectuals within the German-Jewish youth movement "Blau-Weiss" (Blue-White). During these years he got acquainted with other young Zionists like Erich Fromm, Leo Strauss, Leo Löwenthal and Gershom Scholem. In 1925, Elias moved to Heidelberg, where Alfred Weber accepted him as a candidate for a habilitation (second book project) on the development of modern science, entitled Die Bedeutung der Florentiner Gesellschaft und Kultur für die Entstehung der Wissenschaft (The Significance of Florentine Society and Culture for the Development of Science). In 1930 Elias chose to cancel this project and followed Karl Mannheim to become his assistant at the University of Frankfurt. However, after the Nazi take-over in early 1933, Mannheim's sociological institute was forced to close. The already submitted habilitation thesis entitled Der höfische Mensch ("The Man of the Court") was never formally accepted and not published until 1969 in a much elaborated form as "Die höfische Gesellschaft" ("The Court Society"). In 1933, Elias fled to Paris. His elderly parents remained in Breslau, where his father died in 1940; on 30 August 1942 his mother was deported to Theresienstadt, and on 29 September transferred to and murdered in Treblinka.
During his two years in Paris, Elias worked as a private scholar supported by a scholarship from the Amsterdam Steunfonds (Prof. Frijda's benefit fund) and tried to gain some additional income by organizing a workshop for the production of wooden children's toys. In 1935, he moved on to Great Britain, where he worked on his magnum opus, The Civilizing Process, until 1939, now supported by a scholarship from a relief organization for Jewish refugees. In this work, he described the Nazi's genocide of the Jews as a "decivilizing spurt" of a civilization suffering from decay and a regression to barbarism. This work also contain's Elias' body theory. Drawing from historical documents describing manners and etiquette, he identified the processes that facilitated the emergence of the modern self within a civilized body. Elias equated the term "civilized" with the "controlled" body. In 1939, he met up with his former friend and supervisor Mannheim at the London School of Economics, where he obtained a position as senior research assistant. In 1940, the LSE was evacuated to Cambridge, but when an invasion of Britain by German forces appeared imminent, Elias was detained at internment camps in Liverpool and on the Isle of Man for eight months, on account of his being German – an "enemy alien". During his internment he organized political lectures and staged a drama he had written himself, Die Ballade vom armen Jakob (The Ballad of Poor Jacob) with a musical score by Hans Gál (eventually published in 1987).
Upon his release in 1941, he returned to Cambridge. Towards the end of the war, he worked for British intelligence, investigating hardened Nazis among German prisoners of war (see his essay "The breakdown of civilisation", in Studies on the Germans). He taught evening classes for the Workers' Educational Association (the adult education organization), and later evening extension courses in sociology, psychology, economics and economic history at the University of Leicester. He also held occasional lectureships at other institutions of higher learning. In collaboration with a friend from Frankfurt days, the psychoanalyst S. H. Foulkes, he laid the theoretical foundations of Group Analysis, an important school of therapy, and co-founded the Group Analytic Society in 1952. He himself trained and worked as a group therapist. On Febr. 22, 1952 he was naturalized as a British citizen.
In 1954 – at the very late age of 57 – he at last gained his first secure academic post, at University College Leicester (which soon became the University of Leicester), first as lecturer and later as reader in sociology. Along with his friend Ilya Neustadt, he made a major contribution to the development of the university's department of sociology, which became one of the largest and most influential departments in the United Kingdom. He retired in 1962, but continued to teach graduate students in Leicester until the mid-1970s. Among subsequently famous sociologists whom Neustadt and Elias appointed as colleagues at Leicester, were John H. Goldthorpe, Anthony Giddens, Martin Albrow, Sheila Allen, Joe and Olive Banks, Richard Brown, Mary McIntosh, Nicos Mouzelis and Sami Zubaida and Keith Hopkins. (Hopkins was subsequently Professor of Ancient History at Cambridge: his appointment to teach sociology in Leicester is one sign of the very broad conception Elias and Neustadt had of the discipline of sociology.) Students in the department included John Eldridge, Chris Bryant, Chris Rojek, Paul Hirst, Graeme Salaman and Bryan Wilson. From 1962 to 1964, Elias taught as professor of sociology at the University of Ghana in Legon near Accra. After his return to Europe in 1965, he spent much time as visiting professor in various German and Dutch universities, and from 1978 based himself in Amsterdam.
His reputation and popularity grew immensely after the republication of The Civilizing Process in 1969. From 1978 to 1984 he worked at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research at the University of Bielefeld from which he received an honorary doctorate in 1980. Elias was the first ever laureate of both the Theodor W. Adorno Prize (1977) and the European Amalfi Prize for Sociology and Social Sciences (1987). In 1986 the Große Verdienstkreuz of the German Federal Republic was awarded to him, and on his 90th birthday he was appointed Commander in the Order of Orange-Nassau by the Dutch queen. By 1998 an International Sociological Association worldwide survey of sociologists ranked "On the Process of Civilization" (revised later title) seventh among the most important books in sociology in the twentieth century. In 1990 he collected himself the Nonino prize for a 'Maestro del nostro tempo' in Italy. Outside his sociological work he always also wrote poetry.
Elias died at his home in Amsterdam on 1 August 1990. In September 2017, a bridge in the Vondelpark, not too far from where he lived, was named after him. In Almere city a street in the 'sustainable' sociologists' quarter also bears his name.
Work
Elias' theory focused on the relationship between power, behavior, emotion, and knowledge over time. He significantly shaped what is called process or figurational sociology. Due to historical circumstances, Elias had long remained a marginal author, until being rediscovered by a new generation of scholars in the 1970s, when he eventually became one of the most influential sociologists in the history of the field. Interest in his work can be partly attributed to the fact that his concept of large social figurations or networks of interdependencies between people explains the emergence and function of large societal structures without neglecting the aspect of individual agency. In the 1960s and 1970s, the overemphasis of structure over agency was heavily criticized about the then-dominant school of structural functionalism.
Elias' most famous work is Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, published in English as The Civilizing Process (or, more accurately in the Collected Works edition – see below – as On the Process of Civilisation). Originally published in German, in two volumes, in 1939, it was virtually ignored until its republication in 1969, when its first volume was also translated into English. The first volume traces the historical developments of the European habitus, or "second nature," the particular individual psychic structures molded by social attitudes. Elias traced how post-medieval European standards regarding violence, sexual behaviour, bodily functions, table manners and forms of speech were gradually transformed by increasing thresholds of shame and repugnance, working outward from a nucleus in court etiquette. The internalized "self-restraint" imposed by increasingly complex networks of social connections developed the "psychological" self-perceptions that Freud recognized as the "super-ego." The second volume of The Civilizing Process looks into the causes of these processes and finds them in the increasingly centralized Early Modern state and the increasingly differentiated and interconnected web of society.
When Elias' work found a larger audience in the 1960s, at first his analysis of the process was misunderstood as an extension of discredited "social Darwinism," the idea of upward "progress" was dismissed by reading it as consecutive history rather than a metaphor for a social process.
Elias came to write both in English and German. Almost all his work on the sociology of knowledge and the sciences was written in English, as was his seminal work in the sociology of sport, collected in The Quest for Excitement, written by Norbert Elias with Eric Dunning, and published in 1986. Bielefeld University's Center for Sociology of Development in 1984 invited Norbert Elias to preside over a gathering of a host of his internationally distinguished fellows who in turn wanted to review and discuss Elias' most interesting theories on civilising processes in person.
In 1983, Elias established the Norbert Elias Foundation to administer his legacy after his death. The initial members of the board of the foundation were Johan Goudsblom (Amsterdam), Hermann Korte (Münster) and Abraham van Stolk, the latter replaced after his death in 1996 by Stephen Mennell (Dublin). In 2017 a new board took over the management of the Foundation: Johan Heilbron (Rotterdam and Paris), Jason Hughes (Leicester), Adrian Jitschin (Frankfurt), and Arjan Post (Secretary, Amsterdam)
Until he retired from the University of Leicester in 1962, Elias had published only one book, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, and no more than a handful of articles. By the time of his death in 1990, he had published 15 books and something approaching 150 essays. He had always written a great deal, but found it very difficult ever to be satisfied with the results, and was very reluctant to release his work for publication. Still more curious, although he was such a perfectionist in his writing, he could rarely be persuaded to undertake such mundane tasks as reading and correcting the proofs. Thus, although his German works were well translated into English (for the most part by Edmund Jephcott), the original English editions contain many errors that could have been corrected by thorough proof-reading. In the early twenty-first century, therefore, the Norbert Elias Foundation entered into agreement with UCD Press, Dublin, to publish new scholarly editions of Elias's work, running to 18 volumes.
Collected works in English
The new editions of Elias's works, published by University College Dublin Press, have been carefully revised, cross-referenced and annotated (with notes especially about many historical people and events to which Elias makes reference), with a view to making them far more accessible to the reader. Especially important are the three volumes of Elias's collected essays, many of which have not previously been published in English – or were published in such a scattered way or in obscure places that they were hitherto little known. (Other essays can also be found in Early Writings, Mozart and other volumes.)
The 18 volumes are as follows:
1 Early Writings, edited by Richard Kilminster (2006).
2 The Court Society, edited by Stephen Mennell (2006).
3 On the Process of Civilisation [note new title], edited by Stephen Mennell, Eric Dunning, Johan Goudsblom and Richard Kilminster (2012).
4 The Established and the Outsiders, edited by Cas Wouters (2008).
5 What is Sociology? edited by Artur Bogner, Katie Liston and Stephen Mennell (2012).
6 The Loneliness of the Dying and Human Condition, edited by Alan and Brigitte Scott (2009).
7 Quest for Excitement: Sport and Leisure in the Civilising Process, by Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning, edited by Eric Dunning (2008).
8 Involvement and Detachment, edited by Stephen Quilley (2007).
9 An Essay on Time, edited by Steven Loyal and Stephen Mennell (2007).
10 The Society of Individuals, edited by Robert van Krieken (2010)
11 Studies on the Germans [note new title], edited by Stephen Mennell and Eric Dunning (2013).
12 Mozart, and Other Essays on Courtly Culture, edited by Eric Baker and Stephen Mennell (2010).
13 The Symbol Theory, edited by Richard Kilminster (2011).
14 Essays I: On the Sociology of Knowledge and the Sciences, edited by Richard Kilminster and StephenMennell (2009).
15 Essays II: On Civilising Processes, State Formation and National Identity, edited by Richard Kilminster and Stephen Mennell (2008).
16 Essays III: On Sociology and the Humanities, edited by Richard Kilminster and Stephen Mennell (2009).
17 Interviews and Autobiographical Reflections, edited by Edmund Jephcott, Richard Kilminster, Katie Liston and Stephen Mennell (October 2013).
18 Supplements and Index to the Collected Works [includes major unpublished essays on Freud and on Lévy-Bruhl], edited by Stephen Mennell, Marc Joly and Katie Liston (2014).
Supplementary volume
The Genesis of the Naval Profession, edited by René Moelker and Stephen Mennell (2007).
Select bibliography of earlier editions
Books (in chronological order, by date of original publication):
1939: Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation. Soziogenetische und psychogenetische Untersuchungen. Erster Band. Wandlungen des Verhaltens in den weltlichen Oberschichten des Abendlandes and Zweiter Band. Wandlungen der Gesellschaft. Entwurf einer Theorie der Zivilisation. Basel: Verlag Haus zum Falken. (Published in English as The Civilizing Process, Vol.I. The History of Manners, Oxford: Blackwell, 1969, and The Civilizing Process, Vol.II. State Formation and Civilization, Oxford: Blackwell, 1982).
2000: The Civilizing Process. Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Revised edition of 1994. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
1965 (with John L. Scotson): The Established and the Outsiders. A Sociological Enquiry into Community Problems, London: Frank Cass & Co. (Originally published in English.)
1969: Die höfische Gesellschaft. Untersuchungen zur Soziologie des Königtums und der höfischen Aristokratie (based on the 1933 habilitation). Neuwied/Berlin: Luchterhand. (Published in English translation by Edmund Jephcott as The Court Society, Oxford: Blackwell, 1983).
1970: Was ist Soziologie?. München: Juventa. (Published in English as What is Sociology?, London: Hutchinson, 1978).
1982: Über die Einsamkeit der Sterbenden in unseren Tagen, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (Published in English as The Loneliness of the Dying, Oxford: Blackwell, 1985).
1982 (edited with Herminio Martins and Richard Whitley): Scientific Establishments and Hierarchies. Sociology of the Sciences Yearbook 1982, Dordrecht: Reidel.
1983: Engagement und Distanzierung. Arbeiten zur Wissenssoziologie I, edited by Michael Schröter, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (Published in English as Involvement and Detachment. Contributions to the Sociology of Knowledge, Oxford: Blackwell, 1987.)
1984: Über die Zeit. Arbeiten zur Wissenssoziologie II, edited by Michael Schröter, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (Published in English as Time. An Essay, Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).
1985: Humana conditio. Betrachtungen zur Entwicklung der Menschheit am 40. Jahrestag eines Kriegsendes (8. Mai 1985), Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (Not available in English).
1986 (with Eric Dunning): Quest for Excitement. Sport and Leisure in the Civilizing Process. Oxford: Blackwell.
1987: Die Gesellschaft der Individuen, edited by Michael Schröter, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (Original 1939, published in English as The Society of Individuals, Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).
1987: Los der Menschen. Gedichte, Nachdichtungen, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (Poetry, not available in English).
1989: Studien über die Deutschen. Machtkämpfe und Habitusentwicklung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, edited by Michael Schröter, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (Published in English as The Germans. Power struggles and the development of habitus in the 19th and 20th centuries, Cambridge: Polity Press 1996.)
1990: Über sich selbst, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (Published in English as Reflections on a life, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994).
1991: Mozart. Zur Soziologie eines Genies, edited by Michael Schröter, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (Published in English as Mozart. Portrait of a Genius, Cambridge: Polity Press, 1993).
1991: The Symbol Theory. London: Sage. (Originally published in English.)
1996: Die Ballade vom armen Jakob, Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag (Drama, not available in English).
1998: Watteaus Pilgerfahrt zur Insel der Liebe, Weitra (Austria): Bibliothek der Provinz (Not available in English).
1998: The Norbert Elias Reader: A Biographical Selection, edited by Johan Goudsblom and Stephen Mennell, Oxford: Blackwell.
1999: Zeugen des Jahrhunderts. Norbert Elias im Gespräch mit Hans-Christian Huf, edited by Wolfgang Homering, Berlin: Ullstein. (Interview, not available in English).
2002: Frühschriften. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (Early writings, not available in English.)
2004: Gedichte und Sprüche. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp. (Translations of poems in English and French).
See also:
Stephen Mennell (1989) Norbert Elias: Civilization and the Human Self-Image. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Jonathan Fletcher (1997) Violence and Civilization: An Introduction to the Work of Norbert Elias. Cambridge: Polity.
Robert van Krieken (1998) Norbert Elias. London: Routledge.
Nathalie Heinich (2002) La sociologie de Norbert Elias. Paris: La Découverte.
Steven Loyal and Steven Quilley (eds) (2004) The Sociology of Norbert Elias. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Eric Dunning and Jason Hughes (2013) Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology: Knowledge, Interdependence, Power, Process. London: Bloomsbury.
Dépelteau, F. and Landini, T.S. (Ed. by) (2013) Norbert Elias & Social Theory. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Landini, T.S. and Dépelteau, F. (Ed. by) (2014) Norbert Elias & Empirical Research. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Articles
"Studies in the genesis of the naval profession", British Journal of Sociology, 1(4) 1950: 291–309.
"Problems of involvement and detachment", British Journal of Sociology, 7(3) 1956: 226–252.
"Sociology of knowledge: new perspectives. Part One", Sociology, 5(2): (1971): 149–168.
"Sociology of knowledge: new perspectives. Part Two", Sociology, 5(3): (1971): 355–370.
"Theory of science and history of science: comments on a recent discussion", Economy & Society, 1(2): (1972): 117–133.
"The Civilizing Process revisited: interview with Stanislas Fontaine", Theory & Society, 5: (1978): 243–253.
"On transformations of aggressiveness", Theory & Society, 5(2): (1978): 229–242.
"Civilization and Violence: on the state monopoly of violence and its infringements". Telos, 54 (Winter 1982–83): 134–154.
"The retreat of sociologists into the present", Theory, Culture & Society, 4: (1987): 223–247.
"On human beings and their emotions: a process-sociological essay", Theory, Culture & Society, 4(2–3): (1987): 339–361.
"The changing balance of power between the sexes – a process-sociological study: the example of the Ancient Roman state", Theory, Culture & Society, 4 (2–3): (1987): 287–316.
"The Symbol Theory: An Introduction, Part One", Theory, Culture & Society, 6(2): (1989): 169–217.
"Technization and civilization", Theory, Culture & Society, 12(3): (1995): 7–42.
"Towards a theory of social processes", British Journal of Sociology, 48(3): (1997): 355–383.
"Power and Civilisation", Journal of Power, 1(2): (2008): 135–142.
References
Further reading
Robert van Krieken, Norbert Elias, Key Sociologists series, London: Routledge, 1998.
Eric Dunning and Jason Hughes, Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology: Knowledge, Interdependence, Power, Process, Bloomsbury Academic, 2012.
Jonathan Fletcher, Violence and Civilization: An Introduction to the Work of Norbert Elias, Cambridge: Polity, 1997.
The Sociology of Norbert Elias, edited by Steven Loyal and Stephen Quilley, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Stephen Mennell, Norbert Elias: An Introduction, Dublin: UCD Press, 1999.
Andrew McKinnon 'Religion and the Civilizing Process: The Pax Dei Movement and the Christianization of Violence in the Process of Feudalization'. in A McKinnon & M Trzebiatowska (eds), Sociological Theory and the Question of Religion. Ashgate, 2014. Religion and the Civilizing Process.
External links
The Norbert Elias Foundation website (Includes all issues of the Newsletter Figurations)
The HyperElias website (A complete list of all works by Norbert Elias, in all languages, published and unpublished, as well as many full text items and abstracts)
1897 births
1990 deaths
Writers from Wrocław
University of Breslau alumni
Heidelberg University alumni
University of Freiburg alumni
People from the Province of Silesia
German sociologists
Jewish sociologists
British sociologists
Group psychotherapists
English people of German-Jewish descent
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom
Academics of the London School of Economics
Academics of the University of Leicester
Academic staff of Bielefeld University
Knights Commander of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
People interned in the Isle of Man during World War II
German male writers
20th-century German philosophers |
421151 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kamisese%20Mara | Kamisese Mara | Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, (6 May 1920 – 18 April 2004) was a Fijian politician, who served as Chief Minister from 1967 to 1970, when Fiji gained its independence from the United Kingdom, and, apart from one brief interruption in 1987, the first Prime Minister from 1970 to 1992. He subsequently served as President from 1993 to 2000.
Early life and education: 1920 to 1950
Ratu Sir Kamisese Kapaiwai Tuimacilai Uluilakeba Mara was born on 6 May 1920, in Sawana, Lomaloma, Vanuabalavu in the archipelago of Lau, the son of Ratu Tevita Uluilakeba, Tui Nayau and head of the chiefly Vuanirewa clan of Tubou, Lakeba and Lusiana Qolikoro from the Fonolahi Family of the Yavusa Tonga clan in Sawana. Fonolahi has lineage to the Tongan royalty and was also descended from an English missionary.
Mara's title, Ratu, which means "Chief," was hereditary; as the hereditary Paramount Chief of the Lau Islands, he held the titles of Tui Lau in 1963, and Tui Nayau kei Sau ni Vanua ko Lau in 1969. He succeeded to the Tui Nayau title in 1969, following the death of his father in 1966. He was earlier installed as Tui Lau in 1963 following the traditional consultation process between the Yavusa Tonga in Sawana, Lomaloma and the Tui Nayau his father. Though the title Tui Lau is not hereditary it has been left vacant by his cousin¹ Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna, who had died in 1958.
Ratu Mara was first educated at Primary in Levuka (Sacred Heart Convent) than to Lau Provincial school before he left for his secondary education in an all boys boarding school in North of Tailevu (Queen Victoria School), he later moved to Marist Brothers High School Suva and Sacred Heart College, Auckland. He then attended the University of Otago in New Zealand, where he studied medicine (1942 to 1945). He never finished his medical studies, because his great-uncle and mentor, Ratu Sir Lala Sukuna (who was then regarded as Fiji's paramount chief), seeking to groom him for future leadership of the nation, arranged for him to study history at Wadham College, Oxford in the United Kingdom. Mara was distressed to abandon his medical studies, but, dependent on Ratu Sukuna for financial support, followed his orders without question, and graduated with an MA in 1949. In 1961, he returned to the United Kingdom to pursue postgraduate study at the London School of Economics for a Diploma in Economics and Social Administration, which he was awarded in 1962. In 1973, his old alma mater, Otago University, awarded him an honorary doctorate of laws (LL.D).
Following his graduation from Oxford University, Mara returned to Fiji and had married Ro Litia Cakobau Lalabalavu Katoafutoga Tuisawau, better known as Ro Lady Lala Mara, on 9 September 1950. Her title, Ro, is also hereditary and is held by Rewan chiefs; like her husband, Ro Lala was a chief in her own right, as the Roko Tui Dreketi (Paramount Chief) of Burebasaga and Rewa. The marriage was initially opposed by some members of Mara's family, as Ro Lala was from a rival dynasty with which the Mara clan had a history of strained relations. The marriage proved to be a happy one, however, and in stark contrast to the prevalence of divorce among many of Mara's relatives, it lasted for more than 53 years. They had three sons and five daughters Ateca Ganilau,Koila Nailatikau Adi Asenaca kakua Mara,Finau Mara,Adi Litia Cakobau Mara Dugdale and the twins Tevita Mara and Adi Elenoa Tuilau Mara Taito two of whom have pursued political careers of their own. Their eldest son, Ratu Finau Mara, was a Cabinet Minister and parliamentary leader of the Fijian Association Party from 1996 to 1998, when he resigned to take up a diplomatic posting. Their second daughter, Adi koila Nailatikau has also followed in her father's footsteps and has served her country as a career diplomat and politician. She was Minister for Transport and Tourism in 1999 and 2000, and served in the Fijian Senate from 2001 to 2006.
The making of a statesman: 1950 to 1970
After serving (from 1950) as an Administrative Officer in the Colonial Services, Mara was nominated to one of five seats on the Legislative Council reserved for ethnic Fijians in 1953. (There were ten other seats, five reserved for Indians and five for Europeans and other minorities; a further sixteen members were appointed by the colonial Governor). In 1959, Mara was appointed to the Executive Council, and in 1963 was given responsibility as Leader of Government Business and Member for Natural Resources (officially an advisor to the Governor, but in reality roughly equivalent to a modern cabinet minister). In 1964, he was received into the Great Council of Chiefs, which at that time was empowered to appoint two members to the Legislative Council. In 1966, he founded the Alliance Party, which, supported overwhelmingly by the ethnic Fijian and European communities (but not by most Indo-Fijians), won a majority of the seats in the 1966 election. In preparation for independence, the United Kingdom introduced the Westminster (Cabinet) system of government to Fiji in October 1967. The Executive Council was transformed into a modern Cabinet, and its members, who had hitherto been answerable only to the colonial Governor, were made fully responsible to the legislature. Mara was named to the new position of Chief Minister.
One problem that threatened to delay independence was the failure of ethnic Fijians and Indo-Fijians to agree on a post-independence Constitution. Ethnic Fijians, including Mara, wanted a communal franchise, with parliamentary seats reserved for the different ethnic groups, who would vote on separate electoral rolls. It was believed that this would protect indigenous Fijian rights. Mara also considered that it was in Fiji's interests to avoid direct competition between political candidates from different ethnic groups, fearing that it would lead to social and political upheaval. Most Indo-Fijians rejected this proposal, believing that it would prevent them from obtaining a legislative majority, even though they numbered more than half of the population, and demanded that all Parliamentary seats should be elected by universal suffrage from a common voters' roll. In April 1970, Mara and Sidiq Koya, leader of the mainly Indo-Fijian National Federation Party, met in London and negotiated a compromise. Fijians and Indo-Fijians would be represented equally in the House of Representatives, with 22 seats each; a further 8 seats would be set aside for Europeans and other minorities. About half of the representatives from each ethnic group would be elected only by members of their particular race, while the other half would be elected by universal suffrage. Following this agreement, Fiji became independent on 10 October 1970.
Prime Minister of Fiji: 1970 to 1992
With independence, the office of Chief Minister was renamed Prime Minister, but its functions were substantially unchanged. Mara retained power in the first post-independence election of 1972. Internal divisions within the ethnic Fijian electorate led to the narrow defeat of his Alliance Party by the Indo-Fijian dominated National Federation Party (NFP) in the election of March 1977. He tendered his resignation as Prime Minister, but the NFP splintered three days later in a leadership dispute, and a constitutional crisis developed. The official representative of Queen Elizabeth, Governor-General Ratu Sir George Cakobau, ended up calling on Mara to form a new government. Although unquestionably constitutional, the Governor-General's actions were controversial. Many Indo-Fijians were outraged at what they saw as a deliberate cynical move on his part to keep the government of Ratu Mara, his fellow-chief (and distant cousin) in power at all costs. A subsequent election to resolve the impasse in September that year, however, appeared to vindicate Cakobau, when the Alliance Party won a record 36 seats out of 52.
The Alliance Party's majority was reduced in the 1982 election, but with 28 of the 52 seats, Mara retained power. Despite the loss of eight seats, the popular vote for the Alliance Party rose to 51.8% – an all-time record. Part of the reason for this paradox lay in the distribution of the vote: the gains in the popular vote occurred mostly because of a swing of almost 10% in the 11 "communal" seats reserved for, and elected exclusively by, Indo-Fijians, but 24% of the Indo-Fijian vote was insufficient to translate into parliamentary seats, and therefore did not effectively offset small but very significant losses in ethnic Fijian "communal" seats. It was therefore a bittersweet election for Mara.
Convinced of the need to include Indo-Fijians in the government, he proposed a "government of national unity" – a grand coalition with the National Federation Party. The NFP, however, rejected the offer and remained in opposition. In the election of 1987, Mara was finally defeated by a multiracial coalition led by Dr Timoci Bavadra. His retirement was to be short-lived, however. Two military coups led by Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni Rabuka seriously undermined the social and economic stability, and the international prestige, of Fiji. Mara was recalled to head an interim administration, with a view to restoring Fiji's international reputation and rebuilding the country's shattered economy. In 1992, he handed over power to an elected government.
President of the Republic: 1993 to 2000
After the military coups of 1987, Fiji had severed its links with the Monarchy and become a republic, with a president and two Vice-Presidents chosen by the Great Council of Chiefs. Following his retirement as Prime Minister, Mara was elected to the Vice-Presidency in June 1992, and became Acting president soon after, when the ailing president Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau was incapacitated. He assumed the office of President officially when Ganilau died on 16 December of the following year. Modelled on the Monarchy, the presidency filled a largely honorary role, but was nevertheless vested with important reserve powers, to be used only in the event of a national crisis.
That crisis came on 19 May 2000, with the Fiji coup of 2000. Gunmen led by George Speight forced their way into Parliament and kidnapped the Prime Minister, Mahendra Chaudhry, several Cabinet ministers, and a number of parliamentarians. Speight declared himself Prime Minister, and ordered Mara to step aside as president. Mara refused to negotiate with the plotters, and decided instead to dismiss the kidnapped government and assume emergency powers himself. His move backfired, however. In what politicians called "a coup within a coup," Ratu Mara was whisked away on the naval ship Kiro on 28 May, where he was allegedly approached by a group of present and former military and police officers and ordered to suspend the Constitution. When he refused, ("If the Constitution goes, I go," he defiantly declared) the group, including the army commander, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, former Prime Minister and 1987 Coup Leader Sitiveni Rabuka, former military commander Ratu Epeli Ganilau (a son-in-law of Mara's), and a former Police Commissioner Isikia Savua, are alleged to have asked for, and possibly forced, Mara's resignation. He was subsequently taken to his home island of Lakeba in the Lau Islands. For the 80-year-old president, who was seen as the father of the country and had led it, in one capacity or another, for more than 40 years, it was an anticlimactic end.
The military regime that took over appointed Ratu Josefa Iloilo, who had been Mara's vice-president, to succeed him on 13 July 2000. After the coup had been quashed, the Supreme Court ruled on 15 November that year that Mara's replacement was unconstitutional and ordered his reinstatement, but Mara, wishing to spare the country further constitutional trauma, officially resigned, with his resignation retroactive to 29 May 2000.
On 29 April 2001, Mara publicly accused the police chief, Colonel Isikia Savua and former Prime Minister, Sitiveni Rabuka, of instigating the coup. In what was to be his last public interview, Mara claimed that George Speight – who was then in custody and has since been convicted of treason – was only a front, Mara told Close-Up on Fiji Television that he confronted Savua and Rabuka two days after the coup about their possible involvement. "I could see it in their faces," said Mara, emphatically rejecting their denials.
Mara told the programme that within half an hour of Speight's forcible occupation of the Parliament, Rabuka had telephoned Government House (the official residence of the president) to offer to form a government.
Mara said that he was shocked to learn that the Counter Revolutionary Warfare Unit of the Army had been involved in the coup. He alleged that they took George Speight to Parliament, and that their senior officers supplied them with weapons, blankets, and food. Mara also declared that the Counter Revolutionary Warfare officers who joined Speight's coup had trained on a farm owned by Rabuka. Excerpts of this interview were broadcast on 29 April 2001; the full interview was not broadcast until 29 April 2004 – while his body was lying in state in preparation for his funeral.
Whether Mara's resignation was in fact forced has been the subject of a police investigation since 21 May 2003, when the Police Investigations Department confirmed that they had opened an investigation into the events surrounding his departure from office. Mahendra Chaudhry, the deposed Prime Minister, has publicly supported Mara's version of events, and has further alleged that Mara was blackmailed with a threat to kill his daughter, Tourism Minister Adi Koila Nailatikau, who was one of the hostages. Commodore Bainimarama has defended his role in the incident saying it was "necessary" at the time, and that Mara's resignation was, in fact, voluntary and that he had refused offers of reinstatement. Mara's daughter, Adi Ateca Ganilau (wife of Ratu Epeli Ganilau) appeared to support Bainimarama's claims in a statement on 10 January 2005, saying that her father had resigned and had refused to return because he was upset by the abrogation of the Constitution. "He did not agree with the abrogation of the Constitution. That was probably why he refused to return to office. It was not that the military pressured him to move out," Ganilau said. She called for a thorough investigation into the abrogation of the Constitution, and for those who were legal advisers at the time to be answerable for their actions.
Police have said they have faced "many challenges" in their investigation, finding many officers uncooperative. On 30 April 2004, the Fijian police said they were closely examining the recording of Mara's last interview, in an attempt to uncover new leads. Police spokesman Mesake Koroi declared that there was a lot of hearsay and rumours in circulation that would not stand up in a court of law. "Unfortunately we are hitting a brick wall in our investigations at the moment," Koroi said. On 2 May 2005, however, Commodore Bainimarama agreed to make a statement to the police about his own role in Mara's resignation. Police Commissioner Andrew Hughes said that no charges could be brought against Commodore Bainimarama unless it could be proved that he had actually forced the president to resign. On 5 January 2006, Hughes said that Mara's departure from the Presidency was one of seven major cases the police were still working on.
Evaluation
Sugarcane industry
Under Mara's leadership, Fiji became a giant in sugarcane production. Between 1970 and 1987, the sugarcane crop more than doubled, from under 250,000 tonnes to 502,000. The sugar industry continues to be the mainstay of Fiji's economy, and more than 90% of Fiji's sugar is exported. Mara's government led the way in negotiating special preferential marketing agreements with nations importing Fijian sugar, through the Lome Convention.
Pine industry
Mara also founded Fiji's pine industry. Today, pine plantations, virtually nonexistent 40 years ago, cover close to 480 square kilometres throughout the Fiji Islands, and there is an ongoing programme to further expand area in all parts of the country. Fiji now derives more than $40 to 50 million a year in foreign exchange earnings from its forestry sector. Of this total, more than half is from pinewood chips exports. This industry now provides a substantial and increasing source of income to those in rural areas, including especially the indigenous Fijian landowners.
International achievements and honours
In the 1960s, Mara led a revolt by Pacific Islands delegates that brought about a restructuring of the South Pacific Commission. He also helped to launch the Pacific Islands Producers' Association and the South Pacific Forum, both associations of Pacific nations, of which Fiji was a founder member.
Yet another significant Mara achievement was his contribution to the negotiations that led to the signing of a new United Nations International Law of the Sea Convention in 1982.
On the global stage, Mara was known for his strongly pro-American views. He supported visits to Fijian ports by nuclear-armed United States warships and submarines. He was a close ally of US President Ronald Reagan. Mara was also known for his support for Taiwan. Although he did not officially recognise the Republic of China, he never hid the fact that his true sympathies lay there, and the Taipei regime, in gratitude, helped to finance the publication of his memoirs.
Over the years, Mara received many honours from around the world. In addition to his knighthood (a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE), awarded in 1969), his honours from Queen Elizabeth II included the Meritorious Service Decoration, the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (1961), Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (1983), Chancellor of the Order of Fiji, Companion of the Order of Fiji, and Knight Grand Cross of the Pian Order with Star (1995). He was also a member of the Privy Council in London beginning in 1973. Recognitions from other governments included being made a Grand Master of the Order of the National Lion in Dakar, Senegal in 1975, and the Order of Diplomatic Service Merit of South Korea in 1978. He was also a Knight of the Most Venerable Order of St John, and became Chancellor of the University of the South Pacific at Suva, which was founded with the support of his government. In 2000, Island Business Magazine named him Pacific Man of the Century, in recognition of his pivotal role in the founding of the South Pacific Forum.
Criticisms
There were criticisms of his leadership, too, some of which he eventually acknowledged. Many Indo-Fijians criticised him for not doing more to thwart the 1987 coups which removed an Indo-Fijian dominated administration from office, and for giving his consent to a new constitution, drafted in 1990, which guaranteed indigenous Fijian supremacy and was widely regarded as racist, even drawing comparisons from some quarters with South Africa's apartheid system. Mara defended his role in the post-coup era of 1987 to 1992, arguing that he was doing the best he could in circumstances that he could not fully control, and that it had seemed better at the time to connive in the writing of a discriminatory constitution than to risk civil war at the hands of ethnic Fijian extremists. In 1996, he publicly apologised to the Indo-Fijian community for his role in the drafting of the 1990 Constitution. Mahendra Chaudhry, the leader of the Indo-Fijian community who in 1999 became Fiji's first Indo-Fijian Prime Minister, said that he did not agree with, but understood, Mara's reasons for acting as he did, and accepted his apology for having done so. Other opponents, both Indo-Fijian and ethnic Fijian, were less forgiving, however.
Sitiveni Rabuka, who led the 1987 coup, surprised many in 1999 when he claimed in an autobiography that he had carried out the coups at Mara's behest. Mara retaliated by suing him for defamation. Mahendra Chaudhry said that he did not believe that Mara had been involved.
Not all of Mara's critics were Indo-Fijian. George Speight, a commoner (i.e., one of non-chiefly ancestry) who led the 2000 putsch accused Mara of selling the country out to Indo-Fijians, and of working to keep power in the hands of a coalition of Fijian chiefs and Indo-Fijian businessmen, at the expense of Fijian commoners.
Later life and death
Following his resignation, Mara retired to his native island of Lakeba. He continued to influence politics in Fiji, where democracy was subsequently restored, through his membership of the Great Council of Chiefs, which not only advised the government but also functioned as an electoral college to choose the President of the Republic, as well as 14 of the 32 members of the Senate; at the time of his death, he was the longest-serving member of the Council. He remained Chairman of the Lau Provincial Council, a position he had held concurrently with his national offices for many years.
Mara suffered a stroke late in 2001 while visiting Port Vila, Vanuatu, with two of his longtime friends, businessmen Hari Punja and Joe Ruggiero. He died in Suva on 18 April 2004, from complications arising from the stroke. His state funeral, led by Roman Catholic Archbishop Petero Mataca, which was spread out over three days (28 to 30 April) saw an estimated 200,000 people – almost a quarter of Fiji's total population – line the streets to pay their last respects to the man they regarded as the father of the nation, in an outpouring of public grief not seen since the death of Mara's presidential predecessor, Ratu Sir Penaia Ganilau, over a decade earlier.
Legacy
Even in death, Ratu Mara stirred controversy. His state funeral was by no means universally popular, even among his close supporters. Claiming to speak for many of those who had been close to the late president, Joseph Browne, who had been his official secretary, claimed that it was the "height of hypocrisy" to have the armed forces, still commanded by the same officers who had unceremoniously deposed Mara from the presidency four years earlier, honouring him at his funeral now.
A one-year period of mourning for the late Chief ended on 13 May 2005, with the close of a series of ceremonies that started on the 9th. Those who had been observing mourning rituals symbolically changed from black clothes into their normal attire. (Members of the Mara family, however, said that they would continue to wear black for a further three months, until the period of mourning for his wife, Adi Lala, is over). Thousands of people arrived in the chiefly village of Tubou on the island of Lakeba to take part in the vakataraisulu ritual, which lifted taboos in place for the Mara family and the people of the Lau Islands. Mara's son, Ratu Finau Mara, who is widely expected to be named his successor as Tui Nayau, or Paramount Chief of the Lau Islands, was expected to participate in the vakataraisulu at the request of elders from Tubou and Levuka, but for undisclosed reasons, remained in Suva. In 2004, he had attended his father's state funeral in Suva but not his private funeral in Lakeba. His younger brother, Roko Tevita Uluilakeba, was believed to be out of the country.
Addressing the Lau Provincial Council in Ratu Mara's honour, Fiji's current vice-president, Ratu Joni Madraiwiwi praised him as a man of vision and compassion, who hated lies and lived by the truth. He praised him as a committed Christian who practised what he preached, and who did not differentiate between people but treated all men alike whatever their race or religion. Madraiwiwi called on all Lauans to follow Mara's example.
Another controversy was reported by the Fiji Times on 8 January 2006. His family was displeased, his daughter Adi Ateca Ganilau told the Times, that the same government that was working to release from prison persons convicted of offences related to the coup which deposed him, was also promoting an independent biography to be written by Australian academic Derrick Scarr, formerly of the Australian National University. This was contradictory, she said. "On one hand they want to praise him but on the other they are working to free those people who ousted him through the Reconciliation Bill," she said, referring to controversial legislation introduced by the Fijian government in 2005, aimed at establishing a Commission empowered to propose amnesty for coup-convicts. She reiterated her previously stated opposition to the release of coup-perpetrators, saying that he father would not have stood for it if he were alive.
Jioji Kotobalavu, the chief executive officer of the Prime Minister's Department, rejected the criticism, saying that the government was not financing the book and that its involvement was limited to ensuring that Scarr had access to information sources. He considered that co-operation in the writing of the biography would be a fitting tribute to Ratu Mara, whom he called a great man. The Mara family should discuss any reservations with Scarr himself, Kotobalavu said.
Cricket
Mara played two first-class matches for Fiji against Otago and Canterbury in Fiji's 1953/54 tour of New Zealand. After scoring 44 runs against Canterbury he broke his arm, curtailing both his tour, in which he served as vice-captain, and first-class career.
In his two first-class matches Mara scored 64 runs at a batting average of 21.33, with a high score of 44. A right-arm fast-medium bowler, with the ball he took 8 wickets at a bowling average of 17.12, with best figures of 4/77.
Mara also played 8 non-first-class matches for Fiji from 1954 to 1956, with his final match for Fiji coming against the West Indies in Fiji's famous 28 run win over them, a match in which he captained Fiji to victory.
Personal life
Mara's interests included cricket, rugby, golf, athletics, and fishing. Mara is cousins with one of Fiji's famous cricketer's, I.L. Bula. He was a member of the Achilles Club in London, the Defence Club in Suva, and the United Oxford and Cambridge Universities Club in the United Kingdom. Mara's character was described as a combination of the forthright and the diplomatic, the inflexible and the dexterous, the imperious and the tolerant. He was known as a strong, imposing personality, but with an ability to forgive his opponents. A convert to Catholicism, Mara wrote of his faith: "Certainly it has been the rock on which I have been able to rely in good times and in bad, and it is the lodestone of my life." He wrote an autobiography, The Pacific Way: A Memoir. Mara was survived by his wife, Adi Lala (who herself died on 20 July the same year), and by two sons and five daughters; one son predeceased him.
†In Mara's time, the office of Vice-President was held simultaneously by two individuals; Mara's tenure coincided with that of Ratu Sir Josaia Tavaiqia (1992 to 1997). Tavaiqia was already First Vice-President, serving alongside Inoke Takiveikata as Second Vice-President; Takiveikata resigned in Mara's favour, and Tavaiqia moved to the post of Second Vice-President to allow Mara to assume that of First Vice-President.
See also
Elenoa Mara-Rasova
References
The World of Talk on a Fijian Island: An Ethnography of Law and Communicative Causation – Chapter 1 Pages 8,9 / Chapter 4, Page 56 By Andrew Arno Copyright 1993 by Alex Publishing, printed in the USA
The Years of Hope: Cambridge, Colonial Administration in the South Seas and Cricket Chapter 5 Page 103 –104 By Phillip A. Snow Published in 1997 by Radcliffe Press London
Pacific Art: persistence, Change and meaning Memorial Images of Eastern Fiji By Anita Herle Copyright 2002, University of Hawai'i Press
Mara, Ratu Sir Kamisese: "The Pacific Way: A Memoir", University of Hawai'i Press, 1997 –
20th Century Fiji, edited by Stewart Firth & Daryl Tarte – 2001 –
External links
Island Business magazine names Mara Pacific Islands Man of the Century
Official death notice, tributes, and announcement of a state funeral (Heraldsun)
A brief sketch of Ratu Mara's life (Daily Telegraph) (UK)
Transcript of ABC Radio report of Mara's death
Partial transcript of Ratu Mara's last interview, with Fiji Television, 29 April 2001
The end of an era (Islands Business), May 2004
Details Ratu Mara and his Life.
Kamisese Mara on Cricinfo
Kamisese Mara on CricketArchive
Swami Rudrananda's impact
1920 births
2004 deaths
Alumni of the London School of Economics
Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford
Fijian chiefs
Presidents of Fiji
Vice-presidents of Fiji
Prime Ministers of Fiji
Tui Lau
Tui Nayau
University of Otago alumni
Vuanirewa
Fijian Roman Catholics
Fijian cricketers
People educated at Marist Brothers High School, Fiji
People educated at Sacred Heart College, Auckland
Recipients of the Meritorious Service Decoration
Companions of the Order of Fiji
Knights of the Order of Pope Pius IX
Fijian people of Tongan descent
Fijian people of English descent
Converts to Roman Catholicism
Foreign Ministers of Fiji
I-Taukei Fijian members of the House of Representatives (Fiji)
I-Taukei Fijian members of the Legislative Council of Fiji
Politicians from Lakeba
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Fijian expatriates in the United Kingdom |
421164 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United%20National%20Movement%20%28Georgia%29 | United National Movement (Georgia) | United National Movement (; UNM) is a liberal and pro-Western political party in Georgia founded by Mikheil Saakashvili, which rose to power following the Rose Revolution. Since the 2012 parliamentary election, it has been the main opposition party.
History
Founding
The 1995 Georgian presidential and parliamentary elections, the first elections since the end of Georgian Civil War, established Eduard Shevardnadze as the President of Georgia and his Union of Citizens party as the governing party, which largely functioned as an extension of the executive branch controlled by the President in a strongly presidential system of governance put in place by the 1995 Constitution of Georgia. The Union of Citizens served as a big tent party united under the leadership of Shevardnadze. It attracted a number of young politicians, including Mikhail Saakashvili, Zurab Zhvania and Nino Burjanadze. The imposition of electoral thresholds led to a rapid decrease in multi-partisanship: the number of parties in Parliament decreased to 14 in 1995 and four in 1999. The Union of Citizens became the largest political force in the country and its only strong opposition was the regionalist Democratic Revival Union of Adjara's strongman governor Aslan Abashidze. However, the government's inability to deal with deep-seated corruption and rebuild crippled state institutions that had been inherited after a decade of civil conflicts led to upsurge of various factions within the Citizen's Union which turned out to be more effective in opposing President Shevardnadze than opposition parties.
The divisions in the Citizens' Union and more apparent public discontent with Shevardnadze led to the defection of numerous parliamentary deputies from the ruling party and allowed for the formation of new parties after 2000. The first group to leave the CUG represented the business community and would go on to form the New Rights Party (NRP) in 2001. This began the collapse of the party, as numerous party officials and deputies defected to join or form other parties. The parliamentary speaker and leader of the Reformers Faction Zurab Zhvania left the Union of Citizens and established a new party, called the United Democrats. He was soon joined by another prominent parliamentary deputy from the Union of Citizens, Nino Burjanadze. This left Shevardnadze with few allies.
In September 2001, Mikheil Saakashvili (then Minister of Justice) resigned and left the ruling party, saying that corruption had penetrated to the very centre of the Georgian government and that Shevardnadze lacked the will to deal with it, warning that "current developments in Georgia will turn the country into a criminal enclave in one or two years". Saakashvili would form the National Movement opposition party one month later. The party campaigned against corruption, crime, promised to restore control over Georgia's breakaway regions and pursue more forceful policy of Euro-Atlantic integration.
Having achieved significant success in the 2002 local election, the party looked forward to the 2003 parliamentary election as an opportunity to challenge the long-lasting rule of the increasingly unpopular ruling party. In June 2002, Saakashvili was elected as the Chairman of the Tbilisi Assembly ("Sakrebulo") following an agreement between the United National Movement and the Georgian Labour Party. This gave him a powerful new platform from which to criticize the government.
Rose Revolution
Saakashvili and other Georgian opposition leaders formed a coalition in 2003 to bring together the United National Movement, the United Democrats, the Republican Party, Union of National Forces and the movement "Kmara" in a loose alliance against the government of President Eduard Shevardnadze. The NM actively campaigned around the country and opened its office in Gori in January of 2003 to coordinate its actions. In his pre-election campaign, Saakashvili called Shevardnadze to resign, saying that under his rule the country could not continue to exist "under normal circumstances". Prior to the election, Saakashvili resigned as a Chairman of the Tbilisi Assembly, aiming at more higher position in the parliament. In September 2003, one month before the election, Saakashvili paid visits to Washington, Moscow and Kyiv. When the election date came, Saakashvili called his support to go out and vote and hope for the better future. The elections were held on November 2, 2003 and gave party 18% of the votes. The ruling party got only 22% of votes, which meant that it could not form a government on its own, although the ruling party could broker a coalition government excluding the NM and its allies. The opposition parties strongly contested the outcome of the November 2, 2003 parliamentary elections, which local and international observers criticized for numerous irregularities. The allegations of ballot fraud were proceeded by the political crisis and mass protests. Several non-governmental organizations, like Liberty Institute, were active in all protest activities. An increasingly tense two weeks of demonstrations put pressure on Shevardnadze, who decided to resign as President on 23 November. This became known as a Rose Revolution – the first color revolution of the post-Soviet world. The National Movement and its partners played a central role in the November 2003 political crisis.
After the fall of Shevardnadze, the party joined forces with the United Democrats and the Union of National Forces to promote Saakashvili as the principal candidate in the presidential elections of January 4, 2004. Saakashvili won the election with overwhelming majority and was inaugurated on January 25. The National Movement and the United Democrats amalgamated on February 5, 2004; the bloc National Movement - Democrats, which also featured the Republican Party and the Union of National Forces, secured the constitutional majority in the fresh parliamentary elections (with ca. 75% of the votes). The new Parliament ratified constitutional amendments in 2004 that increased the powers of the President and divided powers among the revolutionary trio leaders: Mikheil Saakashvili as president, Zurab Zhvania as Prime Minister, and Nino Burjanadze as Speaker of Parliament. The position of Prime Minister was explicitly created by these constitutional amendments, replacing the Minister of State.
2004-2007: Centralization, reforms, strong executive
The main result of the 2004 constitutional amendments was strengthening of the presidential powers, weakening of Parliament and initiation of a process of concentration of power in the hands of the executive branch. The new government argued that the broad executive powers were necessary to allow the revolutionary leaders to implement swift reforms. The new government faced little opposition as only the Rightist Opposition coalition managed to reach necessary electoral threshold to secure seats in Parliament among all opposition groups. In May 2004, the Republican Party and the Union of National Forces withdrew from the ruling coalition, although in no avail. The broad powers, as well as popular support, gave the government a strong mandate to implement its programme.
Under the new government, Georgia implemented several reforms. The education was brought under the centralized control. The government introduced a common entrance exams in 2005. The National Assessment and Examinations Center (NAEC) was created to develop and administer these exams. Under the previous university entrance system, universities were free to develop and administer their own exams; however, President Saakashvili described this system as a source of corruption and said that this bribe-based system deprived many people of their right to education. In 2006, National Civil Registry Agency was created, a centralized body tasked with providing public services, including the services of the Civil Registry Agency, the National Agency of Public Registry, the National Archives, the National Bureau of Enforcement and the Notary Chamber of Georgia. President Saakashvili said that the reform was necessary to eliminate corruption. In 2004, the entire policy was fired and the entire Traffic Police Department was abolished. In its place, a totally new Patrol Police Department was created, which hired new police officers to root out corruption in this agency.
The new government pursued economically liberal policies. Under the Shevardnadze government, Georgia already pursued free market percepts recommended by the International Monetary Fund; however, Saakashvili administration restarted the massive privatization and accelerated all those policies. In 2004, Kakha Bendukidze, a Russian-based Georgian businessman and prominent free market advocate, was appointed by Saakashvili as a Minister of Economics. Under Bendukidze's supervision, a capital control was abolished, as well as many taxes and the income tax rate was lowered to 20%, many state-owned enterprises were privatized, a labor legislation was significantly liberalized, import tariffs were lowered, a ban on foreign ownership of Georgian land was repealed and many governmental regulatory agencies were disbanded. The new government's economic doctrine was based on a belief in trickle-down economics and foreign investments. The government prioritized attracting foreign direct investments to stimulate economic growth and significantly relaxed state's involvement in the economy.
The Saakashvili administration sought to push for liberal reforms, which put it in discord with the conservative values of Georgian population. In 1990s, various religious sects appeared in Georgia, which led to concerns about foreign religions taking roots in Georgia and threatening Georgian national identity and cultural values. Various groups have been organized to fight religious sects. Basil Mkalashvili, a defrocked former Georgian Orthodox Church priest, led Orthodox Eparchy of Gldani and was especially active against Jehovah's Witnesses in Georgia. His group burned their literature and stopped their gatherings and assemblies. In the words of Basil, "I was defending the motherland and the faith of our fathers". His group was not endorsed by the Patriarch of Georgian Orthodox Church Illia II, although he wrote to President Eduard Shevardnadze to help "with the cults flooding the country". In April 1999, at the special session of the Parliament, Ilia II demanded a restriction of these "sects". In one of his sermons, Patriarch declared: "The Georgian people have been Christian from the first century and must stay so. Sects and foreign religions should not influence our nation. Georgia was saved by Orthodox Christianity and will save it another time. Our people should walk on this way, and the ones betraying Orthodoxy, our church, Svetitskhoveli, will be the traitor of the nation, that is why every man, who would support spreading a sects beliefs and various religions, is declared as an enemy of the Georgian nation".
In 2004, the Georgian special forces arrested Basil Mkalavishvili. During the arrest, a confrontation between the Orthodox believers and the police led to several injuries, as well as the damage of the church. The government was criticized for the excessive use of force during the event and many critics accused it of purposefully provoking confrontation with the Orthodox believers to "demonstrate its power". Although Saakashvili initially reacted by suggested that "it is the state, not the extremist groups, which should guard Georgia against alien influence", he later stated that he wears it as a "badge of honor" that his administration allowed Jehovah’s Witnesses to practice freely. While the previous government refused permits for Jehovah's Witnesses to organize assemblies, and law enforcement officials often dispersed those gathering, the new government allowed the Jehovah's Witnesses to operate in the country legally for the first time. The polls, on the other hand, suggested that many Georgians perceived Jehovah’s Witnesses as a threat to Georgian national identity, cultural values, and the GOC, while supporting restrictions on their propaganda. This led to public criticism of the Saakashvili administration, especially of the actions of special forces during the arrest of Basil Mkalavishvili. The government further took steps take to religion out of public education, which caused public backlash. In 2005, the Parliament passed the General Education Act, restricting the teaching of religion in schools and the use of religious symbols in the school space for devotional purposes.
Under the Saakashvili administration, the government promoted civic nationalism and took active steps to reassert centralized control over the whole Georgian territory. This led to upsurge of tensions with the government of Adjarian Autonomous Republic under Aslan Abashidze who enjoyed broad autonomy under previous administrations and often disobeyed central authorities. Abashidze denounced the Rose Revolution as an unconstitutional coup, which further intensified the tensions. The crisis culminated in May 2004 when Abashidze stepped down as the mass demonstrations in Batumi called for his resignation.
The new government has achieved considerable progress in eradicating corruption. In 2008 Transparency International ranked Georgia 67th in its Corruption Perceptions Index, with a score of 3.9 points out of 10 possible. This represented the best result among the CIS countries and a dramatic improvement on Georgia's score since 2004, when the country was ranked 133rd with 2.0 points. Georgia also strengthened fight against the thieves-in-laws. In December 2005 Georgian Criminal Code was reorganized to charge the criminal authorities with aggravating circumstances. The approach was focusing on harsher enforcement and penalties as ways to reduce crime and break criminal syndicates.
On October 29, 2004, the North Atlantic Council (NAC) of NATO approved the Individual Partnership Action Plan of Georgia (IPAP), making Georgia the first among NATO's partner countries to manage this task successfully.
Relations with Russia remained problematic. Since 1990s breakaway republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia retained de facto independence from Georgia, with Russia passively supporting separatist movements. Russian troops remained garrisoned at two military bases in Georgia and as peacekeepers in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Saakashvili pledged to resolve the matter of territorial integrity and return separatist regions under Georgian control. Success in Adjara encouraged the new president to intensify his efforts towards bringing the South Ossetia and Abkhazia back under the Georgian jurisdiction. In August 2004, several clashes occurred in South Ossetia, which threatened military escalation.
2007-2011: mass demonstrations, defections, war
Although the government enacted many reforms, many people were not satisfied with them and the public discontent against Saakashvili mounted. This has reached the boiling point in October 2007, when accusations floated about the corruption in the Saakashvili's inner circle. Such allegations were made by former Defence Minister Irakli Okruashvili, who resigned from his position and harshly criticized Saakashvili's administration. Okruashvili accused Saakashvili of corruption and lobbying the interests of his own family. Okruashvili claimed that he caught the President's uncle with a $200,000 bribe but had to hush up the scandal at the president's request. The opposition also accused President Saakashvili of overseeing a system of elite corruption encompassing oil and minerals. They claimed that Saakashvili's family members acquired large number of state property under president's decrees, and as a result, Saakashvili's family emerged as one of the richest families in Georgia. According to allegations, Saakashvili's family has taken over much of the higher education sector (his mother owning shares in several universities in Tbilisi), the spa industry and the advertisement sector. Saakashvili denied accusations of his political opponents, claiming that his administration has been one of the most successful in eliminating corruption. He accused his opponents of spreading lies and not being honest. Saakashvili further suffered a blow to his reputation after Okruashvili accused him of plotting to kill his main political opponent, Badri Patarkatsishvili, similarly to Rafik Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister murdered in a car bomb attack. In late October, Orkuashvili was arrested on charges of corruption, which triggered public demonstrations. Discontent over unemployment, low pensions and poverty despite Saakashvili's economic reforms, served as catalysts to the demonstrations. According to statistics, one-fourth of the nation was living under the poverty rate. The demonstrations continued in November, spearheaded by an ad-hoc coalition of the opposition parties which demanded Saakashvili's resignation.
On 7 November 2007, mass protests in Tbilisi and Batumi were violently dispersed by the Georgian police using tear gas, batons, water cannons and high tech acoustic weapons. Saakashvili accused the protests of being directed by Russia and alleged that Russia was trying to overthrow the Georgian government. This claims came amid straining of the Georgia-Russia relations, caused by the crises in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, along with Saakashvili's increasing use of the anti-Russian rhetoric and juxtaposing of Russia against Georgia's national security. The opposition accused Saakashvili of trying to distract public attention from the country's internal problems; however, Saakashvili pointed out at the statements of some Russian officials which supported anti-Saakashvili demonstrations. Saakashvili's rhetoric towards Russia was considerebly mild in previous years as Saakashvili expressed his desire to build friendly relations with Russia in 2005 and even accused the Shevardnadze administration of ostracizing Russia. As a result of negotiations between the government and the opposition, Saakashvili announced early presidential elections to be held in January 2008, effectively cutting his term in office by a year.
Saakashvili secured a victory in the 2008 presidential election with 53.7% of the votes. Despite the victory, Saakashvili's support has significantly diminished and public trust lowered. In the parliamentary election the UNM won 59.1% of the vote and emerged as a single ruling party.
August 2008 saw military escalation of frozen conflicts over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, with the involvement of Georgia as well as Russia. After a series of clashes between Georgians and South Ossetians, Russian military forces intervened on the side of the South Ossetian separatists and invaded Gori in Shida Kartli. The war ended with Russian victory and Georgian defeat. Its aftermath, leading to the 2008–2010 Georgia–Russia crisis, was tense. Georgia lost control over all of its territorial possessions in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
As a result of military seatback in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the mass demonstrations against Saakashvili restarted in 2009 and the UNM suffered several defections. Most notably, Nino Burjanadze left the position of parliamentary speaker and declared the establishment of "a clear-cut opposition party" called Democratic Movement–United Georgia. In December 2008, former Prime Minister of Georgia Zurab Nogaideli announced that he was quitting United National Movement, setting up the Movement for a Fair Georgia party and unleashing heavy criticism of foreign and domestic policies of Mikheil Saakashvili. Both of them pledged to manage relations with Russia more wisely and accused Saakashvili of failing to prevent the disastrous consequences of the war with Russia. The tensions intensified between the government and the opposition on 5 May 2009, when the Georgian police said large-scale disorders were planned in Georgia of which the failed army mutiny was part of. According to the police, Saakashvili's assassination had also been plotted.
In response to 2008 worldwide economic crisis, Saakashvili diminished the size of the government, cutting government spending, abolishing several departaments and cutting the military budget. The government continued to pursue economic liberalisation. In 2011, the Georgian Parliament adopted The Economic Liberty Act of Georgia, which brought all economic reforms under a single legislation. The 2010 Georgian constitutional amendments significantly shifted country towards the economic liberalism. These constitutional amendments banned progressive taxes and required referendum to introduce any new taxes except five existing ones: a 20% personal income tax, 15% corporate profit tax, 18% value added tax (VAT), 0, 5, or 12% import tax, and property tax of up to 1%.
During this time, the Georgian Orthodox Church and the Georgian government developed ambivalent relationship as the popularity of the Church increased and the government sought to implement liberal reforms. In 2011, the Georgian government granted permission to build a mosque in Batumi, which caused backlash by the conservative Georgian population and the Georgian Orthodox Church, fearing that the growth of Islamic presence in Adjara would pose risks of Turkish influence and undermine the national security. Despite the ambivalent relations, the government increased the subsidies of the Church and Saakashvili publicly announced his respect for the GOC. The government handled to the Georgian Orthodox Church the control over disputed churches contested by Armenians and Georgians. The move was criticized by ethnic Armenians in Georgia and caused straining of the Georgia-Armenia relations; however, Georgians claimed that the churches rightfully belonged to the Georgian Orthodox Church and the government was obliged to return them as they were unlawfully confiscated by the Soviet authorities.
The government significanly relaxed visa policy, granting visa free regime to many countries, such as Turkey, Iran and other Islamic countries. This caused backlash from many Georgians, who feared that the growing immigration would threaten Georgian national identity. The growing Turkish presence in Batumi caused particular concerns. This concerns were motivated by religious, nationalist and historical reasons, but the government claimed that it prioritized foreign investments and did not see any threats.
On May 21, 2011 over 10,000 people protested against Mikheil Saakashvili's government in Tbilisi and Batumi. Nino Burjanadze and her husband Badri Bitsadze as well as other leaders of opposition were main figures. Protesters tried to prevent a parade commemorating Georgian Independence Day. Georgian police suppressed the demonstrations with tear gas and rubber bullets. Saakashvili accused the protesters of attempting to orchestrate the government takeover using paramilitary groups.
2012-2019: loss of power, defections
Despite several attempts to build a coalition of opposition parties, which would be able to challenge the Saakashvili administration, no such attempt was successful, and the 2010 local elections confirmed popular support for the ruling party, which received 65% of votes. As result, many opposition coalitions split, and no cohesive force managed to emerge in the Georgian politics which would be able to mount significant opposition to the Saakashvili government. Despite this fact, the public discontent over Saakashvili's presidency was high, but no opposition party managed to unite the population around its platform.
This situation lasted until late 2011, when famous Georgian tycoon Bidzina Ivanishvili admitted the rumors that he was entering the Georgian politics. In December, he established opposition political movement Georgian Dream and announced his desire to take part in the parliamentary election scheduled for October 2012. The Georgian Dream formed coalition with five other opposition parties with the intention to challenge the ruling United National Movement party. Ivanishvili personally enjoyed high public trust among the population, as he was largely known to the public as a businessman who gave large amount of money in charity. He also had backing of many influential Georgian Orthodox priests and helped to build the Holy Trinity Cathedral of Tbilisi, a fact that brought him popularity among religious people. Ivanishvili's platform was based on increasing welfare spending, pursuing more pragmatic foreign policy with Russia and bringing country closer to the EU and NATO. The coalition often criticized Saakashvili for violently dispersing public protests, failing to improve economic conditions and growing Turkish immigration in Adjara. The Georgian Dream managed to mobilize the growing discontent over the government of United National Movement. The discontent climaxed two weeks before the elections after the Gldani prison scandal, which confirmed long-standing allegations of ill-treatment of prisoners, as video footage was released showing prisoners being tortured and beaten by the penal servants. The further investigation revealed that the head of Penitentiary Department of Ministry of Justice of Georgia Bachana Akhalaia was the one who had been managing the process of torturing the prisoners. The government's harsh policy against crime led to mass incarceration and overcrowding of Georgian penal system, which was kept under control by torture and sexual violence. The government was accused of giving police a free hand to fight crime to the point where they could mistreat the suspects. The new regime was described as "an extremely punitive and abusive criminal justice, law-and-order system, which ended up with the highest per capita prison population in Europe – even higher than in Russia – in which torture became absolutely routine... Almost zero acquittal cases in criminal trials, mass surveillance, telephone tapping, and a lot of pressure put on businessmen, including intimidation, so they contribute to government projects." Prior to the scandal, the government was praising the prison reform for breaking down the thief-in-law culture and the practice of managing criminal underworld from prison facilities. While the footage was labeled as having been made by "politically motivated persons," the national prosecutor's office announced the arrests of 10 people, including the head of the Prison No.8 in Tbilisi, two deputies and prison guards, while several high-level officials resigned from their positions. The disclosure of videos triggered a wave of anti-government protests and increased the chances for the opposition to do well in the elections. The United National Movement fell to 40.3% and failed to secure majority, which meant that Georgian Dream would form the new government. Saakashvili admitted his party's defeat and promised not to obstruct peaceful transition of power. In 2013 presidential election the United National Movement suffered another defeat at the hands of Georgian Dream as the election was stated to be "efficiently administered" and "transparent." After elections, several former high-ranking officials were convicted on numerous charges, including Vano Merabishvili and Bachana Akhalaia. On 28 July 2014, criminal charges were filed by the Georgian prosecutor's office against Saakashvili over allegedly "exceeding official powers" during the 2007 Georgian demonstrations, as well as a police raid on and "seizure" of Imedi TV and other assets owned by the late tycoon Badri Patarkatsishvili. Saakashvili fled the country and accused the government of using the legal system as a tool of political retribution. He continued to manage the party from abroad.
The defeat in the elections forced the NM party into opposition, and it emerged as the only opposition party in the parliament since no other party besides GD and NM managed to secure any seats. During this time, the Georgian politics shifted towards two-party system and was marked by confrontation between the Georgian Dream and United National Movement. This confrontation seriously shaped the identity of these parties, and the United National Movement became a front for the people disillusioned with the new Georgian government. The UNM built its identity on being the only party capable of challenging the Georgian Dream; however, at the same time, it remained loyal to his founder, Mikheil Saakashvili, and continued to be perceived as a "Party of Saakashvili supports". This caused significant rifts within the party as many politicians thought that the UNM had to break with its past to mount any kind of serious opposition to the Georgian Dream. This circumstances led to several defections of UNM's parliamentary deputies to new parties, including that of the libertarian New Political Center — Girchi by former UNM member of parliament Zurab Japaridze and three others. Shortly afterward, the party split on 12 January 2017, as a result of a conflict between Davit Bakradze, former Mayor of Tbilisi Gigi Ugulava, their supporters, and members of the party loyal to former President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili. Saakashvili had rejected the party's decision to enter parliament after the 2016 election, calling for boycott, and had furthermore opposed the initiative of party members to appoint a new chairman in his place. A majority of the UNM's electoral list defected to European Georgia, leaving the UNM with six members in parliament. Some believe these defections were encouraged by the ruling Georgian Dream Coalition in order to weaken its opposition.
Despite suffering continued failure to rehabilitate its reputation, the UNM remained the largest opposition party after the 2016 parliamentary election, in which it garnered 27.11% of the vote. The 2018 presidential election was seen as an opportunity for the party to restore its positions, since it was nearly successful in defeating the Georgian Dream-backed candidate Salome Zurabishvili, receiving 40.48% of the vote. However, the name of the United National Movement remained tainted by torture and rape during its political tenure. On 24 March 2019, Mikheil Saakashvili stepped down as the party's chairman. The attempt was launched to bring new faces in the party and give opportunities to the new leaders. Saakashvili remained the most influential figure in the party, being succeeded by his own nominee, Grigol Vashadze. On 15 December 2020, Grigol Vashadze resigned as the party chairman. The following election was won by Nika Melia, against Levan Varshalomidze.
2020-present: the opposition coalition, arrest of Saakashvili
The 2018 constitutional amendments allowed minor parties to gain momentum as they lowered to electoral threshold to 1% for the 2020 parliamentary election. This led many to think that the Georgian Dream could only be defeated by a coalition of opposition parties and that the NM would not be able to bring changes on its own. Previously, the NM already had experience of cooperating with other parties in the Strength is in Unity coalition, which was set up by the NM in 2018 to bring opposition parties together for the 2018 presidential election. However, many of the minor opposition parties feared of the alliance with NM since they thought that they would lose their political identity by aligning with the NM. This especially concerned the parties set up by former NM members, since they sought to differentiate themselves from the NM and to build their own platform. They categorically opposed the Georgian Dream government and declared as their priority to remove the GD from power. Because of this, they recognized that some kind of cooperation with the UNM would be necessary since they would not be able to replace the GD without UNM's support. These minor parties did not have enough support to form a coalition without GD and UNM. At the same time, the supporters of these parties were largely anti-UNM, and these parties feared that aligning with UNM would result in losing independent political identity and losing significant number of votes. Because of this, the opposition parties came up with a compromise - they decided to cooperate in majoritarian districts but run their own lists in the proportional elections. As such, ahead of the elections, UNM, European Georgia, Labour Party, and Strategy Aghmashenebeli formed an alliance. On 19 June 2020, they announced a joint slate of six candidates, who would compete in elections in Tbilisi. However, not all opposition parties joined the alliance since many still did not want to be associated with UNM. Newly formed party Lelo for Georgia refused to join the alliance. Alliance of Patriots party refused to cooperate with UNM in any way, describing it as a criminal party that should be banned. Citizens party left the alliance before the elections, accusing the opposition of acting in their own self-interests. The opposition, in turn, accused Elisashvili of trying to ruin the alliance's unity
The 2020 pre-election campaign was significantly stifled by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown, which seriously affected the ability of the parties to run their campaigns. At the same time, its relatively successful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic led to a boost in popularity of the Georgian Dream government. Because of this, the Georgian Dream managed to secure victory in the election. The UNM party got only 28% of votes. The opposition refused to recognize the results and boycotted the parliament, accusing the ruling party of the election fraud. The crisis culminated in April 2021 when the agreement was signed between the opposition and the Georgian Dream on electoral and judiciary reforms. However, the United National Movement refused to join the agreement citing disagreement over "some controversial clauses". Soon the Georgian Dream annulled its signatory status to the document, stating that the main reason for the withdrawal was that "the opposition [UNM] party which won the most opposition seats in parliament refused to join the agreement and other opposition parties were consistently violating the agreement, the ruling party was the only which was fulfilling the agreement". The tensions between the ruling Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia party and the opposition United National Movement (UNM) culminated in the arrest of ex-president and ex-UNM leader, Mikheil Saakashvili. Former President Saakashvili claimed to have returned to Georgia prior to the 2021 local elections after an eight-year exile, and called on his followers to march on the capital, Tbilisi. The Georgian police, however, claimed that Saakashvili was not in Georgia. He was arrested later on 1 October 2021. The MIA stated that Saakashvili had illegally crossed the border and was hiding in the flat in Tbilisi. He was transferred to the prison in Rustavi. On October 14, tens of thousands of Georgians have rallied in Tbilisi to demand the release of Mikheil Saakashvili. It was claimed that Saakashvili returned to Georgia to influence the results of the local elections. However, the United National Movement failed to defeat the Georgian Dream, finishing second with 30.67% of the vote.
In January 2023, Levan Khabeishvili was elected as Chairman of the United National Movement, defeating his predecessor Nika Melia.
Ideology
Originally a center-left party, the UNM moved its position to center-right since the Rose Revolution and combines political, economic and cultural liberalism with cultural and civic nationalism. Its main political priorities include fighting corruption and crime, strengthening law and order, improving social services to the poor and reducing administrative barriers for doing business. It supports small government, deregulation of the economy, privatization, free market and policies of economic liberalism. The party advocates attracting foreign direct investments through business-friendly environment, low tax rates, abolition of capital control, and political stability with a goal of stimulating high economic growth in a short time frame. The UNM also supports increasing of government spendings in the social protection, education, military and infrastructure. Its economic model strongly resembles that of Four Asian Tigers. The government of the National Movement has been characterized as "perhaps the freest market government in the world" drawing influence from the theories of Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, and policies of Margaret Thatcher in the UK and Ronald Reagan in the US.
The party has been varying on the topics of the social and cultural politics. Signing of the memorandum with the Tbilisi Pride on LGBT rights in May 2021 has cemented its status as a culturally liberal party. Nevertheless, the party itself tries to avoid clear association with either cultural liberalism or conservatism and tries to garner support from both sides. For example, in 2019 Mikheil Saakashvili has stated that he was always in support of traditional Georgian values and blamed Giga Bokeria for devaluing the image of the National Movement in the eyes of the conservative public. Giga Bokeria called this statement ridiculous, claiming that he was never in the position of power to make such decisions.
The National Movement supports a cultural form of nationalism, trying to reconcile it with culturally liberal values, resembling a national liberal party. Thus, it abandoned the traditionally ethnic-based form of Georgian nationalism, defining the nation in terms of culture and shared values instead of ethnicity and bloodline. The party's nationalist agenda encompasses ethnic minorities, including Abkhazians and Ossetians in respective breakaway republics, which are deemed as inseparable parts of Georgian nation like other minorities.
The UNM's foreign policy programme has a strong emphasis on Euro-Atlantic integration. During the first years in government, the party has tried to reconcile with Russia on topics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, with Mikheil Saakashvili visiting Vladimir Putin in Moscow numerous times to hold negotiations. Although its stance changed drastically since the 2008 war, when Russia was identified as the number one threat of Georgian national security. The party deems Russian actions against Georgia as imperialistic attempts to preserve its sphere of influence in the South Caucasus, blocking Georgian integration into the EU and NATO.
The UNM has received public criticism for crackdown on peaceful protests in 2007 and 2011, police brutality, zero tolerance policy, torture of inmates in the prisons and cronyism. Some critics have characterized the UNM regime as a "liberal autocracy".
Electoral performance
Parliamentary elections
Presidential elections
Local elections
Further reading
Ghia Nodia, Álvaro Pinto Scholtbach: The Political Landscape of Georgia: Political Parties: Achievements, Challenges and Prospects. Eburon, Delft 2006,
Lincoln A. Mitchell: Uncertain Democracy: U.S. Foreign Policy and Georgia's Rose Revolution. University of Pennsylvania Press 2008,
See also
:Category:United National Movement (Georgia) politicians
Rose Revolution
Politics of Georgia (country)
References
Notes
Citations
External links
Official website
Official website in English
2001 establishments in Georgia (country)
Centre-right parties in Georgia (country)
International Democrat Union member parties
Parties related to the European People's Party
Political parties established in 2001
Political parties in Georgia (country)
Pro-European political parties in Georgia (country)
Rose Revolution |
421180 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rakhigarhi | Rakhigarhi | Rakhigarhi or Rakhi Garhi is a village and an archaeological site belonging to the Indus Valley civilisation in Hisar District of the northern Indian state of Haryana, situated about 150 km northwest of Delhi. It was part of the mature phase of the Indus Valley Civilisation, dating to 2600-1900 BCE. It was among the largest settlements of the ancient civilisation, though most of it remains unexcavated. The site is located in the Ghaggar River plain, some 27 km from the seasonal Ghaggar river. Initial excavations at the site happened in the 1960s, followed by further excavations in the late 1990s, however more sustained excavations have taken place in the past decade.
Most scholars believe it to be between 80 hectares and 100+ hectares in area. Some Indian archaeologists, however, have claimed that the earliest settlements in Rakhigarhi predate the Indus Valley Civilization, and the site itself is 550 hectares in size. Only 5% of the site has been excavated; much of the area is yet to be excavated and published.
Another related excavation sites in the area are Mitathal and the smaller site Lohari Ragho, which are still awaiting excavation.
Site details
Site location
It is located in the Ghaggar plain, some 27 km from the seasonal Ghaggar river. Today, Rakhigarhi is a small village in Haryana State, India.
There are many other important archaeological sites in this area, in the old river valley to the east of the Ghaggar Plain. Among them are Kalibangan, Kunal, Balu, Bhirrana, and Banawali.
According to Jane McIntosh, Rakhigarhi is located in the valley of the prehistoric Drishadvati River that originated in Siwalik Hills. Chautang is a tributary of Sarsuti river which in turn is tributary of Ghaggar river.
Size and number of mounds
Rakhigarhi has 11 excavation mounds, which follow the naming convention of "RGR-x" e.g. RGR-1 to RGR-11, with the total size of . Mounds RGR1 to RGR-6 are residential sites belonging to "pre-formation age early Harappan" era, while mound RGR-7 is a burial site where human skeletons were found. 1997 and 2000 excavations reported 7 mounds with total site size of . 2014 excavation discovered 2 more mounds, RGR-8 and RGR-9, each with total size of 25 hectares taking the total site size to , thus making Rakhigarhi largest Indus Valley Civilization site by overtaking Mohenjodaro (300 hectares) by 50 hectares. 2016 excavation found 2 more mounds, RGR-10 and RGR-11, making the total number of mounds 11, and total site size .
By 2020, only 5% of the site had been excavated by the ASI and Deccan College.
Significance
Size and age
Most scholars, including Gregory Possehl, Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Raymond Allchin and Rita P. Wright believe it to be between 80 hectares and 100+ hectares in area. Furthermore, Possehl did not believe that all mounds in Rakhigarhi belong to the same Indus Valley settlement, stating, "RGR-6, a Sothi-Siswal site known as Arda, was probably a separate settlement."
Based on his 1997 and 2000 excavations, Amarendra Nath reported that the site covers more than in size with 7 mounds, five of which were contiguous.
Nearby important sites and cultures
Rakhigarhi, being the largest town and regional trade centre of IVC era, is surrounded by numerous IVC sites nearby in Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab along the Gagghar-Hakra river course. The important ones among those are the Bhirrana (4 phases of IVC with earliest dated to 8th-7th millennium BCE) 86 km northwest, Kunal (belonging to Kunal cultural which is the cultural ancestor of Rehman Dheri site) 75 km northwest, Siswal (belonging to Sothi-Siswal culture dated to 3800 BC, contemporaneous to Early-Harappan Phase) 75 km west, and Kalibangan (another large regional IVC city with several phases starting from Early harappan phase) 235 km west, and few more.
Excavations
Chronology of excavations
While the earliest excavation of IVC sites started from Harappa in 1921-1922 and Mohenjo-daro in 1931, the excavations at Rakhigarhi were first carried out in 1969, followed by more excavations in 1997–98, 1998–99 and 1999–2000, between 2011–16 and 2021 onward. There are 11 mounds in Rakhigarhi which are named RGR-1 to RGR-11, of which RGR-5 is thickly populated by establishment of Rakhishahpur village and is not available for excavations. RGR-1 to RGR-3, RGR6 to RGR9 and some part of RGR-4 are available for excavations.
In 1963, Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) began excavations at this site, and, though little has been published about the excavations.
In 1969, Kurukshetra University's team studied and documented the site led by its Dean of Indic studies Dr. Suraj Bhan.
In 1997–98, 1998–99 and 1999–2000, ASI team began to excavate the site again, which was led by its director Dr. Amrender Nath who published his findings in scholarly journals. After 2000, excavations were stopped for years because of a CBI investigation on the misuse of funds. Much of the findings are donated to the National Museum, New Delhi.
From 2011 to 2016, Deccan College carried out several substantial excavations led by its then Vice Chancellor and archaeologist Dr. Vasant Shinde, several members of the team published their findings in various academic journals.
From 2021 onward, more excavation by ASI commenced. Central University of Haryana and Dr Vasant Shinde also expressed interest in commencing excavation.
Dating
ASI has carbon dated mound labelled RGR-1, RGR-2, RGR-6 and RGR-7. The RGR-6 has two layers of Preharappan Phase dating to 5,640 years before present (BP) and 5,440 (BP). The RGR-1 has Early Harappan Phase dating to 5,200 and 4,570 years BP. The RGR-2 also has Early Harappan Phase dated to 5,200 and 4,570 years as well as two additional samples belonging to Mature Harappan Phase dating to 4,040 and 3,900 years BP. RGR-7, which is a cemetery or a burial site from Mature Harappan Phase, dates back to 4600 BP.
In 2014 six radiocarbon datings from excavations at Rakhigarhi between 1997 and 2000 were published, corresponding to the three periods at the site as per archaeologist Amarendra Nath (Pre-formative, Early Harappan, and Mature Harappan). Mound RGR-6 revealed a Pre-formative stage designated as Sothi Phase with the following two datings: and years before present, converted to B.C.E. and B.C.E.
Discoveries
Findings confirm both early and mature Harappan phases and include 4,600-year-old human skeletons, fortification and bricks.
Planned city
The ASI's detailed excavation of the site revealed the size of the lost city and recovered numerous artefacts, some over 5,000 years old. Rakhigarhi was occupied at Early Harappan times. Evidence of paved roads, drainage system, large rainwater collection, storage system, terracotta bricks, statue production, and skilled working of bronze and precious metals have been uncovered. Jewellery, including bangles made from terracotta, conch shells, gold, and semi-precious stones, have also been found.
Digging so far reveals a well planned city with 1.92 m wide roads, a bit wider than in Kalibangan. The pottery is similar to Kalibangan and Banawali. Pits surrounded by walls have been found, which are thought to be for sacrificial or some religious ceremonies. There are brick lined drains to handle sewage from the houses. Terracotta statues, weights, bronze artifacts, comb, copper fish hooks, needles and terracotta seals have also been found. A bronze vessel has been found which is decorated with gold and silver. A gold foundry with about 3000 unpolished semi-precious stones has been found. Many tools used for polishing these stones and a furnace were found there. A burial site has been found with 11 skeletons, with their heads in the north direction. Near the heads of these skeletons, utensils for everyday use were kept. The three female skeletons have shell bangles on their left wrists. Near one female skeleton, a gold armlet has been found. In addition semi precious stones have been found lying near the head, suggesting that they were part of some sort of necklace.
Granary
A granary belonging to mature Harappan phase (2600 BCE to 2000 BCE) has been found here. Granary is made up of mud-bricks with a floor of ramped earth plastered with mud. It has 7 rectangular or square chambers. Significant traces of lime & decomposed grass are found on the lower portion of the granary wall indicating that it can also be the storehouse of grains with lime used as insecticide & grass used to prevent entry of moisture. Looking at the size, it appears to be a public granary or a private granary of elites.
Tools
Hunting tools like copper hafts and fish hooks have been found here. Presence of various toys like mini wheels, miniature lids, sling balls, animal figurines indicates a prevalence of toy culture. Signs of flourishing trade can be seen by the excavation of stamps, jewelry and 'chert' weights. Weights found here are similar to weights found at many other IVC sites confirming presence of standardized weight systems.
Culture, clothing and worship
Fire altars and apsidal structures were revealed in Rakhigarhi.
Cotton cloth traces preserved on silver or bronze objects were known from Rakhigarhi, Chanhudaro and Harappa. An impressive number of stamps seals were also found at this site.
Cemetery and burial sites
A cemetery of Mature Harappan period is discovered at Rakhigarhi, with eight graves found. Often brick covered grave pits had wooden coffin in one case. Different type of grave pits were undercut to form an earthen overhang and body was placed below this; and then top of grave was filled with bricks to form a roof structure over the grave.
So far 53 burial sites with 46 skeletons have been discovered. Anthropological examination done on 37 skeletons revealed 17 to be of adults, 8 to be of subadults while the age of 12 skeletons could not be verified. Sex detection of 17 skeletons was successful out of which 7 were male and 10 female skeletons. Most of the burials were typical burials with skeletons in a supine position. Atypical burials had skeletons in a prone position. Some graves are just pits while some are brick lined and contain pottery. Some of them also had votive pots with animal remains symbolizing offerings to the dead. Bone remains of secondary burials were not charred hence ruling out the possibility of cremation practices. While these burials retained many of the Harappan features, group burials and prone position burials are distinct. Paleo-parasitical studies and DNA analysis to determine the lineage is being undertaken.
Parasite eggs which were once existed in the stomach of those buried were found in the burial sites along with human skeletons. Analysis of Human aDNA obtained from human bones as well as analysis of parasite and animal DNA will be done to assert origins of these people.
Skeleton finds
In April 2015, four 4,600-year-old complete human skeletons were excavated from mound RGR-7. These skeletons belonged to two male adults, one female adult (classified as 'I6113') and one child. Pottery with grains of food as well as shell bangles were found around these skeletons. As the skeletons were excavated scientifically without any contamination, archaeologists think that with the help of latest technology on these skeletons and DNA obtained, it is possible to determine how Harappans looked like 4500 years ago. Shinde et al. (2019) have carried out DNA-tests on a single skeleton. Results announced in September 2018, and a paper published in Cell Magazine in 2019, show that the DNA did not include any traces of steppe ancestry, which is in line with the Aryan migration theory, which says that Indo-Aryans migrated to India from the steppes after the Harappan civilization had started to disintegrate. The DNA of a single male skeleton (classified as 'I4411') shows affinity with present-day subaltern South Indian, Tamil tribal populations, most notably the Irula people. A total of 61 skeletons were found till 2016.
The average height is estimated to have been for men and for women.
Two of the skeletons, a man between 35 and 40 years old and women in early 20s, who died around the same time. They were found buried together side by side with men's head facing the women. Their ceremonial burial indicates that they were not in illicit relationship and the lovebirds were likely married to each other. Pots found in their grave likely carried food and water as offering to the dead. The agate found near he collar bone of the male was likely part of a necklace. The male was tall and female was . Their skeleton had no abnormalities, injuries or sign of disease. They were both likely "quite healthy" at the time of their death.
Site conservation
Issues
Endangered heritage site
In May 2012, the Global Heritage Fund declared Rakhigarhi one of the ten most endangered heritage sites in Asia facing the threat of irreparable loss and destruction due to development pressures, insufficient management and looting. A 2012 study by the Sunday Times found that the site is not being looked after; the iron boundary wall is broken, and villagers sell the artefacts they dig out of the site and parts of site are now being encroached by private houses. Due to the lack of site protection the site is being destroyed by soil erosion, encroachments, illegal sand lifting, theft of archaeological artifacts for illegal sale. It is a punishable crime to sell or buy artifacts found in the ancient sites. 80% of mound 6 – a residential site of Harappan Era and 7 which is a burial site where 4 human skeletons were recovered in 2015 have been destroyed due to cultivation and soil mining.
Site encroachments
Parts of mounds R4 and R5 have been encroached by the villagers who have built 152 houses. The ASI has only 83.5 acres of the 550-hectare site that entails 11 archaeological mounds, due to encroachments and pending court cases for the removal of the encroachments.
Site development
Site rehabilitation and preservation
In February 2020, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced that the site of Rakhigarhi would be developed as an iconic site. ASI has commenced the plan to remove encroachments from the site, including 152 houses on the R4 and R5 mounds. Villages, whose houses in the site will be removed, will be relocated and rehabilitated in the housing flats on another location.
Site museum and lake
Rakhigarhi, which is an Indus Valley civilisation site, also has a museum developed by the state government. There is also Haryana Rural Antique Museum 60 km away, which is maintained by CCS HAU in its Gandhi Bhawan, exhibits evolution of agriculture and vanishing antiques. Jahaj Kothi Museum, named after George Thomas, is located inside Firoz Shah Palace Complex and maintained by Archaeological Survey of India.
To develop Rakhigarhi as the global heritage, two johad (water bodies) across the road to museum are developed as lakes. The lake has been deepened by digging and traditional ghats with burji on the banks of lake have been constructed. A park is developed the spare land of the lake. A walking track around the lake, with shady trees and fruit trees, has been constructed for the tourists. The traditional ghats represent the past scenario when paleo-Drishadvati river use to flow through Rakhigarhi which had ghats for transporting goods for trade, via Lothal port and Dholavira, as far as Mesopotamia (ancient cities of Elam and Sumer).
See also
Indus Valley civilization related
List of Indus Valley Civilization sites
Mohenjo-daro main site of Indus valley civilization.
Bhirrana, 4 phases of IVC with earliest dated to 8th-7th millennium BCE
Kalibanga, an IVC town and fort with several phases starting from Early harappan phase
Rakhigarhi, one of the largest IVC city with 4 phases of IVC with earliest dated to 8th-7th millennium BCE
Kunal, cultural ancestor of Rehman Dheri
List of inventions and discoveries of the Indus Valley Civilization
Hydraulic engineering of the Indus Valley Civilization
Sanitation of the Indus Valley civilisation
Periodisation of the Indus Valley civilisation
Pottery in the Indian subcontinent
Bara culture, subtype of Late-Harappan Phase
Cemetery H culture (2000-1400 BC), early Indo-Aryan pottery at IVC sites later evolved into Painted Grey Ware culture of Vedic period
Black and red ware, belonging to neolithic and Early-Harappan phases
Sothi-Siswal culture, subtype of Early-Harappan Phase
Rakhigarhi Indus Valley Civilisation Museum
History of Haryana
List of Monuments of National Importance in Haryana
List of State Protected Monuments in Haryana
Notes
References
External links
Photo of the Rakhigarhi love birds buried together.
BBC report with photo of the Rakhigarhi love birds buried together.
2015 Man and Environment Journal article on Rakhigarhi burials.
Haryana Samvad Newsletter: Detailed report on Rakhigarhi with color photographs, page 1-15.
Indus Valley civilisation sites
History of Haryana
Tourism in Haryana
Former populated places in India
Archaeological sites in Haryana
Archaeological sites in Hisar district
Tourist attractions in Hisar (city)
History of Hisar district |
421246 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JCPenney | JCPenney | Penney OpCo LLC, doing business as JCPenney and often abbreviated JCP, is an American department store chain that operates 664 stores across 49 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. Departments inside JCPenney stores include Men's, Women's, Boys', Girls', Baby, Bedding, Home, Fine Jewelry, Shoes, Lingerie, JCPenney Salon, JCPenney Beauty, as well as leased departments such as Seattle's Best Coffee, US Vision optical centers, and Lifetouch portrait studios.
Most JCPenney stores were initially located in downtown areas, but, as shopping malls grew in popularity during the 1960s, the chain began relocating and developing stores to anchor the malls. In recent years, JCP has opened stores in power centers, as well as stand-alone stores, sometimes adjacent to competitors. The company has been an Internet retailer since 1998, and it has streamlined its catalog and distribution while undergoing renovation improvements at store level.
After filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2020, in September 2020, Brookfield Asset Management and Simon Property Group agreed to purchase the company for around $800 million in cash and debt. The deal was approved by the U.S. bankruptcy court for the Southern District of Texas two months later.
20th century
Background and early history: 1902-1960
James Cash Penney was born in Hamilton, Missouri. After graduating from high school, Penney worked for a local retailer. He relocated to Colorado at the advice of a doctor, hoping that a better climate would improve his health. In 1898, Penney went to work for Thomas Callahan and Guy Johnson, who owned dry goods stores called Golden Rule stores in Colorado and Wyoming. In 1899, Callahan sent Penney to Evanston, Wyoming, to work with Johnson in another Golden Rule store. Callahan and Johnson asked Penney to join them in opening a new Golden Rule store. Using money from savings and a loan, Penney joined the partnership and moved with his wife and infant son to Kemmerer, Wyoming, to start his own store. Penney opened the store on April 14, 1902. He participated in the creation of two more stores and purchased full interest in all three locations when Callahan and Johnson dissolved their partnership in 1907. In 1909, Penney moved his company headquarters to Salt Lake City, Utah to be closer to banks and railroads. By 1912, Penney had 34 stores in the Rocky Mountain States. In 1913, all stores were consolidated under the J. C. Penney banner. The so-called "mother store", in Kemmerer, opened as the chain's second location in 1904.
In 1913, the company was incorporated under the new name, J. C. Penney Company, with William Henry McManus as a co-founder. In 1914, the headquarters was moved to New York City to simplify buying, financing, and transportation of goods. By 1917, the company operated 175 stores in 22 states in the United States. J. C. Penney acquired The Crescent Corset Company in 1920, the company's first wholly owned subsidiary. In 1922, the company's oldest active private brand, Big Mac work clothes, was launched. The company opened its 500th store in 1924 in Hamilton, Missouri, James Cash Penney's hometown. By the opening of the 1,000th store in 1928, gross business had reached $190 million (equivalent to $ in ).
In 1940, Sam Walton began working at a J. C. Penney in Des Moines, Iowa. Walton later founded retailer Walmart in 1962. By 1941, J. C. Penney operated 1,600 stores in all 48 states. In 1956, J. C. Penney started national advertising with a series of advertisements in Life magazine. J. C. Penney credit cards were first issued in 1959.
Full-line department store
The company dedicated its first full-line shopping-center department store in 1961. This store was located at Black Horse Pike Center in Audubon, New Jersey. The second full-line shopping center store was dedicated, at King of Prussia Plaza in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania in late 1962. Those stores expanded the lines of merchandise and services that an average J. C. Penney carried to include appliances, sporting goods, tools, garden\lawn merchandise, restaurants, beauty salons, portrait studios, auto parts, and auto centers.
In 1962, J. C. Penney entered discount merchandising with the acquisition of General Merchandise Company which gave them The Treasury stores. These discount operations proved unsuccessful and were shuttered in 1981. In 1963, J. C. Penney issued its first catalog. The company operated in-store catalog desks in eight states. The catalogs were distributed by the Milwaukee Catalog distribution center.
In 1969, the company acquired Thrift Drug, a chain of drugstores headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It also acquired Supermarkets Interstate, an Omaha-based food retailer which operated leased departments in J. C. Penney stores, The Treasury stores, and Thrift Drug stores.
Expansion beyond the contiguous US
In the 1960s, JCPenney expanded to include Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico. Stores were opened in Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska in 1962, followed by Honolulu, Hawaii in 1966, and Puerto Rico in 1968. The Penney Building in Anchorage partially collapsed and was damaged beyond repair in the 1964 Alaska earthquake. The company rebuilt the store as a shorter building on a larger footprint and followed up by building Anchorage's first public parking garage, which opened in 1968. The Honolulu store was located at Ala Moana Center, and closed in 2003, along with all remaining locations in the state, making Hawaii the only U.S. state to not currently have a JCPenney store. The Penney store at Plaza Las Américas mall in San Juan, Puerto Rico, which opened in 1968, featured three levels and . It was the largest J. C. Penney until a store was dedicated at Greater Chicago's Woodfield Mall in 1971. The Woodfield Mall store served as the largest in the chain until a replacement store opened at Plaza Las Américas in 1998, which is in size.
Death of J.C. Penney and peak: 1970s
On February 12, 1971, James Cash Penney died at the age of 95; the company's stores were closed the morning of his funeral on February 16. That year, the company adopted the JCPenney style in advertising. and its revenues reached $5 billion (equivalent to $ in ) for the first time and catalog business made a profit for the first time.
JCPenney reached its peak number of stores in 1973, with 2,053 stores, 300 of which were full-line establishments. However, the company was hard hit by the 1974 recession with its stock price declining by two-thirds.
In 1977, J. C. Penney sold its four stores in Italy to Italian department store chain La Rinascente, Penneys had opened in Italy in 1970 but left due to diffucilutes encountered when trying to expand in Italy and had only ever opened stores in the Lombardy region. In the same year they also closed down their unprofitable Supermarkets Interstate supermarket brand which operated in Treasury discount stores, however the stores that were not in Treasury locations remained open.
In 1978, the J. C. Penney Historic District in Kemmerer, Wyoming, was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark. In 1979, JCPenney stores started accepting Visa cards. MasterCard was accepted the following year.
1980s
In 1980, the company closed the unprofitable Treasury discount stores to focus resources on its core retail stores.
In 1983, JCPenney discontinued its appliance, hardware, outdoor equipment, and auto center departments, and also sold its automotive centers to Firestone. Also in 1983, it began selling goods online through the Viewtron videotex service. That same year, fashion designer Roy Halston, signed a six-year, $1 billion deal with JCPenney to sell a line of affordable clothing, accessories, cosmetics, and perfumes ranging in price from $24 to $200. The move was considered controversial then as no other high-end designer up to that point in time had licensed their designs to a mid-price retailer. The line, named Halston III, would not last long, as it would be poorly received and discontinued after about a year. However, the business move paved the way for other such high-end designers to sell their products at stores of varying price ranges in the future.
In 1984, JCPenney acquired the First National Bank of Harrington, Delaware and renamed it J. C. Penney National Bank. With the acquisition of the bank, the company became able to issue its own Mastercard and Visa Inc. cards. The company also began accepting American Express cards. Also that year, Thrift Drug began co-locating stores with Weis Markets, and acquired many former Pantry Pride properties. In April 1987, the company announced that it was moving its headquarters to Plano, Texas. After several years of development, the JCPenney Television Shopping Channel appeared on cable systems beginning in 1989. By the mid-1980s, all JCPenney stores had discontinued sales of firearms. Before this point, JCPenney carried rifles and shotguns branded as JCPenney but produced by numerous established firearms manufacturers. In the 1980s JCPenney's also stopped selling outdoor equipment and hardware such as lawn mowers and tools.
Acquisitions and international expansion: 1990s
Construction on the new company headquarters in Plano, Texas broke ground in 1990 and were completed in 1992. After Sears closed its catalog business in 1993, J. C. Penney became the last catalog retailer in the United States. In 1995 the chain expanded to Chile with a store in the capital, Santiago.
In 1995, the drug store business was expanded with the acquisition of Kerr Drug and again in 1996 with the purchase of Fay's Drug. Then in November 1996 they acquired the Eckerd chain. Fay's, Kerr, and Eckerd merged into J. C. Penney's drug store subsidiary Thrift Drug. Fay's, most Kerr, and Thrift drug stores were re-branded Eckerd in 1997. (Kerr Drug stores in The Carolinas remained branded as such because they were part of a group of stores that were divested because of trade competition issues raised during the merger.)
On December 9, 1998, The New York Times reported JCPenney would acquire controlling interest of Lojas Renner for a little over $33 million, which increased the company's maneuvering ability with their already existing units in Chile, Mexico and Puerto Rico. In 1998, JCPenney launched its Internet store.
Between 1995 and 1998, JCPenney entered Indonesia under partnership with Lippo Group (under their Multipolar investment arm) with the branding JCPenney Collections, also used by multiple international JCPenney branches across Asia during the decade. This type of JCPenney store only featured fashion for men, women and kids. During its tenure, JCPenney opened two flagship stores: in 1995 on the upper ground level of Lippo Supermal (now Supermal Karawaci), and in 1996 on the upper ground and first level of Mal Taman Anggrek. Aside from the two, JCPenney also opened smaller stores under the JCPenney Collections name in a few malls such as Plaza Blok M. All stores of JCPenney Collections in Indonesia started planning to close down due to 1997 Asian financial crisis – with the JCPenney Collections store in Taman Anggrek closed in December 1997, and the May 1998 riots – with the Lippo Supermal store looted by mass and also exiting the mall that same month (having to close down for a period of time due to damage caused by arson in other sections of the mall). Currently, the previous stores are occupied by H&M at Supermal Karawaci and Matahari Department Store at Mal Taman Anggrek respectively.
JC Penney left Chile in 1999, after five years in the country it closed down its home store and sold its main store in Santiago to Almacenes Paris. The stores were closed due to low profitably and high expenses.
21st century
2000s
In early 2001, J. C. Penney closed 44 under-performing stores. In 2001, J. C. Penney sold its direct-marketing insurance unit to Dutch insurer Aegon for $1.3 billion (equivalent to $ in ) in cash to help refocus the company on retail. In 2003, the company opened three stores in strip centers in Texas, Minnesota and Indiana. The new one-level, format stores focus on convenience with wider aisles and centralized checkouts. In 2004, the company added 14 more stores and exited the drug store division after 35 years, with the sale of its Eckerd division. The company also sold its six Mexico stores to Grupo Carso, which rebranded five of the stores as Dorian's and the other one as Sears Mexico. In 2005, J. C. Penney's e-commerce storefront exceeded the one billion dollar revenue mark for the first time.At the same time in June, the company would sell off its shares of Lojas Renner, the Brazilian-based retailer. Generating $260 million from the sale as it discontinues its operations with Renner and its Latin American footholds as well.
In 2007, J. C. Penney launched the Ambrielle lingerie label, which became its largest private brand launched in the company's history. J. C. Penney also re-introduced cosmetics with the opening of Sephora "stores-within-a-store" inside some J. C. Penney locations. Beginning in 2007, J. C. Penney's store slogan changed from "It's All Inside" to "Every Day Matters." The new slogan and associated ad campaign was launched in television commercials during the 79th Academy Awards in late February 2007. After J. C. Penney sold off Eckerd in 2004, the locations that continued to operate as Eckerd (some locations in the Southern U.S. were sold to CVS Corporation) still had J. C. Penney Catalog Centers inside the stores (which was a carryover from locations that were once Thrift Drug) and also continued to accept J. C. Penney credit cards. After Rite Aid finalized its acquisition of Eckerd in 2007, the Catalog Centers inside the soon-to-be-converted stores permanently closed. Although as a result of the acquisition, Rite Aid now accepts J. C. Penney credit cards, even at Rite Aid locations that existed before the acquisition of Eckerd. In November 2007, the company launched a new public website, JCPenneyBrands.com, which covers the company's private and exclusive brands and its branding strategy, as well as a preview of an upcoming product line.
In February 2008, the company launched the "American Living" brand, as developed by Ralph Lauren, across several product lines. The launch, which was accompanied by an ad campaign during the 80th Academy Awards, was the company's largest private brand launch. That summer, J. C. Penney also added a new brand to its home collection, "Linden Street." The Linden Street brand features furniture, domestics, and home decor. Linden Street is sold exclusively in J. C. Penney stores and through its website. Other brands for juniors and young men's were launched that summer. They included a relaunch of Le Tigre, along with Decree, and Fabulosity, a junior line of clothing by Kimora Lee Simmons.
In July 2009, new additions were made to the J. C. Penney young men's department, including an expansion of its private brand Decree (previously exclusively a juniors clothing line) and the introduction of more skate/surf-oriented clothing, including Rusty, RS by Ryan Sheckler and 3rd Rail. In August, Albert Gonzalez's defense lawyer announced JCPenney was a victim of a computer hacker, although the company stated that no customers' credit card information had been stolen. That year, J. C. Penney reached an agreement with Seattle's Best Coffee to feature full-service cafes within leased departments inside J. C. Penney stores across the country. Currently, Seattle's Best Coffee is still expanding café locations within J. C. Penney locations across the country.
2010–2014
In 2010, Vornado Realty Trust took a 9.9 percent stake in Penney; it sold off its 9.9 Million share interest in the company for $13.00 per share in 2013.
On January 24, 2011, J. C. Penney closed down its catalog business, which had been operating since 1963. With this, the 19 catalog outlet stores also closed down. An additional seven stores, two call center facilities, and one customer decorating facility would also be closed.
On February 12, 2011, The New York Times exposed the company's use of link schemes—"spamdexing"—to increase the J. C. Penney website's ranking in Google search results, especially during the holiday season. Doug Pierce, an expert in online search from Blue Fountain Media, described the optimization as "the most ambitious attempt to game Google's search results that he has ever seen". Google took retaliatory action and drastically reduced the visibility of J. C. Penney in the search results. Although the retailer denied any involvement, it fired its search engine consulting firm, SearchDex.
In June 2011, Ron Johnson who had previously led Apple retail stores in a period of high growth, became J. C. Penney's new CEO.
In October 2011, J. C. Penney sold the 15 remaining catalog outlet stores to SB Capital Group, the stores were then converted into JC's 5 Star Outlets.
On December 7, 2011, J. C. Penney purchased 16.6% of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia stock. J. C. Penney planned to put "mini-Martha Stewart shops" in many of its stores in 2013, as well as create a website with Martha Stewart Living.
In January 2012, the company's chief operating officer at the time, Michael Kramer, revealed to The Wall Street Journal that more than 30 percent of the bandwidth of J. C. Penney's headquarters was used for the viewing of YouTube videos during that month alone. Kramer consequently laid off 1,600 employees to change the company's workplace culture. On February 1, J. C. Penney began a new pricing method, with "Every Day" prices on most days reflecting what used to be sale prices, "Monthly Value" for certain items every month in place of sales, and "Best Price" the first and third Fridays of each month, tied to paydays. Prices would also not end in 9 or 7 and would instead use whole figures to price items.
In April 2012, nearly 13% home office staff in Dallas were laid off and a call centre in Pittsburgh was closed down. In June, Michael Francis (company president) left J. C. Penney after only eight months as president. In July 2012, the company announced that it was laying off 350 more workers at its headquarters.
In August, J. C. Penney began rolling out a store-within-a-stores with different jean brands and had plans to eventually roll out 100 shops in 683 stores. That month, the company posted a second-quarter comparable-store loss of 22%, with internet sales dropping 33%. At an analyst meeting in New York the same day, Johnson said, "I'm completely convinced that our transformation is on track." J. C. Penney's stock rose 5.9% on Johnson's comments at the analyst meeting, the largest single-day stock increase since late January 2012. In 2012, fourth quarter sales for J. C. Penney were poor. Sales were down 28.4% from a year earlier and same store sales were down 32%. Strategic choices made by Johnson a year earlier, including the change in pricing strategy, were being called into question. It was announced in April 2012 that Nickelson Wooster would become the creative director for J. C. Penney menswear.
On April 8, 2013, Johnson was fired from J. C. Penney after 17 months with the company. Mike Ullman, the retailer's former CEO, was announced as his replacement shortly afterwards. In August, William A. Ackman, of Pershing Square Capital Management, continued his efforts to remove Thomas Engibous, the company's chairman of the board of directors. However, Ackman resigned from the board on August 12, and two new directors were subsequently appointed to the board, one of whom was former Macy's vice chairman Ronald Tysoe. On September 26, 2013, J. C. Penney, with Goldman Sachs as the sole underwriter, announced plans to issue 84 million shares of its stock. The move stood in contrast with CEO Mike Ullman's remarks from earlier that day, whereby he did not foresee "conditions for the rest of the year that would warrant raising liquidity".
During the spring of 2013, a kettle sold by the company attracted controversy when many users of social media pointed out its resemblance to Adolf Hitler, with the kettle being dubbed the Hitler teapot.
During a November 2013 conference call to Wall Street analysts, Ullman announced that J. C. Penney is "restoring initial markups necessary to support the return [to a] promotional department store strategy" with "gross margins, currently 29.5 percent of sales versus 32.5 percent a year ago, were lower due to the impact of clearance sales to eliminate inventory overhang and to transition back to the promotional pricing strategy the company is known for." Ullman is removing the radio frequency identification technology and returning to security tags because shrinkage has "added 100 basis points on margins in the third quarter". Various analysts have mixed reviews of J. C. Penney's future. On December 1, 2013, J. C. Penney was replaced by Allegion in the S&P 500 Index. S&P cited J. C. Penney's 37% fall in market value to $2.7 billion (equivalent to $ in ) was "more representative of the mid-cap market". J. C. Penney replaced Aéropostale from the S&P MidCap 400 Index. In 2013, Soros Fund Management sold over 19 million J. C. Penney shares after only owning them for a few months.
On January 15, 2014, J. C. Penney announced it was closing 33 under-performing stores and laying off 2,000 employees. J. C. Penney's stock continued its decline until their first quarter results in 2014 showed signs of improvement, and sent the share value back into the double digits. In October, it was announced that the company would be tapping former Home Depot executive Marvin Ellison to take on the role of CEO starting in November.
2015–2019
In January 2015, it was announced that J. C. Penney would close 39 under-performing stores nationwide and lay off 2,250 employees. That same year, the company announced that it was liquidating its The Foundry Big & Tall Supply Co. chain of standalone clothing stores. In January 2016, J. C. Penney announced plans to relaunch its business of selling major appliances to target a wave of millennials who are buying first-time homes. In February, J. C. Penney opened a support center in Bangalore, India.
In January 2017, J. C. Penney sold its headquarters campus and surrounding land in Plano, Texas to Dreien Opportunity Partners as a leaseback sale to maintain operations at the location. The land has since been broken up and sold/developed. Space inside the HQ building has been subleased. Part of this land was sold to where the current Toyota North America HQ is now located. In February, J. C. Penney announced that it would shutter two distribution centers and up to 140 under-performing stores as it wrestled with disappointing sales. The company also planned to offer buyouts to roughly 6,000 employees. On March 17, J. C. Penney released a list of 138 locations that would close by the end of June. By closing stores and distribution facilities, J. C. Penney would redirect resources to help expand its store-in-store Sephora boutiques, and add Nike and Adidas boutiques, similar to what Macy's has done with Finish Line, Lids and LensCrafters.
In an effort to capitalize on self-deprecating humor and improve its reputation, J. C. Penney collaborated with Nicole Richie and other designers to open a "Jacques Penne" pop-up shop in Manhattan during the 2017 holiday season.
In 2018, J. C. Penney closed permanently at Plaza Palma Real in Humacao, Puerto Rico, after Hurricane Maria devastated the store in September 2017. In May, J. C. Penney reported an adjusted loss of $69 million in the first quarter, even worse than Wall Street predicted, and lowered its projections for the year. Sales fell 4%, also missing estimates. Earlier in 2018, the company announced it would cut 360 jobs at its stores and corporate headquarters. The company lowered its earnings forecast for the year to 13 cents per share at best, and said it could lose as much as 7 cents. J. C. Penney finished the quarter with just $181 million in cash, down from $363 million a year ago. Much of the big decrease was because of a $190 billion debt replace. On May 22, J. C. Penney announced the resignation of their CEO, Marvin Ellison. On October 2, J. C. Penney announced former Jo-Ann Stores CEO Jill Soltau as their CEO, effective October 15. With the announcement, JCPenney's shares rose 9%. The company ranked 235 on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by revenue. She has also brought new talent and has cleaned out inventory. On December 26, the stock price of J. C. Penney (NYSE: JCP) fell below $1 per share. This was the first time shares fell below $1 ever in the 110-year history of the company, which started trading on the New York Stock Exchange in 1929. The stock fell 68% over the course of 2018, including a 30% drop in December 2018 alone.
On February 6, 2019, J. C. Penney said it would stop selling major appliances on February 28, and that furniture would be limited to online and stores in Puerto Rico. On February 28, J. C. Penney announced its intent to close 27 stores in 2019, including 18 full-line department stores and nine home-and-furniture stores. The closure announcement was paired with news that the retailer had suffered a 4% decline in same-store sales during the 2018 holiday quarter. On March 26, J. C. Penney announced the hiring of Bill Wofford as chief financial officer. Wofford came to the company from The Vitamin Shoppe, where he had served as CFO since June 2018. On May 21, J. C. Penney announced that Shawn Gensch will be the Chief Customer Officer to take effect on June 3. Gensch comes from Sprouts Farmers Market where he was their CCO. Also on May 21, J. C. Penney announced a net sales decline of 5.6% and a net loss of $154 million for its fiscal first quarter of 2019, which ended on May 5.
Covid and bankruptcy: 2020
On January 19, 2020, J. C. Penney announced plans to close six stores.
COVID-19 pandemic
On March 15, 2020, when businesses were ordered to temporarily close in many States, the chain closed all of its stores and furloughed its employees. J. C. Penney became the fourth major national retailer to file for bankruptcy in May 2020. Days earlier, it was reported in a regulatory filing that J. C. Penney would give bonuses totaling nearly $10 million to the company's senior managers, which included $4.5 million to CEO Jill Soltau. After 91 years, it was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange on May 18, 2020 and started trading over-the-counter the following business day.
On March 18, J. C. Penney announced all retail stores would temporarily close in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic until April 2. On March 31, J. C. Penney announced an extension of the planned April 2 reopening, with a new date not possible to be determined at the time. On May 1, J. C. Penney announced a limited number of stores would reopen.
Bankruptcy and new ownership
On May 15, 2020, J. C. Penney filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and announced that there would be an additional 242 store closings, blaming the COVID-19 pandemic for its action. By June 17, J. C. Penney reopened approximately 827 stores; most of the 154 scheduled for permanent closure in 2020 were among those reopened, with final closing sales in progress. On June 22, J. C. Penney identified an additional 13 stores that would be permanently closed. On July 7, 2020, J. C. Penney announced that they would close two stores in New York City; one at the Manhattan Mall, which was closed immediately and the Kings Plaza store in Brooklyn, which closed on Sunday, September 27, 2020. On December 17, 2020, JCPenney announced that they would close 15 additional stores in March 2021. As of June 2021, there have been a total of 175 store closures. On December 30, 2020, it was announced that Jill Soltau would step down as CEO of JCPenney, effective December 31, 2020. It is unclear whether she was fired or resigned. On January 1, 2021, Soltau was replaced by Simon Property's chief investment officer, Stanley Shashoua.
On June 4, 2020, J. C. Penney released a list of 148 stores slated to close starting in late June 2020, with eleven additional store closures announced on June 22 and two additional stores on July 7, with the previously announced store closing locations remaining on hold pending further review, for a planned closing a total of 242 stores. Since the initial filing, rumors of potential buyers included Amazon, Sycamore Partners, and a group consisting of Authentic Brands (Forever 21, Aeropostale, Barneys), and mall owners Simon Property Group and Brookfield Properties. On July 8, J. C. Penney submitted their bankruptcy exit plan to existing lenders, and also requested more time for negotiations. On July 31, 2020, it was announced that 21 stores, including the "Mother Store" in Kemmerer, Wyoming, would be auctioned off as part of the proceedings.On September 9, 2020, Brookfield Property Partners and Simon Property Group agreed to purchase JCPenney for about $800 million, including $300 million in cash and assuming $500 million of debt, which was later approved by the court on November 10, 2020. It had been established that once the company emerges from bankruptcy it is poised to save nearly 60,000 jobs, according to various independent studies. The company was paying $2.45 million in monthly rent at the time it sold its headquarters offices in Plano, Texas in 2017; the location was permanently vacated in November 2020.
Under Simon and Brookfield: 2020-present
In October 2021, the company opened 10 new shop-in-shop locations across the US, featuring a wide variety of brands, including indie and BIPOC brands, including flagship partner Thirteen Lune. Marc Rosen became CEO in 2021.
In April 2022, JCPenney's owners–Simon and Brookfield– offered $8.6 billion to purchase Kohl's. Sephora had already announced plans to contract exclusively with Kohl's by 2023, and had piloted Sephora Inside Kohls at select store locations. With this deal, Sephora would remain affiliated with, and under control of, the Simon and Brookfield retail portfolio, therefore superseding and annulling previous agreements for Sephora to leave JCPenney in favor of Kohl's.
The company returned to its Plano, Texas headquarters in July 2023. The reopened headquarters contain over 2,000 workers and occupies three floors.
Finances
Corporate identity
In June 2008, an ad called "Speed Dressing" emerged ending with the J. C. Penney logo and slogan "Every Day Matters". The ad won a prize at the Cannes Lions International Advertising Festival. The ad was criticized for seeming to promote teen sex. J. C. Penney denied that the ad was theirs and their advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi reported that it had been created by a third-party vendor. It was entered in the competition by Epoch Films, who declined to comment.
Marketing expert John Tantillo advised that the company distance itself from the commercial and also shed the publicity it engendered.
Logo
Private brands
Beginning with the Marathon Hats line, JCPenney has introduced multiple private brands, partially in response to suppliers denying access to expected inventories.
St. John's Bay, casual clothing and shoes for men and women, including Big & Tall (men) and Plus (women)
St. John's Bay Outdoor, men's outdoor apparel
The Original Arizona Jean Company, casual clothing and sandals for men, women, and children, including Big & Tall
Xersion, active and athletic clothing for men, women and children
Worthington, women's formal and casual clothing and shoes
a.n.a, young women's urban clothing and shoes
Ambrielle, women's sleepwear, intimates, and swim
Liz Claiborne, women's apparel
Ryegrass, stylish women's fashion
Stafford, men's tailored/fitted clothing and shoes
J. Ferrar, men's full line of slim-fitting clothing,including Big & Tall
Collection by Michael Strahan, men's suits, ties, and cuff links
Claiborne (discontinued), men's apparel
Mutual Weave, men's denim and casual outerwear
Marilyn Monroe, women's vintage collection
Foundry Supply Co. (discontinued solo stores, brand moved to JCPenney stores), men's Big & Tall apparel, superseded by SJB and Arizona.
ThereAbouts, casual wear for boys and girls
Okie Dokie, newborn and toddler apparel
JCPenney Home, home goods
Linden Street, bedding
Cooks, cookware
Home Expressions, home goods
North Pole Trading Co, Christmas decor & bedding
Marathon Hats (the first JCP private brand)
Loom + Forge, modern home decor, bedding, and window
Former subsidiaries
Eckerd Pharmacy – A chain of pharmacies that JCPenney sold off in 2004, with former locations becoming CVS or Rite Aid.
The Treasury / Treasure Island – a chain of discount stores that JCPenney closed in the 80s
Treasury drug stores – A chain of stand alone drug stores that were also branded with the Treasury nameplate. Treasury Drug stores became Eckerd which JCPenney also owned.
JCPenney Insurance – JCPenney Casualty Insurance (also referred to as Penney-Wise Protection) was sold to Metropolitan Life Insurance Company in 1989.
Auto Centers – JCPenney had Auto Centers during the 70s and 80s. Some JCPenney Auto Centers had gas stations. JCPenney closed the auto centers by the 90s.
JCPenney Home Stores – stores that sold linens & home decor
JCPenney Outlet / JC's 5 Star Outlet – JCPenney Outlet Stores were stores that sold JCPenney's merchandise at a lower outlet store price. JC's 5 star outlet was a "lower rank" outlet store. All of the outlet stores were closed by 2011.
JCPenney furniture outlet – JCPenney outlet stores that only sold furniture & rugs.
JCPenney Restaurants – Some stores had JCPenney branded restaurants
Penncraft Tools – A short-lived line of tools intended to compete with Sears Craftsman, with hand tools manufactured by New Britain and power tools and drill bits manufactured by Stanley.
Locations listed on the National Register of Historic Places
JCPenney locations that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP):
J. C. Penney-Chicago Store (Tucson, Arizona)
J. C. Penney Company Building (Shoshone, Idaho)
J. C. Penney Co. Warehouse Building (St. Louis, Missouri)
J. C. Penney Building (Newberg, Oregon)
J. C. Penney Historic District, Kemmerer, Wyoming, a National Historic Landmark District
J. C. Penney House, Kemmerer, Wyoming
See also
Retail apocalypse
References
External links
1902 establishments in Wyoming
American companies established in 1902
Companies formerly listed on the New York Stock Exchange
Companies that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2020
Department stores of the United States
Furniture retailers of the United States
Companies based in Plano, Texas
Online retailers of the United States
Retail companies established in 1902
Authentic Brands Group
2020 mergers and acquisitions
Simon Property Group
Brookfield Asset Management |
421290 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The%20Story%20of%20the%20Stone%20%28Hughart%20novel%29 | The Story of the Stone (Hughart novel) | The Story of the Stone () is a novel by Barry Hughart, first published in 1988. It is part of a series set in a version of ancient China that began with Bridge of Birds and continues with Eight Skilled Gentlemen. The story begins on the twelfth day of the seventh moon in the Year of the Snake 3,339 (AD 650).
Plot summary
The abbot of a humble monastery in the Valley of Sorrows calls upon Master Li and Number Ten Ox to investigate the killing of a monk and the theft of a seemingly inconsequential manuscript from its library. Suspicion soon lands on the infamous Laughing Prince Liu Sheng—who has been dead for about 750 years. To solve this mystery and others, the incongruous duo will have to travel across China, outwit a half-barbarian king, and saunter into (and out of) Hell itself.
Plot
A wild funeral and a storm presage an attempt on Li Kao's life by a man disguised as a gambler. Number Ten Ox dumps the body in a canal. A footnote remarks that volumes two through five of the Memoirs of Number Ten Ox were seized and burnt by the Imperial Censors. Later in the Wineshop of One-eyed Wong, a low dive where classes mix, they encounter Lady Hou, a poet whose poems have been "attributed" to Yang Wan-Li. She attempts to murder a bureaucrat, but is knocked out by Wong. The trembling abbot of a humble monastery in the Valley of Sorrows approaches and asks them to investigate the killing of a monk and the theft of a strange manuscript from its library. He also says that The Laughing Prince, who has been dead for about 750 years, has arisen from his grave.
Later, they walk through the part of Peking known as Heaven's Bridge, a crime filled area. Master Li spots a robbery in progress and makes a detour to Fire Horse Park, specifically to the Eye of Tranquility, a small lake surrounded by old sinners hoping for salvation, following the tradition of Chiang Taikung, a Taoist who fished without worms. Li Kao wrings a confession about the mushrooms from a toadish fellow named Hsiang. He identifies the manuscript fragment as a Ssu-ma Ch'ien, but an obvious forgery. It has also been traced recently.
Three days later they arrive at the Valley of Sorrows. Li Kao tells the story of Prince Liu Sheng, younger brother of Emperor Wu-ti. He was appointed as lord of Dragon Head Valley. He had the peasants plant gourds, and used the seeds to burn in horn lamps to light a salt mine. He used the brine and an area of shale that seeped an odorless, easily ignited gas to dry the salt. When the salt ran out, he had work started on mining a vein of iron ore. He set up an Iron Works that used a combination of acids to produce a less brittle form of iron. The suffering of the peasants sent him into gales of laughter. At that time he became known as The Laughing Prince.
The acids had a queer effect on the water of the valley. It turned bright yellow and glowed violet at night and fish, birds and trees in the valley died. Protests were silenced when he showed that he had made quite a lot of money from it all. Then he lost all interest in making money and turned his interest to medicine. He vivisected a large number of subjects (including those who protested) and gathered like-minded people around him. He dubbed them his Monks of Mirth, and they helped him gather subjects. After a while, he fell ill and died, raving that he would return from the grave to finish the destruction of the valley.
The autopsy of Brother Squint-Eyes reveals a normal corpse that died of fright. It also reveals that he had feasted during a recent trip to Ch'ang-an. They visit the devastated Princes' Path, a flowered path whose upkeep is paid for by the Laughing Prince's fortune. The abbot tells them that the prince's descendant Liu Pao wishes to meet them. The peasants also wish them to be certain that the Laughing Prince is still in his tomb.
The estate is large but rundown, with a large garden and many birds. Oddly enough, the Family Tablets are not there as they enter, but instead a plaque containing an essay by Chen Chiju, titled "The Home Garden", one of the Four Pillars of Civilization. The prince proves to be a tall, skinny man with wild hair.
They discuss the case so far and Liu Pao shows them his ancestor's tomb. The family tablets are within the grotto where the Laughing Prince conducted his experiments. It also contains a large slate board where curious experiments mention a Stone.
A poem is carved over the tablets:
They enter the tomb. The tomb is a small, barren room with two stone coffins, containing also his principal wife Tou Wan. The expected mummies are in the coffins.
In the village, the Feast of the Hungry Ghosts is beginning, it being the 15th day of the seventh moon.
Despite the festivities, Master Li is worried. He speculates that the laughing of the Laughing Prince was due to mercury poisoning, likely due to experiments with the Elixir of Life. Suddenly a mysterious sound is heard by Number Ten Ox that Li Kao cannot hear. Master Li climbs onto Number Ten Ox's back and tells him to follow the sound. He does, running blindly into a thick mist, finally emerging on the Prince's estate, having somehow crossed a deep gorge without knowing.
An alarm rings out in the monastery. The library has been ransacked and the room of Brother Squint-Eyes has been trashed. The corpse of another monk is discovered in the library, Brother Wu Shang, also frightened to death. Another section of the path is found destroyed. Number Ten Ox sketches characters from Great Seal script in the air and recounts an insight from a strange dream he had recently.
The peasants begin to sing a work song from the Book of Odes, indicating that they require the Prince to destroy his ancestor's remains in the Pre-Confucian manner (punishable in the Eighth Hell).
With the deed done and the mummy smashed to pieces, the Prince shows them his paintings. The Prince studied with Three Incomparables, master of the p'o-mo (魄莫) style. Most of his paintings step outside those recommended in Mustard Seed Garden, an accumulated one and a half million years of exile.
Master Li becomes suspicious about the fragment and discovers that it is actually real and that the 'mistakes' are actually clues, such as the number of a dragon's scales (146, actually 153), the number of points in acupuncture (253, actually about 360) and so on. The decoded message reveals the location of the Stone. Master Li also reveals the mummy in Liu Sheng's tomb had the wrong color wrappings, imperial yellow instead of mourning white, meaning that the mummy was not that of Liu Sheng.
On the way to the cold room, they see a painting of Liu Sheng. His clothing contains all twelve buttons of rank and one other, commonly used to represent the Second Lord of Heaven, placing him in line with the Jade Emperor.
Number Ten Ox deduces where the entrance to the tunnel is and after some hard work, break into Liu Sheng's real tomb. The first chamber contains the skeletons of the workers. An iron wall is the next obstacle, but Number Ten Ox manages to make a hole in it. The next chamber is of marble and is stacked with gold and jewels. Other rooms contain the skeletons of the rest of Liu Sheng's court, but the Monks of Mirth are nowhere to be found. Beyond the throne room is Liu Sheng's real coffins, and the sacristy. The same mysterious inscription is there, but the Stone is not. The Laughing Prince's coffin is empty. Master Li deduces that there is another entrance to the tomb, since the air within was breathable.
Since revealing the treasure would cause enormous problems, they decide to hide it again. Li Kao and Number Ten Ox leave for Ch'ang-an. The capital is an overwhelming experience for Ox. While at the Brush Forest Academy (dropping off samples of the dead plants for analysis), Master Li tells the tale of Hong Wong, the young genius who was too smart for his own good. The Neo-Confucians are in power and innovation is anathema. Next he visits The Gate of the Beautiful Vista, headquarters of the Secret Service and seeks an audience with the Captain of Prostitutes. They play a game of social shuttlecock, a quoting game. He wins and asks her to direct him to a soundmaster. She gives him the name of Moon Boy, who is presently at the court of Shih Hu, the King of Chao. She loans him Grief of Dawn, the one person who can control Moon Boy. In return she asks that he find a new patron deity for prostitutes. Golden Lotus was the best, and her successors have been poor substitutes. She asks that he recommend the late Empress Wu, which he takes umbrage at. Ox becomes entranced with Grief of Dawn. The group are given postal service horses and leave.
During the long journey, they learn that Grief of Dawn has no memory of her life before she was about 18. She was found covered in blood by an old woman who later raised her. Master Li gets in by pretending to be the Greatest Living Master of the Wen-Wu lute. The king sees through the imposture, but is pleased with the performance. He collects rare people, of which Moon Boy is the jewel.
The group settle in and the king serenades Grief of Dawn, as he wants her to join his all-female group of bodyguards, the Golden Girls. Ox and Grief of Dawn go off to be alone.
The next morning, Ox and Grief of Dawn are interrupted in their love play by Moon Boy. Ox decides that Moon Boy is named after the Rabbit in the Moon, a notorious pervert. Moon Boy leaves, but they are again interrupted by Master Li.
They sneak away under cover of one of Moon Boy's performances. 100 toads glutted with Chinese lantern-flies clear out the stables and they make their escape through the kings secret exit. They dodge pursuit by boating to Loshan down the Min, past the Three Gorges and over Five Misery Rapids, past the Leshan Giant Buddha.
They then travel back to Ch'ang-an, past the village where Moon Boy was raised, resulting in some unusual scenes.
Grief of Dawn's odd manners and knowledge, part peasant, part courtier are remarked on by Master Li. The samples show no traces of anything beyond natural decay. They make a visit to Serpentine Park, where Master Li cleverly obtains rubbings of the Confucian Stones. He later alters them to appear to be forgeries (changing the old form of the character 且 to its newer form) and trades them at the Pavilion of the Blessings of Heaven, a library, for the tracings sold by Brother Squint-Eyes.
Later, reclining under a tree, Master Li asks Ox to tell the story of Li Ling-chi, about an emperor who wanted tangerines in winter and was so expert in manipulating c-hi that he was able to pull the tangerine trees from where they were growing in the south and cause them to grow in the north. Master Li then reads a story from a scroll containing the frame story of Dream of the Red Chamber, concerning a legend of Nü Kua, a sentient Stone and an evil flower named Purple Pearl. The flawed stone gains an evil soul from the handling of the goddess. It wanders around heaven causing mischief, until the Jade Emperor brought it in contact with Purple Pearl. The stone brought water to nourish the flower, which exorcised the evil, causing the flower to fall in love with the stone. It vowed to do the same for the stone. Later the stone returned to earth. Lao Tzu briefly possessed it, but hurled it away, crying "Evil!", as did Chuang Tzu.
The deciphered text agrees, citing a tablet from the Cave of Yu and gives a description of the appearance of the stone and that Ssu-ma Ch'ien had attempted to destroy the stone with an axe, splitting it in three pieces. It asks scholars to destroy the stone, as soldiers could not.
Master Li wonders about the sound and the destruction of Princes' Path. Moon Boy explains that the sound was likely related to the phenomenon of the soul-sound of stone (Lithophone).
Ox learns of the story of Wolf Boy and Fire Girl from the local boy's society. The plot deals with an attempt to kill the Laughing Prince, and includes a fragment of text similar to that found in the sacristy.
A clue in the tale leads them to a hidden cave and the bodies of two gardeners who vanished 33 years ago. They explore the caves passages fruitlessly and emerge just as King Shih Hu and his Golden Girls catch up to them. Grief of Dawn is wounded in the struggle and the King and his Golden Girls depart sorrowfully.
Grief of Dawn mutters in her fever, saying strange things that leave Master Li confused. To heal her, he requires the seeds of a Bombay thorn apple. They stop at the abandoned Unicorn Hall, to look at a portrait of Tou Wan, specifically her hairpin, which had a point fashioned from stone.
They arrive at the Temple of Illusion. Master Li intends that they take a voyage inside his mind, to rediscover the location of the thorn apple, which he has forgotten in the 60 years since. The three sit in a room in the temple and have a meal of wine and devil's ear mushrooms. A plaque has the story of the Butterfly Dream. The mushrooms begin to take effect and they are directed to the garden.
Master Li converses with a skull in a patch of reeds, which write in the air, communicating the thoughts of Liu Ling. The two talk of old times and Master Li tells it he wishes Moon Boy to look in a certain mirror. The skull is apprehensive since only three others (Emperor T'ang, Chou the Rouge and Crazy Ch'i) have returned from the trip.
The trio enter Hell and successfully bypass the first gate to the levels of Feng-tu by impersonating an official inspector with his retinue, made possible by the Neo-Confucians having taken over the running of the place. Number Ten Ox's look in the mirror reveals this to be his first human incarnation. Moon Boy, however, is the most recent on an attempt to reform a seriously evil soul. Li also discovers that the Laughing prince has yet to arrive in Hell. Eventually, they trick their way out of Hell, arriving back in the garden where they started, with the location of the apple.
The potion works and Grief of Dawn is restored to health. The things she mentioned in her fever seem to confirm that she was Tou Wan's maid in a previous incarnation almost 800 years ago. He also concludes that the story of Wolf Boy and Fire girl has some basis in fact. Li mesmerizes Grief of Dawn to bring up her buried memories of how she escaped from the caves. She stops at a large boulder, which has a hidden door.
They descend steps to an underground river with large stone statues at intervals of death gods from various cultures, like Yen-wang-yeh, Emma-hoo, Gilgamesh, Osiris and others. They climb a steep flight of steps and emerge in an antechamber with four statues holding four canopic jars in Chinese style and four doors. The first door leads to the tomb, where they discover that Tou Wan's Hairpin, which had a piece of the Stone, is indeed missing. The next door leads to a room containing the Laughing Prince's medical research. He was using the Stone to chart the patterns of ch'i and shih. The third door leads to a series of polished chutes that exit in the underground river. Lio Pau is not there and they find tassels from his robe leading up a flight of stairs to a side passage. Moon Boy produces the illusion that they have entered and the roof of the tunnel collapses.
They climb the staircase and accidentally discover a secret door leading into the paymaster's office. The fourth door leads to a sloping tunnel and a cavern where the Monks of Mirth are celebrating the Festival of Laughter. One is placed on Number Ten Ox's back and starts to squeeze his neck. The monks are revealed as living corpses and the one on his back is the Laughing Prince. He manages to oil the corpse and squeeze it off. He hacks it to pieces with an axe, but the pieces continue to speak and move. Finally he lights it with a torch and the monks cease to move. Master Li recovers the Stone from the Laughing Prince, where it had revitalized his corpse after his death.
They are approached by Girl of Fire, who claims to know the location of Prince Liu Pao, but she tricks them into entering a collapsing cave. Grief of Dawn is killed but Moon Boy refuses to leave her body, instead carrying her to safety. They are then reunited with Girl of Fire. Master Li realises that she is actually the Prince in disguise. Liu Pao had wanted the power of the Stone, which he kept hung around his neck. The stone is a natural inkstone.
They manage to kill Liu Pao by using the Kung Shang Chueh call, thus knocking him off the gorge.
It is revealed Moon Boy is the stunningly beautiful reincarnated Purple Pearl. When the Stone stumbled upon Purple Pearl all those years ago, it washed away all the evil Purple Pearl had succumbed to. In return, Purple Pearl vowed to do the same to the Stone. After discovering this, Moon Boy fulfills the vow and commits suicide to be with Grief of Dawn.
Main characters
Li Kao - a sage with a slight flaw in his character
Number Ten Ox - a quite strong peasant boy
Grief of Dawn, girl with a mysterious past and a connection to:
Moon Boy, an appallingly perverse hooligan ()
Liu Sheng
The Stone
Reviews
Library Journal stated that "This sequel to Bridge of Birds (Del Rey, 1985) reaffirms Hughart's gift for comic fantasy as well as his talent for ingenious storytelling."
The Washington Post stated that "the sly humorous tone and affectionate homage to our western ideas of early China are what really make Hughart special." Hughart "also incorporates a good deal of actual Chinese lore; the very title of his book, and various incidental details, pay homage to the most famous Chinese novel, more familiarly known as The Dream of the Red Chamber.
The Christian Science Monitor described the book as "Intricately nested plot boxes [which] reveal and conceal mysterious Oriental characters - people and calligraphy alike."
References
1988 American novels
American fantasy novels
Novels by Barry Hughart
The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox
1988 fantasy novels
Doubleday (publisher) books |
421292 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace%20Jones | Grace Jones | Grace Beverly Jones (born 19 May 1948) is a Jamaican-American model, singer and actress. Born in Jamaica, she and her family moved to Syracuse, New York, when she was a teenager. Jones began her modelling career in New York state, then in Paris, working for fashion houses such as Yves St. Laurent and Kenzo, and appearing on the covers of Elle and Vogue. She notably worked with photographers such as Jean-Paul Goude, Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and Hans Feurer, and became known for her distinctive androgynous appearance and bold features.
Beginning in 1977, Jones embarked on a music career, securing a record deal with Island Records and initially becoming a high-profile figure of New York City's Studio 54-centered disco scene. In the early 1980s, she moved toward a new wave style that drew on reggae, funk, post-punk, and pop music, frequently collaborating with both the graphic designer Jean-Paul Goude and the musical duo Sly & Robbie. She scored Top 40 entries on the UK Singles Chart with "Private Life", "Pull Up to the Bumper", "I've Seen That Face Before", and "Slave to the Rhythm". In 1982, she released the music video collection A One Man Show, directed by Goude, which earned her a nomination for Best Video Album at the 26th Annual Grammy Awards. Her most popular albums include Warm Leatherette (1980), Nightclubbing (1981), and Slave to the Rhythm (1985).
As an actress, Jones appeared in several indie films prior to landing her first mainstream appearance as Zula in the fantasy-action film Conan the Destroyer (1984) alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sarah Douglas, and subsequently appeared in the James Bond movie A View to a Kill (1985) as May Day, and starred as a vampire in Vamp (1986); all of which earned her nominations for the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 1992, Jones acted in the Eddie Murphy film Boomerang, and contributed to the soundtrack. She also appeared alongside Tim Curry in the 2001 film Wolf Girl.
Jones was ranked 82nd on VH1's 100 Greatest Women of Rock and Roll (1999). In 2008, she was honored with a Q Idol Award. Jones influenced the cross-dressing movement of the 1980s and has been cited as an inspiration for multiple artists, including Annie Lennox, Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Solange, Lorde, Róisín Murphy, Brazilian Girls, Nile Rodgers, Santigold, and Basement Jaxx. In 2016, Billboard ranked her as the 40th greatest dance club artist of all time.
Biography and career
1948–1973: Early life, and modeling career
Grace Jones was born in 1948 (though most sources say 1952) in Spanish Town, Jamaica, the daughter of Marjorie (née Williams) (1927–2017) and Robert W. Jones (1925–2008), who was a local politician and Apostolic clergyman. The couple already had two children, and would go on to have four more. Robert and Marjorie moved to the East Coast of the United States, where Robert worked as an agricultural labourer until a spiritual experience during a suicide attempt inspired him to become a Pentecostal minister. While they were in the US, they left their children with Marjorie's mother and her new husband, Peart. Jones knew him as "Mas P" ('Master P') and later noted that she "absolutely hated him"; as a strict disciplinarian he regularly beat the children in his care, representing what Jones described as "serious abuse". She was raised into the family's Pentecostal faith, having to take part in prayer meetings and Bible readings every night. She initially attended the Pentecostal All Saints School, before being sent to a nearby public school.
As a child, Jones was shy and had only one schoolfriend. She was teased by classmates for her "skinny frame", but she excelled at sports and found solace in the nature of Jamaica.
Marjorie and Robert eventually brought their children – including the 13 year-old Grace – to live with them in the US, where they had settled in Lyncourt, Salina, New York, near Syracuse. It was in the city that her father had established his own ministry, the Apostolic Church of Jesus Christ, in 1956. Jones continued her schooling and after she graduated, enrolled at Onondaga Community College majoring in Spanish. Jones began to rebel against her parents and their religion; she began wearing makeup, drinking alcohol, and visiting gay clubs with her brother. At college, she also took a theatre class, with her drama teacher convincing her to join him on a summer stock tour in Philadelphia. Arriving in the city, she decided to stay there, immersing herself in the Counterculture of the 1960s by living in hippie communes, earning money as a go-go dancer, and using LSD and other drugs. She later praised the use of LSD as "a very important part of my emotional growth... The mental exercise was good for me".
She moved back to New York at 18 and signed on as a model with Wilhelmina Models. She moved to Paris in 1970. The Parisian fashion scene was receptive to Jones's unusual, androgynous, bold, dark-skinned appearance. Yves St. Laurent, Claude Montana, and Kenzo Takada hired her for runway modelling, and she appeared on the covers of Elle, Vogue, and Stern working with Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, and Hans Feurer. Jones also modelled for Azzedine Alaia, and was frequently photographed promoting his line. While modelling in Paris, she shared an apartment with Jerry Hall and Jessica Lange. Hall and Jones frequented Le Sept, one of Paris's most popular gay clubs of the 1970s and 1980s, and socialised with Giorgio Armani and Karl Lagerfeld. In 1973, Jones appeared on the cover of a reissue of Billy Paul's 1970 album Ebony Woman.
1974–1979: Transition to music, and early releases
Jones was signed by Island Records, who put her in the studio with disco record producer, Tom Moulton. Moulton worked at Sigma Sound Studios in Philadelphia, and Portfolio, was released in 1977. The album featured three songs from Broadway musicals, "Send in the Clowns" by Stephen Sondheim from A Little Night Music, "What I Did for Love" from A Chorus Line and "Tomorrow" from Annie. The second side of the album opens up with a seven-minute reinterpretation of Édith Piaf's followed by three new recordings, two of which were co-written by Jones, "Sorry", and "That's the Trouble". The album finished with "I Need a Man", Jones's first club hit. The artwork to the album was designed by Richard Bernstein, an artist for Interview.
In 1978, Jones and Moulton made Fame, an immediate follow-up to Portfolio, also recorded at Sigma Sound Studios. The album featured another reinterpretation of a French classic, "Autumn Leaves" by Jacques Prévert. The Canadian edition of the vinyl album included another French language track, , which replaced "All on a Summers Night"; in most locations this song served as the B-side of the single "Do or Die". In the North American club scene, Fame was a hit album and the "Do or Die"/"Pride"/"Fame" side reached top 10 on both the US Hot Dance Club Play and Canadian Dance/Urban charts. The album was released on compact disc in the early 1990s, but soon went out of print. In 2011, it was released and remastered by Gold Legion, a record company that specialises in reissuing classic disco albums on CD.
Jones's live shows were highly sexualized and flamboyant, leading her to be called "Queen of the Gay Discos."
In the same year she was cast in the highly controversial Italian TV program Stryx, aired by Rai 2, where she portrayed the character of Rumstryx.
Muse was the last of Jones's disco albums. The album features a re-recorded version "I'll Find My Way to You", which Jones released three years prior to Muse. Originally appearing in the 1976 Italian film, Colt 38 Special Squad in which Jones had a role as a club singer, Jones also recorded a song called "Again and Again" that was featured in the film. Both songs were produced by composer Stelvio Cipriani. Icelandic keyboardist Thor Baldursson arranged most of the album and also sang duet with Jones on the track "Suffer". Like the last two albums, the cover art is by Richard Bernstein. Like Fame, Muse was later released by Gold Legion.
1980–1985: Breakthrough, Nightclubbing, and acting
With anti-disco sentiment spreading, and with the aid of the Compass Point All Stars, Jones transitioned into new wave music with the 1980 release of Warm Leatherette. The album included covers of songs by The Normal ("Warm Leatherette"), The Pretenders ("Private Life"), Roxy Music ("Love Is the Drug"), Smokey Robinson ("The Hunter Gets Captured by the Game"), Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers ("Breakdown") and Jacques Higelin ("Pars"). Sly Dunbar revealed that the title track was also the first to be recorded with Jones. Tom Petty wrote the lyrics to "Breakdown", and he also wrote the third verse of Jones's reinterpretation. The album included one song co-written by Jones, "A Rolling Stone". Originally, "Pull Up to the Bumper" was to be included on the album, but its R&B sound did not fit with the rest of the material. By 1981, she had begun collaborating with photographer and graphic designer Jean-Paul Goude, with whom she also had a relationship. An extended version of "Private Life" was released as a single, with a cover of the Joy Division song "She's Lost Control", a non-album track, as the B-side.
The 1981 release of Nightclubbing included Jones's covers of songs by Flash and the Pan ("Walking in the Rain"), Bill Withers ("Use Me"), Iggy Pop/David Bowie ("Nightclubbing") and Ástor Piazzolla ("I've Seen That Face Before"). Three songs were co-written by Jones: "Feel Up", "Art Groupie" and "Pull Up to the Bumper". Sting wrote "Demolition Man"; he later recorded it with The Police on the album Ghost in the Machine. "I've Done It Again" was written by Marianne Faithfull. The strong rhythm featured on Nightclubbing was produced by Compass Point All Stars, including Sly and Robbie, Wally Badarou, Mikey Chung, Uziah "Sticky" Thompson and Barry Reynolds. The album entered in the Top 5 in four countries, and became Jones's highest-ranking record on the US Billboard mainstream albums and R&B charts.
Nightclubbing claimed the number 1 slot on NMEs Album of the Year list. Slant Magazine listed the album at No. 40 on its list of Best Albums of the 1980s. Nightclubbing is now widely considered Jones's best studio album. The album's cover art is a painting of Jones by Jean-Paul Goude. Jones is presented as a man wearing an Armani suit jacket, with a cigarette in her mouth and a flattop haircut. While promoting the album, Jones slapped chat-show host Russell Harty live on air after he had turned to interview other guests, making Jones feel she was being ignored.
Having already recorded two reggae-oriented albums under the production of Compass Point All Stars, Jones went to Nassau, Bahamas in 1982 and recorded Living My Life; the album resulted in Jones's final contribution to the Compass Point trilogy, with only one cover, Melvin Van Peebles's "The Apple Stretching". The rest were original songs; "Nipple to the Bottle" was co-written with Sly Dunbar, and, apart from "My Jamaican Guy", the other tracks were collaborations with Barry Reynolds. Despite receiving a limited single release, the title track was left off the album. Further session outtakes included "Man Around the House" (Jones, Reynolds) and a cover of "Ring of Fire", written by June Carter Cash and Merle Kilgore and popularized by Johnny Cash, both of which were included on the 1998 compilation Private Life: The Compass Point Sessions. The album's cover art resulted from another Jones/Goude collaboration; the artwork has been described as being as famous as the music on the record. It features Jones's disembodied head cut out from a photograph and pasted onto a white background. Jones's head is sharpened, giving her head and face an angular shape. A piece of plaster is pasted over her left eyebrow, and her forehead is covered with drops of sweat.
Jones's three albums under the production of the Compass Point All Stars resulted in Jones's One Man Show, a performance art/pop theatre presentation devised by Goude and Jones in which she also performed tracks from the albums Portfolio (), Warm Leatherette, ("Private Life", "Warm Leatherette"), Nightclubbing ("Walking in the Rain", "Feel Up", "Demolition Man", "Pull Up to the Bumper" and "I've Seen That Face Before (Libertango)") and from Living My Life, "My Jamaican Guy" and the album's title track. Jones dressed in elaborate costumes and masks (in the opening sequence as a gorilla) and alongside a series of Grace Jones lookalikes. A video version, filmed live in London and New York City and completed with some studio footage, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Long-Form Music Video the following year.
After the release of Living My Life, Jones took on the role of Zula the Amazonian in Conan the Destroyer (1984) and was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. In 1985, Jones starred as May Day, henchwoman to main antagonist Max Zorin in the 14th James Bond film A View to a Kill; Jones was also nominated for a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress. That same year, she was featured on the Arcadia song "Election Day". Jones was among the many stars to promote the Honda Scooter; other artists included Lou Reed, Adam Ant, and Miles Davis. Jones also, with her boyfriend Dolph Lundgren posed nude for Playboy.
1986–1989: Slave to the Rhythm, Island Life, and further films
After Jones's success as a mainstream actress, she returned to the studio to work on Slave to the Rhythm, the last of her recordings for Island. Bruce Woolley, Simon Darlow, Stephen Lipson and Trevor Horn wrote the material, and it was produced by Horn and Lipson. It was a concept album that featured several interpretations of the title track. The project was originally intended for Frankie Goes to Hollywood as a follow-up to "Relax", but was given to Jones. All eight tracks on the album featured excerpts from a conversation with Jones, speaking about many aspects of her life. The interview was conducted by journalist Paul Morley. The album features voice-overs from actor Ian McShane reciting passages from Jean-Paul Goude's biography Jungle Fever. Slave to the Rhythm was successful in German-speaking countries and in the Netherlands, where it secured Top 10 placings. It reached number 12 on the UK Albums Chart in November 1985 and became the second-highest-ranking album released by Jones. Jones earned an MTV Video Music Award nomination for the title track's music video.
After her success with Slave to the Rhythm, Island released Island Life, Jones's first best-of compilation, which featured songs from most of her releases with Island (Portfolio, Fame, Warm Leatherette, Nightclubbing, Living My Life and Slave to the Rhythm). American writer and journalist Glenn O'Brien wrote the essay for the inlay booklet. The compilation charted in the UK, New Zealand and the United States. The artwork on the cover of the compilation was of another Jones/Goude collaboration; it featured Jones's celestial body in a montage of separate images, following Goude's ideas on creating credible illusions with his cut-and-paint technique. The body position is anatomically impossible.
The artwork, a piece called "Nigger Arabesque" was originally published in the New York magazine in 1978, and was used as a backdrop for the music video of Jones's hit single . The artwork has been described as "one of pop culture's most famous photographs". The image was also parodied in Nicki Minaj's 2011 music video for "Stupid Hoe", in which Minaj mimicked the pose.
After Slave to the Rhythm and Island Life, Jones started to record again under a new contract with Manhattan Records, which resulted in Inside Story, Jones teamed up with music producer Nile Rodgers of Chic, whom Jones had previously tried to work with during the disco era. The album was recorded at Skyline Studios in New York and post-produced at Atlantic Studios and Sterling Sound. Inside Story was the first album Jones produced, which resulted in heated disputes with Rodgers. Musically, the album was more accessible than her previous albums with the Compass Point All Stars, and explored different styles of pop music, with undertones of jazz, gospel, and Caribbean sounds. All songs on the album were written by Jones and Bruce Woolley. Richard Bernstein teamed up with Jones again to provide the album's artwork. Inside Story made the top 40 in several European countries. The album was Jones's last entry to date on US Billboard 200 albums chart. The same year, Jones starred as Katrina, an Egyptian queen vampire in the vampire film Vamp. For her work in the film, Jones was awarded a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.
In 1987, Jones appeared in two films, Straight to Hell, and Mary Lambert's Siesta, for which Jones was nominated for Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actress. Bulletproof Heart was released in 1989, produced by Chris Stanley, who co-wrote, and co-produced the majority of the songs, and was featured as a guest vocalist on "Don't Cry Freedom". Robert Clivillés and David Cole of C+C Music Factory produced some tracks on the album.
1990–2004: Boomerang, soundtracks, and collaborations
In 1990, Jones appeared as herself in the documentary, Superstar: The Life and Times of Andy Warhol. 1992 saw Jones starring as Helen Strangé, in the Eddie Murphy film Boomerang, for which she also contributed the song "7 Day Weekend" to its soundtrack. Jones released two more soundtrack songs in 1992; "Evilmainya", recorded for the film Freddie as F.R.O.7, and "Let Joy and Innocence Prevail" for the film Toys. In 1994, she was due to release an electro album titled Black Marilyn with artwork featuring the singer as Marilyn Monroe. "Sex Drive" was released as the first single in September 1993, but due to unknown reasons the record was eventually shelved. The track "Volunteer", recorded during the same sessions, leaked in 2009. In 1995, Jones reunited with Tom Moulton for a disco-house take on Candi Staton's 1978 song "Victim", however, the song's release was cancelled by Island Records.
In 1996, Jones released "Love Bites", an up-tempo electronic track to promote the Sci-Fi Channel's Vampire Week, which consisted of a series of vampire-themed films aired on the channel in early November 1996. The track features Jones singing from the perspective of a vampire. The track was released as a non-label promo-only single. , it had not been made commercially available.
In June 1998, Jones was scheduled to release an album entitled Force of Nature, on which she worked with trip hop musician Tricky. The release of Force of Nature was cancelled due to a disagreement between the two, and only a white label 12" single featuring two dance mixes of "Hurricane" was issued at the time; a slowed-down version of this song became the title track of her comeback album released ten years later while another unreleased track from the album, "Clandestine Affair" (recycling the chorus from her unreleased 1993 track "Volunteer"), appeared on a bootleg 12" in 2004. Jones recorded the track "Storm" in 1998 for the movie The Avengers, and in 1999, appeared in an episode of the Beastmaster television series as the Umpatra Warrior.
The same year, Jones recorded "The Perfect Crime", an up-tempo song for Danish TV written by the composer duo Floppy M. aka Jacob Duus and Kåre Jacobsen. Jones was also ranked 82nd place on VH1's "100 Greatest Women of Rock & Roll". In 2000, Jones collaborated with rapper Lil' Kim, appearing on the song "Revolution" from her album The Notorious K.I.M.. In 2001, Jones starred in the film, Wolf Girl (also known as Blood Moon), as an intersex circus performer named Christoph/Christine. In 2002, Jones joined Luciano Pavarotti on stage for his annual Pavarotti and Friends fundraiser concert to support the United Nations refugee agency's programs for Angolan refugees in Zambia. In November 2004, Jones sang "Slave to the Rhythm" at a tribute concert for record producer Trevor Horn at London's Wembley Arena.
2008–2015: Hurricane and memoir
Despite several comeback attempts throughout the 1990s, Jones's next full-length record was released almost twenty years later, after Jones decided "never to do an album again," changing her mind after meeting music producer Ivor Guest through a mutual friend, milliner Philip Treacy. After the two became acquainted, Guest let Jones listen to a track he had been working on, which became "Devil in My Life", once Jones set the lyrics to the song. The lyrics to the song were written after a party in Venice.
The two ended up with 23 tracks. The album, Hurricane, included autobiographical songs, such as "This Is", "Williams' Blood" and "I'm Crying (Mother's Tears)", an ode to her mother Marjorie. "Love You to Life" was another track based on real events and "Corporate Cannibal" referred to corporate capitalism. "Well Well Well" was recorded in memory of Alex Sadkin, member of Compass Point All Stars who had died in a motor accident 1987. "Sunset Sunrise" was written by Jones's son, Paulo; the song ponders the relationship between mankind and mother nature. Four songs were removed from the album, "The Key to Funky", "Body Phenomenon", "Sister Sister" and "Misery". For the production of the album, Jones teamed up with Sly and Robbie, Wally Badarou, Barry Reynolds, Mikey Chung, and Uziah "Sticky" Thompson, of the Compass Point All Stars, with contributions from trip-hop artist Tricky, and Brian Eno.
The album was released on Wall of Sound on 3 November 2008, in the United Kingdom. PIAS, the umbrella company of Wall of Sound, distributed Hurricane worldwide excluding North America. The album scored 72 out of 100 on review aggregator Metacritic. Prior to the album's release, Jones performed at Massive Attack's Meltdown festival in London on 19 June 2008, Jones performed four new songs from the album and premiered the music video which Jones and artist Nick Hooker collaborated on, which resulted in "Corporate Cannibal". Jones promoted the album even further by appearing on talk show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross, performed at several awards galas, and embarked on The Hurricane Tour. The same year, Jones was honoured with Q Idol Award.
In 2009, Chris Cunningham produced a fashion shoot for Dazed & Confused using Jones as a model to create "Nubian versions" of Rubber Johnny. In an interview for BBC's The Culture Show, it was suggested that the collaboration may expand into a video project. Jones also worked with the avant-garde poet Brigitte Fontaine on a duet named "Soufi" from Fontaine's album Prohibition released in 2009, and produced by Ivor Guest.
In March 2010 Jones performed for guests at the 18th annual Elton John AIDS Foundation Academy Award Viewing Party. The Elton John AIDS Foundation is one of the world's leading nonprofit organisations supporting HIV prevention programs, and works to eliminate the stigma and discrimination associated with HIV/AIDS. The event raised US$3.7 million. The same year, a budget DVD version of A One Man Show was released, as Grace Jones – Live in Concert. It included three bonus video clips ("Slave to the Rhythm", "Love Is the Drug" and "Crush".
In 2011, Jones collaborated again with Brigitte Fontaine on two tracks from her release entitled and performed at the opening ceremony of the 61st FIFA Congress. Jones released a dub version of the album, Hurricane – Dub, which came out on 5 September 2011. The dub versions were made by Ivor Guest, with contributions from Adam Green, Frank Byng, Robert Logan and Ben Cowan.
In April 2012, Jones joined Deborah Harry, Bebel Gilberto, and Sharon Stone at the Inspiration Gala in São Paulo, Brazil, raising $1.3 million for amfAR (the Foundation for AIDS Research). Jones closed the evening with a performance of and "Pull Up to the Bumper". Two months later, Jones performed "Slave to the Rhythm" at the Diamond Jubilee of Elizabeth II (whilst keeping a hula hoop spinning round her waist throughout), and the Lovebox Festival. On 27 October 2012, Jones performed her only North American show of 2012, a performance at New York City's Roseland Ballroom. The same year, Jones presented Sir Tom Jones with not only the GQ Men of the Year award, but her underwear. Tom Jones accepted the gift in good humour, and replied by saying, "I didn't think you wore any".
Universal Music Group released a deluxe edition of her Nightclubbing album as a two-disc set and Blu-ray audio on 28 April 2014. The set contains most of the 12" mixes of singles from that album, plus two previously unreleased tracks from the Nightclubbing sessions, including a cover of the Gary Numan track "Me! I Disconnect from You".
In October 2014, Jones was announced as having contributed a song, "Original Beast", to the soundtrack of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.
Jones's memoir entitled I'll Never Write My Memoirs was released on 29 September 2015.
2017–present: Collaborations and festivals
In 2017, Jones collaborated with British virtual band Gorillaz, appearing on the song "Charger" from their fifth studio album Humanz.
In October 2018, Jones received the Order of Jamaica from the Jamaican government.
In June 2022, Jones served as curator of the 27th edition of the Meltdown Festival, the UK's longest-running artist-curated music festival. Jones had been announced as the curator already for the 2020 festival, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic it was rescheduled to 2022. During her show that closed the festival, Jones announced that a brand new 'African hybrid' record was in production, and previewed "The Sun Shines in Wartime" (or "Sunshine In Wartime) and "Blacker Than Black" (or "Born Black") from the album.
Jones provided guest vocals on Beyoncé's song "Move" from her seventh studio album Renaissance, released in July 2022.
On 14 November 2022, music festival Camp Bestival announced their 2023 lineup, which included Jones, alongside Primal Scream, Melanie C, Craig David, The Kooks, the Human League, and others.
On 23 July 2023, Jones headlined the music acts at Bluedot Festival.
Artistry and influence
Image
Jones' "appearance was equally divisive" as the sonic fluidity of her music - with her "striking visuals [leading] to her becoming a muse for the likes of Issey Miyake and Thierry Mugler. Her image has been described as "neo-cubist". Jones's distinctive androgynous appearance, square-cut, angular padded clothing, manner, and height of 179 cm (5′ ″) influenced the cross-dressing movement of the 1980s. To this day, she is known for her unique look at least as much as she is for her music and has been an inspiration for numerous artists, including Annie Lennox, Lorde, and Nile Rodgers. Jones was listed as one of the 50 best-dressed over 50 by The Guardian in March 2013.
Kyle Munzenrieder of W magazine wrote that "everyone from Madonna to Björk to Beyoncé to Lady Gaga has taken more than a few pages from her playbook". Jones's work is often discussed for its visual aspect, which was largely the work of French illustrator, photographer, and graphic designer Jean-Paul Goude. According to Jake Hall of i-D, "their collaborative work [went on] to define the visual landscape of the 70s and 80s," and Goude "helped create one of the most intriguing legends in musical history." Goude saw Jones as his muse, declaring she was "beautiful and grotesque at the same time," and dated her from 1977 to 1984. He "[designed her] album covers, [...] directed her music videos, choreographed live performances, and helped develop her image."
Jones was featured prominently in Goude's work from that period, "which, over the course of the '80s, became increasingly synonymous with willful distortion" - using a technique he refers to as "French correction". The artist stated in 2012: "chopping up photos and rearranging them in a montage to elongate limbs or exaggerate the size of someone's head or some other aspect appealed to me on a lot of levels – I'm always searching for equilibrium, symmetry, and rhythm in an image." Goude's work "centers around artistic depictions of race, ethnicity, and global culture", with an "enchantment with the far-away and the exotic". As a result, much of his depictions of black women are considered controversial and exploitative, as Jones was presented as "a white man's rendition of the African feminine." Goude's images depicted her hypersexualized and androgynous, emphasizing her "blackness" and Jamaican heritage. Writer Abigail Gardner felt Jones' body "was presented and manipulated in ways that are clearly congruent with conceiving of that display as artefactual." Essentially, Hall writes, "Goude treated Jones as an artistic vehicle first and foremost - a hyperbole which, despite destroying their personal relationship, allowed Goude to translate his grandiose vision of Jones the phenomenon into a series of imagery which painted her as a surreal, impossible muse."
It has been noted that Jones' ties with the 1970s and 1980s New York art scene are important in understanding her visual identity during this period, and she was close to Andy Warhol, who created a number of paintings and other works of the singer. She also knew artist Richard Bernstein, and artist and social activist Keith Haring, who painted her head-to-toe for a series of photographs taken by Robert Mapplethorpe and for her role in the 1986 film Vamp.
In 2020, the first ever art exhibition centred around Jones was presented at Nottingham Contemporary in the United Kingdom, in an attempt to represent "a multi-faceted pop culture icon while trying to reformulate an alternative image of Grace Jones that does not fall into clichés."
Music
Vice described Jones's musical output as "weird, vibrant and progressive," stating that she "has woven disco, new wave, post-punk, art pop, industrial, reggae, and gospel into a tight sound that is distinctly hers, threaded together with lilting, powerful vocals." Her early music was rooted in disco. She opted for a new wave sound in the early 1980s. She recorded a series of albums (1980's Warm Leatherette through 1982's Living My Life) backed by the Jamaica rhythm section duo Sly and Robbie. Her music during this era was described as a new wave hybrid of reggae, funk, pop, and rock. According to John Doran of BBC Music, Warm Leatherette and Nightclubbing were "post-punk pop" albums that, "delved into the worlds of disco, reggae and funk much more successfully than most of her 'alternative' contemporaries, while still retaining a blank-eyed alienation that was more reminiscent of David Bowie or Ian Curtis than most of her peers."
Jones has a contralto vocal range. She sings in two modes: either in her monotone speak-sing voice as in songs such as "Private Life", "Walking in the Rain" and "The Apple Stretching", or in an almost-soprano mode in songs such as "La Vie en Rose", "Slave to the Rhythm", and "Victor Should Have Been a Jazz Musician". Jones's voice spans 4 octaves, 1 note and a semitone from the low note of C2 (in "Corporate Cannibal") to the high note of E6 (in "Slave to the Rhythm).
Personal life
Jones's father was strict and their relationship was strained. According to his particular denomination's beliefs, one should only use one's singing ability to glorify God. Bishop Robert W. Jones died on 7 May 2008. Her mother, Marjorie, always supported Jones's career (she sings on "Williams' Blood" and "My Jamaican Guy") but could not be publicly associated with her music. Marjorie's father, John Williams, was also a musician and played with Nat King Cole.
Jones described her childhood as having been "crushed underneath the Bible", and since has refused to enter a Jamaican church due to her bad childhood experiences.
Through her relationship with longtime collaborator Jean-Paul Goude, Jones has one son, Paulo, born 12 November 1979. From Paulo, Jones has one granddaughter. Jones married Atila Altaunbay in 1996. She disputes rumors that she married Chris Stanley in her 2015 memoir I'll Never Write My Memoirs, saying, "The truth is, I only ever married one of my boyfriends, Atila Altaunbay, a Muslim from Turkey." She spent four years with Swedish actor Dolph Lundgren, her former bodyguard; she got him a part as a KGB officer in A View to a Kill (1985). Jones started dating Danish actor and stuntman Sven-Ole Thorsen in 1990, and was in an open relationship as of 2007.
Jones's brother is a megachurch preacher Bishop Noel Jones, who starred on the 2013 reality show Preachers of LA.
Jones used the surname "Mendoza" in her 20s, so that her parents would not know that she was working as a go-go dancer.
Awards and nominations
{| class=sortable wikitable
|-
! Year !! Awards !! Work !! Category !! Result
|-
| 1983
| Billboard Music Awards
| Herself
| Top Disco Artist - Female
|
|-
| 1984
| Grammy Awards
| A One Man Show
| Best Video Album
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1985
| Bravo Otto Awards
| Herself
| Best Female Actress (Silver)
|
|-
| rowspan=2|Saturn Awards
| Conan the Destroyer
| rowspan=2|Best Supporting Actress
|
|-
| rowspan=2|1986
| A View to a Kill
|
|-
| MTV Video Music Awards
| "Slave to the Rhythm"
| Best Female Video
|
|-
| 1987
| Saturn Awards
| Vamp
| Best Supporting Actress
|
|-
| 1988
| Golden Raspberry Awards
| Siesta
| Worst Supporting Actress
|
|-
| 1999
| Golden Raspberry Awards
| "Storm"
| Worst Original Song
|
|-
| 2008
| Q Awards
| Herself
| Q Icon
|
|-
| 2009
| Helpmann Awards
| Hurricane Tour
| Best International Contemporary Music Concert
|
|-
| 2014
| Rober Awards Music Poll
| Nightclubbing
| Best Reissue
|
|-
| 2016
| NME Awards
| I'll Never Write My Memoirs
| Best Book
|
|-
| rowspan=2|2017
| The Voice of a Woman Awards
| rowspan=2|Herself
| Lifetime Achievement Award
|
|-
| Bahamas International Film Festival
| Career Achievement Award
|
|-
| 2023
| Grammy Awards
| Renaissance
| Album of the Year (as a featured artist)
|
|-
Discography
Studio albums
Portfolio (1977)
Fame (1978)
Muse (1979)
Warm Leatherette (1980)
Nightclubbing (1981)
Living My Life (1982)
Slave to the Rhythm (1985)
Inside Story (1986)
Bulletproof Heart (1989)
Hurricane (2008)
Tours
A One Man Show (1981)
Grace in Your Face (1990)
Hurricane Tour (2009)
Filmography
References
Bibliography
External links
1948 births
20th-century Jamaican women singers
21st-century Jamaican women singers
Art pop musicians
Contraltos
Disco musicians
Women new wave singers
French-language singers
Island Records artists
Jamaican autobiographers
Jamaican expatriates in the United Kingdom
Jamaican emigrants to the United States
Jamaican female models
Jamaican film actresses
Jamaican reggae musicians
Jamaican television actresses
American musicians of Jamaican descent
Naturalized citizens of the United States
Living people
Masked musicians
Onondaga Community College alumni
People from Saint Catherine Parish
Rhythm and blues singers
Women in electronic music
ZTT Records artists
Post-disco musicians
Androgynous people
Members of the Order of Jamaica |
421306 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation%20Colossus | Operation Colossus | Operation Colossus was the codename given to the first airborne operation undertaken by the British military, which occurred on 10 February 1941 during World War II. The British airborne establishment was formed in June 1940 by the order of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, in response to the successful airborne operations conducted by the German military during the Battle of France. Training began immediately but a shortage of proper equipment and training facilities, as well as bureaucratic difficulties, meant that only a small number of volunteers could immediately be trained as parachute troops. The first airborne unit to be formed was actually a re-trained Commando unit, No. 2 Commando, which was subsequently renamed as No. 11 Special Air Service Battalion and numbered approximately 350 officers and other ranks by September 1940. The battalion finished its training in December 1940 and in February 1941 thirty-eight members of the battalion, known as X Troop, were selected to conduct an airborne operation, which was intended to test the capability of the airborne troops and their equipment, as well as the ability of the Royal Air Force to accurately deliver them.
The target chosen for the operation was a fresh-water aqueduct near Calitri in southern Italy, which supplied water to a large portion of the Italian population as well as several ports used by the Italian armed forces; it was also hoped that its destruction would hamper Italian military efforts in North Africa and Albania. The airborne troops were delivered by converted Armstrong Whitworth Whitley medium bombers to the target on 10 February but equipment failures and navigational errors meant that a significant portion of the troop's explosives and a team of Royal Engineer sappers, landed in the wrong area. Despite this setback the remaining members of the troop destroyed the aqueduct and withdrew from the area. All were captured by the Italian authorities within a short time; an Italian translator was tortured and executed and one paratrooper managed to escape but the rest remained as prisoners of war. The aqueduct was rapidly repaired before local water reserves ran out, ensuring that the local population and the ports were not deprived of water and the Italian war effort was not hampered. The operation served as a morale boost for the fledgling airborne establishment and the technical and operational lessons learnt from the operation helped the development of later airborne operations.
Background
The German military was one of the pioneers of the use of airborne formations, conducting several successful airborne operations during the Battle of France in 1940, including the Battle of Fort Eben-Emael. Impressed by the success of German airborne operations, the Allied governments decided to form their own airborne formations. This decision would eventually lead to the creation of two British airborne divisions, as well as a number of smaller units. The British airborne establishment began development on 22 June 1940, when the Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, directed the War Office in a memorandum to investigate the possibility of creating a corps of 5,000 parachute troops. Despite the Prime Minister's desire to have 5,000 airborne troops within a short period, a number of problems were rapidly encountered by the War Office. Very few gliders existed in Britain in 1940, and these were too light for military purposes, and there was also a shortage of suitable transport aircraft to tow gliders and carry paratroopers. On 10 August, Churchill was informed that although 3,500 volunteers had been selected to train as airborne troops, only 500 could currently begin training due to limitations in equipment and aircraft. The War Office stated in a memorandum to the Prime Minister in December 1940 that 500 parachute troops could probably be trained and be ready for operations by the spring of 1941, but this figure was purely arbitrary; the actual number that could be trained and prepared by that period would rely entirely on the creation of a training establishment and the provision of required equipment.
A training establishment for parachute troops was set up at RAF Ringway near Manchester on 21 June 1940 and named the Central Landing Establishment, and the initial 500 volunteers began training for airborne operations. The Royal Air Force provided a number of Armstrong Whitworth Whitley medium bombers for conversion into transport aircraft for paratroopers. A number of military gliders were also designed, starting with the General Aircraft Hotspur, but gliders were not used by the British until Operation Freshman in 1942. Organizational plans were also being laid down, with the War Office calling for two parachute brigades to be operational by 1943. However, the immediate development of any further airborne formations, as well as the initial 500 volunteers already training, was hampered by three problems. With the threat of invasion in 1940, many War Office officials and senior British Army officers did not believe that sufficient men could be spared from the effort to rebuild the Army after the Battle of France to create an effective airborne force; many believed that such a force would only have a nuisance raiding value and would not affect the conflict in any useful way. There were also material problems; all three of the armed services were expanding and rebuilding, particularly the Army, and British industry had not yet been organized to a sufficient war footing to support all three services as well as the fledgling airborne force. Finally, the airborne forces lacked a single, coherent policy, with no clear idea as to how they should be organized, or whether they should come under the command of the Army or the RAF; inter-organizational rivalry between the War Office and the Air Ministry, in charge of the RAF, was a major factor in delaying the further expansion of British airborne forces.
Preparation
On 26 April 1941, the Prime Minister was shown a demonstration of the airborne force that Britain currently possessed, and was informed that although some 800 parachute troops had been trained, their deployment was severely limited by the lack of suitable aircraft which could be used to transport them to any prospective targets. The primary airborne formation in existence by this time was No. 11 Special Air Service Battalion, which numbered approximately 350 officers and other ranks, and had been formed from No. 2 Commando, a Commando unit which had been selected for conversion into an airborne unit. The Commando began intensive airborne training in June 1940, originally 500 strong, but this had been reduced to 21 officers and 321 other ranks by September 1940; despite already receiving rigorous training, many of the commandos failed their training by refusing to conduct a parachute drop. One senior RAF officer at the Central Landing Establishment believed that such a large number refused due to a combination of inexperience and a fear that their parachute would not open when they jumped out of the aircraft. On 21 November 1940 the Commando was officially renamed as No. 11 Special Air Service Battalion and reorganized to form a battalion headquarters, one parachute wing and one glider wing. By 17 December the battalion had officially completed its parachute training, including taking part in a number of demonstrations for military observers, and was considered to be ready for active duty.
There were few airborne resources available to the British Army by mid-1941. The only unit trained and available for an airborne operation was No. 11 Special Air Service Battalion, there were very few transport aircraft available to transport an airborne force, there were few RAF flight crews with experience of parachute droppings and none with operational experience, and there were no specialized overseas facilities to cater exclusively for airborne operations. However, it had been decided that some form of airborne operation would have to be carried out. The reason for mounting an operation with such meagre resources was that it would test the fighting ability of the battalion and its equipment, as well as the RAF's ability to deliver paratroopers at a predetermined location at a required time. The target chosen for the operation was an aqueduct that crossed the Tragino river in the Campania province of southern Italy near the town of Calitri. The aqueduct carried the main water supply for the province of Apulia, which at the time was inhabited by approximately two million Italians and included the strategically important port of Taranto; it was hoped that destroying the aqueduct and depriving the population of their regular water supply would damage their morale, and also have some impact on the Italian war efforts in North Africa and Albania. The aqueduct was a significant distance from the Italian coast, making it unlikely that a sea-borne raiding party could reach it, and it was believed that it was too strongly constructed to be destroyed by aerial bombing; as such, an airborne raid conducted by parachute troops was thought to be the ideal way to eliminate the aqueduct.
A small force of thirty-eight menseven officers and thirty-one other rankswas selected from the battalion and designated X Troop, commanded by Major T.A.G. Pritchard of the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Three Italian-speaking interpreters were attached to the troop for the duration of the operation: Squadron Leader Lucky MC, Rifleman Nasri from the Rifle Brigade and a civilian named Fortunato Picchi, a deputy restaurant manager of the Savoy Hotel. Training for the operation began in January 1941 and lasted for six weeks, in order to allow time for six Whitley bombers to be converted to drop parachutists. A full-scale model of the aqueduct was built in early February to allow the troop to practice its assault, and during training one enlisted man was killed when he parachuted into an ice-covered pond and drowned before he could be rescued. The plan for the operation called for six Whitleys of No. 51 Squadron RAF to transport X Troop from Malta to the target area on 10 February, while another two bombers would carry out a diversionary raid against railway yards at Foggia, approximately to the north of the aqueduct. At 21:30 the troop would be dropped around the objective, attack and demolish it, and then withdraw to the coast to the mouth of the Sele River, where the submarine HMS Triumph would pick them up on the night of 15 February.
The operation
On 7 February X Troop boarded the six converted Whitley bombers and were transported to Malta without incident, despite a significant portion of the journey being over occupied France. There the troop were briefed with aerial reconnaissance photographs of the objective that were provided by the Photographic Reconnaissance Unit, which showed that there were actually two aqueducts in the area, one larger than the other; after a brief discussion it was decided that the larger of the two would be targeted.
At 18:30 on 10 February, the six Whitleys took off from Malta, each carrying one officer and five other ranks of X Troop; the flight to the target area was uneventful, with clear weather and perfect visibility. The lead Whitley reached the drop zone, which was approximately from the aqueduct, at 21:42. All six men and their equipment containers landed within of the drop zone, as did the men from the next four aircraft; however two of the bombers failed to drop their containers due to the icing up of the release mechanisms, and the sixth aircraft failed to locate the drop zone and eventually dropped its six men and containers two hours later in a valley two miles from the aqueduct. These six men were the Royal Engineer sappers who were supposed to rig the aqueduct for demolition, and their Whitley had been carrying most of the explosives. Despite these losses, the troop gathered up the remaining containers and took up positions around the aqueduct. However, on examining the aqueduct it was found the piers supporting it were made of reinforced concrete and not brick as had been expected, leading Pritchard to suspect that the remaining explosives might be insufficient to demolish the aqueduct. After closer inspection, Pritchard ordered that the majority of the explosives be placed around the western pier and the rest against its abutment, in the hope that this would cause enough damage to destroy the aqueduct. A small amount of explosives were also placed under a nearby bridge that bridged the Ginestra river.
At 00:30 on 11 February, the explosives were detonated and the western pier destroyed, causing the aqueduct to crumble and effectively break in half, and the Ginestra bridge was also successfully destroyed. Leaving one man who had broken his ankle when he had landed with a nearby farmer, the remainder of the Troop withdrew from the area at 01:00, splitting into three groups and heading towards the coast. The three groups moved as fast as possible towards the coast, but were all captured within a few hours of the aqueduct being demolished. The group commanded by Major Pritchard was spotted by a farmer, who raised the alarm at a nearby village, leading to a local carabinieri unit surrounding the group; with little ammunition and heavily outnumbered, Pritchard decided to surrender. The other three groups, including the six sappers, fared little better. The two groups from the aqueduct were soon located by Italian soldiers and ambushed, forcing them to surrender after brief firefights. The third group were found by a group of civilians as they moved towards the coast; after attempting to bluff their way past by claiming to be German soldiers on a special field exercise, which failed when the local mayor demanded identity papers, they were captured by carabinieri. All were stripped of their weapons and equipment and transported to the civilian prison of Naples and then to the POW camp of Sulmona, with the exception of the Italian translator, Picchi, who was taken to Rome, found guilty of treason by the high court of the Special Tribunal for the Defense of the State (Tribunale Speciale per la Difesa dello Stato) and shot at the military prison of Forte Bravetta (Rome) on 6 April 1941.
Even if any of the groups had managed to make their way to the coast and the rendezvous point, they would not have been picked up by HMS Triumph. One of the two Whitleys conducting the diversionary raid at Foggia had suffered engine trouble after bombing the railway yards. The pilot radioed Malta, informing his airfield that he was ditching in the mouth of the River Sele, coincidentally the area where the rendezvous was to occur. Fearing that the message had been monitored by the Italians and that the submarine might sail into a trap, the decision was made by senior officers not to send it to the rendezvous point.
Aftermath
The destruction of the Tragino aqueduct had a negligible effect on the Italian war effort in North Africa and Albania, as it did not create a serious interruption to the water supplies of Taranto and other ports; the water supplies in local reservoirs lasted for the short period needed for the aqueduct to be repaired. However, the operation did create a certain amount of alarm in the Italian population and caused stringent new air raid precautions to be introduced by the Italian government, which were still in place when Italy surrendered in 1943. Major General Julian Thompson criticized the operation. He claimed that although there was a great deal of planning in terms of how to insert the airborne troops, there was insufficient planning devoted to how they would be extracted. He also criticized the lack of information gathered about the aqueduct, despite it being "hardly difficult to obtain."
Lessons taken from the operation provided the British military with valuable operational and technical experience that helped shape future airborne operations, such as Operation Biting. It demonstrated the range and flexibility of airborne troops and proved that they could pose a threat to the Axis powers, and also provided a morale boost for the British military and the fledgling airborne establishment. In terms of technical experience, it was found that the containers used to drop equipment for the troop were manufactured from a soft-skinned material, which sagged during flight and blocked the bomb bay doors from opening; future containers were constructed from metal to ensure this did not occur. All of the surviving members of X Troop would remain as prisoners of war until they were repatriated with the Italian surrender, with the exceptions of: Lieutenant Anthony Deane–Drummond and Corporal James Parker. Deane-Drummond who managed to escape after being captured eventually returned to England in 1942, joining the newly formed 1st Airborne Division. Parker escaped from the Sulmona POW camp but was later recaptured by the Germans. After witnessing the execution by the Germans of a fellow escapee and a number of Italians (later recognized as a war atrocity), Parker again escaped and eventually made his way back to the UK after hitching a ride to North Africa on a US forces Dakota aircraft.
When the airborne establishment was expanded, No. 11 Special Air Service Battalion was renamed 1st Parachute Battalion, and eventually formed the nucleus of 1st Parachute Brigade when it was created in September 1941.
References
Bibliography
Silvio Tasselli, "Colussus" l'acquedotto pugliese, prima azione inglese di sabotaggio in Italia, febbraio 1941, "Storia & Battaglie", N. 33–34, Febbraio – Marzo 2004.
Conflicts in 1941
World War II British Commando raids
1941 in Italy
Airborne operations of World War II |
Subsets and Splits